Bigger, Better, Bolder: From the CIA to CEO

Rupal Patel is the founder and CEO at Entreprenora and Blue Infinity Property Group as well as the author of the book, “From CIA to CEO, Unconventional Life Lessons for Thinking Bigger, Leading Better and Being Bolder.”

The intention was clear for Rupal Patel, founder and CEO at Entreprenora and the Blue Infinity Property Group and the author of the book, “From CIA to CEO, Unconventional Life Lessons for Thinking Bigger, Leading Better and Being Bolder.”

“Give readers adaptable tools and frameworks that would help them understand themselves better, get unstuck in any areas of their lives where they might feel a bit stuck and reclaim their sense of ownership and possibility over what their lives and careers can look like,” she says.

She does make a point to clarify that, “I am sharing ideas and inspiration, not giving definitive instruction.”

The book is a work “to engage with, experiment with and return to again and again depending on what you might need in the moment,” Patel states.

For Patel, the lessons learned in her work with the CIA and in business and speaking were too important not to want to share with others.

“It all starts with understanding, owning and leveraging who you are, with the caveat, of course, being: as long as you're not an @sshole!,” she bluntly states, “which is why I focused so much of the early part of the book on self-analysis and self-understanding exercises.” 

Patel felt she too has had to perform introspection in her career.

“At the CIA we had to really understand our targets and as I grew and scaled my own businesses and charted an unconventional career for myself, I had to do a lot of inner reflection and understand myself better than I ever have before,” she says.

We learn important findings when we honestly examine ourselves.

“Everyone is unique in some way and can be excellent at some specific thing or things, but over the course of our lives we are molded or forced to conform in many ways, from school right on through to our jobs, from our families, our cultures, societies and from our social circles,” Patel stresses. “And all of that molding of course mutes or buries a lot of what makes us unique. So really understanding your strengths, understanding what you are uniquely qualified to do and then using those strengths — by its very nature — will start the process of unleashing your version of excellence.”

It’s not just with individuals.

“The same is true for organizations,” Patel continues, saying, “So many companies waste time comparing themselves to others and benchmarking themselves against others. I call it comparisonitis (sic), because it really is a disease.”

The disappointment and encouragement both, according to her is that “there is so much power in analyzing, understanding and then leveraging what makes them different. It is simple in theory, but not at all easy in practice, which is why so few of us, individuals or organizations, make time to do it.”

Patel has worked in alpha-male environments, something many women can relate too, even if they were never in the CIA. Skillfully, successfully interacting in and navigating that rocky landscape is difficult, but possible.

“Here are a few of the biggest, ‘not-well understoods,’” Patel begins. “False synecdoche. By this I mean, the performance of one woman is often taken as a reliable shorthand for the expected performance of all women, especially at more senior levels. So, if a high-profile woman ‘fails’ in her role, it makes it harder for other women in that same organization — or externally — to attain the same height because she just ‘proved’ that women can’t lead.” 

She dives deeper on this topic and problem.

“When a woman fails, that failure is often attributed to the fact of her being a woman, not the specifics of her as an individual or the circumstances she faced,” Patel says. “There is great research on the glass cliff that shows exactly this.”

She again asserts that is is a gender-exclusive issue.

“This is simply not a challenge men face,” Patel argues. “No one says ‘Oh that last CEO was a man, and he was terrible, so let’s not hire men anymore.’ It’s crazy to even think that. But women are scrutinized in this way and are not allowed to fail and bounce back in the same way men are. There are of course exceptions, but the exceptions are just that (exceptions).”

She’s not done examining the interactions and disclosing findings.

“Women deal with many big and small aggressions each day, no matter how credentialed and competent they are,” Patel laments. “Whether it’s something as obvious as being talked over or undercut in meetings, even by subordinates, or something more subtle like the ‘once over’ we get when we walk into a room, there is so much grinning and bearing it that goes on for women, and it is draining.”

The expectations are not just the work.

“The amount of headspace and time women have to waste when we get ready for work: This isn’t us being vain. This is us doing the mental gymnastics required to hit the ‘right’ note for our work contexts.

“‘Is this too masculine’ ‘Is this too girly’ ‘Is my hair too curly’... it is all because we want to fit in and be taken seriously in our respective contexts and the rules are ambiguous and fluid.”

Not all men or professions and fields are the same of course, she says.

“Some industries are worse than others but it would bore your readers to tears to know, for example, how many hours are wasted by women who straighten their hair, simply because they have been told, officially or unofficially, that curls are not professional.”

It’s so absurd to her that she repeats herself to stress the significance of the standard, spoken or not.

“What a massive waste of time and energy that could be put to much better use,” Patel voices.

When asked the bare minimum that she hopes readers will take away from the book and its teachings, Patel, was ready with an answer.

“That we can either make excuses or we can make things happen. And if we want to make things happen, we have to be committed tryers,” she says.

There are reasons to be confident, Patel encourages.

“We are so lucky to live in free and open societies, even though they aren’t perfect — and we need to stop squandering that luck,” Patel teaches and advises. “I worked in some horribly war-ravaged countries and every time I saw a child, my heart would break because I could pretty much predict what the trajectory of her or his life would be. And it wasn’t good.

“So if you are lucky enough to be born in a country where you have rights, access to education, access to free libraries and internet, infrastructure and all of the things that we take for granted, you really have very little excuse for not pursuing your ambitions.”

She admits it isn’t a smooth journey.

“It’s not going to be easy, of course. But you have to be willing to do the work, ask for help and keep going regardless of how long it takes. And of course, have a bit of luck along the way,” Patel says.

“Afterall, the time will pass anyway, whether you try and ‘fail,’ try and succeed, keep on trying... or just give up and do nothing.”