Arete Coach 1197 Rupal Patel Owning Your Weird: Unconventional Paths to Success"
- S1E1197
- 54:35
- October 14th 2024
Welcome to the Arete Coach Podcast, hosted by Severin Sorensen. In this episode, recorded on September 10th, 2024, we are joined by Rupal Patel—best-selling author, speaker, and expert in leadership and talent development. Titled "Owning Your Weird: Unconventional Paths to Success," the episode highlights Rupal's inspiring journey and the lessons she's gathered along the way, offering wisdom for anyone forging their own path in today's unpredictable world.
Rupal Patel's career is as diverse as it is remarkable. She served as a CIA analyst and field agent, earning war zone service medals and recognition from the CIA director for her "superior support to the president of the United States." She later transitioned into entrepreneurship, founding Entrepreneura, and has become a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh Business School and external faculty at Henley Business School.
In this insightful conversation, Rupal shares her path from the CIA to becoming a successful author, speaker, and leadership expert. Her career includes earning an MBA from the London School of Business, leading Blue Infinity Property Group as CEO, and launching an international speaking career. Her best-selling book, From CIA to CEO: Unconventional Life Lessons for Thinking Bigger, Leading Better, and Being Bolder, captures her wealth of knowledge and experiences. Throughout the episode, she speaks passionately about leadership, her desire to create a positive, large-scale impact, and how her diverse experiences inform her approach to developing leaders.
A standout quote from the episode comes when Rupal offers advice to young girls: "Choose your peers very carefully. The people we surround ourselves with either help us raise our bar or lower ourselves to our basest instincts." This encapsulates her emphasis on intentionality in personal growth and leadership development.
Rupal's journey provides invaluable insights for executive coaches and leaders. Her focus on creating positive impact beyond individual success speaks to the power of influence at a broader societal level—particularly relevant for executive coaches guiding high-level clients who can shape entire organizations or industries.
Lastly, Patel's message of "owning your weird," which she also discusses in her TED talk, encourages leaders to embrace their unique qualities as assets. Executive coaches can leverage this concept to help clients transform perceived weaknesses into strengths, fostering more authentic, confident, and effective leadership. This not only enhances individual success but also drives organizational growth.
The Arete Coach Podcast seeks to explore the art and science of executive coaching. You can find out more about this podcast at aretecoach.io.
This episode was recorded via Zoom on September 10, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Arete Coach™ LLC. All rights reserved.
Arete Coach: Exploring the Art and Science of Executive Coaching
“Arete Coach Podcast" Explores the "Art and Science" of Executive Coaching hosted by Severin Sorensen. The “Arete Coach Podcast" is for executive coaches and anyone considering becoming an executive coach. The podcast is especially valuable to executive coaches who are lifetime learners with deep curiosity about the "art and science" of coaching. In this podcast, the ‘art of coaching’ is explored through engaging interviews with leading executive coaches from diverse backgrounds sharing their individual coaching journeys, learnings, methods, best questions, and situational approaches to executive coaching. Beyond best practices, the podcast will regularly mine research on the ‘science of coaching’ and explores ongoing scientific discoveries and studies looking for what works and why, with an aim to improve the core body of knowledge for executive coaches and the industry. Severin Sorensen has provided over 7,500 hours of paid executive coaching sessions and he holds the following coaching certifications: ICF/ACSTH Certified Executive Coach (CEC), Certified Organizational Development Coach (CODC), Certified Life Coach (CLC); and the IAC: Coach Masteries Practioner. Severin Sorensen has an M.Phil in Economics at King's College, Cambridge University, and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Utah.
The Arete Coach Podcast is the copyright of Arete Coach LLC.
Severin Sorensen is host of the Arete Coach Podcast, where he interviews executive coaches and researchers with the aims to celebrate and explore the art and science of executive coaching today.
Severin is a senior executive coach, serial entrepreneur and lifetime learner with a passionate curiosity about people and businesses. Severin is the CEO of ePraxis LLC, a premier level retained search firm that provides executive headhunting, talent selection, and executive coaching. (www.epraxis.com)
Severin is a certified coach with an IAC Masteries Practitioner designation and 800+ hours of ICF/ACSTH and other advanced training in Executive Coaching, Organizational Development, EOS, Life Coaching, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and Positive Intelligence (PQ). Severin has over 7,500+ hours of paid executive coaching working with high performing executives, owners, and operators of public and private companies throughout North America.Severin's coaching clients include boards of directors, CEOs, Presidents, GMs, COO, CFO, CTO, VP Engineering, VP Talent, and many other positions.
Severin lives in Park City , Utah and his virtual coach practice includes clients throughout the Americas.
From 2010-2018 Severin was a Vistage Chair where he coached three CEO and Key executive groups. In 2011, Severin received the "Rookie of the Year Chair Award" from Vistage. Since 2013, Severin has added international speaking for Vistage, CEO conferences, executive peer groups, and corporations on the topic of identifying and hiring difference making top talent.
In terms of the types of clients coached, Severin has coached new CEOs (with less than 2 years experience), large company executives (e.g., Managing Director of Rio Tinto), numerous high-growth entrepreneurs operating INC 5000 businesses, multi-generational family owned businesses, and primary-equity business owners who are still actively managing their companies. Severin has experience coaching both private and public company executives and their executive teams.
Severin's own coaching practice is tool based, using diagnostics, surveys, and Socratic questioning to get to root issues. You can learn more about Severin at epraxis.com (insights), LinkedIn, Quora, and Twitter. If you think you might be a good fit for executive coaching with Severin, he is happy to give you a free test drive coaching session to see if this would be good for you and your team. You can book a free test-drive 30 min coaching huddle at: calendly.com/epraxis.