Most Leaders Are One Crisis Away From Breaking. Here's What Changes That with Avinash Nichkawde

What does it actually take to walk away from everything you've built, the wealth, the status, the reputation, and start over in a country where nobody knows your name with nothing but 2 bags of clothes? My guest today did exactly that in his 40s with zero safety net. And here's what I want you to notice as you listen. He didn't break. He didn't spiral. He didn't chase the story of what he lost. What held him together wasn't about willpower. It was something most leaders never invest in until pressure forces their hand. This is the NeuroLeadership Edge. I'm Claire Hayek. And this episode is going to challenge how you define resilience. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge, the show where we decode what it actually takes to lead under pressure, perform at the highest level, and build the mental architecture that holds when everything around you is moving fast. I'm Claire Hayek. I'm a neuroleadership expert and the architect behind Pressure Proof Leadership. I work with executive teams to build the operating system that keeps leaders clear, calm, and decisive when the stakes are highest. By the end of this conversation, you're going to walk away with 3 things. One, a completely different frame for what it means to lose everything and why high performers who've been through the fire tend to outperform Those who haven't. 2, a concrete look at how inner stability is what allows someone to rebuild from zero and aim higher than before. Interesting so far? 3, a question you'll be asking yourself long after this episode ends about what you're actually building your performance on and whether it holds when pressure hits. My guest today is Avinash Nishkawde, a franchising and global expansion strategist who by his mid-20s had built the largest tax accounting practice in Australia. Then, he owned international colleges. Then, multiple brands across continents. And then, in his 40s, he chose to walk away from all of it. Not forced out. He chose it, gave his ex-wife everything, left with 2 bags of clothes, started over in America with no network, no capital, and no clear path forward. Well, today he runs a full-service franchising operation with subsidiaries in 10 countries, and his stated goal is to be listed on NASDAQ within 4 years. What I find most interesting about Avinash It's not the business story. It's the internal infrastructure and architecture that made all of it possible. The decisions he made at 25, how he rebuilt at 40+, and what has been his biggest strength through every version of his life. Avinash, finally, welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge. How are you?

Thank you very much. Great to be with you, Claire. Really excited and great to be with you.

Definitely. We have so many questions to tackle on here, and I'm sure I've teased the audience enough. So let me dive right in. So take me back to that moment. You have a government job, a young daughter, your wife is expecting your second child, you're about 25, and you're standing at a crossroads that most people would never even consider. What was actually going on in your head at that point?

What was going in my head at that time? I was 25. Hey, I'm getting old. That was one thing. And second was that if I remain in a very comfortable, cushy government job, I'll never have the courage or the strength to leave that comfort level that I am sucked in. And I'll never— so this is the time, do or die, uh, sort of thing. Or something inner urge came in, uh, I guess from a society point of view, from a family point of view, it was not the right time. You don't— because everyone told me off and everyone said, hey, you just have a little daughter and your wife is pregnant. You don't give insecurity to her and the family that you're going to go and abandon the comfortable pathway and embark on something unknown. How many tax returns do you need to do to get to your salary level? So there's all sorts of things that came my way, but you know, yeah, I mean, I did get the support.

Right. Here we are. Right. I mean, that's, that's something, but you described setting a number at the start of the year, not knowing how you'd get there, but then hitting it, doubling it and doubling it again. So, I mean, this is pretty fantastic. So how, what was going on? What was the internal process? What really helped you? push through, right? Because I'm sure it wasn't just like, oh, got it, got it, easy, easy. Is there something else that, that you think you have that really helped you push through high-pressure environments and still perform? That's what I'm interested in.

My goals were very low at that time, so it wasn't that high performance as such. But, you know, he is a youngster in a new country, so I'm not on a big anything. But I guess, to be really honest, is I was deeply interested in the meditation side of things. And inside, to me, to get to that inner powers, get to that inner balance, satisfaction, fulfillment, as they call, was a big goal. So I was trying to balance the inner world and the outer world. And I mean, it is quite funny. I started off practice and, you know, the universe also responds to you in some way, especially, you know. So I do remember this clearly in those days. And I would have a meditation and I said, God, looks like I've run out of clients. And someone would, you know, I get a phone call from one of the Indian radio stations and they say, sir, would you like to come on the radio? We'd like to interview you. And I said, this is the first time for me. And I said, how much will it cost? He said, no, no, no, you be our guest. I said, oh, free. So okay, go for it. And so I was invited. And then I spoke for some time, I got 10 people calling me, sir, can you please accept me as your client? Here I was hungry and wanting. So I do believe that some—

Amazing.

It has got to do with your inner world and the outer world together. And you always try and do the right thing by people. So even at that time, we had to make a big strategy. There was someone in the community who was 10 times better, maybe 100 times better than me in marketing. And, you know, so he had a cheaper price, and I sort of positioned myself, if you want to be the best accountant, you come to me, you know.

I mean, obviously there's a lot of sales and marketing in there, but what I really want to focus on, on the show Is the resilience that you have in you as well as the determination. And also, you mentioned something very specific, the inner and the outer. So, the inner and the outer balance is extremely important. And a lot of people take that for granted.

Yeah.

And they think if they just push, push but they're not aligned with who they are. They're not coherent with their brain. It's not coherent with their heart. It's not coherent with the gut. I call it, it's the 3-way access. It's the 3-axis that gives you inner balance that helps you show up with calm authority, that helps you stay aligned and have clear decisions no matter what's happening on the outside world. And that's so underrated. And for you, obviously, I think it was like a given. It's, of course, I'm gonna be in the inner and the outer. But you'll be surprised. A lot of people are not even aware that there's an inner and an outer. They're just reactive.

Hmm.

And I think this is a great And a great angle to look at. So, which brings me to my next question. So, at 18 or 19, you mentioned you were seriously considering going to the Himalayas to search for God, right?

Yes.

Now, that's a remarkable thing for someone who would go on to build a multi-country business empire. So, what happened there? And how did that tension between that, you know, we talk about this, the inner and the outer, the spiritual pursuit And the material ambition. So how did that tension between the inner and the outside actually work out for you? Like, how did you leverage that?

I think in looking back, my mother was a doctor, father was an engineer. So first thing I decided was not to go into the sciences area and choose to do the accounting so they don't understand what I'm doing. And in India, those days, to become a chartered accountant was a very big deal. And so I chose that. And normally, so I was very lucky and I was very quick in passing those. And at that point, when the third year of my degree, I thought, hey, what is the highest thing to achieve in life? That was a question that I asked myself. And I read a lot of biographies in those days of great people from material world, business world, spiritual world, and all that. And I remember asking myself, Damn, I don't have any, you know, success at all. Although I played nationals in sports and I was a very young chartered accountant, and but I thought I don't have any success because I can't even calm my mind. So I enrolled just after my degree in MA philosophy and read every religion, everything that I could read, all the mysticism. And I realized that is the highest thing to achieve in life, is to get to so-called God or cosmic consciousness in philosophical sense. And so to do that, I went around India and I was almost ready to go to Himalayas, give up this material life, never get married, became a vegetarian, all those sort of things that I was genuinely seeking. And that's when I met one lady called Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. And Shri Mataji said, you don't have to renounce, you don't have to give up all your responsibilities and things. And spirituality has to be inside. And, you know, she talked about certain things, and that really changed my life altogether, where I did not see materialism or business or a career as something that I had to give up in pursuit of spiritual fulfillment.

Right.

It can have— it can go together. In fact, the material side can be a reflection of your inner spiritual world as well. And so that's what really changed my life. And really, that's how it all— the journey. And I'm very happy for those changes and that earnest desire, honest seeking of spiritual fulfillment in a way that shaped my life, that shaped my personality and bigger goals and bigger things to achieve.

Yeah. And, you know, you, you pretty much described what I work on every day with executive teams. you know, that inner stability. It's not like, it's not just like this thing out there, right? It really lives inside of you no matter what's happening. And you don't have to go put yourself in, you know, become a monk in order to have that inner stability. It actually is a great tool. It's a must-have tool.

Yeah.

When you are under pressure, when you are somebody that thrives and really lives in an environment that is constantly probably changing, uncertain, etc. And it's basically like I said, I work on— this is what I work on every day with executive teams, that inner stability that holds when the outer world just is chaotic, is maybe disruptive, or is collapsing. But you don't get that from a leadership program. You don't go to school for that. You get it from life. And I just want to ask you a simple question. Like, Where did it come from for you? And is it something you think can actually be built intentionally that the whole inner strength, that inner stability? Or is it something that you build when you are under pressure? It's from experience. Is it because you're under— I'm sorry, under pressure? Is it because you're under pressure that you build that? Or is it something that you can intentionally build?

I don't believe it was a mental thing that you keep chanting and you'll get your confidence back or anything. For me, it was life experiences. And as I started to walk the life, take steps in life, and you got the feeling that if you meditate and, you know, connect with that higher power, whatever one may describe in their own belief, religions, whatever it may be, whatever it is, it's the same faith and thing. And, but it's more realistic. That gives you that certain direction. I feel that when you're calm inside, you reflect on your problems in life, reflect on the situations, the critical decisions, and you feel there's an invisible hand that actually guides you and things like that. And it doesn't mean that you're perfect and you make all the time right decisions.

Absolutely not.

But you do know that everything that happens in life is for learning. And if you can pick up the threads and see, okay, what can I learn from this episode of my life? And what can I— so I do believe that one is the confidence in yourself, your abilities, and knowing that no matter what happens, you will be taken care of. You are well protected. And that gives certain way of things. So you're not always Making bad decisions because of fear or worries or tensions and things like that.

Or failure or things are not going exactly your way. There's always a gift. There's always a gift to find no matter what's happening. And basically, I mean, it's kind of bringing me back to that moment most people kind of avoid talking about when you have something really big happen in your personal life. And you, you know, you opened up and you mentioned that you walked out of your marriage in Australia with 2 bags of clothes. And you chose to give away everything you built. That is very big. That's a huge, huge decision. And what I want to know, I guess, not the legal logic, like what happened, why, and like, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the mindset, what was happening inside, the internal decision. So, can I assume that your sense of letting go, your sense of that calm authority that you've built and that alignment gave you the strength to even to make that hardest decision and let everything go and walk away? Because in your opinion, that's another lesson to learn from. And that, you know, what's new and the excitement of creating something else, like what was happening? Like what was the struggle on the inside?

At that time, I realized that, you know, when I look back, that my spiritual, the depths of meditation had gone down. I'd grown outwardly far too much. maybe the balance was not there between spirituality and the material life. At that time, of course, I had 200 employees, almost going public and all. And, uh, but my meditations maybe had gone down. And at that time, I did make a lot of some wrong decisions, uh, you know, including what you describe as, uh, divorce and things. But according to the normal law, my own lawyers and all, the biggest mistake was to just part away with all the wealth that you've created.

Right.

And to me, I wanted the children and all to face, not to feel insecure about money. And I just felt the confidence within that there is God, there is someone behind, and I believe in my own abilities. And no matter where I go, no matter where I live, I don't have huge ego issues that I need this sort of lifestyle, a big house, a big car, and big everything. Of course, I'm extremely comfortable in everything, But, but that was not the thing. And it's something, yeah, I did, but I didn't know where I'll go, what I'll do.

Yeah. I think you have that inner strength and that inner alignment that things will just work out the way they need to work out. And, uh, you have also that ability from what I see, that ability just to let go and trust the process, which takes a lot of alignment. It takes a lot of inner peace in a way. I don't want to call it inner peace. I want to call it just alignment. Know who you are, what you're building, and having that— I cannot stress enough the word alignment. When you're aligned with your inner, in your inner world, everything else follows.

Exactly.

That's when you show up strong. That's when you build your resilience. And I really wanted to share your story, Avinash, because I find that it's a different story that I haven't really featured on this show. And it shows a whole different side of things. I mean, we can call it intention alignment. You can train it. Talk about pressure-proof leadership is really all about training our inner in order to show up solid and strong and resilient no matter what. And your resilience, I guess it comes from different experiences. I really wanted to highlight it. So, thanks for sharing that with us. Now, if you're talking to a senior executive or a leader, Right now, someone who's successful on paper, maybe never really lost anything big. And but that person maybe is terrified of, of too much pressure, revealing something or cracking something open. Right? Or breaking under pressure. What do you want them to understand that they probably won't hear anywhere else?

What I realized over the years is that we make certain assumptions about how people look at us, how they feel about us. And we live by our friends', families', society's norms. Hey, I, I'm used to Mercedes, I'm used to Porsche, and if I go on a local transport thing, how will people see it, right? I live in a mansion and now I live in a 2-bedroom apartment, how people are going to think about me? And that's a pretty materialistic way of, uh, portraying yourself. Because I want to have— wear the most expensive suit, most expensive car, most expensive everything, because you perceive, you want to think how those people are going to think about you. What I realized going to the downside is no one gives a damn. Maybe, you know, it's really—

It's true.

You have to set your own goals. You have to really see what is the purpose of my life? What is that I want to achieve in this life? And be true to that. If you're true to that, then I think everything else falls in place. I love that.

I love that. You know, again, alignment, alignment within yourself and stop worrying about— get rid of the noise. Get rid of that noise outside. And it's an ability that, by the way, you can train. Some people have it naturally. Some people have to learn it because they've gone through something hard. But if it's something you want, you can definitely train that. And I love that. You know, I love what you said. That's so true. Now, time is running out. I have a gazillion questions for you.

Sure.

But let's just dive into the rapid fire. So, Uh, 3 questions for you, very short answers.

Are you ready? Yep, sure.

All right, biggest myth about resilience and leadership?

That is end of the world. I think you can overcome anything, but just go back to your inner self and have faith in whatever you believe in.

Okay, one thing you do every day that keeps you grounded no matter what?

Try to have a meditation, which I do believe that meditation is the connection with that all-pervading power of God, cosmic consciousness. Maybe people have religious belief and they believe in their own God or whatever, whatever you may believe in. Have that connection clear and listen to your inner voice. Listen to your own self and follow your gut instincts. And don't just be swayed by what others say about you or what others think. Do what you feel is right for your own self.

The biggest red flag that you see in leaders who are just about to break under pressure?

I think there has to be a balance, and that's self-confidence. And of course, the proper system processes and everything helps. But that, like you started in beginning, the balance between the inner world and the outer world. So I do suggest, I have seen that a lot of the senior executives have taken to meditation. They try to do the inner inquiry to have that balance, to cope with the stress, consult professionals like you.

And so the red flag would be—

Too much of drinking, alcohol, too much of lack of sleep, too much of worrying what's going to happen.

Too much extremes.

Okay.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Avinash. Basically what Avinash just described here is something I see confirmed in neuroscience over and over again. Now, I know I'm talking science and he's talking spirituality. But believe it or not, they are one thing. They are combined. It's a frequency.

Yeah.

So, when leaders operate from a solid internal foundation, when they've done the work of knowing who they are and what they stand for before that pressure hits, before the disruption, before the uncertainty, or even during, the brain doesn't go into threat mode. the same way. The nervous system stays regulated and the decisions stay clear. So, the problem in most organizations is that we build castles on sand. Brilliant skills, sharp strategies, talented people. But when that wave comes in crashing strong, that pressure, and it always comes, the foundation gives away. And it's not because You know, you're not skilled enough or you're not talented enough because you just no longer have access to the beautiful skill castle that you have. And because that internal operating system was never built to hold under pressure. That's the work. That's the work we do. And what Avinash's story shows is that you don't have to wait for a crisis to build it.

Right.

You can literally start now. Now, I'm going to wrap up. If this conversation landed for you, if you recognize something in your own leadership or your team when Avinash was talking, I want to give you something concrete. I built a diagnostic called the Pressure Performance Scorecard. It's a fast, free tool that shows you exactly where pressure is costing you and your team. And that's in decision speed, execution quality, and communication breakdown. before it becomes a crisis. So, you can see a QR code here. Please do scan it. Take a few minutes. Do the assessment. Do yourself a favor. And finally, if you want a practical tool you can use the next time pressure hits, I'm also giving away this great tool called the Pressure Reset Scripts. You can scan this code. It's short, specific mental resets. Think of it as a meditation, but it's a bit more practical that you can use while you're working. And it's designed for these real moments. So, you can grab it as well via this QR code. And if you're listening to us, please check the description. In the description, you'll have both links for these free tools. And at the end of the day, the goal isn't to avoid pressure. It's to stay sharp when it actually arrives. And Avinash, this has been a genuinely remarkable conversation. The fact that you can talk about losing everything and frame it as proof evidence that something larger is at work, that is exactly the kind of leadership clarity that most people spend decades basically building. Thank you so much for being this open. And I'm going to put also— we're going to put your LinkedIn link for everybody if they want to connect with you. And any last words, Avinash?

No, uh, thank you very much, Claire. And I— those who are listening to you, I want to urge them that life is too short. Live every second of it. Don't live an average life just to survive and die one day. Aim for something big for yourself, for your family, for the society at large. And, you know, end of the day, you will have great stories to tell your family and the world at large. So make something really special about being on this earth. And be impactful.

Be impactful.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you so much. If this episode moved something for you, share it with one person who needs to hear it. The leaders in your life who look like they have it all together, they need this conversation too. All right. So, do follow, click subscribe, and share. I'm Clare Hayek. This is the NeuroLeadership Edge. I'll see you all the next episode. Bye for now. Bye, Avinash.

Thank you, Clare. Thank you very much.