Melody Wilding: I’m a competitive person, which oddly enough is hard for me to admit because I also pride myself on being someone who is considerate of others, generous, who lifts other people up and celebrates them. But I can’t deny that I am always pushing myself to do more, to outwork everyone else, and frankly, get all of the gold stars that I possibly can.

And this has been true for years that I am motivated by this underlying need to feel like I have been picked, recognized, that I am valued. My competitiveness, it has definitely helped get me where I am today. I am ruthlessly disciplined and consistent, but as we often talk about here on this show, any strength can become a hindrance.

My drive absolutely comes back to bite me sometimes. It can leave me feeling totally deflated when I feel as if I’m falling behind, I’m not measuring up. I am overlooked for something that I thought I deserved. As uncomfortable as it is to admit all of this, I bet you relate. At least in some part. You have also probably internalized a competitive mindset in your career too, even if you don’t consider yourself to be a competitive person.

Just think about it, how often are you assessing where you stand at work? Does that senior leader like me better than my colleague? What rating did I get on my review compared to everyone else? When your coworker gets promoted, do you immediately start wondering why it wasn’t you?

When someone else’s project gets greenlit and your doesn’t, are you dissecting what they did that you didn’t? Or maybe you’re in a meeting, someone shares an idea that gets praised and your first thought is, I had that idea three weeks ago. Why didn’t anybody listen when I said it? We are constantly comparing, constantly evaluating our status, measuring ourselves against these invisible benchmarks, and it’s exhausting.

It wastes so much energy. 

Today’s episode is all about loosening your grip on that doggedness, to create a more peaceful, sustainable path to success that doesn’t involve being obsessed with always being the best. 

 I am speaking to Ruchika t Malhotra, the founder of candor, which is a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the biggest organizations in the world, and she’s also the author of Inclusion on Purpose, an Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work. The topic of our conversation today though is her new book, which is called Uncompete Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success.

The conventional wisdom says you need to push harder, be more aggressive. Play the political game where it is winner take all. But is that true? She’s going to offer us a different way forward. Let’s dive in.​

 Ruchika, thank you so much for joining me today on the show. I’m so happy to have you here.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: So thrilled to be here. Melody with you.

Melody Wilding: Now, the topic of your new book, the title is called Uncompete, which is a very interesting word in itself, and I wanna start there. How do you define what it means to uncompete? You came up with that word, right?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: I did, I did. I will always find it a little surreal that someone who was told by their kindergarten English teacher that this, this kid will probably never really be able to speak English well, is now, has now, sent off to the US Trademark Office, a request to put this, um, you know, and have it attributed to me.

But, Uncompete essentially is a concept, a philosophy, a way of being, which truly rejects the idea that competition at all costs, zero sum thinking, winner take all approaches in life is the way to win. And instead embraces principles like collaboration, community, an abundance mindset.

Basically this idea that you don’t really have to elbow others out for scarce resources to win, which, is both something that I think good research, anecdotes and my own experience backs up and is still really, really hard to do.

Melody Wilding: Yes, and I, I wanna dig into that ’cause I think for a lot of people there is this tension of, I want to be someone who embraces this uncompete mindset, but what implications might that have for my career growth, my advancement, my status, and reputation? So we’ll unpack that in just a little bit, but I do wanna hear about your personal experiences with this, because I have to imagine there is, there, in my case, I teach what I most need to learn. So for you, what drew you to this topic and really got you interested in this idea of uncompete?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah. Thank you for asking because I think the seeds were planted in my childhood and then very much reinforced as I came up in the world. But, I’m a child of immigrants. I was born and brought up in Singapore. I noticed a very different approach in life from my parents. My father, was a greedy capitalist, very much focused on out-competing other people, elbowing others out of the way to be financially successful. And my mother really, continues to model, a mindset of abundance and collaboration. And really what I have tried to capture in the philosophy of un compete in the way of being.

And so I already saw two very different ways of being in life. and indeed, the competitive ways, the sort of, constantly wondering where do you stack rank and who can you elbow out of the way? And all of that was very much, shown to me and then, and then very much exacerbated throughout my education, and then I went to two well-known universities.

Again, this idea of like, where do you rank in this very competitive system? Then I went on to be a business journalist where I, I worked around the world. And again, this idea of like, who breaks the story first? Who does a better job? When I was in financial journalism, who moved to the market because of their story, that’s what matters the most.

And so I was getting those signals again and again that competition is the most important way to be. And it’s, you know, you don’t even question the ends always justifies the means type of, approach. And I still couldn’t get out of my mind but there has to be a different way, like what I’m noticing in being super hyper ambitious, hyper focused on being successful, always wanting to be the best, all of that.

The fallout of that is, I’m lonely and I’m burnt out. And I’m stressed and anxious all the time. I live all the time with this feeling that everything’s gonna be taken away from me all the time. Or I constantly gotta be on. Gotta respond to every email as it comes in. And eventually it became unsustainable.

And a very long-winded way of saying that once I started really noticing like how does competition and the norms of competition and the myths of competition, as I now write in the book show up in my life, as I started noticing, I felt like it was very important to choose a different way.

And the more I did it, the more, actually a lot of the goals that I had for myself, for my life started becoming even more true. Whether that was business growth, whether that was, feeling like building an abundant community, whether that was build, building wealth. I mean, a lot of what I had envisioned for my life really came true when I moved away from feeling like competition was the only way to get there.

Melody Wilding: I resonate with your personal story so much. I don’t think I have become as enlightened as you have.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: It’s a practice. It’s a constant work in progress. I wouldn’t always say that, but

Melody Wilding: Exactly. Exactly. And like you said, it’s so embedded in everything we do. I mean, you open your phone and every social media app, how many likes did I get versus this person and just everything, even your, I’m thinking of like financial apps. When you open in, am I doing better than I was yesterday?

Everything is evaluation. Where do I stand? How do I stack up? The thing that struck me as you were talking is in many instances, especially in the workplace, there are not clear standards of who is better than who. It’s often subjective and the goalpost is always moving, right? It’s not that when we’re in school, you either get the a plus or you don’t.

You land somewhere on that A to F scale, it’s very clear cut, you know what the measurement of success and competition is. But as adults, especially when we’re interacting with other people, so much of that there is not a measuring stick. So it’s even, what are we competing against it?

It just struck me, I don’t know if you have a response to that. It’s not the most fully formed thought I have, but it struck me that, wow, I spend so much of my life and my time competing against, what? This imaginary standard that I’ve made up in my mind.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah, I love this question and it’s very, it’s actually very profound. It’s at the heart of what I’m trying to do, which is to say, I mean it, takes me all the way to chapter nine because I think that’s how much work we need to do. So towards the end of the book, do I say, let’s sit down and define success for ourselves.

let’s sit down and ask what do I want to live a life that I have dreamt of. What does it really mean? Does that mean, how much actual money do I need in the bank? How much actual, what title do I like? What impact do I wanna make in the world? And I think most of us don’t ask that because we just haven’t been conditioned to think like that or to ask those questions.

Or maybe we’re too scared and so we operate on autopilot, right? If there’s, if we’re at our job and there’s a promotion and my, it could be me and a really close friend who I’ve collaborated with. I’ve built a great relationship with this colleague who has now become a good friend.

But hey, there’s only one promotion. So sharp elbows out. Instead of stopping and asking like, what’s at, what’s the cost of that? What do I really want? What matters more that promotion or the relationship we’ve been conditioned to believe? Nope, it’s only the, it’s the promotion. It doesn’t matter what you do to get there.

 And so I think there’s a big part of this, which is about redefining success and that’ll help us hopefully manage these feelings of not being worthy or not being enough. The other side of this that I think especially relates to the workplace is how much the myth of meritocracy is something we, we deal with all the time.

 And I think this is where I really, again, in for this, I started the book quite early on talking about where there are more perfect competitions that exist in society. I talk about the Olympics. Very clearly defined rules. In a perfect world, and again, you can, there’s still nuance to that, right? Like when you pick, athletes from two different countries, one may be really well resourced, may have had all the equipment, while they were training versus many, many countries. We’ve read about these incredible athletes who compete for the first time on the Olympic track with shoes for the first time that they run with shoes, for example. Or in an Olympic sized swimming pool. They’ve never, ever swam in a. In a big Olympic sized pool, which then they go on to compete in. So even then you can argue that nothing is a perfect competition, but at least in those, the playing field is mostly level, right? Like you are, the rules are very clearly defined. If you do this, you’re disqualified. If you do this, you’re qualified. Like all of these things. Nothing in life operates like that. We know so many people in the workplace who, are told like, the way you’re gonna get ahead is you get these great degrees. You do all these awesome things. You lead the meetings, you do all of that.

And then there’s so many, especially people who lives have been impacted by bias or by, other sorts of situations and circumstances which make it so that you could do all the things you think you’re competing, but the goalpost keeps moving. And so I, I think that there is a lot of layers to this and therefore, I think when we start to claim for ourselves, what does success look like for us? What does collective success look like? What does impact look like? I think those questions are much more powerful and again, have a long-term impact than just the next thing. Oh, there’s a, promotion competition here, and I gotta compete.

Melody Wilding: You were mentioning the myth of meritocracy, which, yes, a lot of us are under that illusion. If I just do a good job, I’ll be recognized for it.

What are some of those other beliefs around competition that may show up for someone in their career, in the workplace help us unpack some of those?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah. One of the most pervasive myths in, especially in a workplace setting, is the idea that if I don’t compete, someone else will win. And that’s just the way. The, it’s literally, it’s the water we swim and it’s how we do things. And if I don’t compete, I’ll be left behind. And I actually found again and again, both in corporate workplace settings where, companies were able to make huge impacts.

I looked at Project Aristotle, which was a study done by Google. They looked at all their highest performing, most innovative teams, highest growth teams across this huge organization, and found that really there was only one thing all those teams had in common. And it was that their, those teams experienced psychological safety or felt like their teammates had their backs, essentially.

 So there’s, the idea is I bet I better compete with everyone else, otherwise I’ll get left behind. But actually time and again, research has shown both in workplace settings for me as an entrepreneur, there was this time when I set up my consulting business that the idea was, oh my gosh, if someone else gets a big contract, that means I’ve lost that contract.

And then really changing and evolving my mindset to be like, no, we need a referral network. We need to cheer each other on. We need to speak others’ names. When clients come to us and there’s an opportunity that we can’t fill for whatever reason, or isn’t the right fit for us. and referring out business doesn’t mean our business is gonna suffer.

And I think that there’s this idea that if you don’t compete, there’s just no other way. That’s a myth that I think I’d really love to see at least more of us question. I think the other one is the idea that, competition makes us more innovative. And I think again, not only does Project Aristotle at Google sort of, 

show a very research backed way of saying, actually that’s not true. But even if you think about some of the most impactful innovations in society, the human Genome sequencing project, so many things, even organizations like NASA, it really does come from cross sector collaboration, from really this idea that

you can’t do these big things alone, and you certainly can’t do these big things by elbowing others out of the way.

So I do think that there’s a lot more that we need to unpack, again, as individuals, as well as workplace norms and societal norms. But it does come from this, I think from this base core, fear-based scarcity mindset.

There’s very few resources. Compete or die. Compete or perish, and again, really wanna push back against those ideas.

Melody Wilding: And it, it reminds me of, I’ve done a lot of research on confidence and the relationship with self-compassion, and one of the most striking things I remember from that is when you are in a self-critical mode, most of us think. You, you should be harsh on yourself to make yourself better at something, right?

You can do better than that. We beat ourselves up. That actually puts our brain into a fear state, right? Where we’re operating from our amygdala, not our frontal cortex, where all of our self-control is. And when we’re more self-compassionate, doesn’t mean we let ourselves off the hook, but we just have a more understanding perspective of. What happened there? What can we do better next time? What else would you say to someone in your shoes?

And it reminds me of the similar research there, that if we’re in this scarcity mindset, then we may be in that fear state where we’re even blocking some of our best thinking because we’re in that all or nothing, it’s black or white, I win or I lose sort of mentality. It’s this hyper vigilance. Almost to the point where you have blinders on and you can’t see other options or other considerations. So that’s really interesting.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: I am so glad you said that, Melody. Can I use a quick example that’s hopefully a little more, feels more a lot more people can resonate with it rather than these big picture, human genome sequencing and whatnot? You are so right about the fear-based, and I wanna talk more about that.

Like for me, it’s been a constant struggle to find time to prioritize my health, right? Because I’m like, no, work matters most, gotta be always on. And if I’m not on, then I’m also parenting now a 9-year-old son. So the idea is okay, it’s one or the other. That’s it. Nothing, no time for myself. So I’ve had a very difficult relationship with this idea of going to the gym and, sort of prioritizing health practices, gym, yoga, et cetera, things like that. Eating, healthfully.

And what I started noticing is that for decades on end, due to conditioning, I would approach my going to the gym with a very fear-based comparison, competitive based mindset, right? Telling myself like, you’re not good enough. Constantly going to the gym. And then feeling really bad about the fact that I’m not making the types of progress I want to. And what that would create is this like cycle of being very on and going too hard at the gym for a while, and then for weeks on end, falling off this sort of quote unquote wagon because I’d be like, I’m just not good enough and now I feel terrible about myself, so now I’m not gonna go.

And you’re nodding, ’cause you know this well, like with the research you have, you’ve done. That constant swinging, being off, being on, being off comes from fear and from comparison. And oh, I’m not as good as this person. Or, oh, I should have done this and I’m so terrible.

And about a few years ago, I think it was a couple of years after we went into, in the pandemic and locked down and I had some major health, issues. I started like really trying to change my relationship with my health and saying to myself like, I’m doing this not to compare, not to compete, not to be better than anyone else, not to even be better than myself.

this is a practice I’m doing for myself and I’m going to commit to it. That’s it. No results, no scales, no am I tracking how much higher I’m lifting, or how many more pushups I’m doing and what that is. Resulted in is three years of being really consistent in health practices.

And so what I wanna say is like this idea that like fear motivates us to do better is something that I, I worry deeply about, and especially for those of us who live complicated, busy lives, whether you’re caregiving, whether you have other things going on, whether you have, you wanna build your business and also be present for yourself. Fear is not gonna help us get there.

Melody Wilding: So true, so true. And I think many of the people who listen to this show are compassionate people by nature. They consider themselves maybe even pride themselves on being someone who is collaborative, who is more community minded, is more empathetic. But they’re afraid that if they let go of that competitive mindset that they’re going to totally fall behind.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Hmm

Melody Wilding: What do you say, I’m sure you’ve encountered people like this who are saying, but I’m scared of letting go. How do you balance those two things?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah. I mean, it comes from a deep, set fear and a deep set need for control. Which I think has so many negative impacts on us as humans, as individuals within our community. I think it makes it very hard to fully engage whether it’s for compassion to yourself or compassion to others.

I think it’s very hard to engage in building a beautiful, abundant community if you’re not able to change that relationship with that fear of competition.

So again, like my core advice on this is I’d love people to start noticing how competition shows up in their lives and then making a very active choice whether to compete or not, right?

And I will never say to someone, don’t compete in a situation or don’t, put your name up for promotion or anything like that because you’re competing with someone else. I’ll never say to anyone that’s the way to approach it. I think we don’t spend enough time asking like, what is the fallout of that?

We also, in operating with that fear, we don’t get creative. Are there other ways to approach this? The promotion example is the one which I think is often, this idea of two people being pitted against each other for a promotion. I think in just, co-opting into that and throwing our hat into the ring into a process like that, we actually block creativity around how do we maybe restructure this process, so it isn’t a competition? Is there a way to expand the role? Is there a way to co-own the role. I think there’s a lot more interesting research being done on like co-CEOs and co-ownership models. One of my favorite pieces of research is by now prize winning, Nobel Prize winning economist Claudia Golden, who looked at how, especially in when pharmacists do something called job sharing, it actually helps eliminate the gender wage gap because you can literally take your job

 you work a certain number of hours and then there’s someone who comes in and does your job right, like when you are off. And that really helps eliminate the fact that, you gotta be always on and always competing and really stressed out all the time. I think we can all identify with how much that has ravaged our lives right now.

So that’s what I would say. There’s a lot more nuance to it, which is hard to capture in a podcast. But, I try and go into a lot more detail in the book on this.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Do you have any other examples that come to mind of what embracing an uncompete mindset looks like in the workplace? I love that idea of the co-lead type of idea that that’s something that’s so practical that people could consider. Are there any other use cases applying uncompete in the workplace that you’ve seen?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah. One of my favorite tips, which is, we could do so much more of is this concept of called amplification. And it’s a tool that was used in one of the previous White House administrations. Which is when, women, staffers started noticing that when they would share ideas in meetings, they’d get talked over or it wouldn’t get heard until a man said it.

And so the women banded together and they came up with a strategy, which was to say, I share an idea in the meeting.  It’s almost like passing the baton and making sure that, the idea doesn’t slip away. So I’ll say the idea and then Melody will quickly, say, Ruchika, that was a fantastic idea.

Here’s what I think. And build on that. And in many ways it’s making sure that our voices and the credit doesn’t get unheard. Which we know, again, looking at researcher on gender bias. Very big issue in the workplace. So that’s one thing that I really, think, is one very practical way of making sure you uncompete.

Another way that I love is by research, called micro validations, which is like an antidote to microaggressions by Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts and, her team of researchers. And it’s this idea of how do we ensure that we don’t, in many ways perpetuate biases or perpetuate these ideas of ranking where one person or one group is much more superior to the other.

And so one of the ways that we can use micro validations is to say things like, make sure we affirm and acknowledge people’s presence in the workplace that we work with. And really work to find ways to ensure that everyone feels welcome and like they belong. Inclusion is a very big tenet of uncompete that I write about in the book.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Love that. Such a great. Example, I do wanna put myself in the shoes of someone who may be listening to this who says, I love all of this, but I have colleagues who have sharp elbows. What do I do when I have to work with this type of person? They seem to go above me, around me. They cut me out of a process.

What do I do when I seem to be the only one embracing that uncompete mindset and I’m dealing with those, those people who don’t.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah, that’s really tough. I have to say that one of the things that I find very important in this work is the importance of self-compassion and the boundaries you create to protect yourself. One of the principles of uncompete is radical generosity, and that includes radical generosity to yourself.

And often that has meant, especially in a wider spectrum, and I can do this as a business owner, so I understand there’s a lot more privilege there than perhaps if I was day in, day out working with a colleague. But I have really distanced myself with people who don’t have the uncompete mindset in some way.

They may not call it that. It’s, it’s a newer concept, obviously, but when I see people operating from, selfishness and scarcity and fear-based and cutting each other out and, working around each other, all of that. It is a practice of radical generosity for myself to, to create some space and distance from people like that.

And I’ve been lucky to be able to do that largely, especially in the work I do and even in a lot of my social relationships, which is difficult. By no means is it easy. I think it’s very important to make sure that you create an environment that allows you then to uncompete with others and practice radical generosity. Which is very difficult if you’re only constantly trying to navigate relationships where you are constantly stressed and constantly feeling like you gotta be fearful and, look out over your shoulder.

I think in the workplace, one of the ways, I mean I am a fan of at least working on some level of direct communication with people, and saying, Hey, when this, when, you know, I noticed I was left out of the emails. Was that intentional? Did you mean it that way? I’d love to get more, I’d love to get curious and get more information.

So I think, I think. One of the ways that we can start, at least that process, is to acknowledge and have that discussion with the person. And you may then end up finding that they’re not on the same page. And yes, they meant it intentionally or they continue doing that.

In some cases, you can, they recognize and they realize and they’re like, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention. It was unintentional. And sometimes they’re like, nope. Or maybe they’ll say sorry, but they continue doing it and that is an action as well.

I think in those moments it is important to engage with leaders and have that discussion and ask them for advice and to get the backup that you need. And I think I will always, and in all the work I’ve done around equity and inclusion, I will always say you have to give yourself permission to leave if an environment is toxic and not serving you.

Because again, when you compete, you think short term, you think this job, this role, this next promotion, this you know, thing that’s right in front of me. When you uncompete, you have a long-term view about your life and your health and your career and the workplace.

So you ask yourself like, am I being served here? Is this cons constantly causing me stress and anxiety and fear and not bringing up the best in myself? And as a result, what are some steps I can take to mitigate that?

Melody Wilding: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was taking notes as you were talking ’cause so much is coming to mind for this. Which one of those, is going back to, I’m not sure if you mentioned this term explicitly, but the idea of values and basing your definition of success on your values. I think this is a perfect example of that because if you.

Let’s say yes, your colleague is cutting you out of a process and sharp elbows, but you act in a way that makes you proud, that you feel good about how you operated. You can put your head on the pillow at night and say. You know what? Maybe I didn’t get the promotion this time, but, I can sleep at night because of how I conducted myself here. That’s the measure of success in that situation. So that was one thing.

And that also ties into the second thing that was coming up for me, which is that longer term view.

Because I have seen so many times, and I have tons of clients who go through this situation, which is why I asked you this question, and I will tell them, keep running your race. Because often those people, because they are short term minded, they are either, they reveal themselves and leadership sees that they are pushing other people around and they stall out at a certain point.

Because as you get higher in an organization, you need to be able to bring people along to collaborate to get buy-in. And so yes, those people may have short term results, but ultimately their results and their perception suffers. And so in the short term. Again, you may miss out on an opportunity or two, but long term, they see your leadership capability.

They trust you more because they know you are someone who has high integrity, who’s operating from your values, who knows how to confront what might not be explicitly said when there’s tension going on. All of those are the makings of what matters at those higher levels, not just being the one who’s “win at all costs.”

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Hmm. I love that. Thank you for those takeaways. And I think you’re absolutely right. And I wanna say it’s not easy. I think this is why to uncompete is so difficult because we are operating in a world where there are poly crises, it’s hard to tell someone like, oh, you should just leave a job because it doesn’t align with your values.

And I, I don’t wanna be blase about that. And I have to say that, again, when you think about it from a long-term impact, when I talk to people who have experienced chronic illness burnout, huge medical issues as a result of staying too long in workplaces that didn’t value them, or didn’t align to their values, also, taking a long-term view on your life is really important too.

Melody Wilding: One thing I would love to get your take on, maybe you’ve experienced this in your own career, but I also want to hear about your background in inclusion where this question is concerned, which is what do you do when someone else takes credit for your work? This happens often, especially to women of color, for example, where you may have an idea and then someone else says it and they get credit for it.

That could be an example of a competition mindset coming up, right? I thought of this, I wanna get the credit for that. So yeah, talk me through how you think about that. ’cause that’s one of those tricky situations where, yeah.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Yeah. Melody, I opened the book with a story very early in my career of where I had an idea. I shared it with my work bestie, and then started noticing, Hmm, I wonder why she’s starting to cut me out of meetings and emails. And then found out, oh yes, from my boss, oh, she has this awesome idea, which was mine.

 Maybe there’s a part of the work that I’ve been wanting to do over the last two decades since that incident is tell myself like, my approach at that point was like, oh, of course it was my fault for not being, I wasn’t strategic. I wasn’t competitive, I was just too generous. Like all of these things.

And the takeaway I had is I should change myself, not figure out what really went wrong and what was this, where, what can I learn from it that would serve me for the longevity of my career? And so now when I’ve had that situation, I think one of the ways is to, again, be very intentional.

What are the costs of engaging and saying something and what are the benefits of it? And for me, I will always say it is important, especially for women and women of color, to I think very gently, depending on where you work, depending on the situation, there’s obviously a lot of nuance to this question.

But I think it’s important to, really take a beat and figure out like what’s the cost and benefit of saying something and bringing this up. If the benefit is higher than the cost, I think it’s very much worth going to leaders and saying, and ideally I would like to go to the person and say, hey, I, I, remember that time where

I shared this idea with you, I noticed that you took it and ran with it. Would love to talk about, co-edit or helping you build on it the way that, I envisioned as well, and see how that lands. I think it’s more than okay to go to a leader or managers within the org and say, hey, like this was my idea.

And, I’m really glad that, my colleague loved it and I had shared it with them. Is there a way that I could co-partner with them? And again, with this idea of there’s an abundance of opportunities and I will absolutely working together, we’ll build it to, the best of what it could be.

And then I think the last part is engaging with people who can practice allyship with you. I would love, more people in positions of power and privilege to stand up and say, I noticed that Ruchika is the person who came up with this idea. I’m so glad this colleague brought it up. But we wanna make sure that Ruchika is definitely plugged in and partnered in. The idea as well, is how I would approach it.

I’m definitely not like part of what I do in inclusion. Is never to say to women and women of color to turn the other cheek is that’s not what uncompete is about.

About building for, more of us to win and more of us to succeed.

Melody Wilding: Right, which doesn’t preclude accountability.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Absolutely not.

Melody Wilding: for action. Yeah, I think that’s important for people to hear, so thank you for that.

Is there anything you want to share that I didn’t get to ask you about that is in the book and that is just burning for you to share with us?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Melody, we, I loved our conversation. If there’s anything, I think that one of the parts, one of the chapters that was very hard for me to write and that I hope more of us, especially as we think about leadership and growth and success, our careers for the long haul is the importance of building rest and embodiment practices.

That was a very hard chapter for me to write, obviously. ‘Cause I too have been conditioned with this idea like, oh, if I rest or if I take vacation or if I sleep, oh my gosh, like someone else is gonna get ahead. And again, when you take the long term view, you recognize like you can only do so much, and rest and embodiment is so much a part of how we build for the long term, how we build our careers for the long term.

Obviously very inspired by works of, leaders and scholars like, Dr. Tricia Hersey who wrote Rest is Resistance. There’s an amazing group of, leaders who have been calling for much more rest. I know Arianna Huffington has been talking a lot about the importance of sleep. And so for me, I would say that is like one of those parts of like our workplace and our careers and our culture that we shy away from, in a competitive and winner take all environment.

And I think a lot of us can resist by building, healthy, strong rest and embodiment practices. Which is not easy.

Melody Wilding: It’s not easy. You’re going against the grain, right? You’re going against so much conditioning. You’re going against the cultural and literally the demands you might have in your life. I am always telling my clients that rest is a prerequisite.

It’s not a reward you earn.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Hmm.

Melody Wilding: It is the thing you need to perform well, not something you get for having put in your effort. And we have that equation backwards. It’s really hard to unpack and undo that, but you have to give yourself the chance to take that leap. And as you shared with your own story of, of uncompete, it was, it sounds like you had these little experiments where you’re like, okay, let me try this different approach.

Alright, that’s interesting. That worked differently than I thought. Let me try a little more. And every time you build trust with it each time. So thank you so much for coming on, for sharing our your story. Where can people connect with you and find the book?

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Thank you so much, Melody. So I’m very active on LinkedIn, so please connect with me there. To, learn more about the book. You can go to my website on compete book.com. and I think more than anything, I really, really hope more of us can take a moment and just ask ourselves like, how does competition show up and how maybe are there little experiments as you Melody, so beautifully put. Are there little experiments we can do in our lives to choose a different way?

Melody Wilding: Amazing. Thank you so much.

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Thank you, Melody.