3 key takeways from Shikha Sharma, CEO, Axis Bank's inspiring speech

Shikha Sharma,CEO, Axis Bank recently spoke at the convocation of IIM, Ahmedabad. As one of the key women leaders in India’s competitive financial services industry, her views would have been insightful irrespective of the subject she chose to touch upon. And while it is relatively more common to gain insight on bankers’ views of business and the economy, Sharma’s speech at the convocation was unique, in that it was drawn from her personal experiences. As a super achiever, that ambitious young women in particular, would look up to, her speech was full of precious ideas on how to make the best of life. Here are 3 key points she made about her life choices:

 #1. The driving force was the learning curve: Sharma talks about how she has pivoted multiple times in her careers, sometimes leaving the steady professional path behind. Her driving force was the learning curve. She further goes on to say that in an increasingly uncertain world, you can thrive with learning agility.

#2. The choice of life partner is crucial to your joy: She talks about how different she and her husband are in terms of their personality types, but goes on to add that their ‘alignment on core values’ is what has made their partnership successful. In a nutshell, the character of the person you are with is far more important that than the superficialities. And the same holds for choosing professional partnerships as well. Values are key, is her message.

#3. Making the right choices when faced with minor moral dilemmas, adds to your character: Every time you take the short-cut, make a compromise and don’t allow yourself to do what you know to be the right thing to do; you take away from your character and vice-versa. She talks about an incident as a little girl, where she had the chance to give into temptation, but did not. The fact that it stayed with her, and she brings it up in her speech now, speaks volumes about the pride she feels about it.

In the world we live in, at least some of this might sound a bit detached from the reality we see everywhere. We might even want to take it with a pinch of salt. But even with the cynicism, the talk does offer some takeaways for everyone, including her Harry Potter reference of Dumbledore’s remark “It’s our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

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