Balasubramanian: Mind Over Money: How marathon running helped this CEO tackle tight situations

In an interview with ETMarkets, Balasubramanian with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, said: “Just focus on the process, stay in the moment, believe in your instinct, and let things flow and don’t let the anxiety of the outcome affect the focus on working the solution!” Edited excerpts:

With over 3 decades of experience and a large part of it in a management role – how do you keep yourself calm?

I have a strong urge to keep exploring new ideas, get more responsive and agile to the changes around us and work with an execution mindset. I keep challenging the teams who work with me to be bigger, better, and faster.

However, in all the years of experience and going through many tough situations and cycles it gives me a sense of calm that if you keep doing the right things everything will eventually fall in place.

You are an avid reader, a sports enthusiast and a half marathon runner — how do these help you keep mentally fit?

Reading broadens my world view on a variety of topics from geopolitics, economy, markets, technology, trends, human behavior, etc. This helps me to keep an open mind which is receptive to new ideas, concepts, and changes keep my learning and curiosity going.

Playing and watching sports is often the best and truest reality show, you learn so much about life, teamwork, management, staying in the moment, soaking in the pressure, and focusing on delivering when it matters.

Being a half marathoner has been very therapeutic for me much like meditation, an hour or sometimes two hours of running where I am with my thoughts, the road, the steady pace, and rhythm makes me feel very refreshed and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

As a rule, when I run, I don’t listen to music and don’t carry my phone, so it is time for cutting off from the rest of the world and focus on my body and my mind.

Leadership mixed with creativity is deadly because then you would always keep everyone on the edge. What is your leadership style?
For almost 30 years of my career, I have always been on a Greenfield – start-up and build-to-scale mode and in domains, I had no prior knowledge.

So the style has always been one of exploring ideas experimenting with them, challenging status quo, problem seeking and solving them. It has always helped me keep my teams constantly engaged and energized.

My leadership style is a balance of deep connection with my teams and working with them to bring focus on opportunities, tasks, and outcomes.

Tell us more about being a marathon runner which requires tremendous discipline. How does it help you in your approach to a tight situation?

I have been a half marathoner, started late by normal standards at the ripe age of 45 !!!. I quickly learned that physical fitness can only take you that far… the desire to keep going despite sometimes the body wanting to give up is finally winning the battle of the mind over the body.

Each time you go through that situation and come out of it, makes you feel more resilient and restores faith in my ‘Can Do’ attitude which is the best way to approach any tight situation.

Just focus on the process, stay in the moment, believe in your instinct, let things flow, and don’t let the anxiety of the outcome affect the focus on working on the solution!!! This is what I have learned.

Any books you read and would like to recommend?

Lots of them some of my all-time favorites in Fiction – ‘O Jerusalem’ & ‘The Exodus’ – both focus on the birth of Israel. On Management – ‘The Founders Mentality’ by James Allen and Chris Cook.

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