MasterStroke with Monica Enand & Sejal Pietrzak

Leadership & Fatherhood - Insights from Nick Mehta CEO of Gainsight

• Nick Mehta - CEO Gainsight • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Ever wondered how the CEO of a major tech company balances the intense demands of running a business with the equally challenging task of parenting? 

On this episode of MasterStroke with Monica and Sejal, they sit down with Nick Mehta CEO of  Gainsight

 to explore his heartfelt journey of navigating both worlds. Nick opens up about the stereotypes men face in parenting roles, sharing personal stories that shine a light on the importance of authenticity and humanity in leadership. 

Nick’s authenticity and transparency shape not only his approach to leadership but also his parenting philosophy.





Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor


Monica Enand:

You are a man on our show and we are asking you about the challenges of parenting and that question and being a CEO. That question was usually reserved for women.

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, 100%, yeah, totally.

Georgianna Moreland:

Welcome to Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak Conversations with founders, ceos and visionary leaders in tech and beyond.

Monica Enand:

Well, welcome to Masterstroke with Sejal and Monica, and today I am so excited that we get to welcome a very special guest. Nick Methaf, who is the CEO of Gainsight, is joining us today, and I've known Nick for a really long time, and I'm not just known Nick, but I have admired you for all the time that I've known you you know over a decade at least, probably 15 years and so I wanted to, I want to make sure that our audience really gets a chance to get to know Nick in this episode. We're also celebrating Father's Day coming up, so we want to talk with Nick about all kinds of things. So welcome, nick.

Nick Mehta:

Thank you, monica. Thank you, sejal. It's an honor to be here. I've admired both of you too, so right back at you and, yeah, I saw some of the things we're going to talk about. It's going to be fun.

Monica Enand:

I have to say that, nick, one of the things I most admire about you is how honestly and transparently you've talked about kind of all the challenges of life and being a parent and being a human. You know, I actually really believe that everyone who knows you has had the benefit of knowing you and just the world, even the people who don't know you personally are a little less lonely because of you.

Monica Enand:

Oh, monica, thank you I really do believe that and you know, I'm actually just thrilled that we can ask you. You know you are a man on our show and we are asking you about the challenges of parenting and that question and being a CEO. That question was usually reserved for women.

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, 100% yeah. I'm glad you asked me yeah.

Monica Enand:

So I mean and I'm thrilled that you know you can talk so openly about it but can you talk a little bit about? Do you think it's? Do you just do that because you're, that's just naturally who you are and you're authentically who you are? Do you do you ever think like it's important to do that?

Nick Mehta:

The honest answer is it's the former. I think there are benefits, I'm sure, for other people, but it's actually like the biggest benefit is for me. For me, I am the most comfortable when I am myself. And it's interesting, like our company mission statement, purpose statement, gainsight is not about customer success or success, it's to be living proof. You can win in business while being human first, and the idea of human first is all of us can be human beings first. We can think of our customers as human beings first. Our teammates, our alumni, everyone, right Everyone, our investors, even private equity people, are human beings.

Nick Mehta:

I don't know if you guys figured that out. It's a little. You have to go deep. No-transcript, it's. It helps a lot, but also it helps me. You know that I can feel like I truly am myself and that there's not two versions of me, like the work version of me and the non-work version of me, and I think that's one sad thing. I think it's getting better in business. But there was this feeling like you got to be this professional at work, right, and you got to not be emotional and you can't, you know you can't, you know, talk too much about things outside of work. And this is where, especially people that had significant commitments out of work really suffered, you know, and now it's like. No, you know, like I'm a human, that's it, you know, and that's, and so I think that's makes me feel better.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Well, it's interesting because work is so much a part of life and life is so much a part of work. It just becomes intertwined with who you are and what you do, and then, and then you're even more successful.

Nick Mehta:

That's right, and you know it's funny, even the term I'm big believer like I'm trying to understand terminology. And so we say work life balance but like, logically, work is part of your life. So it's actually a strange even term that people use, right, and I never liked the balance part either, because it implies that they're at odds with each other. And so, you know, some people say work life blend. You know different ways of saying this, but to me it is a bit of a it's unfortunate that we think of work as being opposite of life right now. I think part of that is some people really don't love their job, and that's very sad, right, and they don't have the autonomy, privilege, wealth to be able to just go do something else. Some of them, that's just, they have to do it to make ends meet, to do it to make ends meet.

Sejal Pietrzak:

How have you juggled the demands of being a CEO and being, you know, this great dad who fixes the Wi-Fi every day?

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, I mean it's so interesting because, like, do any of us ever feel like great parents, like I mean I really care about it so much, I put so much work into it? I don't feel great because, like there's always something that's not perfect, you know, and also you wonder I was talking to my brother about this too like it's also like not even clear what the goal is, right. So people in a very cliched way say, I just want my kids to be happy, but I'm like it's a little more complicated than that because, like, there is value in struggling right, and they don't actually have as much struggle as our parents did, right. There's value in not being happy sometimes or being frustrated or losing a game. In some ways, sheltering them too much is not great.

Nick Mehta:

But on the flip side you don't want to scar them and make it so that they can't move forward, and so I would say Stagel, one of the things I wrestle with is literally like what am I optimizing for? What am I trying for? It's not like business. I feel like one of the things that's very interesting about business probably why I love it is it's a game. It's a game, there's a scoreboard, there's like EBITDA revenue, whatever, and it's kind of like being it's not a game with your kids, Right.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Such an interesting insight. Oh my goodness, you're so right.

Nick Mehta:

So and it's like I love games because it's just like and work, by the way, is less of a game than a sport Like, I think, a coach of a sports team. It's super interesting because it's a very well defined set of rules. If you're a football coach, your goal is to win the Super Bowl. That's it. There's no other like ambiguity about it. And with parents it's so complicated. You know your kids like.

Nick Mehta:

One thing that's so humbling is you know your kids are all can be so different, with similar genetics. And like your first kid could be easy. And then you're like, oh my God, we're crushing it as parents. And then the next kid can be really challenging. And you're like wait, we're not perfect, Right, and so there's a lot of humility. I think that comes out of it. But, tying back to your original question, for me it's just like. It's just I care a lot about it. Not that I care that I'm some wise sage on parenting and I'm going to make my kids perfect. It's truly that I just love being a parent. Like that's it. It's funny, it's a lot like work, Like yeah, I don't know. Okay, I'm a good CEO. I guess I don't know Like, but I love my job. I literally love it. I'm weird, Like I'm. I'm like I can't wait for my next zoom call or my next podcast or whatever. And I love parenting.

Nick Mehta:

I love like picking up my daughter from theater yesterday and like trying she's 15 and my kids and I'm trying to like pull like a few words about her day out. You know what I mean. Like that, it's like how was your day? And it's like four words put the headphones on, I'm like tell me more, right? And then like, funny way, right this morning I was, um, what are you going to a meeting? And I like saw my daughter walk you out and you have a nanny that's driving her daughter to school.

Nick Mehta:

And I was like, literally I like pull my car up next to my daughter, like cranked up, like whatever was on music it was BTS and I just started dancing in the car and my daughter's probably like you're so cringe, dad, but also, like you can see, that she loves it, and so I think for me, a big part of it is purely passion and love. That's it. Like I can't say I'm great at it or I have all these skills or tips, or I can write a book or anything. None of that I can just say I love my kids so much.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Yeah, and then when they feel that unconditional love that means so much and that matters so much, even if you talk about balancing the time of being a CEO and balancing the time with kids, but even if you give them, I think, less time, when that time is really quality time and they really feel that sense of engagement and love and fun with you dancing, you know, to music in your car. I mean, that's what they're going to remember, it's not how many hours.

Nick Mehta:

When we grew up, parents were way less involved, like there was like the whole like go play outside and see us, see you for dinner. They're not tracking you on like a GPS phone app, right. They're not always checking in on your homework every day Like it wasn't this thing. Your society wasn't as competitive with college either, but it wasn't this thing of like obsession, and so parents actually spent less time parenting back then than they do now, which is really interesting, right, because we think, oh, everyone's so busy now and we don't parent enough. Back then they spent way less time because they weren't just like on their kids all the time, because they let their kids be themselves, you know. So that's another interesting thing. I don't think it's ours Like.

Nick Mehta:

For me, another thing is just like literally it's a little cliched, but being present. So when I'm on the weekends, I like do this silly thing which is I turn my email off on my phone, I delete my work apps. I like like it's just like I don't want any eruption because I just want to enjoy being with the kids. I got my laptop if I need to do something, right, and so I think there's some element of presence, and what things people struggle with now is they're like I want to spend enough hours on this and this and working kids, so I'm going to do both things at the same time and be with the kids. I'm going to be doing like my phone, but I'm checking Instagram. I'm going to be at work doing the kid stuff, and I think that that's something that may make us all feel very frenetic, potentially.

Sejal Pietrzak:

So I agree completely with that. You know, we talk about being present uh often in our podcast and and being present really makes a difference, um, and you know time boxing it. So if you're gonna have to be on your phone, go away for an hour uh, get your thing done and then come back, but be super present, so that's and every now and then if you do have to multitask, it actually it's up for me.

Nick Mehta:

sometimes I'm proud, like the other day I was like on a work call, the like Terminix or Orkin, like spray person came in unexpectedly. The dogs were going crazy because of that. I was then like trying to get the kids dinner while I'm on the work call. You know it's like, and actually sometimes you're like oh wow, I can do some stuff. So that makes you proud too.

Sejal Pietrzak:

That's really good.

Nick Mehta:

I'm sure both of you had many experiences like that.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Especially working from home since COVID. Now you know I mean it's so different because you never have to deal with, you know, people coming to your house or dogs barking or making dinner when you were sitting in an office, right, totally.

Nick Mehta:

Exactly, we launched Gainsight in 2013,. More than 10 years ago, which is crazy. And, monica, you grounded out even longer than I have. So 10 years, I mean, it's just nuts, right? Yeah, just flies by.

Monica Enand:

That's amazing how quick it goes.

Sejal Pietrzak:

That's incredible. So, nick, we know that. You know you talk about 10 years flying by and Gainsight, you know, like many companies, has had chapters during your 10 years CEO over the last 10 years. Talk a little bit about those chapters. You know all three of us have been CEOs under Vista Equity Partners and that's how we at least that's how I met you and that's how I met Monica. I know you two, nick and Monica, knew each other before as you talked about. But can you walk us through some of the chapters of Gainsight and how you thought about your priority as CEO in each of those chapters? Yeah, absolutely yeah. It's interesting because we do use that term chapters at Gainsight?

Nick Mehta:

I think absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting because we do use that term chapters at Gainsight. I think we stole it. I think ServiceNow does this and probably a lot of companies, because you know, if you run a company for a while, you need to help people understand. Okay, there's a new phase of the company, right, every year there's a new phase, but what we ended up doing is about every two years we had a new chapter and we actually called them. Like you know, the company's called Gainsight, so we called them G1, like Gainsight phase one, g2, g3, g4.

Nick Mehta:

And you know, start out, g1 was all about actually a very unusual thing, which is we were building software for an industry and kind of job function that barely existed, which is kind of a crazy idea. Honestly, I don't know why we did it. In hindsight, I'm like that was nuts when, early on in the business in 2013, if you went on LinkedIn, there were probably about a thousand people in the world that had a customer success manager title and probably half of them worked at Salesforce, who really was the one who came up with this concept way back when. And you think about it, you know both. You know total addressable market really well, right, you know our software is a few thousand dollars per person per year. The TAM for our business was like a few million dollars literally, which is not a good idea. But you know we said hey, over time more and more businesses are going to have these recurring revenue business models you know SaaS, but also like consumption, cloud, telco, all these different recurring revenue business models and they can't run their business the same way where they sell to a customer and walk away. They've got to have a way to manage that customer post sale.

Nick Mehta:

And so the first phase of the company G1, was about evangelizing the concept of customer success, not Gainsight, but actually like the job, the role both of you built. You know CS teams. You know what I'm talking about and what the way that that played out was. All kinds of things Like, for example, we wrote a book on customer success which became kind of like the authoritative you know thing on CS. It sold like 100,000 copies, which is insane. Like it's a very nerdy little niche, but within that niche a lot of people read it and made it like their starter class on CS and then we actually ended up writing four more books. So we're kind of like a book publisher and with software on the side, I mean it's crazy. So we wrote these books. We started a conference called Pulse, which wasn't about Gainsight, was about the industry of customer success, and Monica knows it.

Monica Enand:

It's super fun. It was a blast always, by the way.

Nick Mehta:

We appreciate it, yeah, and you and your team and we it's, it's. We tried to make it like the place to go to get better at customer success, either as a CSM or a leader, and that started out in 2013. Actually, the way it started out was pretty interesting. Where we, we were like, hey, we need to get this new profession going and we said, well, maybe these people want to meet each other. So we threw a happy hour in our office. It was not a good office and it was above, and it was above a bar, which was kind of cool, but it was just not a nice office, right, and we threw this happy hour. We said, hey, come to our office. And we went to Safeway, which is a grocery store, if you don't know, in the Bay Area, and we bought, you know, cheese trays and like really cheap wine and like. We sent an email and said, well, maybe 20 people come. Like 100 people showed up and we're like they didn't come for the office because the office sucks. They didn't come from like the Safeway, wine or cheese. They came to meet each other and we said, well, we should make this a bigger thing, and so hence we created this conference called Pulse and it started in 2013.

Nick Mehta:

First year we had about 300 people there. Over the years, you know, now multi thousands of people. This year it's in St Louis and we do one in November in Europe in Amsterdam, and then we do roadshows and so this thing became a really big thing of just like thought leadership, building community. So that all started in kind of like chapter one, if you will. Chapter two was G2, was about us building the product to really meet the needs not just of small companies, but also made in big size companies.

Nick Mehta:

And a little funny story there like one of our first big customers was IBM. We also had a few others, like Workday and Okta and others, but IBM was like the first really big company that was using Gainsight and they came to Pulse in 2014. Now you know, maybe 900 people at Pulse, but it felt really big, like the event feels really big and IBM's at dinner, like with us in, like a VIP dinner, and one of the executives says so how big is Gainsight? Are you like half a billion of revenue? A billion of revenue, and literally we were like 5 million of AR. And so it was funny because we had to like fake until you make it.

Nick Mehta:

And we ended up getting very fortunate. Like IBM, a very small group by Gainsight and you know, had to like build the product out and it didn't work, and evolve it and eventually they become a multimillion dollar client, and so that second phase was really making the product work for mid to large size companies. Third phase was then, you know, competitive market like anything and really make sure we end up being the leader. And obviously we have a lot of respect for the competitors in our market. There's always new ones, probably similar to both of your businesses, right, there's always new companies out there. Back then there were like four new crops all the time, but we were very fortunate in that third phase to kind of pull away from everyone. We're, I don't know, eight times the size of the number two player in our space now. So that was like phase three. Phase four was about starting to become multi-product and this might be something other folks are going on this journey. Right, we had one product, but our vision was always not just about a customer success team how do we make a whole company manage that customer journey in a proactive way and how make everyone customer centric. And so we got into like product analytics and adoption. We eventually, a few years later, got into customer community software, customer training last year and so very similar. You know, any company trying to build a portfolio.

Nick Mehta:

And then phase five, where we all kind of reconnected we called G5, was we were very fortunate to partner with Vista. Vista is a big private equity firm. They bought a majority stake in Gainsight not all of it, but a majority stake and the whole idea was partner with them, get a great win for everyone involved to that point investors, employees, etc. But then do something much, much bigger and it's been awesome. We really enjoyed working with them. Obviously, like the SaaS world has changed so much, they did the deal at the end of 2020. Everything came roaring up and it was like we were like, oh my gosh, we're going to have an exit in like two years, right, and then everything came crashing down in terms of valuations. But this has been an awesome partner.

Sejal Pietrzak:

It's interesting because I think and Monica, you were a founder as well, but it feels like those chapters are very similar to other companies' chapters, as you think about the growth story.

Monica Enand:

Absolutely. And you know it's so funny to hear you talk about the early days and I know you kind of have written and been a thought leader on category creation and I was thinking about all the entrepreneurs that I've met with and they'll come to me with this great idea and they're like we have this, like we're innovating a new product and we're innovating in this new market and we're going to like innovate in the org chart. We're not going to have an org chart and we're going to innovate culturally and we're not going to innovate. And they've got like, and I just sit there and like get hives and I'm like, okay, could you pick one thing not to innovate on? Could you please not, do not throw everything out and start and try to do everything by yourselves.

Nick Mehta:

It's so interesting you said that, monica, because, like in the beginning, you know, I don't think we were that extreme, but definitely like that direction. I remember we're like, oh, we don't need performance reviews, a lot of people have that we don't need, we can just like, we don't need to worry about, like comp bans, compensation bans. You know we're going to do everything our own way. And I remember reading it might've been Paul Graham, somebody like some you know wise tech person on Twitter. They were like, you know, find the one or two things that you do uniquely and then do everything else like the standard way. First of all, there's a reason. It's the standard way and I think we're all realizing that now we're like, yeah, I get why people do performance reviews Right.

Nick Mehta:

Some of these things were like suspended because of the bubble. And then second is like how much cognitive bandwidth you have to like reinvent everything. It sounds good, but actually like what if you just reinvented your product and maybe your, whatever it is, whatever is unique to your company or culture, but why not do some other stuff just like the standard way? Like you don't need to reinvent the way you do like IT security, but definitely don't reinvent that. Don't, don't be creative there, just do whatever. Don't reinvent legal, don't reinvent. You know what I mean. Like reinvent the things that truly are unique about your company.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, no, I think it's hard for entrepreneurs and founders.

Monica Enand:

I think part of the reason for me, part of the reason I became a founder and I think it's just part of the personality type is that you constantly see things and want to do them differently and better.

Monica Enand:

And you want, look, it's not easy to found a company and so there's got to be some payoff in it. And the payoff has got to be like I get the autonomy to make all these decisions and try all these things and do all these things. And you know, you talked about the different parts, phases and the different partners, and I have to say, like, for me, as I went through those chapters, I appreciated the influence of those different partners. You know, because, like, for instance, when I got to the VISTA phase, you know, they came and said, yeah, you need to just do these basic things that I wasn't doing, and I was like I don't want to. And then, you know, when I got past the initial reaction is I don't want to. And then, when I got past the I don't want to, then I was like, oh, maybe you guys have a point, maybe I should just do those things.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Well, it's so interesting that so many of those best practices are best practices for a reason right.

Nick Mehta:

I love it and it's interesting because one of the since we all, you know, not everyone watching is familiar with Vista, but you know, one of the things they do really well is try to help everyone get better, every portfolio company, both through things they've learned but also from meeting great CEOs like you two. And uh, one of the phrases I heard them say, which I love, is like we don't want learn it all, know it alls, we want learn it alls. Right, and I don't know if they told you that expression, I love that expression and um, and I think that that's kind of a thing, that open-mindedness. It's kind kind of weird because you're right, monica, like one of the like characteristics of wanting to start a company is like having your own vision and wanting to do it your own way, and yet you also there's a lot of benefit to being open-minded, to improving but not losing your core Right, and so that like finding out, like for me, one of the things that's been interesting is where am I going to be open-minded about stuff and where I'm going to be open-minded about stuff and where I'm going to be like you know what? No, we're just going to do it this way, not just with visti, even with my team right, and over the years, I've kind of gotten the point. I'm like, yeah, these are the things. I just know, as a simple example is, I just know our culture and it doesn't like, you know, if, hey, no, we're not going to fire that person that way, that's just not going to happen. We're not going to fire that person that way, that's just not going to happen. We're not going to allow that to. No, we're not going to.

Nick Mehta:

You know, actually very recently, literally last week, there's a customer and they, they wanted, um, they, they basically paid for one of our products. They lose, we lose a lot of money because of the way that they're using. And so, you know, we were like trying to, you know, gracefully, in're not going to do that, like we're not going to do the thing that we wouldn't want to do. One of our values is golden rule treat people the way we want to be treated. And so we're like, yeah, we'll lose money for another month or two while they, you know, give them a migration path to move off. This is like our analytics product, which their product analytics takes a lot of infrastructure and it just wasn't making money for us no-transcript.

Monica Enand:

You, I'm thinking about partnering with Vista, and I think what I remember saying to you at that time was like and and I think this is good advice for anybody who's thinking about moving into a new chapter in a company or thinking if that's what you're thinking about is think about like there are certain things you're going to have to let go of and there are certain things that you got to hold on to. And being sort of articulate, I remember saying like there are certain things that you are just going to have to let go of and do it their way, and then there are certain things that you got to know and you can't. It can never be all or nothing.

Nick Mehta:

Well, it's interesting. You said that because when I people call me thank you first of all for that, because that got me here and paying it forward A lot of people call me and say, hey, I'm thinking about partnering with Vista or whoever private equity and one of the things I tell them is like I think it's great, it's really good. It is like I think it's great, it's really good, it lets you transform your company, all these awesome things. You just have to be like open-minded and transparent. And if you're not open, if you're like a control freak who doesn't want to share any information and doesn't want anyone giving you ideas, I just don't think you're. It doesn't even matter if it's private equity or anything else.

Sejal Pietrzak:

You're not going to last as CEO talked a little bit about advice that we would give to CEOs who are going to potentially partner with investors. What would you say to executives who are, or even folks who are looking to become executives? If you could pick a couple of things that have really resonated and worked well in your experience for executives to get promoted to be successful, what would you say? I mean, it could be anything.

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, that's a really good question, and we're trying to actually codify that a little bit with like a leadership expectations document, and that's something I think is for me I wish we'd done it sooner where we have like this, you know, basically like set of principles and then we're actually evaluating people on them, cause I think it's a little different than everyone in your company where you may have your values in your company, you do like evaluation on those. This is like what do you expect from your leaders? And I think one of the things I will say there's that like famous expression I don't know where it came from, but to those who much is given, much is expected, right. And I'll say, like the hardest job in Gainsight is gonna be the leaders and, by the way, it's very rewarding in many ways. But I'm unapologetically ask a lot from them. And I think there are just some examples that like or how I think about it.

Nick Mehta:

One that I think you all can imagine is really ownership, right, like truly owning something and not saying like you know, we all know this experience of like somebody points a problem out but then doesn't jump on and say how do we help? Right, and I'm like, yeah, like that's cool. I mean, if somebody just gave me the list of all the problems at Gainsight, it's like 10,000, right, it's overwhelming. Now it's good to know that there's like a big problem, but I love it when people are like here's the problem and here's what I'm going to go do to help solve that problem. Right, and that's actually a lot that jumps out to me.

Nick Mehta:

A second thing that I've seen is basically being able to be calm through the ups and downs.

Nick Mehta:

Right, and I think the problem is, you know, if you're like a leader and you get stressed out or upset or whatever it like wears on your team and almost becomes like 10 X on your team, like, if you're moderately stressed, they become super stressed, right. And so I think the second thing is being able to be calm through ups and downs. How do you get to the point where this emotional composure because I know you all have the same experience you know, when you're running a company or you're a leader, literally, you're like one meeting is like somebody leaving the company and they're unhappy, and the next meeting is you're recruiting a new candidate. The next meeting is a customer that's unhappy and churning, and the next one is a new prospect and the next one's your investor meeting, and you always have to just like kind of like, put your game face on and go to that next meeting and like, forget about the last one for a second Right, and I think that's something I expect.

Nick Mehta:

Another one that might be interesting is I call it like altitude, so being able to go from like 30,000 feet to three feet. So what do I mean by that? Well, I need people, my leaders, to be able to go all the way from, like what's the long-term strategy? Some people call it you know, you guys know the term value creation plan. Like how are we going to create value for all of our stakeholders right Up there? What's our vision? All that Down to like what are our priorities to the year? Think about the next one's like 10,000 feet. Down to. What's the plan for this? One priority down to like making the slides for a customer meeting. Right, and I think, by the way, like last night, I'm making slides for a customer meeting. We have 1100 people gain site.

Nick Mehta:

Like all of us want to carry our own weight and I think some leaders are able to be down in the details but not able to see the bigger picture, the 30,000 feet, and some are able to many of the worst bosses that we've ever worked for work at 30,000 feet and then aren't able to go down to the details. They're kind of like the person in the boat yelling row but not carrying an oar themselves, and so I expect our leaders to do all that. And it's interesting because I think that's very hard. I'm like, oh my gosh, I have so much empathy. I know this is really hard. I know I'm like giving you tons of feedback and all that. And actually very recently we just hired a president at Gainsight who's amazing. He works for me and he's like Nick, you got to be even more direct. So I've been working on that of being even more candid with my team, so they know what I expect.

Sejal Pietrzak:

We talked in a previous episode about how important it is to come to your leader with solutions, not just sharing what the problem is, and that's really valuable. And then also, you know, staying calm under pressure. I like the last notion as well of being really direct, you know, and being candid. And for those getting the feedback, I always love transparency, I love candid feedback, even in this podcast, you know, I get very clear, candid feedback about things that people love in the podcast and things they'd love to see changed or more different types of topics, et cetera. Right, so it's great to be direct.

Monica Enand:

It just saves time, it's efficient there is this sort of like crazy, brilliant human that we think about in the entrepreneurial space or in the tech space, and I think, like people are just smarter when they're calm, like we're all smarter human beings, like our brains. When we don't have cortisol or, you know, all of those chemicals running around in our brains, our frontal lobes are engaged, you know, and our amygdala is not, you know, hijacking our frontal lobe. And I think we've talked a lot about like, how do you manage your kind of? Because I'm not a calm person, like, by nature, I'm not a calm person and so I my journey personally, has been a lot of like figuring out what are the ways in which I can calm myself down so that I can be smarter, make better decisions, communicate better. But then, like you said, it's like a wave, it amplifies the effect on the people around you and I, you know I definitely have learned that lesson the hard way. Well, it's so interesting, Monica.

Nick Mehta:

You said that because I know you both have probably done some of these too. I feel like a huge thing as a CEO, founder, entrepreneur, leader, it doesn't matter is understanding yourself and like where, what inside you are your natural energies. But I think that the thing that for me has been great very tied to what you just said, Monica is like there's things that I naturally will do Like unabated. You know, I will naturally be super energetic, meet lots of people, right, Get excited, be passionate. I won't naturally be super candid with people, I won't naturally go super deep on something, I won't naturally really try to understand the financial model. And then sometimes you know, as a CEO, you have to do everything and so sometimes you have to sort of be like, hey, I'm going to force myself to do this, Just like.

Nick Mehta:

Sometimes, if you're not somebody that works out and you want to work out or eats healthy, you create these habits to make you do the things you don't naturally do. And it's actually when I interview candidates like, for example, sales leadership, right, I always say okay, unabated. Are you naturally going out to meet a customer? Are you naturally going in to spend time with the team on the operations pipeline. Whatever, there's no wrong answer. Just tell me what you naturally do, and does that align with what I need for the job?

Monica Enand:

We are going to be celebrating Father's Day soon, nick, and I'm very sorry to know that you lost your father earlier this year. Was this year right? It was in 2023, but yeah, yeah, calendar year. Oh, I'm very sorry to know that you lost your father earlier this year. It was this year, right.

Nick Mehta:

It was in 2023, but yeah.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Yeah, calendar year. I'm so sorry.

Nick Mehta:

Oh, thanks, Sejal. I appreciate it. It happens to everyone, obviously, but it's still a meaningful part of life.

Monica Enand:

Oh, absolutely, and we'd love to honor him by spending a little time talking about him, and I think we know that you've joked about. Maybe your mom was more the one putting the pressure on you the Indian parents that put pressure on you Both of them, both of them Different ways, yeah.

Monica Enand:

But we'd like to. Obviously, your parents did something right, because you did carve your own path and you took risks and you felt the freedom, like Sejal and I have talked about, like the privilege that we feel from our parents and we we also did a mother's day episode with our daughters and they were able to talk about, like um, the privilege that they've gotten from us. But maybe you could spend a little time talking about your dad and, uh, what do you think he did right and and that led you to to being able to be this unique person not just unique in fashion, but unique in career choices.

Nick Mehta:

That probably definitely didn't come from my parents. So I think probably both of you, whenever I think about all three of us, have been fortunate to have success and lots of amazing things and but I'm like the turning something into something more versus turning nothing into something. I think, like a lot of immigrants turn nothing into something. You know, my dad's like he, so he's so our family's Gujarati, which part of you guys know, but part of India for folks watching, and but he grew up in a city called Bangalore, which is in South India, and he grew up, I mean, his family was really poor, I'm not like on the streets poor, but like you know, kind of one click up such that his parents couldn't afford to raise him and the other kids. And so his parents lived in Mumbai and they had him go to live with his grandmother in Bangalore.

Nick Mehta:

Tons of people in a very small amount of space, right, because lots of extended family. He said he studied under a street lamp. I'm not exactly sure you never know with your parents, like how much of it's like a little bit of a stretch or not, right? So he said like the lights would go out in the house. He studied under a street lamp. But you know it's crazy because like now, like America is so diverse and embracing.

Nick Mehta:

I know we can always do better, but like where we were it's not even a like you can't even compare it Right and you know there was no ability to call home back then. It was. I mean just you think about the immigrant experience back then. I mean it's just amazing. Or even people before that, the bravery that they had, the grit one he did two degrees, one was like in idaho and one was in montana. Talk about like, like fish out of water. I think that there were definitely more animals or like elk than there were. Indian people by like, by a thousand fold or a million fold probably, you know. Eventually ended up at this company, digital equipment, which is like a hot company. And my mom has this little like you. You save the memorabilia. She has this memo he typed up in 1975 that said, hit to his boss we should start building computers for people at home.

Nick Mehta:

I saw my brother last weekend and I feel like as we get older, at least for me I don't know about y'all I almost feel like it's like you're I'm constantly, constantly thinking about our parents and like the mystery of what their life was and then what our life is because of them. But my dad really wanted to like have us no surprise, you know, be successful. And I think there's, you know, good and bad about that, the kind of like, you know, the immigrant experience in terms of how they parent. My fun fact when I was a little kid, my mom put like an Albert Einstein poster above my bed and that like looked at me. I love science actually, so it ended up being cool.

Nick Mehta:

And then, when years later, epilogue, when they sold their house in Pittsburgh, they moved to California seven, eight years ago, and my mom brought the Albert Einstein poster to me and it's actually right next to me. You can't see it here Cause she's like you can still be a scientist even now, right? And? And then my dad was a business person but none of his stuff would end up ever being big. So I remember when I was a little kid and I'm sitting in the living room and my dad pulls out like Time Magazine which you know, folks that don't know, is like an old big magazine and it has like person of or no youngest self-made billionaire, bill Gates, and my dad's like I'd love to have you do something like this someday. And I'm like, oh my God, from then on, albert Einstein, bill Gates, I'm never going to be satisfied with my own career. There's no doubt it's game over.

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, so Wow, they did so much for us and they're just I can tease them all that, but you know they're caring. I mean truly. It was like the only thing that matters is their kids. People see it as a cliche, but my gosh, like they really didn't do anything else. Which is actually honestly one of the shadows, which is when my dad retired and you know we were gone and you know he just didn't have anything, which actually he ended up. You know not to bum everyone out, but he ended up getting dementia, which is really brutal, and I do think some of that is like, as you think about post-career, like having things to occupy your mind, I think it actually does matter. You never know what causes that stuff, but there's definitely research that shows that keeping an active mind matters.

Monica Enand:

So I've certainly learned that. Does a podcast count? A?

Nick Mehta:

podcast counts. You are all sharp in your brains listening to this podcast. It's going to cure all your diseases for sure. Angel and Monica promise, or you get your money back.

Monica Enand:

It's important to be thoughtful post-parents, because you know my kids and Sejal's, you know at college, our daughter's at college, and like my kids are gone and it's like, oh yeah, there's, it's, it's a, it's a hard thing, but it's something you have to actually be thoughtful about.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Totally, you know, you think. You said you think a lot about what your parents went through and you know where you are today. And there's the second step of that, which is then. I also think so much about where our children are today and you could compare it to two generations ago. Night and day, right, right, not only in terms of the technology and life and everything else, but so much even around the privilege compared to studying under a street lamp, and I mean literally as you were talking about that.

Sejal Pietrzak:

I got a little emotional thinking about that because I've, you know, whenever I've been to India, I see kids doing that kind of thing at night and you think about where those, how much those kids are driven to succeed in life and make things better. I remember my dad always telling me that he left India to come to America to have a better life for his family. This has been really interesting, nick, as you think about just being a parent. What advice would you have for parents who are also, you know, working leaders, executives, ceos? Any last pieces of advice you would give?

Nick Mehta:

Yeah, it's funny. Like I said, I'm not a huge advice person because everyone's on their own journey, but I will say for me, you know a few things that have been really rewarding. One is actually trying to engineer presence into my life. So presence to me is like helps me, kind of engineer presence into my life. So presence to me is like helps me.

Nick Mehta:

The second thing I think that helps me a lot is just remembering that they're going to remember the love and passion and that's. And, by the way, like whatever, wherever they meet you, because you know, if you have little kids, you know your little kids want to hang out with you and spend time with you and it's amazing, amazing and so awesome. Sometimes you might be overwhelmed by it. And then you know you get to your parent, your kids are teenagers and actually my teenagers have been amazing. But, um, you know they get busy and sometimes they get a little snarky, or sometimes they're, they're with their friends, and then just realize, like you can be, you can love them and just love them and don't expect anything back, just love them, right, right.

Nick Mehta:

And then I think the third one is for me you know people talk about modeling, like what you know, modeling in yourself what you know you hope other people do, and so I show them, like, how excited I am about things at work or otherwise, and I think they, they just see that they absorb that right, cause kids are not actually just, it's not like you're like kid, do this, or here's the list of things I want to teach you. They're just watching, right, we are too. I was watching when I was a kid and it's not even they're consciously watching, subconsciously. So I think remember that, like you're modeling the future of your kids for good and bad, by the way, like there's probably lots of things I do that are like bad role models, right, but I try to do some. They're good and I think they're watching, which is good, it's so true.

Sejal Pietrzak:

I agree with all of those and I love this notion that you say, which I've never heard before which is everyone's on their own journey, so it's not really giving advice, but I'll tell you what's worked for me and I think I'm going to start following that. I think true, and I never thought about it that way. That's good. Thanks, nick.

Monica Enand:

Well, Nick, we wish you a very happy Father's Day and to all the fathers who are listening happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to my husband and Sejal, I'm sure Happy.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Father's Day. My husband and my dad and my father-in-law. Yeah, happy Father's Day to everyone and thanks so much, nick. Happy Father's Day to you and it was great having you on the show.

Nick Mehta:

I loved it. This is so fun. You guys ask great questions. I respect both of you so much. Thank you.

Sejal Pietrzak:

And thank you to our executive producer, Georgiana Moreland.

Georgianna Moreland:

Thank you for listening today. We would love for you to follow and subscribe. Monica and Sejo would love to hear from you. You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode. You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak. Until next time.