Raja Sampathi of calmcorporate On Becoming Free From The Fear Of Failure

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

Don’t forget your purpose on why you started your venture in the first place — Mine is to make a difference with this life.

The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that holds people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Raja Sampathi.

Raja is a former management consultant turned self-actualization consultant who enables organizations and people build deeper relationships through his pandemic born venture — calmcorporate. He specializes in practically applying mindfulness to daily work and life leading to people to live a more present, content and happier life. He believes that mindful living is more than just meditation and that you don’t need to escape to the Himalayas to practice mindfulness.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

Sure! I was born and raised in India and came to grad school here in the US about 2 decades ago. Contrary to expectations, neither I nor my family practiced any mindfulness when I was in India. I started my career in management consulting after grad school and continued in the same line till last year when I started calmcorporate.

The reason behind my venture was during the beginning of the pandemic, with ultimate chaos reigning and world order seeming to crumble down, I realized (a few months into) it that even though I was single, living alone, no dog etc, I was actually leading a very joyful life. The reason was because I was taking the essence of my spiritual practice (which I fell into the deep end of in 2019, check my website calmcorporate.com for my full journey) and applying it to my work and life. Even though work got tougher and longer, I was no longer affected by its stress! My relationship with my mother and sister in India improved tremendously as I was able to spend more intentional time with them.

Pretty soon after that I heard the divine telling me, “congrats on figuring out life (some), now you’ve got to share it with the rest of the world’ and here I am, a year and change later, following divine orders.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I was a young analyst at a premium management consulting company. It was the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, but I had a stellar year. I was expecting a raise and a good one. As is the practice, your firm partner calls you to discuss your year and tells you your raise etc. In the scheduled call, while it was acknowledged that I did really well, my raise was like 3–4 %. I was disappointed and expressed it. The partner said , “Look Raja, at any given point of time, someone is always making more money than you”. That put things in so much perspective that money doesn’t buy happiness. Later, I also appreciated him for not saying ‘ you are lucky to have a job in this economy’ which I surely was, but kudos to him using my disappointment as a gentle teachable moment.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Since I was in management consulting and was eventually leading projects, all my examples are associated with my team & clients

• Always protect your team, don’t give them up in front of the client. Even if one of them screwed up. You are always responsible in front of the client as a lead!
• Deal with scope creep in a kind manner, don’t go back to the Statement of Work and draw swords. The client wants the best for the company and I don’t want my team to do work that wasn’t intended. Do the dance, not the debate.
• “Have fun, be real,” is so much more important for someone who spends his life in client service. We are always working with people and it is easy to forget that.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure? Why is failure so frightening to us?

I want to answer both these questions based on my Indian background. I believe I did pretty well (financially) for a middle class boy from South Bangalore: now living in a highrise overlooking Lake Austin in Downtown Austin. For me, in spite of me jumping into my venture with the savings net I built, failure is and was associated with not being successful financially in my venture. Sticking to the same cultural theme, when someone in my community ‘fails’ financially, it is seen as a shameful thing, not just for you, but for all your family.

So the bottom line is, failure is only what you choose it to be — so many of us are caught up in the culture around us AKA — the other people and the “THEM” voices — and this is why so many people we know (and ourselves!) are afraid to fail!

What are the downsides of being afraid of failure? How can it limit people?

I mean, you will never live a full life. Dan Pink wrote this book on Regret, where in one questionnaire he asks people late in their age what they regret the most? The themes are always the same — Not asking their dream partner out, not starting a business, not getting a graduate degree etc.

Being afraid of failure limits people in having them lead a life of irresolvable regrets and really, a bunch of “What ifs” that can never be answered.

In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from the free of failure can help improve our lives?

Haha, refer above. Freeing oneself from the fear of failure is what leads to a fuller, meaningful, purposeful life for me. I’m still putting together a lot of pieces of calmcorporate, but I know that there is nothing else I would do even when things get super challenging for me.

Fear causes stress, freeing yourself from fear, you are actually enabling a healthier, happier life for yourself.

We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?

Yes, I started an apparel business as a side gig, it failed spectacularly, I mean, never even took off. My heart was not in it, I was not passionate about it, and it was something I tried to supplement my income with, which was not a good use of time and energy in retrospect.

How did you rebound and recover after that? What did you learn from this whole episode? What advice would you give to others based on that story?

I’m glad I started and failed in a business I was not passionate about. This experience ensured that my current venture does not suffer from the lack of attention like the previous one. We are all learning, changing, growing.

Not sure I’m in a position to offer any advice of sorts — but if you are looking to be an entrepreneur, be sure the business nourishes your soul, that was the takeaway for me.

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”? Please share a story or an example for each.

I’ll answer this question from the perspective of starting a business, because that is the scariest thing I have done in my life:

• Make a nest of 6–12 months of rent, food, essentials, building a business is challenging, you don’t want the added burden of financial stress.
• Keep a regular practice of Mindfulness : Yoga and meditation have been my go to practices for years now
• Don’t ignore social relationships — You will find your closest people to be biggest cheerleaders in times of distress
• Take your business seriously, not yourself
• Don’t forget your purpose on why you started your venture in the first place — Mine is to make a difference with this life

I truly don’t know of anyone free of fear, I treat it as any emotion that needs to be addressed. And some of us are better at it than others, of course this skill can be trained for.

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true? What do you think Aristotle really meant?

That depends on the definition of success, which again for most of us is financial. I do want my venture to be financially, wildly successful. My purpose, however, is higher than that.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Well, I want to normalize kindness, empathy and open-mindedness. Some tend to see these as weaknesses, which is quite the opposite. It requires a tremendous amount of courage & patience to be kind. It’s fairly easy for us to let our animal instincts take over and overreact, but to tune one’s reaction to say, empathy, takes work and society should encourage those who make the effort.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of TATA Group, a well-respected Indian business conglomerate with a storied history is someone I would love to just shake hands with. I’m a huge fan of how he has ethically run his businesses, his philanthropy and how he leads with kindness and humility.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

calmcorporate.com | Insta | LinkedIn | Direct.Me

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: Savio P. Clemente coaches cancer survivors to overcome the confusion and gain the clarity needed to get busy living in mind, body, and spirit. He inspires health and wellness seekers to find meaning in the “why” and to cultivate resilience in their mindset. Savio is a Board Certified wellness coach (NBC-HWC, ACC), stage 3 cancer survivor, podcaster, writer, and founder of The Human Resolve LLC.

Savio pens a weekly newsletter at thehumanresolve.com where he delves into secrets from living smarter to feeding your “three brains” — head 🧠, heart 💓, and gut 🤰 — in hopes of connecting the dots to those sticky parts in our nature that matter.

He has been featured on Fox News, and has collaborated with Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, Food Network, WW, and Bloomberg. His mission is to offer clients, listeners, and viewers alike tangible takeaways in living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle.

Savio lives in the suburbs of Westchester County, New York and continues to follow his boundless curiosity. He hopes to one day live out a childhood fantasy and explore outer space.