Fit to Lead | Sabeer Bhatia: "Health is the most important asset one has"

Sabeer Bhatia, 53, co-founder and CEO of ShowReel and co-founder of Hotmail.

Note to readers: Fit to Lead is a series of interviews with business leaders on their approach to fitness, leadership and navigating the new normal.

For Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia, the pandemic was a proper curve ball. It threw his entire schedule off, he tells me wide awake at 6.30am, sipping coffee at his home in Los Altos Hills in the Bay Area, neighbouring the city of San Francisco. But it was the same pandemic that gave him the idea for his latest venture—a social video messaging platform called Showreel, of which he is the co-founder and CEO. “The new normal had me working from home and Zoom calls. I was meeting new people over video calls. That’s where the idea for Showreel was born,” says the 53-year-old.

The other new things he picked up during the pandemic were cycling and intermittent fasting. “A friend told me to give intermittent fasting a try. I have been trying to manage my weight because I am pre-diabetic and so I gave it a go and it works,” says Bhatia, who studied at BITS Pilani, before switching to Cal Tech (California Institute of Technology) and Stanford University, where he studied electrical engineering.

However, fitness and active life are nothing new for Bhatia, who grew up in Pune and Bengaluru. “Being part of a military family, I’ve been playing various sports ever since I was 5. I’ve picked up different sports at different times in my life. I started golf when I was 16 and started cycling seriously only six months back.”

Apart from his love for staying active, the other thing that remains constant in Bhatia’s life is his entrepreneurial streak. Through his new venture Showreel, Bhatia wants to provide a platform to the world where they can come up with brilliant ideas and he wants to fund 1,000 ventures based on those ideas in the very first year of Showreel’s existence. But for now, he is busy working on the platform and app to bring Showreel to the world. Edited excerpts from the interview:

Your health and fitness routine…

My typical fitness routine includes cycling, swimming, golf, tennis, weight training and hiking. I usually set aside an hour a day for my activities. The typical cycle ride is 15-30 miles, I swim a mile in 45 minutes, play golf 4-5 hours a week, tennis is 90 minutes per session, weight training is in 30-minute sessions, and the hikes typically last an hour or two.

Favourite fitness activity…

It changes with the season. I am currently very passionate about cycling. I have got a full carbon road bike, the Trek Bontrager 5200.

Your toughest?

Cycling uphill. I recently finished a 35-mile bike ride in the hills of which 7.5 miles was just uphill. That really tests your body’s capacity to endure pain.

Your new normal…

The pandemic threw everything off for me. Everyone was home all the time, the kids had no school… Covid-19 took away many group activities that we were accustomed to. Work shifted home; meetings and calls moved to Zoom. I was meeting new people on Zoom. On the active lifestyle side of things, the new normal involves a lot of hiking and individual sporting activity such as swimming or cycling.

Has your fitness routine, in any way, helped you navigate the uncertainties of the current times?

My fitness and sports routine helped me keep an eye on my health through the pandemic. Health is the most important asset one has.

The one change you would encourage your teammates to make to deal with the challenges of current times…

I would encourage them to focus on their health, especially on reducing body fat. I’ve only recently discovered that intermittent fasting is the only way to reduce body fat.

Leadership lessons in your fitness journey…

A healthy body houses a healthy mind. Therefore, it’s very important to strike a balance between work and life. A fitness routine helps you do that. It also boosts self-confidence and helps think straight.

What impact does your image of a “fit leader” have on your team?

It conveys discipline and hard work.

Has being fit helped you become a better leader and a better version of yourself?

Absolutely, it has helped me become who I am today. Ever since I was a kid, due to my military background I have always been active and into sports… you could say striving for good health is in-born for me.

Sabeer Bhatia says he typically cycles 15-30 miles (24-48 km) per ride.

Your leadership style…

I would say that my leadership style is goal-oriented. I set goals for my team members and ensure that they have the resources to accomplish them.

What about work-life balance?

I compartmentalise my life and put everything in different buckets. That helps. I have only three buckets—work, family and workout. So when I am working, it’s only work all the way. While working out, I focus on that, and when I with my family, I am 100% with them.

Goals for the year…

I want to reduce my weight by 20 pounds and bring down my body fat percentage to below 20%. On the work front, we are working on three things for Showreel. The app, a Shark Tank-like show on the showreel platform where we shall invest in brilliant ideas and create an open base platform to enable all this. My goal is to fund 1,000 such ideas in the first year of Showreel.