November 24, 2016 09:57

I hate the expression 'work-life balance'

Ashok Soota

Meet Ashok Soota, who quit Wipro as its CEO at the age of 59 and turned an entrepreneur

Where do you see yourself when you turn 60? Most would probably be thinking of retirement at a quiet, relaxing place by the mountains or the beaches. But not Ashok Soota.

A CEO from the age of 34 (of another company), he quit Wipro when he was 59 years old to start Mindtree. Ten years later, at the age of 69, he still didn’t slow down. Instead, he started Happiest Minds, an IT services company.

For someone who is always on the move, the now 74-year-old is irked by the idea of having a “work-life balance”. “It seems to indicate that work is not life, whereas it is a very large part of our lives. These two are merging into each other very seamlessly. Life has changed in a way that you can get flexibility. You can pace yourself,” he says in the podcast.

Listen to him talk about success, how a book by a Jesuit priest helped him fulfil his desires and how he sees failure not as a dead-end, but as an opportunity.