Tech Leadership & Growth: Lessons from Meta & Oracle with Pramoda Vyasarao

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What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we have on the show former leader at Meta and Oracle, author, leadership coach, and course creator. We got Pomada on this. How you doing today, man?

Pomada, I'm doing well, CJ. Thank you for inviting me.

No, man, I thank you for taking the time out your day, man. To come on the show. So promoter man, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.

Absolutely. Born in India, I did master's in computer science in India. After that, I joined Oracle way back in 2002. I have been in the industry for about 21 years, first in India, then in the United States for companies like Oracle and Meta. Last year, 2023, I took a career break to try something on my own. I started a business called Chainsmith Coaching, specializing in leadership coaching, authoring a book, and creating courses for technology community.

So, Pramod, you have a background in computer science. How did that shape your career, especially working at Meta and Oracle?

I started my career way back in 2002, about 22 years ago. Back then in India, there were only two big companies who were present, Microsoft and Oracle. If you had a job in any of these two companies, either Oracle or Microsoft, you are like a smart engineer. Like, you have your path laid out. Like, your future is right ahead of you. So back then, Oracle was a big name. I joined in 2002. Luckily for me, the culture was great, company is great. There are two things I liked about Oracle. One is the opportunity to learn and grow as a person. So many trainings, opportunities to meet people and learn was exciting. The second aspect I liked is you could take internal transfers every two years. If you don't like one particular job in the group, you could go to some other group and try something. It's a big organization with so many engineering teams, you could move around if you'd like. So I really enjoyed the personal growth as well as the mobility of moving across teams. To learn more, to broaden my knowledge and experience. At Meta, the biggest benefit I saw was I learned the art of product development through using data. Meta is a data-driven company. Everything they develop, whether it is Messenger product, WhatsApp, Instagram, they are so much focused on what consumers are doing, collect the data on how they're using the product, and improve this. That gave me a brand new perspective about building products. With the rigorous use of data to make decisions. That was something I really enjoyed while being at Meta.

So B, you said something about, you know, when you coming from India and when you engineer or you're a top-notch engineer, you get into these places like Meta or Oracle. Like you say, back then it was Microsoft. So tell us, man, what was it like working for two of the largest companies in the world, man?

One of the things you will realize, CJ, is as you meet people in the organization, all of a sudden you realize that, oh my God, these guys are really smart. I'm nowhere compared to these guys. This happens with any of the big tech companies. No matter how smart you are, you will find smarter people in the company, and that immediately hits you and say you are not, you are not the right person to be here, you're not fit to be here. So everybody goes through this, all engineers, because There is no limit. Like, every person is different. They put more effort, maybe they think differently, their background is different. So what I've learned in my career is staying grounded and say, what are my strengths? Instead of comparing myself with other engineers or other managers or product managers, grounding myself in my strength, my experience, and what I bring to the table has been really helpful in my career. Otherwise, if you start comparing yourself with other people you will be dead before you start.

So in other words, you're saying like when you're going into big tech companies like this, that it being an intimidation factor, huh? Like although, you know, you're a smart guy yourself, you got engineering background and you know what best to do, but when you come across all these other smart people with different backgrounds, it can be intimidating. And sometimes you walking in the door, want to walk right back out the door, huh?

Yes, absolutely. This happens to a lot of people from various places. Even in the US, people move from smaller companies to big technology companies, and that transition is not easy. They join, and the first 6 months they really struggle because they somehow think they are not fit to be in this organization. They got lucky, that's why they are here. But that's not true. Everybody has something to contribute. Going back and reflecting on your strengths and say, what do you bring to the table? What's your value to the organization? Will help you sober down and reduce this anxiety about yourself.

Yeah, I can understand that. You know, like you say, everybody brings something to the table. Everybody got different skills. And if they didn't think that you would be a good fit there, then they never would have called you to come and join their team in the first place. Because I'm pretty sure that's like trying to get in the White House or something, you know what I'm saying? You gotta go through all these different type of changes and things of that background check and everything, man. So that's pretty cool that you was able to You know, being at two of the biggest companies in the world, period. So promoter, tell us, man, tell us about your company, uh, Chang Smith. You mentioned it earlier, Chang Smith Coaching LLC, and what inspired you to start it?

Last year, January 2023, there was a lot of layoffs at, uh, the Bay Area companies, and even Meta had a lot of, uh, restructuring, and my role was eliminated as part of this restructuring at Meta. I thought, why don't I take a couple of years break? I always wanted to coach, teach, and, you know, help people with leadership coaching from a long time. I thought, why don't I take a 2-year break to figure out what if I can actually channel all my energy and my passion into helping other engineers and managers in the technology world to become better leaders, better communicators, and better collaborators? And that's when I started the company. I named the company as Chainsmith. Because I like the play of words like blacksmith and goldsmith. These are specialized in metals, whereas Chainsmith is somebody who is specialized in changing their behaviors and thoughts. My company's promise is you work with me, we have ideas, programs, and courses to help you change your behaviors and thoughts to become a better leader in the organization and better individual in life. That is the promise of the company, and the name itself indicates You can be skilled in changing your thoughts and behaviors consciously.

I like that. Like you said, locksmith, blacksmith. It's all like the way that you came up with that concept, uh, with that chainsmith. That's a good one, man. So P, tell us, man, so you offer— you just mentioned it a little bit, so I want you to touch on it a little bit more for us. You offer, uh, leadership courses through your company. What are some of the key details and takeaways from these courses?

So let's look at two broad takeaways. So one is the aspect of clear communication. You can call it as ABC of communication in the world of technology, which is A for authenticity, B for brevity, and C for clarity. Now other people have this maybe by default or through their education, but engineers may not have this clarity and brevity in their conversations because they have so much knowledge, and sometimes they are cursed with knowledge that they give a lot of details in meetings that may not be helpful all the time. Because in many scenarios, your management wants something short and simple quickly, not a detailed description of technical things, how things work in the background. So what I teach in my course is how can you be authentic, short, clear in your communication to impact people with your message. That is one aspect of my program, which is clear communication. The second aspect of my course is leadership development. There is a simple methodology I bring called ABC. A for awareness. I work with my clients to increase their awareness. What do they think about themselves? What are their strengths as an individual? And what do other people think about them? Let's say you and I work in a team. You may think your strengths are different, but I, as a partner, I may think you have these strengths and these could be areas you can improve. So self-awareness is one aspect, and other people's awareness— what do they perceive you as, as an individual leader? So we bring those two elements, self-reflection and others' feedback. That forms the awareness piece. Second step is when you look at these things, your own assessment and others' feedback, You decide what to change. For example, you might say, I want to become a better listener. I want to give concrete feedback to people. I want to be empathetic with people. So you decide what changes you want to bring in your behavior based on feedback and self-reflection. So the second step is behavioral changes. I have some tools and techniques for people to consciously change their behaviors. Instead of randomly doing what they have done in the past, which is habitually reacting the same way, now they consciously change their behaviors. One example is instead of interrupting somebody while they are talking, they can listen to them fully, make notes, and ask two questions after they finish. It's a conscious change in their behavior. So we have awareness, behavioral change, and the last one is continuous measurement. C stands for continuous measurement. There is survey that we do every 3 months, 6 months to see what changes are landing with people, what are they noticing, and what could improve further in your leadership development. So awareness, behavioral change, and continuous measurement. We use this framework to help people develop their leadership skills.

So P, with the courses that you provide, everything, where can people like myself and others, people that's listening, Where can we find these courses at?

You can find these courses, they are digital courses on my website. It is chainsmith.me. Chainsmith is one word, .me/courses. You can look at all the courses I have and you can see which one you like and experiment with the courses.

Okay, website. Okay, cool. So P, on another note, man, why do you believe that storytelling is so important in leadership roles?

I like this question. So we have two parts in the brain. There is a lot of research being done on this— the emotional part and the rational part. Now, when I share facts with people, I'm engaging with the rational mind, the thinking mind. But when I tell stories, I am bypassing the rational mind. I'm also looking at the emotional mind or the non-rational mind. In other words, stories are actually flight simulators for our brains. So it can simulate the future. If you tell me the facts, I may resist, I may interrupt, I may ask questions. But if you tell me a story with facts in the story and tell me what's the future looking like, what could happen in the future, include in that detail all the additional facts, there is a higher chance of me accepting your viewpoint, understanding and thinking about what you're saying. So if you want to impact people with your communication, with your message, and influence people. Stories are a great way to influence people because it will bypass their thinking mind. They will start thinking now in terms of how does this work, as opposed to why does it not work. They are now being forced to think simulation thinking to see how does this work, or how would it work. That can happen with a story.

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The stories are really powerful in conversations, business presentations, and even coaching conversations.

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I like that concept, I guess. A lot of times that's what we are, that's what we do, we do stories. But like you say, when you put that element of truth and, you know, facts into the stories and make it even more compelling, make a person really think, like you say, bypass all the questions because they're interested and then tune into what you're actually saying because it's an interesting fact. So I, I like that, man. So you're a guy that I'm pretty sure got a lot of stories that told a lot of stories, been in a lot of leadership roles. So Pete, tell us, man, because this is pretty impressive to me. You've accomplished an impressive 52 goals since 2003. Can you share a few highlights and what the journey has been like to you?

This happened way back in October 2003. I was in a seminar on time management. I happened to know about this gentleman called John Goddard who lived in the US at that point, in California. He is called the greatest adventurer of the world. He listed about 127 goals and he achieved all of them. I was inspired by John Goddard. I wrote my own goals back in 2003. Initially, I wrote very simple goals like losing weight, learning to speak in public with confidence, learning how to swim, learning a martial art, donating blood. These are all simple goals I wrote initially, but they took some time and effort to execute. The goals themselves were simple, but not the execution, because some of them were long stretch goals. After those initial wins, I really enjoyed the art of goal setting, because each year I would look at, okay, this year I'm achieving this goal, next year these two goals. So my life had a direction. It was like a compass going towards somewhere. All these goals gave me meaning and happiness. Goals such as running a marathon in under 4 hours, publishing a book, creating my own business, donating blood about 50 times so far in India and the United States. Several other goals, you know, I write in my book to inspire people. Those are all intrinsic goals that really brought meaning and happiness to me as an individual, as a human being. I went after my intrinsic goals and achieved those goals in the last 52, I mean, last 21 years. And the number of goals is about 52.

So let me ask you a question on the goal setting, because you say you set a goal. So do you write these goals down? And on another note on that, how important is it, you know, saying, would you say to like somebody like me and people that's listening, how important is it for us to set goals for ourselves?

Yeah, by nature human beings are teleological. Teleological is a Greek word. It means we are goal-oriented people. We need a target to go after. Think of this way: when you don't have useful seeds planted on the ground, what happens is weeds grow there. If you don't plant what you want in a farm and you leave it as is, weeds go there. All these random plants go on that farm. The same thing applies to our life. If we don't have intentional goals, they can be big or small, nobody can tell, only you and I can tell what we want. If we don't have intentional goals, what happens is we are now surrounded by distractions throughout the day, whether it is social media, television, Netflix, all the other things. You are always going through the motion, but you're not really enjoying life without intentional goals. Going back to the analogy of weeds versus flowers. With goals, you can grow flowers in the land of your life. That's my personal opinion. Without goals, what happens is all these distractions are with you. You don't know why they are coming to you and why you are responding to those. You can ignore all that noise when you have clear intentions for your life. One-year goal, 2 years, 5 years, and so on. And you can only choose goals that bring you meaning and happiness. You can decide. Not someone else.

I like the goal setting. Like you said, I like the analogy that you did with the weeds and the, you know, said like the farm. If you don't plant something there, then that's what you're gonna get. So planting goals into your mind, or it's something that I think we all should strive to do. So P, man, on another note, I lost my father when I was 42, and you know, I know how emotional that situation was and what I went through. So if you mind sharing, man, what was it like losing your father at such an early age, man? I think you said like 22. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I would say two words. One is the shock of shortness of life. I realized life is really short because 6 months before he died, I actually had gotten a job and I came and I showed him the offer letter. He saw my salary, and my salary back then was more than what he was making as a teacher after 32 years of working. He was so proud of me, about my hard work and the effort and the job. And in 6 months, he is not even there to see me join the job and enjoy the benefits. So I realized life is really short. That was a wake-up call for me in terms of the shortness of life. The other angle, CJ, was For a few months, life felt meaningless to me because I had no specific goals to achieve. I kept asking, what if I die sometime sooner in next 2 or 3 years? Like, what's the meaning to my life? So that episode forced me to think about my own life and what meaning can I create in my life. Not accidental meaning, but what can I consciously create in my life through my action and goals to achieve meaning and happiness while I am alive. So that I can die without any regrets. So that was the guiding principle behind my mind for the next 1 year after he passed away. For about 12 months to 18 months, I kept thinking about what's the meaning to life, how can I make it more meaningful, more focused on what I really want, how do I get happiness in my life, what can I do to be happy.

Yeah, I mean, I get it. I know exactly what you mean too, because In 2015 when my father passed away, November 22nd, I had just published my book November 15th. He was one of the ones I would show my manuscript and everything. And so like you said, with your offer letter you showed your father, and with mine, my book got published, I showed him the book, and a week later, man, he wasn't there no more to even see how the book went or what went about with it. And somewhat like what you said, I can resonate with that, is that I lost the purpose with it. Like, okay, the book was out, but it didn't bring me no fulfillment and it brought me no joy with it. And so I just put it on the shelf because the person that I wanted to share it with, I was no longer to do that. I kind of understand what you're talking about with that. On another note, man, so tell us, P, tell us a little bit about your book, man, Beyond Your Limits. And what inspired you to write this book?

Now, it's funny you ask. I have the book right in my hand here, Beyond Your Limits. Now, as I said in the beginning, I set 5 goals to start with in October 2003, 21 years ago. When I achieved those goals, my life completely changed. Now I had a direction to my life. And I added a goal in 2006 that I would publish a book. And my first book The book will be about goal setting, how to set goals in life to achieve meaning and happiness. I wrote a goal in 2006, and the goal was achieved in 2024, this year, by publishing a book. I took all important goals of my life that brought meaning and happiness to me. The first section of the book, I talk about all those goals, and I end the list with publishing this book as my goal. In the second section of the book, I talk about a 7-step framework for achieving any goal in life and business. And in the third section, I talk about top 3 mistakes people do when it comes to achieving goals. So instead of other books, which talk a lot about information, this book is all about demonstration. I take my own life story and see how I applied the principles of goal setting, a 7-step framework to all my life, corporate and business goals.

Hmm, that's cool. First, congratulations on having your 2006 goal accomplished about publishing your book this year, man. That's cool. Wish you much success in that. So P, what can we find the book at, man? Amazon, Barnes Noble, website?

You can find it on Amazon. It is available in Kindle format, paperback, and hardcover. It is also available on audible.com for audiobooks, Spotify as an audiobook. It's also available in Barnes Noble website. May not be in the store, I don't know, but for sure the online website. So wherever you go, even in Apple bookstores, it's available, Apple digital bookstore. So wherever you go, you can find my book, Beyond Your Limits.

Okay, cool. Beyond Your Limits, go pick up my man, promote a book, man. Beyond Your Limits, he that inspired with his 7-step program. So P, man, I only got one more question for you, man. I appreciate you coming on the show today and giving us some of your insight and your wisdom about tech and things of that nature and goal setting. So my last question, you make a bold promise in the book that everyone can achieve growth, happiness, and meaning through setting goals. Is it really possible for everyone to do that?

100% possible because I have seen it in my own life for 21 years from a state of not knowing anything, no meaning in my life, all the way to meaningful life through goals. I've seen it for 21 years, ups and downs in my life. Goals kept me grounded to my direction, to my path, without any distractions. I have also worked with hundreds of people as clients in one-to-one coaching and group coaching engagements. I have seen many people realize the power of goals. And I will remind you again, it is intrinsic goals, not extrinsic to please other people. It's intrinsic for you to be happy and meaningful. When you find your intrinsic goals you can always find meaning in those goals. Give it a try. Just sit down and think about— if you're a listener of this, what is one thing that can change your life right now? Think about that question. Something will pop up in your mind. Maybe losing weight, maybe becoming more healthy, eating healthy food, becoming kind to your family, to your kids, becoming a better communicator, leader. Something will pop up in your head. That could be your goal for the next 6 to 12 months. Start there, enjoy the process of changing yourself and developing a new version of yourself. Once you like it, it becomes a habit. Now goal setting becomes your yearly habit. Every year you have a yearly goal, then you break it down into quarterly, monthly, and weekly and say, what am I doing today to achieve the goal this year? Every action you take is in service to your highest goal in life. And that can happen to each one of us once we decide what we want.

That's a good point right there. Pete, man, is there anything else, man, that you would like to share with us before we leave?

Well, if you have any other question, I'm always available on LinkedIn. You can follow me on LinkedIn for inspiring posts and content. You can also go to my website, chainsmith.me/audio, to download the audiobook for free. I give away my audiobook for free. You can go to chainsmith.me/audio to download my audiobook. Listen to the 5.5 hours of audio professionally recorded in the studio.

Mm, you heard it right here. Go to my man website to go check the book where you can hear it for free. Beyond Your Limits. Set your goals just like my man P did it. 52 goals since 2003. If he set 52, I know we can set one. You have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show, and I'm your host, CJ Moneyway Johnson. We out here.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show.

Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows, your story might be next.

American Giant makes great clothing, sweatshirts, jeans, and more right here in the US. Visit American-Giant.com and get 20% off your first order with code STAPLE20. That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com, code STAPLE20. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/kidsandfamily. Just go to indeed.com/kidsandfamily right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need.