The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Rashmi Airan Shares Journey of Resilience and Transformation

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Rashmi Airan Shares Journey of Resilience and Transformation Rashmiairan.com About the Guest(s): Rashmi Airan is a captivating speaker, consultant, and catalyst for transformation, focusing on fostering organizational cultures centered around authenticity. With a background as an investment banker and an attorney, she brings a unique perspective on leadership, core values, and decision-making. Rashmi's powerful story includes her time in federal prison, which she now uses to inspire and motivate others. She has worked with global corporations and associations, providing keynotes, leadership workshops, and ongoing consulting services aimed at creating safe havens for courageous and often challenging conversations. Episode Summary: Welcome to another episode of The Chris Voss Show! In this engaging and insightful episode, Chris Voss sits down with Rashmi Aaron, a dynamic speaker and consultant dedicated to fostering authenticity in organizational cultures. Rashmi shares her compelling journey from a successful career as an attorney and investment banker to her time in federal prison, and how she has emerged stronger, using her experiences to teach others about leadership, resilience, and ethical decision-making. Rashmi delves into her process called "Rise through It," a three-step method focusing on acceptance, letting go, and taking bold action. She discusses the importance of self-accountability and vulnerability in leadership, and shares how her consulting work helps C-suite executives and teams build trust and improve accountability. Rashmi’s story is a testament to the power of resilience and the human spirit, making this episode a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate challenges and lead with integrity. Key Takeaways: Acceptance and Ownership: Recognize and take ownership of your current situation to pave the way for transformation. Letting Go: Release ego, fear, control, and judgment to find enlightenment, courage, conviction, and grace. Bold Action: Act with courage and make significant changes to rise through challenges. Relatability and Vulnerability: Sharing personal stories and vulnerabilities can open the door to deeper, more meaningful conversations and trust within teams. Fear and Uncertainty: Addressing fear, especially related to change and uncertainty, is crucial for growth and resilience. Notable Quotes: "Failure is just an opportunity to try again." "If you're not trying to fail, you're not trying hard enough." "Not doing something is still doing something wrong." "We are all humans, we are all drops from the same ocean, and how dare I pass judgment on others?" "When we can actually recognize that the entire purpose of being humans on this earth is to be fallible, that is the human experience."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm host Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a band that loves you, but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law

Because, you know, I don't know, you're just never going to get on our good side, dude You screwed it up a long time ago, and just give up, that's probably the thing to do That or refer to the show, tell her to go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrissvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrissvoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrissvoss, chrissv Fortress, Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss, one of the TikTokity. And you know, maybe she'll be happier with you because you're like, well, at least that idiot listens to a really smart show. But as always, we bring you the people who share with you their cathartic moments in life, their lessons in life, their journeys of life, and all the things they go through so that they can help you lead your life better.

Maybe give you a shortcut that they learned through their experience of what they went through in life. Today we have Rushmi Aaron on the show. She's going to be talking to us about her journey and how she inspires and motivates people and gets them interested in doing better with their life. She is a captivating speaker, consultant, and catalyst for transformation with a mission to foster organizational cultures centered around authenticity. Her powerful story transcends the pitfalls of unknowingly making a life-altering decision.

It's a tale of leadership, core values, and decision-making capable of creating a safe haven for courageous and often challenging conversations. So let's get into it. Welcome to the show, young lady. How are you? I'm great, Chris. Thanks. How are you?

Thanks for having me on. There you go. I'm just flipping between screens here. So give us a.com. Welcome to the show. Tell us.com where people can find you on the interwebs. So I am at rushmeiran.com, R-A-S-H-M-I-A-I-R-A-N.com. But in true transparency, I am in total reconstruction of my website.

So, you know, everything's a work in progress as always. But that's where I'm at. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you do and how you do it. Yeah, so I now do keynote speeches, virtual, of course, as well. A lot of workshopping and leadership, I would say, C-suite work, as well as a speaker residence program, which encompasses sort of an ongoing program with corporations and organizations. I used to be an attorney. So my story is that I was an investment banker. Then I was an attorney.

I had a league educated, had my own practice. And years later, I ended up in federal prison. Wow. So it's been a life. Yeah, that's quite, you're going the wrong way there, I think. Well, depends on how you look at it. That's true. You learn from these things in life.

Always. So tell us about this journey of what you went through and how you've come out the other side now. Yeah. So it started really with a client and my kids were young and I had my own little solopreneur practice and I was a youngish attorney. I mean, I'm still young at heart, but younger. And I was pounding the pavement. My husband at the time was a firefighter. So I was really muscling my way trying to get business. And I had a client that was doing some creative transactions. And, you know, you take yourselves back to 2007 and eight before the crisis, before the market dropped.

So it was in that time period. And I live in South Florida. So South Florida was no stranger to this. And ultimately I ended up sort of laying in bed with this guy. Didn't ask any questions or didn't ask the right questions. Really, I wanted this client so badly that I didn't ask the right questions. And 15 months later, after I had done about 200 closings with him and along the way, there were moments where like my gut was screaming at me

and I just didn't want to listen. And I kept shutting it down and saying, you know, I just didn't want to hear my inner voice. So fast forward, seven years later, I got indicted for bank fraud. Oh, wow. And it took me a long time to get to the point where I owned it. Because in my head, I thought my files passed audit. You know, as a lawyer, everything was my escrows in and out were clean. And ultimately, when I owned it, I realized

I should have asked more questions. And as an attorney, I had a higher fiduciary duty to ask the questions that I did not. So I pled guilty. And one of the things I say a lot is that not doing something is still doing something wrong. Ultimately, I was sentenced to prison. I served six months of a year sentence and when i came home honestly at first i just wanted to help people with my story the judge wouldn't even let me make money doing it for three years i spoke i probably gave 300 speeches over three years never made a cent i did it really because i i thought to myself if i can help one person every day learn from my experience and never go through and make those same bad decisions, then this is my pay it forward.

This is my redemption. This is how I make it right. And so that's how I started in this journey. And over the years, I've done a lot of research and I've channeled and dug deep and really tried to figure out what went wrong. And I tried to help people through the story. And I went through this ethics and compliance journey for a long time. I'm now in an area where I realize that the power of my story is a lot in the resilient side. And resilient, I think is a word that gets used a lot, but I have

this, a process that I realized that I go through every time I've gone through some life challenges. So it didn't just stop at prison. My sister passed away five years ago from a mental health issue. My parents lost everything when I was a teenager. So my life has been ups and downs, which we all go through. And so we're all going to face it, right? It's just how do we climb our knees in every moment. It's how you approach what happens to you and of course, how you deal with it. Do you think that maybe your parents losing everything when you were young kind of maybe pushed these ethical boundaries you were doing when you were an adult where you were like you had to make compensation for it? No, I don't think that that was it actually.

My parents, when they lost everything, they lost everything because of the real estate crisis. Oh, wow. And they ended up having to file bankruptcy and one of the things that actually came out of that was the positive energy and reinforcement around this around the idea that no matter what we go through we can always come back from it if you have enough in yourself and you recognize that change is actually good and living in that dust discomfort which we absolutely did. I watched my parents.

We lived in the most preeminent neighborhood in Miami, on the water, on the ocean, in a 10,000 square foot house. Moved out of that when we felt foreclosure to a tiny little rental. Walked from my high school just to survive. But yet my parents were always happy, always showed us love, me and my sisters, and showed each other love and faith that we have our intellect, we have our strength, and we can step one foot ahead and keep trying again. And failure is just an opportunity to try again. And that's what I learned from my parents. Failure is just an opportunity to try again. I like that. Is that on a shirt or is it a quote? You should put that on a shirt or coffee cup. You know where I learned that? I learned this. Well, I've obviously learned it from my parents,

but I've had the chance to do some work with Armando Christian Perez, Pitbull, the artist. Of course, he's Mr. 305. I live in Miami and we are friends and I have worked with him and I've spoken for his school and been his commencement speaker at his school. And the first time I heard him speak was at a Tony Robbins event, actually. And he got up on stage and he was sharing his journey, which I didn't know. And he was the one that said, you know, something to this effect, that failure is just an opportunity to try something new again. I'm not putting words into his mouth.

I don't remember the exact words, but that was kind of what it was. It stuck with me. And it really is. It's just something, it's like I see failure as an opportunity. And if we're not trying to fail, we're not trying hard enough is how I see it. I like that too. That would be a great cup as well. If you're not trying to fail, you're not trying hard enough. I really like that. That's awesome. That is great actually. Because that's really, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're trying to be successful,

you have to push those boundaries. Because if you're not, you're not trying hard enough, you probably won't go anywhere. So you have a mantra or program, I guess, called Rise Through It. Tell us about that. Sure. So I really believe, you know, most leaders today think that we have to rise above anything that happens and then you just keep going on. I don't agree. I actually believe that the truth is, is that we have to rise through it. We have to rise through whatever we're going through, the discomfort, the uncertainty, because in that, in that granular is where we grow. We strategically learn things about ourselves. So I've established a process and it's, I would say I didn't really establish it. I just deconstructed what I do and what I've been doing for years and what my parents have been doing for years. And it's a three-step process. So the first step is you accept and embrace the moment, like actually acknowledge what you're going through and take ownership of that moment. So for me, when I was going through this whole process of investigation, sentencing,

and then prison, I didn't have a choice. I just had to accept it because it is what it is. Once you acknowledge and own it, then the second step is to let go. There are four pillars to let go. You got to let go of ego, which is hard. We live in a place, a society, in a world of ego. And I'm going to tell you that there were moments where I was like, thank God,

nobody can see me in this prison where in handcuffs and shackles. Yeah. But when you release the ego, you actually find enlightenment and you can actually dig deep and find yourself. And who are you the second is you let go of fear fear is paralyzing we are absolutely dread the uncertainty and when you can let go of that fear you actually find your courage the third is you let go of

control so we try to control every moment we want to control how much money we're going to make tomorrow we want to control who our you know clients are we try to control every moment. We want to control how much money we're going to make tomorrow. We want to control who our clients are. We want to control our relationships. But if we can let go of control, and I am a control freak, so I try not to be in control all the time. And it's been a journey. But when you let go of control, you find conviction. And if you can find conviction, by the way, there's a play on words there, right? Because I was convicted. But when you find conviction in yourself, that allows you to actually learn and grow. There you go. The last is you let go of judgment. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that I was

absolutely passing judgment on other people in my former life. And when I was, I had to spend 23 days in a county jail. And there was this moment where I was singing and dancing and sleeping and praying with these women that I recognized I would have absolutely passed judgment on these people in my former life. And I would have thought I was better than them because I was educated and I was an attorney and I come from a great family. And, you know, when you learn to release judgment of others and of yourself, of course, you find grace. And when you can understand, I got to a point where I recognize we are all humans. We are all drops from the same ocean. And how dare I pass judgment on others? True.

So when you let go of judgment, you can actually find grace. And then the third step is you take a bold step and act with courage. And when you can act with courage, that is where the change happens, right? In that discomfort, you come out of it. By going through it, you come out of it then and create change. And that's my lesson. It sounds like something changed behind you in the crash. So it's definitely working.

You know, that was my 19-year-old, truth be told. He was trying to get my attention and distract me. There you go. There you go. You know, a couple of the formats that you talked about are our essences of stoicism. So this is, you know, the letting go and all those things. And so these are really important aspects. I think, I guess what you really help people do too, is get, you know, take away that ego. Cause that's a real way of cutting the ego away. It's a real way to get to

self accountability. Right. And kudos to you for being self accountable. You know, a lot of people go to prison, they won't be self accountable. A lot of people do bad things to maybe don't go to prison won't be self-accountable and they'll just blame everybody you know the system's against me it's the world against me I didn't do anything wrong and they can never fix themselves they and usually just keep doing stuff wrong because they never address it. And kudos to you for having that ability to go, okay, learn my lesson. I'm going to do better.

I'm going to atone for my sins. I'm going to do work to try and there's a word you use that Michael Cohen uses on his podcast, I think, for basically redemption. And work towards it. And I think that's great. And it sounds like you really help people, you know, focus on that. Because if you can't be self-accountable, you can never fix your problems. You know, I think that it's sort of a pandemic in our society. I mean, I don't want to use pandemic lightly. But it's definitely something that most people are so worried about.

What are people going to say? What's going to happen to my reputation? What's going to happen to me? And there's this idea that we have to pretend to be who we're not. We have to pretend to have this aura of perfection around us. I absolutely, as a kid, tried to be the perfect kid all the time. So I'm 52 to this day. I've never tried a drug. I've, as a kid, tried to be the perfect kid all the time. So I'm 52. To this day, I've never tried a drug. I've never smoked a cigarette. I just, because I was always trying to be the good woman. Look, it's a good thing, right? But like, I am such a good girl. And I was absolutely the girl that colored between the lines and was always on the straight and narrow path until I wasn't. And when we can actually recognize that the entire purpose of being humans on this

earth is to be fallible. We are meant to learn lessons in this lifetime. That is the human experience. And fortunately or unfortunately, I was able to learn this through this really hard period of my life. And obviously I've read a lot of books and I've prayed a lot and I've, I'm surrounded by people that love me and have poured their unconditional love into me and believed in me and helped me understand that my self-worth does not lay or lie in my achievements or where I went to school or how much money I was making, but really lies in who I,

who I am as a human. There you go. That, that sort of revelation and understanding has been so life-changing for me. And my hope is that as I continue to share stories and spread my mission and values around the world, more and more people get that strength from within to do the same for others. There you go. That's so important that people need to learn and you can't fix yourself. You can't grow until you address your issues and focus on them.

So you do consulting now where people can book off your website. Talk to us about what sort of clients do you work with? Do they have a minimum net worth? What do they need to be doing? What's a good fit for you? Sure. Thanks for asking. So I'll start with the keynotes. I mean, keynotes, I do small, big, all around the world for all types of global corporations and associations and all types of conferences. The consulting is actually really interesting. I would say my sweet spot is leadership consulting for C-suite and executive teams. And what I focus sort of a byproduct of what happens when people hear me is it's like I give people permission to be vulnerable

and I open the door to having really hard, difficult conversations. And so I would say the work that I do most, that's most valuable is a team building, core values, accountability, leadership workshop. And I've done half day retreats full-day retreats all over the world and there's no like net worth you know obviously there is a cost to my to my full days and half-day programming but it's more i want to work with people that want to create better

trust within their environments and really take their teams and their organizations and their you know executive leadership groups to the next level. And I incorporate a lot of my research that I've done around behavioral ethics and behavioral psychology into the work that I do, as well as leadership, obviously lessons and things that I've learned over the years. There you go. And so people can reach out to you on the website to talk to you, handshake with you, see if it's a good fit.

What are some challenges you find that people are resistant to going through some of the things that you talk about where you know sub being self-accountability or or being vulnerable i mean you know what's the old saying like with alcoholics anonymous you know first you have to admit you have a problem before you can address it it's interesting i'm going to give you without giving the name of the company, I'll give you an example. I was working with a large Fortune 100 company and they called me to do a day-long retreat.

And it was in another country and there were a lot of gender issues. And so the person that called me in, I mean, there were gender issues as well as leadership issues and trust issues and accountability issues. But the woman that called me in to lead this full day retreat, who was a leader was a woman, but it was a patriarchal, kind of dominant,

not only corporate culture, but also in that country was a very corporate, male dominated society. And there ended up being a lot of backlash after the full day retreat, which didn't come out in the full day, It came out a couple of weeks later and I had to hear about the backlash. And it wasn't that I didn't, it was, it was more like a gender conflict. So these are really interesting challenges, I think, because people on the day of sometimes I'm, I'm trying to get them to talk about like really personal and vulnerable things. And nobody talked about the challenges they thought they were feeling about this gender issue until after the fact that came up in question to me.

So, you know, that's an interesting challenge to me because I think I I'm always really, I would say supportive of my clients and the teams to, to let their guard down, to be vulnerable in the moment, which is why I always start out with, you know, the top executive is in the group, to start with the sharing. I would say another challenge is I've done some work with municipalities, and there's a lot of bureaucracy in municipalities. And interestingly, shocking, right? But interestingly, when you're working with municipalities, especially departments of

local municipalities, there's often, you'll have a department head that wants to do something and really wants to get, you know, really elevate their team to the next level. But then you'll have somebody above them, like a county manager or something, say, we don't think that that's important. You don't really need to do that. So it's like you have a department head that's trying to, like, improve leadership and improve, let's say, productivity of their team. But somebody from above just comes out and like shoots it down. And then, you know, there become budget issues. You know, it's typical government stuff. But it's interesting when you have a leader that you hire, you hire this leader to do a job to elevate their team.

But then you're like putting them down and not letting them do what they believe they need to do for their team. So there are those challenges where, you know, people aren't yet ready to understand that having these types of, you know, whether it's a workshop or a half day retreat or a full day retreat really will lead to substantive results, whether it's, you know, financial results, team results, it's always going to lead to results. There you go. What do you find a lot? Most people are struggling with. Is it the self accountability? Is it the ego? What is it these days that people really have a hard time with, do you think, in their psychology? and there's a lot of things right now in the world right between the environment the market the economy obviously if you're in the united states there's political unrest and political

uncertainty but ai and technology is causing a lot of like anxiety and uncertainty and then just people are dealing with medical challenges people are dealing with financial challenges legal challenges so we all will face that level of uncertainty in our lives. And that is the predominant thing that I hear across, which is part of the reason why I keep sharing with people this process that I've created, because it really helps us get through uncertainty. But that's what I hear across the board the most, like this fear of the paralysis. Wait, I have to change? Wait, I have to change? I have to engage in generative AI?

And what if generative AI takes my job? And wait, I have to deal with new leadership? So there's constant iterations that we have to do in ourselves and our skills and our abilities. So that's the biggest thing I hear. There you go. Fear changes fearful. I mean, it's hard. It's, you know, it's the unknown.

So people don't know where they're going to go through. Final thoughts as we go out on, on how people can onboard with you and whatever we haven't touched on. Yeah. Thanks, Chris. So I would say reach out. My email is easy. It's rushme at rushmeaaron.com. You can even call me 305-772-8712. Like I said, the website's totally under construction, but it's rushmeaaron.com. And really just reach out even if you have a question, want to sort of brainstorm a little bit about what your organization, your team, if you want to do some one-on-one coaching, I also do a lot of that. I get brought in to do some women's stuff as well, just because obviously that makes a lot of sense. And my story is really impactful. I, the thing I hear the most about my work is that it's so relatable

because I served time. I was a wall street exec. I was on wall street. I was an Ivy league educated attorney. I've been a professor. I'm an entrepreneur. I was a sales professional. Oh, I didn't even tell you. I sold cutco knives as a kid, right? So I've had all of these like iterations of my life, but because I've, I've been in so many different industries, I sold Cutco knives as a kid, right? So I've had all these like iterations of my life, but because I've, I've been in so many different industries, I'm, I'm very relatable, can understand what any organization is going through just because I've been there and having gone through the ups and downs of my own lives helps me interact with and relate to my audiences in such a powerful way that I know it's, you know, years later, I'll get calls and emails like, oh my gosh, I almost did something today. And I remembered you. And I'm so glad you

gave me that, you know, tip on what not to do or what to do. And so that's the best way. You've definitely lived by example on rising through it. And, you know, we all, we make mistakes in life and we have to account for them and then we have to build something better. And then of course, you know, like what we do on this show, we then we have to build something better and then of course you know like what we do on this show we we say stories the owner's manual to life we people share their journeys and and you know other people hear what they're going through and and and say this person sounds like they have a blueprint for me to deal with what i where i'm at right now and also it helps to know that you're not alone. I think that's a big thing with fear where people are afraid because they're like, they think they're on an island or it's just them.

And there's a lot of people who go through the same challenges, go through the same dichotomies and challenges of life where they fail. And there are people that can help you out there. There are people that can say, Hey, I went through this too. You're going to be fine. It's, it's a little scary, but you, but trust me, I made it to the other side like you did. You made it to the other side of what you're doing. A lot of people that go to jail, they just end up recidivizing through the system over and over again because they never take accountability. And so great story and wonderful thing. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you. It's interesting, Chris, you just said something that triggered something for me. I was actually literally just before this, I was on

a call with a new client and it was four women. And then we got on the call and one of the women started sharing, I'm sorry, I had to move this call because my daughter was going through something. And I said, well, tell me more. Like how old is she? What was she going through? It turns out that it was a mental health related issue. And we ended up having a 15 minute conversation amongst the four of us, how every one of us has been impacted by mental health issues. And so to your point, when we recognize that we're not alone, when we're facing something, it helps us not only understand and get advice on what else we can do and how best to be supported, but also not to feel so alone. Vivek Murthy, who's a very close dear friend of ours here in Miami,

who's the U.S. Surgeon General, he has identified loneliness as the epidemic, the pandemic of today. And it's so true that when we're going through life struggles, certainly I could sit down on my knees and cry and be ashamed. And I don't let this experience define who I am. And part of the reason is, is I'm constantly sharing and talking to people and leaning on others to support me. So I try not to feel alone. And so whatever it is that I think we're going through,

when we have the ability to rise through it, we recognize that we're not alone. And if we can keep talking to people about it that's that's really how we how we get off our knees definitely you gotta you gotta do it or else you're never gonna move you're just you're just gonna stay down on your knees pretty much so there you go thank you very much for coming on the show give us your dot coms one more time so we can find it on the interwebs. Yes. It's RushMeAaron.com. R-A-S-H-M-I-A-I-R-A-N like Nancy.com. And the email is RushMe at RushMeAaron.com. There you go.

Watch anybody. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfoss. Chris Foss won the TikTok and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

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