Nick Mehta, former Gainsight CEO, talks about the trap of tying your self-worth to the CEO title and how detaching from it saved his health and relationships. He used practices like writing his own obituary and reading "Ozymandias" to shift from chasing public wins to finding joy in family and mentorship.
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For many CEOs, the journey is a roller coaster. The highs are high and the lows are low. And the trap is that often your entire identity and sense of self-worth is wrapped up in your title as CEO. In this clip from The Startup CEO Show, Nick Mehta, co-founder and former CEO of Gainsight, gets real about how he avoided this, which is from by detaching his identity. He didn't identify with himself and didn't get his sense of self-worth from being CEO. Really powerful and personal insight. What we're about to talk about isn't just a male thing, but like we are both males. And if a lot of my clients are, are men, and if I stereotype, right, they give 100% of themselves to their company, they find something from the 0% that's left for their kids out of obligation, and they have nothing left for their spouse. And then they're surprised when their health goes down and they get divorced. And I was just wondering if you'd be willing to share kind of the journey you went through and, and what, you may still be formulating your retrospective on this, but what retrospective, if any, you may have.
Yeah, totally. And, and by the way, things evolve even since we've exchanged interactions and all that. Yeah. But not, not in better words, just, just things change. My, I think without going into specifics of, you know, what I've gone through, I think that there's part, like, it's funny, the oversimplification is exactly what you said of like any CEO. It's like they do all of this and they're one part of the life and they don't do as much in other parts. I don't think it was, it's been like that for me. I'm going great, you know, partnership with, you know, family, my, my wife, kids, everything else. Um, but, um, definitely like it's probably the biggest learning for me is less— I've always been somebody who gives a lot of time, uh, to family, to everyone around me. But, um, it's more how over time is there a world you get less attached to your identity and outcome as a CEO. So I think that's probably for me, it's not the, I don't think this is universal for everyone, but, um, the learning I've had so far, and actually I was just talking to my coach about this, is, um, that there's a certain detachment that is, can happen naturally in life where at some phase how much you've raised or how much your company is worth or where are you on some list of some, you know, 40 under 40 or 50 under 50 or 20 under 30, 20 or 30, whatever it is, right? Or whether you went public and you have a photo of the NASDAQ and those things are really healthy. I love it. Like, that's awesome. That's part of life. And then at some point you're like, actually, I'm not as attached to that anymore. You know? And maybe you had some success and maybe you feel like, okay, I've done that. And so for me, one of the learnings has been, and, and it's not like a learning of, hey, I wish things were different. It's more just like, oh wow, it's fascinating to be like, I'm not as attached to the same things as I used to be. When I see somebody on LinkedIn that has achieved some amazing thing, you know, before I'd be like, how come I haven't achieved that amazing thing? And I'm, I'm human. Every now and then I think about that, but now it's more like, wow, that's awesome. Good for them. Like, that's fun. You know, the thing that gives me joy now is just like being there for my family, for other people. That's like the thing that gives me joy, you know?
So.
Yes, it's been all kinds of ups and downs of many parts of my life for the last few years outside of work, but I don't think it's as simple as the hours. It's actually more, what am I attached to? You know, and I think that attachment, it, I see Ganesh behind you there.
Uh, so, and, and on my arm, Ganesh is my hope. He's my hope.
And I'm not, I'm not a super religious person or anything, but like, This idea that like there are phases where your life, when you feel really attached to something and then, and you know, there is like koan in some, some Eastern religions or religions in general, there could be like a notion over time you get less attached to things, right?
Yes.
And I, I do find myself less attached to external success, you know, and it's interesting. Again, I'm, I'm, don't fault it like that. When I was more attached to it, that's fine too. But, um, I'm noticing that I am changing in that way. So I wish I could give you some formula, and I'm sure you wish you could give a formula, but the only thing I've enjoyed is noticing how I am changing, evolving as a person.
I love that. You know, what I tell folks is like, when we're in our companies, they're all encompassing. You feel like nothing else matters. Like when I was at FreshBooks, I had what I call freshmares where I was just like, dreaming about work at night and it was so prevalent. I just kept a notepad by my bed 'cause I was solving business problems at night. But now it's in the rearview mirror.
Totally.
And Gainsight has been around for many years, but still a minority of your life, right? And then, you know, you'll be here, you know, you sold it in 2020, you must be still enjoying life 'cause you're still there. But at a certain point you won't be. And I don't know when you're taking your dying breath, Gainsight will be a chapter or two at most. It won't be your life. So a big part of what I try and encourage my CEOs is just like to zoom out and have that broader perspective. Like I literally wrote my obituary in 2021, you know, just to like help me have that more long-term perspective.
Oh, there's so much to say about that. This is where I really get engaged cuz I love philosophy and like I think there's an element where there, it's a question of can you hold two conflicting ideas in your head? Can you be like, I am so obsessed with GameSight or whatever you're doing and also realize, yes, eventually that will go away. You know, eventually Amazon will be gone and Microsoft, Google, and all the things we know, right? They'll all be gone, you know, or in some other form that's less relevant than they are today. And maybe they'll come back and maybe they'll go away. And you know, there's a, if, if I could have ask If I could wish everyone in the world would read, you know, 20 lines of poetry, it would be this poem called Ozymandias. I don't know if you know it or not, but it's by Shelley. It's a poem from, I think it's like the 19th century or early 20th century. And it's basically this poem about, um, a person walking through the desert and seeing, um, a, uh, like a, the head of a statue and it has an engraving on it. And engraving is like a statue from a king from thousands of years ago. That talks about how powerful he was. I'm not doing it justice. You really have to read it. But the idea is that the head's fallen off in the sands of the desert and basically the rest of the statue's gone, you know? And the idea is like, yeah, it's all going to be gone eventually, right? And so how can you both hold in your mind that like, I'm going to be all in on whatever this thing is, whether it's my company or my family or my life, and also accept that, yeah, eventually those things do fade away, right? They do. And can you do— can you hold both ideas in your head at the same time? For me, I try to.
Hey, thanks for listening to The Startup CEO Show. If you'd like to connect with me, be sure to visit my website at markmacleod.me or follow me on LinkedIn @TheMarkMacLeod or Twitter @MarkMacLeod_. And if you want to tune in again next week, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.
