How to take rejection, and 5 more takeaways from Edelweiss CEO Radhika Gupta’s ‘Limitless’

Radhika Gupta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Edelweiss Mutual Fund.

Radhika Gupta is not only the managing director and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management, but also the only female in the topmost position in the mutual funds industry in India.

While some readers may have watched her viral video ‘The Girl with a Broken Neck’, Gupta goes beyond the video in her first book, Limitless: The Power of Unlocking Your True Potential (Hachette, 2022).

In the book, Gupta writes about the hardships, braving multiple rejections, rising again despite the crushing comments, and the lessons she took away. Below is a list of six such takeaways.

Back-to-back, seven consulting firms rejected Gupta’s candidature during UPenn (University of Pennsylvania) campus placements. She had hit the rock-bottom and tried ending her life, too. As she lacked a mentor then, with this book, to her 21-year-old self, Gupta wants to say: When someone says no to you, it doesn’t mean that they hold something against you. It’s nothing personal because “if the rejection was personal, it would have been permanent.” A ‘no’ only means that you’re not quite there but are on your way.

After Forefront’s merger with Edelweiss, Gupta received critical feedback during her performance review. She writes, “I was angry with myself, angry with my bosses, angry with the system.” But has it helped anyone, erecting “a shield to deflect the arrows even before (they) come (your) way”? No. One must embrace feedback and accept constructive criticism, not antagonistic jealousy, to continuously improve oneself. Or, as Gupta puts it creatively, “Tough criticism from the right people is the friend request you should not ignore.”

Risk-taking isn’t as fancy as it appears in movies based on real-life stories of businesspeople. Most people, as it turns out, resort to a “well-settled” or “comfortable job” without realising that this comfortable feeling “becomes so addictive that it kills the ability to take meaningful risks.”

To realise your limitless potential, Gupta wants you to build your career as “stocks” not “bonds” because the latter are capped. But at the same time, she also wants you to approach risk-taking with a bi-focal vision: have the long-term goal but set achievable, doable short-term targets to sustain confidence and zeal to realise your ambitious goal.

On multiple occasions, Gupta was either right or wanted to speak up, but she didn’t because her shy nature and self-doubting attitude prevented her from speaking her mind. Let go of the self-doubt and strike the conversation that leads you towards an opportunity, because if you won’t, no one else will do it on your behalf, Gupta notes.

Besides that, in a different context, she wants you to blurt out and share problems that you’re facing with your colleagues and managers as “most problems are solvable; they just need to be voiced.”

Gupta shares multiple examples to demonstrate that if you reach out for help, honestly and willingly, then “you will be surprised how many people come forward and how much better the outcome is.” And if you worry that admitting that you don’t know something or need support will make you look vulnerable, then absolutely do that because when you do that people would reciprocate instead of saying yes to a job that they’re incapable of performing, ruining things for everybody.

For many working professionals, the promise of a work-life balance is one of the prime motivators to say yes to an employer. But that ‘balancing act’ can also make you comfortable, so instead of striving for that “picture-perfect” work-life balance, focus on integrating work and life in a way that serves you well. For example, taking a break for a few hours every day to help your children with their homework and return to work afterwards. While many professions may not allow you this luxury, one can always negotiate one’s way if by voicing that concern first.