Minter Dialogue with Preeti D’mello
Preeti D’mello is a passionate seeker and founder of the Fulfillment Institute, dedicated to fostering wholeness and human sustainability within organisations. Splitting time between cultures, Preeti’s life path was shaped from a young age by vivid supernatural experiences and a family culture deeply rooted in spiritual practice. Her journey took shape at the intersection of Eastern philosophy and Western psychology, as she navigated both personal growth and high-level corporate life, intent on merging inner development with effective leadership.
Our discussion delved into the real meaning of fulfilment—moving beyond the superficial hunt for happiness or status. Preeti’s philosophy pivots around the Sanskrit concept of “purna,” or wholeness, which involves bringing together all the fragmented elements of ourselves. This is not simply a personal aspiration, but for her, a systemic requirement for organisations that wish to thrive amid complexity and change. Throughout her career, including leading roles at Tata Consultancy Services with its vast workforce, Preeti has championed practices that reframe performance, resilience, and the necessary embrace of imperfection at every level of work life.
From practical frameworks for fulfilment in business settings to the vital role of leadership vulnerability, this conversation lays out new ways for individuals and leaders alike to pursue meaningful, sustainable progress.
Key Points:
- Fulfilment as a Functional Human Capacity: The discussion explored the idea that fulfilment is not a lofty ideology but a capacity inherent in all of us. Preeti uses the concept of “purna,” meaning wholeness, to challenge the common view that fulfillment is about chasing happiness or external achievement. Instead, it’s a journey of inner integration and self-acceptance.
- Structured Conversations Unlock Culture: One concept discussed was how organisational culture can be genuinely understood only through carefully structured, confidential conversations. These allow individuals to share real perspectives, highlighting key themes and pain points that quantitative metrics often miss.
- Leading Through Vulnerability and Care: A key theme that emerged was the value of leadership marked by openness, emotional awareness, and an embrace of imperfection. Stories from Preeti’s career show that leaders who display vulnerability, care, and authentic connection inspire greater performance and belonging within teams.
Takeaways:
- Organisational fulfilment is built on self-awareness, not just on outward “purpose” statements or KPIs.
- A true sense of belonging is fostered when leaders model imperfection, humanity, and attentive care for others.
- Measurable change starts with deep, structured listening—a culture of conversation, not just policy or process.
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Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).
Full transcript via Castmagic.io
Transcription courtesy of Castmagic.io, an AI full-service for podcasters
Minter Dial: Preeti D’mello. What a lovely name and tremendous to have you on the show. I’ve done a fair amount of research on your project and what you’re up to, and, and I think there’s a lot of alignment with what I’m up to, and I think this is going to be a really fun conversation, so. But in your own words, Preeti, let’s have you describe who you are.
Preeti D’mello: Well, sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to get to. But while I am a seeker, I love nature and people. And I’m very clear about the fact that I’m here to make a difference through the work I do and through the person I am.
Minter Dial: Lovely. I love the word seeker. What point in your life did it become clear to you that that was your purpose?
Preeti D’mello: Very, very early on in life? Minter. I was, I think, possibly 8 or 10 years old when I had vivid supernatural experiences. And while I didn’t understand them, but here’s the interesting thing. They didn’t. I didn’t not understand them either. There was this space in between where it was clear that I was meant to learn more about who we are as a human race, what our purpose is and the work we’ve got to do. And that’s when the journey started. I also come from a family of spiritual seekers. My parents and my entire family, my brother and sister. We’ve been in the care of a wonderful yogi since the time we were very little. So, there was no other room. I couldn’t, can’t imagine having done anything else from the time I started off, started having any kind of spiritual, supernatural experience, which then translated into psychology because that was the language that the world needed.
Minter Dial: So, there is a cultural flame that lit you up in terms of where your background.
Preeti D’mello: Yeah, I find it hard to call it cultural, because cultural would mean that it’s specific to a country or a region. And it possibly is, if I look at it from a global lens, given that I live on two sides of the fence. And yet I believe that the experiences that I had as I was growing up were so universal. They were. They were about unity. They were about the clarity of oneness. They were about engaging with each other with love and respect. And there was. They were about acknowledging that there is a greater force, a higher order, and that our purpose as human beings is to evolve and emerge, rise to our potential, and be the better versions of ourselves.
Minter Dial: Well, the reason why I sort of push into this is that I don’t feel this is a very common. You might think it’s Universal, but I don’t believe it’s particularly common and therefore it has a difference in it. And for having done a lot of discussions with a lot of people around their own purpose, I know many adults in later life who still haven’t found that purpose, much less this sense of unity and, and sort of more the approach you have to life.
Preeti D’mello: Right. You know, I, I have to say, Minter, I have struggled with this expression around purpose because for me it is, it feels a dead artificial. It’s like saying something outside of me that’s going to guide the inside of me. What, what really stands out to me is what’s happening within and then how does it manifest outside? So, you know, I’ve been a part of, and as I was growing up, trying to really deeply integrate with the world. Looking at what’s my purpose, is it human development, is it psychology, is it coaching, Is it all of the above? Is it just meditation? Or is it doing satsang and singing bhajans? I wasn’t clear. And I realized that when we allow it to emerge internally is almost like a self-guiding compass. It doesn’t need too much handholding. So, purpose on the outside really, really confuses me. And I know that there’s a lot of focus in the world around purpose today.
Minter Dial: Maybe that was, that’s my mistake. I was thinking of the descript, the description of being a seeker and, and, and leaving the world in a better place. And that sounded like the description of a. Even perhaps internally guided, but purpose all the same.
Preeti D’mello: Yes, absolutely it is. You’re absolutely right.
Minter Dial: So, in your work, you’ve obviously done a lot of work with big clients or here and around, worked within companies. And you argue that, and I’m quoting, fulfillment is a functional human capacity, not an ideology. And it’s a systemic necessity for organizations. How did you get into that and what shifted in your own practice that convinced you that it had to move from personal aspiration to organizational discipline?
Preeti D’mello: Yeah, great question. I think it was the need to earn and make a living which got me into organizational systems.
Minter Dial: Pragmatism.
Preeti D’mello: Yeah. It wasn’t anything beyond that. And eventually it was a great deal of frustration with organizational systems and looking at how leaders showed up or what the system in itself represented, I found that maturity was not a matter of position or of role. Majority came from cliched as it is the inner work that people had done on themselves. So, I had to somewhat, I would say quite like the lodge pole pine walk through the fire to recognize and understand that actually this was My beat, and the reason it was my beat is because the work was really deeply required in organizational systems. Everybody came in seeking, and I use this gently and lightly, a way to sustain their lives. People wanted to earn and make a living, to be able to do it with dignity and to contribute with care, concern, interest and success. The system, if not curated to meet the culture of growth, usually didn’t do very much to promote people in their cycle of evolution. What did happen, in fact, was that people would feel down and out. People would feel like they were not supported. You know, human resources was never quite equipped to be human resources with the expression itself needs some challenging. And out of my own inner frustration at a very young age, I came to recognize that I was on one level good at the business work I was in business to start with, that I was doing. And yet at the same time, I was going home to become spiritually whole. I couldn’t be myself at the work, couldn’t be myself at the workplace. I couldn’t be who I truly was. And these two parallel, parallel tracks that were running were, were exhausting. Well, this is when I decided to merge one with the other, recognize that one I would need to give my understanding of human development, language, which is when I went to study, I went to the west to give language. And as I did, what I found was yet another really interesting phenomenon for me, was that everything that I had learned, which wasn’t a lot, but it was plenty at that age that I’d learned about Eastern philosophy, Eastern text, Eastern spirituality, was translated so beautifully, incredibly as Western psychology
Minter Dial: Fair. So, people who are listening to this may well not be the CEO of the company, might well be someone who’s running a department or just a lower level employee in a company, and latch onto this, this idea of I need fulfillment, I need to be able to recharge my batteries. How. What sort of path can you take when you’re not the CEO to install such a philosophy that fulfillment needs to be not just within you, but aligned with what you’re doing within the company? How, how does one go about trying to inculcate that change?
Preeti D’mello: You know, one of, one of the. If I may take a couple of steps back on this because such a, such a beautiful point of discussion and topic is what is fulfillment is fulfillment? Happiness is fulfillment, contentment or satisfaction is fulfillment, acquisition, acquiring, whatever. And my definition of fulfillment comes from a Sanskrit expression which is purna. Purna stands for, loosely translated for being whole. I am complete whole and in a sense made in the reflection of what is already perfect. Now life has happened. I get fragmented. I get distorted through my life experiences, belief systems, parenting, education, socialization, and so on and so forth. The rest of our lives, we are seeking to bring back those broken parts, those fragmented parts of ourselves, to come back to being whole again, to being Poorna again. So, the first thing I would offer as advice to anybody is to recognize that fulfillment is not happiness. It’s not. It’s not getting that great cup of coffee or a great job or even a great relationship and recognizing that this is it. Fulfillment is the recognition that we have the ability to be whole within ourselves without acquiring anything whatsoever. And that pursuit, which I do believe is essentially spiritual, allows us to progress and claim it. And then there are modalities. Then there are modalities of how you get there. And they’re not complex or complicated, but they do require consistency. They do require building that muscle to be fulfilled. I also, you know, I like to say that I call it an operating system. I don’t believe it’s AI. I don’t believe it’s a state of mind. I believe it’s something you leverage to move yourself forward.
Minter Dial: So, that means have a degree of intentionality with regard to what you do with it. But for the. For those who maybe haven’t found what is their integer? What is their oneness? Obviously, that’s perhaps the starting point for anybody, because they need to do that work for themselves. You, it sounded like, had this. You got started on this path very early. I think of many teenagers who get the question, what are you going to do for your life? What are you going to do? What do you want to do for your life? I don’t know. And I would argue that there are many people who might be older in life. He says, how you. How fulfilled has your life been? Well, not that much. Burnout, divorce, lack of fulfillment. How, How. What’s the path? What’s the best path that you recommend for individuals to start with finding their own, crafting their own sense of fulfillment?
Preeti D’mello: Well, the easiest method is to contact us and work with us. But there is an even simpler method, and that is learn to sit on the mat and close your eyes and meditate. And we don’t have to go and learn meditation from anybody. It’s actually a simple enough process of learning how to focus our mind on ourselves for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, however long one can actually move in that direction. I am not suggesting that meditation will create fulfillment, but meditation will get us started. There is such a great pursuit of the external in our lives, you know, of the. The best job and the best partner and the best car and the best whatever that it is to the neglect of our own selves. When, when I speak of our inner lives, I’m really saying, am I attending to me myself? And it doesn’t come from a selfish or narcissistic lens. It’s really tending to this incredible opportunity to be human and make more of ourselves. The same applies Minter, to CEOs to say they are actually in a position of leadership and responsibility. What are you doing for people who come to you if you want growth, if you want excellence, if you want success, what are you creating? What’s your culture creating? And how are you leading people to be fulfilled, to be purna so that they can actually deliver to you what they’ve promised. I as a CEO, I as a president, I as a leader need to facilitate that. So, dynamic is very similar. And in organizations, I would say we have dual responsibility, one ongoing responsibility for self. But if you’re leaders, we also responsible for people.
Minter Dial: What I like about the way you express this Preeti, is that you’re regularly latching back onto the performance side. The very beginning you said, well I needed to earn money. So, that’s a performative side of things, if you will, or pragmatic. Anyway, when you’re doing the leadership or being in a company, you want fulfillment but you still need to make ends meet. Otherwise the business goes out of out of business. And you know, business that’s not working serves no purpose at the end of the day. So, there’s always that tension. And so, when you worked at TCS, that’s the Tata consultancy services you had, there was an enormous group of people, over half a million people. What did you learn about the limits, limits of traditional performance and resilience narratives inside large systems?
Preeti D’mello: Well, I would say this. It wasn’t just data consultancy services with folks I work today with folks I worked prior to data consultancy services. I think we’ve forgotten that people are people. We want performance, we want to offer reward. But we don’t necessarily award or recognize care. We don’t reward with care. And what people are looking for is engagement. People are looking for a sense of belonging. People are looking for a sense of hear me, see me, so that I can actually show up. I do believe that organizational systems at large, without naming any specific organization, have the same task. Engage with human beings, uphold their dignity, show care. I would go to the extent of saying show love because you know, we don’t use that word at the workplace. But the fact is that it is, it is something we all seek. And actually you win, you win through ownership, you win through excellence, you win through performance. You win through a strong sense of belonging where there is greater sense of wanting to deliver. I think it’s the motivation that comes out of how we care for our people. And I’m concerned and say this with intention. It’s not woohoo. It’s actually scientific. This is not all right, you know, here’s somebody who has had a guru since she was 12 years old and thus she believes in these amorphous ideas. Actually, it’s a scientific idea that when people have a stronger sense of belonging and care, they deliver.
Minter Dial: Well, I have my friend Mitch Joel, fellow podcaster, who’s had a couple of guests on his show, and I have had a couple as well who do promote this idea of love in business. And the idea, it feels like there’s a lot of calls for it from outside, but there’s rarely expressions of it from within. And when you’re doing your work, Preeti with a company, to what extent it’s possible to actually make that sense of fulfillment come around if and when the CEO doesn’t subscribe to a more honest version of him or herself? Yeah,
Preeti D’mello: if I may build on that, it’s hard to be a CEO. It’s hard to be inside an organization. It’s hard to be reporting into a board of directors. The world is a mess today. So, organizations being reflections of a larger system have the same how are they going to deliver? What about revenues? Are they profitable? What about cash flow? So, this problem, they are dealing with a different kind of problem. We are offering a different kind of service. Both you and I, we are sitting on the outside and saying, hey, how do we, how do we come in and help you actually do better? But they are, their stakes are way higher. And I recognize that even though they might have good intent, they’re unable to show up because they’re conflicting priorities or at least competing priorities. In situations where we don’t have what I call the fulfillment ear of the CEO or the leader, we will meet them where they’re at and start with them where they want to start. But I do know that the eventual result, and we would measure the result, will be around how fulfilled are your people. So
Minter Dial: naturally this requires a level of vulnerability to be exposed to expose to your boss. Well, I will feel fulfilled if. And the more that there’s psychological safety around the expression of what I would feel fulfilled with, the the more Chances there’ll be a real conversion, a real energy burst. Yet, like you were saying a little bit before, it can be a side hustle. I. I’ll go to my job 9 to 5 and in the evening I’ll do my gardening. And that’s where I get my real fulfillment. But how to bring the gardening into work and sometimes feel, well, I actually need to leave this place. So, how do you walk that thin line between what I feel is personal fulfillment and stay within the, the garden, the wall anyway, of the business? Right.
Preeti D’mello: Well, for one, I think it’ll be a great challenge if everybody came up with their idea of fulfillment and the CEO had to meet 650,000 people saying, you know what? I need gardening and I need fishing and I need this or I need that. So, there has to be a framework. And the framework that we follow at the fulfillment institute is to say we call it the four dimensional framework, which is saying your relationship with yourself. So, self and self. So, it’s a little self and the big self. Self in relationships and relationships are usually partnership, family, community, friends, self in work, which is everything about work, including workplace relationships and self in nature. To me, this is a strong and solid framework that allows people to access all parts of themselves. Now, in that four dimensional framework, I, I might turn around and say, you know what, in self and self, I need more time in my garden and that’s for me to create. But for the what’s for the CEO to create is self and work. What’s for the CEO to create or support, if not create, is self and relationships. Example. I remember the time where I was within organizational systems and if anybody applied for leave, I would absolutely never negotiate dates, number of days or anything like that. Primarily because I believe that that is the time people must have for themselves. I insisted that if we were on virtual calls and children came on calls, we would continue to have a conversation with children on calls. Or for that matter, if people wanted to work from home or had familial responsibilities and parents going for their children’s performances, etc. Etc. Now, the workplace culture defines that, so there will be overlaps. You know, what we do well at work will affect our relationships. What I do well with myself will impact my work. My, the part about nature for me is by the same nature where we really stand for, for the universe, for cosmos, for everything that is beyond human creation and thus stepping into all four. And it might not be in an absolute, balanced or equal fashion, but to be aware that we draw our nourishment and our way forward in life from these four dimensions.
Minter Dial: You’ve used the word perfect previously in our discussion. And I wonder where or how imperfection sits in this quest for Purna.
Preeti D’mello: That’s as much a part of part of me as perfection is to be whole. I don’t need to be spiffy, clean to be whole. My triggers, my upsets, my not so great behaviors, all are part of that same old being. And the acceptance of that allows me to work on what needs my attention.
Minter Dial: And that goes for a CEO as well.
Preeti D’mello: It goes for all human beings. CEO is just a role.
Minter Dial: But all human beings, well, this leads to the, the issue that often can come up with, which is the sense of authority, the credibility. And look at me. I’m. I’m going to lead by example. And it requires a certain vulnerability and space to allow for me if I’m to explain to others what is fulfillment for me, where I am aware of my purna, my imperfections, to be able to say, well, you know, sometimes I have a. I get very angry about, let’s say a football match that really gets me angry or whatever. Then if you lose, if your team loses the match the night before and you come into the office and you’re in a bad mood, well, it’s that typical humanity, the messy humanness, which I feel is a. Creates a lot of fear in organizations. And to allow for a little bit more of that acceptance of imperfection and fear or failure, which. It feels like a slippery slope, once I start doing it, oh, I can keep on going. And then where does it go? And then how do I stop it? When everyone else is complaining or showing their imperfections and everyone’s crying and, and humanity is, is bursting at the seams everywhere. It can, it can feel overwhelmingly messy. So, how do you react to that? How do you try to find, is that ever something that you’ve heard explained? And, and if not, don’t you think it’s something that people are feeling within leadership positions?
Preeti D’mello: People are most certainly feeling that leadership positions in family systems, as executives, as employees, more so now than ever. I’m reminded of a story, and this was, this was about over a decade back. I work for a large media company and there were two leaders in the company. One was a senior person. They called him a chair for chairman. Chairman. But I think his role really was government relations. And then there was the CEO of that company, the person whose job was to network in government relations. He was a nasty piece of work. He was difficult, he was rude, he was pretentious. He was very, very conscious of who he was, his position, his role, and how he was projecting himself. And not just that he wanted to control how others were responding to him. Clearly, he didn’t get the kind of attention he wanted because people were. People withdrew from him. On the other hand, there was the CEO, who continues to be one of my most loved examples of great leadership. He was friendly, he was on top of his game. He was relaxed. He would. He had a guitar in his office, and he would play the guitar between meetings with his door open. He was trying to lose weight, so he would wear those weight ankles around his ankles and go for a walk around the office. And we would all laugh because when he didn’t have them on, his legs would go higher than usual. But most importantly, he was approachable and he stood for what was right. And he spoke of when things were not right. He wanted to work with everybody. He wanted to work with those who were doing really well. He wanted to work with those who were going wrong. He wanted to work with those who had offended somebody and those who were offended. So, the. So, the two presented really, you know, two ends of the spectrum. And interestingly, this was the time I took my decision. This is the time I was going home to be follow my spiritual practice. It gave me hope. You know, one gave me hope and the other gave me what I don’t want to be or, you know, what we need to watch out for.
Minter Dial: That’s a lovely story. Sounds like someone you’d like to meet. My anecdote comes the thought I’ve had, and I’ve had numerous conversations on my show over the years about Indian leadership and the greater representation Amongst the Fortune 500 companies in the United States, where the leadership, the leader, the CEO, is of Indian descent. So, I feel like that there’s something underneath that I’d love to illuminate. But more, let’s say prosaically, you’ve warned that organizations that really run after extracting performance while eroding human sustainability, if inner capacity and identity coherence is ignored, you’re going to get an erosion of performance. And so, if you are in front of a board or someone is listening to this, is saying, well, something that we haven’t done, are we just running after performance at our own risk here? What kind of signals? What are the ways that you understand or can measure whether erosion’s underway? And on the other side, where whether fulfillment is up, are there measurement techniques or things that you can maybe highlight? Because everyone likes to have benchmarks and KPIs
Preeti D’mello: well, actually they’re pretty obvious ones. One is, what is the representation in your organization with the men, women, diversity at large. An organization that has a good mix of diversity is usually one where there is voice, where there’s psychological safety, then there are other HR matrices such as attrition, such as, or retention for that matter. Escalation. How many issues come up and how often, how do they engage when things go down? What are the, you know, is somebody recording that and reporting that? And I think it’s essentially what I would do is measure the culture of an organization and report it back to them. We like to measure culture through conversations and then actually drawing intelligence out of those conversations to really say when people are fulfilled, they’re performing. So, if you see that, and this is in today’s world, performance also has a, has a strange, has become a strange expression because we talk about performance and we talk about unreasonable targets. Everybody wants, you know, we’re not looking at 10% growth. Everybody’s looking at way higher year on year growth. For those folks, I really don’t have an answer. But for those who have a reasonable target and if they feel like they’re not being able to meet the, the direction they’ve set for themselves, lack of performance is a, is a warning sign. Lack of being able to meet our objectives is a warning sign for, for an organization that has the ability to deliver its promise. And usually the problem is unfulfilled employee base.
Minter Dial: So, if I hear you right, it’s your, the main method is through conversations, or at least you use conversations to be able to figure out where we’re at in the culture. And I’ve spent a lot of time and love to have conversations, but I’m wondering if someone who’s listening to this is thinking, well, what sort of conversations should I be having in order to better understand? Because it’s very quick to. If you’re the boss, you go in and you say I want to have a conversation. And you’re going to frame it with a question or you’re going to start the. Start it. And how you start it will entirely indicate how it will continue because you’re, you’re leading. So, I want to have a conversation, but I don’t want to be guiding the conversation. I want to have a conversation. I want to understand the culture, but I don’t want to be asking too many pointed questions. Keep them open, open. And do I have enough time to listen to the one hour monologue that comes out of it as opposed to a conversation so give us some ideas of how to structure a better conversation that allows for individuals, leaders to understand better what’s going on and understand where this fulfillment is within the organization.
Preeti D’mello: Well, the key word is structure, that these are structured conversations, not open-ended conversations because we might not get much out of those. And what might that structure look like? One is that our questions within those conversations might be open ended. At the same time, being bold about how we ask the questions is essential to receiving. You know, it’s like saying people grow in the direction of the questions they’re asked. They’re not going to go in that direction. If you ask them soft footed, diplomatic, sweet and kind questions, sometimes you need to ask them very, very directly, I notice. Would you help me understand and let people step into what they think? What also helps in the conversations that we hold is to make sure that they’re confidential and we actually like to write a contract on that to say this is a confidential conversation. We are here to understand through your lens the culture of the organization. We don’t believe that I, you know, for instance, if I was to do a synopsis for a CEO, I’m most certainly not going to her with a report that says, you know what, Preeti said this and Minter said this. And it’s actually an analysis. These are the five themes that run across your 25 leaders. This is what people feel. Now there have been cases where the CEO has said, get all 25 into a room. And who said this? And do you really believe that that happens too? But there have been more cases where they’ve sat back and said, I need to understand this better.
Minter Dial: Yeah, you, in your work, it seems that you stress perspective, perspective taking rather than being prescriptive. And so, the, the challenge can be, well, when, when you’re hired Preeti, so it says, come in and make, make my company my culture better. Make my team fulfilled and get that energy that we need. How do you, how do you respond to them in a way that remains their responsibility or at least a. More of a shared responsibility as opposed to some sort of quick fix or, you know, a, a structured program. It, it, it’s messy. You know, hu. The, the messiness of humanity just can’t be a program. It’s, it’s more like just a way of living. Right?
Preeti D’mello: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s usually a mix. I would say there could be a structure program with enough flexibility within it for everybody to be able to define maybe not the process, but their journey through that process. Human evolution, human development is Not a quick fix. And you said it. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not like, oh, they’re going to come into eight coaching sessions. One learning session, out they go, and they’re spiffy new. They’re now they’ll be able to, you know, conduct themselves differently and work differently, and they’re new versions of themselves. It’s not going to happen. In fact, what learning or even coaching and which is my preferred modality of learning provides is a new sensibility and a new awareness which needs to be taken into practice. Now, again, organizational systems don’t stress enough on practice, which is why I believe that when initiatives are systemic, where we believe that the entire system is promising to create a shift, then the possibility of change or evolution of that organization is way higher. But for those organizations that believe that a great workshop where the best people in the world or, you know, a couple of coaching sessions are going to help the leaders evolve into, into beings that they thought they were, is not. Is not going to happen. I think holding space and time for people to evolve with the understanding that this process of evolution is going to get them to the next version while they commit to and provide what needs to be done today. Because we’ve got to look at both sides of the coin. It really can’t be that the organization suffers because the person is evolving and the person is like, okay, good, great. I’ve now got mentors coaching me and I’ve got three months off essentially of work. So, how do we balance both. And that polarity of who I am and what my promise is today and who I intend to be and what’s my potential tomorrow have to both be held. And that’s the majority of the organization, the leader and people have to be held accountable for that.
Minter Dial: So, this is a little bit of a story, but. And it describes how I got to a particular viewpoint, which is when I became naturalized as a French citizen, they gave me a day of civil study, which essentially consisted of the history of France, politics of France and geography of France. And they, in the day, they tried to explain to us what it was to be French. And I was like, well, that’s crazy because that’s not the French or the France that I know. Anyway, this led me to think, well, it would be good to explain to French what is France or what we’re. What we’re saying to the outside is at the same time, when you’re in a business, the. So, this turned me into an exercise which is where I, I look at with the Team, I say, well, who do we want to hire? What is the perfect candidate to hire? And then, then I, when we’ve got that figured out, I said, well, are we that us ourselves? And is that so? Obviously I’m looking, I push into who is the ideal candidate. So, for you, the example or the question then as I drop down into this is if you can imagine a job description which wasn’t just looking for skills and experience, but had capacity fulfillment as a requirement, what would you look for in an interview to assess that capacity?
Preeti D’mello: You know, one is, I want to thank you for using the word capacity for fulfillment and not capability for fulfillment. So, thank you for that. Because it really is a human capacity, not as, not a qualification or a certification or skill. But the one or two things that come to mind right away is one is how does somebody work with complexity? And the other, other attribute, so to speak, that would, that comes up for me is what happens when they are in the middle of conflict.
Minter Dial: Can you unpack a little bit that notion of why is complexity kind of a inside scoop on my capacity fulfillment?
Preeti D’mello: Well, because my context, the human context is complex. We are living everyday lives, navigating relationships, navigating jobs, navigating the state of the world, feeling emotions all the time, yearning for a better life, not necessarily finding an easy path to our dreams and desires. Over and above the fact that we live in a war-torn world, we’re looking at technology taking a whole new journey with AI. We’re looking at climate change, we’re looking at inflation, we’re looking at, you know, we’re looking at recession coming our way, all of that maybe war and ongoing wars. Ongoing wars. We also looking at history, we also looking at where we come from, what happened to our countries, what happened to our people, and thus how are we processing all of that. And some of it is conscious and a lot of it is unconscious. Conscious or subconscious. And thus there is complexity. Have people come to a place where they have developed their own path to working or navigating with complexity? And sometimes it might be taking a pause and taking a breath and stepping back and then seeing what am I going to do? Or are these people collapsing when there is, when the situation gets too complex?
Minter Dial: Which leads somewhat into the second idea, the second question, which is how do you deal with conflict?
Preeti D’mello: You know, so conflict to me is slightly different because complexity is external and internal conflict to me is a lot more internal than external. Might, might, will manifest externally, but the workings of conflict lie within us is to recognize our own humanness and that of the other. Are these people willing to. Not take things personally? Are they willing to work with or develop multiple perspectives around issues? Are they willing to set aside their ego? Are they willing to recognize that forgiveness and apologies actually help build bridges? Or are these people stuck in their notion of what is right and wrong and this can’t move? People get immobilized in relationships because they’re not happy with the way they got feedback, or they’re not happy with the way with the fact that they were called out, or they’re not happy with the way right or wrong with the way they were spoken to. Our ability to make things work and recognize that everything is workable, I think is one of the greatest, greatest work ethics that I would look for.
Minter Dial: Well, it sounds like an ejection of ego at some level. And I have a framework which I call the Czech framework, C H E C K, where you go curiosity, humility, empathy, courage, and karma. And those are the expressions that I look for the people I work with around me anyway. And it helps to, let’s say, orient the questions. Let’s go with one last question. So, many people who will be listening hopefully have found their path to fulfillment or, or know where it is, even as imperfect as it may be. I was just thinking about how they have the, you know, that Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, which is the broken pottery. How we are all a little broken within. That’s the imperfection side within purna, I assume. But a lot of people will be having kids and so often it feels like the conversation is, are you studying something that’ll get you a job as opposed to already on the path towards some kind of fulfillment? Do you think that there’s a, A way for kids today, teenagers, to get on that path and be the better for it before the end of the company. Or do they kind of need to face the uncomfortable fact, which they don’t know enough about themselves? They. This is their journey and they’re going to have to suck it up and work within a company and figure out how to fit within the pragmatism and the performance of a company before they start saying, well, I want. Wait, I want fulfillment.
Preeti D’mello: I think it’s a bit of both. But there’s. There’s another facet to this, and that is parents. I think we’ve done our kids such an incredible disservice by giving them more than what they asked for, by never saying no, by not building a resilience muscle, by offering them unearned comforts, you know, the Number of children I know who do not do any chores around their homes because. Or YouTube.
Minter Dial: Oh, I. I mean, I. I see it all the time.
Preeti D’mello: Yeah.
Minter Dial: My goodness.
Preeti D’mello: And, you know, I think the generations that came through that learned how to work hard and deal with complexity and deal with conflict and learn how to work with their own inner stuff were generations that were taught how to do that. I think the. The. At the. In the current times, we haven’t done a good enough job. So, the. The. The folks who are, you know, young, Young recruits going into the workplace will have to suck it up and learn how to make it work. And there will be a state of, oh, my God, I don’t know how to make it work. And thus, you know, for people like us will need to step in to say, all right, we learned this, and here’s how we can offer it to you. One of the things I would say is when you were mentioning your model, I remember a model that I work with that I wrote. It’s called Spark. And S stands for stories. B stands for working with paradoxes, which is complexity. A stands for what are your aspirations? Who do you want to be? R stands for resonance. What are your relationships? Who. Your connections? It really cannot be only social media. And C, which was essentially in version 1.0, was karma. I. I changed it to consciousness. Over time, as my work grew, I moved it to consciousness. But I think it has consciousness and karma in some sense or the other. And my karma in this is to recognize that while I’d like my work to be sustainable and fun for itself, but that’s not making or breaking it. This work was going to continue one way or the other. So, there are kids in the world who need help. We’ll step in and help. If there are people who need help, we’ll step in and help. And before I go, I want to share with you that there is. We run a course certification program, and last batch, we had six returning citizens from la, and I am so proud to see what they’ve made of themselves and who they’ve become. These are people who were in prison for 30 years, 16 years. And they’re now certified coaches who will offer themselves to the. To their communities.
Minter Dial: That’s a beautiful story. All right, Preeti, many, many thanks for coming on, sharing your wisdom, your approach, which I feel has at once a bigger sense of purpose in my words, but also a detailed level of pragmatism around performance. How can someone find out more about the Fulfillment Institute Contact you follow, you write, read. You read up about what you do. What would be the best points of action for people to do right now?
Preeti D’mello: Well, we are on Instagram under the handle of Choose Fulfillment. We are on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn, the company. The Fulfillment Institute is on LinkedIn and there’s a website which is the fulfillmentinstitute.com one way or the other. If anyone was to reach out, we’d be very happy to engage and respond.
Minter Dial: Multi. Thanks. Thank you, pt.
Preeti D’mello: Thank you, Minter for a lovely conversation.
Minter Dial
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