PCMA Convene Podcast

In this Interview, Business Events Summit keynote speaker, author, and leadership expert Rashmi Airan unpacks the concept of the “invisible prison” and the four forces that quietly shape—and sometimes sabotage—our decision-making. Drawing from her deeply personal story and years of research, Rashmi introduces practical frameworks like the Clarity Loop and the RISE framework to help event professionals pause, lead with integrity, and make choices they can stand behind. This conversation is a must-listen for leaders navigating uncertainty, managing teams under pressure, and striving to build cultures rooted in trust, courage, and accountability. 

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Music: Inspirational Cinematic Piano with Orchestra

Creators and Guests

Host
Magdalina Atanassova
Digital Media Editor at Convene Magazine
Guest
Rashmi Airan
Keynote Speaker & Transformation Expert

What is PCMA Convene Podcast?

Since 1986, Convene has been delivering award-winning content that helps event professionals plan and execute innovative and successful events. Join the Convene editors as we dive into the latest topics of interest to — and some flying under the radar of — the business events community.

Convene Podcast Transcript
Convene Interview, ep. 27

*Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies

Magdalina Atanassova: This is the Convene Podcast.
Today, we’re exploring what happens when certainty breaks—and why the most important leadership decisions are often made in moments of pressure, silence, and uncertainty.
My guest is Rashmi Airan—a transformation expert, keynote speaker, and unapologetic truth-teller whose life and work challenge the way we think about success, failure, and ethical leadership. Rashmi’s story is anything but linear: she’s an Ivy League–educated attorney, former Wall Street investment banker, serial entrepreneur, college professor, and professionally trained vocalist—and she’s also a convicted felon who has rebuilt her life by confronting the invisible prisons that shape our decisions.
Raised as a first-generation American by parents who immigrated from India with bold dreams and high expectations, Rashmi grew up believing that hard work determined worth and that success followed a predictable path. When that story unraveled, she was forced to face uncertainty, identity loss, and the consequences of unexamined rules. Out of that reckoning emerged her RISE Framework and Clarity Loop—tools that now help leaders and organizations navigate pressure with greater honesty, courage, and discernment.
In this conversation, we talk about invisible prisons, ethical blind spots, decision-making under pressure, and why true strength isn’t built in control or certainty—but in our ability to pause, reflect, and rise with clarity when it matters most.
We start now.
Magdalina Atanassova: Hi Rashmi and welcome to the Convene Podcast.
Rashmi Airan: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and to work with the entire PCMA team.
Magdalina Atanassova: Before we dive in,
want to start with a little note for our listeners.
Your story is very inspiring as I've shared in the intro, but I want to invite all to read the article Michelle Russell wrote as well as visit your website and get your latest book, which we'll talk about a bit later.
And just to get to know you a little bit better because I feel we're diving a slight level deeper today.
So just a note for better connections.
I just want to invite everyone to get a bit deeper into your world because it's fabulous.
Rashmi Airan: Thank you.
Magdalina Atanassova: Having said that, you talk about the invisible prisons that shape our decisions in the business events world.
What are the most common mental prisons that you see leaders operating inside and how do they quietly limit innovation, inclusion or bold decision making?
Rashmi Airan: Oh gosh, it's such a great question. And so much of my work and you know, I would say like a decade of studying my own thinking and deconstructing in my life what went wrong that landed me in an actual prison.
And so what I believe is that the business events industry is very similar to other industries and other leaders. But what makes the business Events industry and professionals in this space,
uniquely different is I believe that every single person in this industry's identities rely on this notion that we are the doers,
we are the achievers,
we are the ones who figure it out, right?
When the uncertainty is looming,
when you know, vendors are pulling out,
attendee numbers are going down, sponsors are like wishy washy events leaders still have to like find the stability and commit to numbers and commit to venues and say, yeah, okay, I got this, I'll still make it work.
And so that level of uncertainty is so prominent in our events industry. And of course the last few years that started with COVID and then there's been all sorts of government and market uncertainty across, I mean globally, right?
We have global unrest politically of course, with various different wars, but then there's also market uncertainty, there's political uncertainty in our country for sure here in the US Interest rates.
So because of that,
sponsors are volatile,
attendees are volatile, corporate sponsors are volatile. And all of that leads to event leaders trying to figure out in a, in a mode of uncertainty. On top of that we have family life pressures, which is life, right?
We all are here working hard, but really to do it for our children and our families.
That I believe technology, AI and automation are a massive, what I call a wall.
Because yes, AI and technology have helped us to become more efficient, to become faster what we do. But that speed and urgency that we get caught up in can, can definitely lead to what I call the bad decisions, the drift.
Because if you're not careful and you don't ask enough questions,
there's a propensity and a temptation to just like believe what you're seeing and hearing or what you're being told by Claude or chat if you don't question it enough. And then the fourth wall, I call it the four walls that make up our invisible prison.
The fourth wall is silence.
And silence is really how do we silence ourselves? We have limiting beliefs, assumptions, rationalizations, imposter syndrome, all the things that we feel.
So we silence ourselves oftentimes rather than speaking up if we don't agree, let's say, or we feel like that might not be the right thing to do or that might not work and we need to say it, but we silence ourselves because we're, it almost feels like it's a threat to our identity because if we speak up,
then we're like going off track and we're the ones that keep it on track, right? We're event professionals. We figure things out under this pressure and speed of, of life.
But we're also silencing others.
So the loudest person in the room tends to win. And we need to be able to give space to others, to speak up, to have a voice so that they're not being silenced.
So I call those the four walls that make up the invisible prison.
Magdalina Atanassova: I love it. And I feel you've described event professionals so well.
I recognize all of these four walls as a former event professional myself.
So how do you think leaders can distinguish between healthy caution and fear driven decision making? Because there is a fine line there. And what questions should they ask themselves in high stakes situations?
Rashmi Airan: Well, I'm so glad you asked because all of my sort of decade of studying has led to me creating what I wish I had had a decade ago before I ended up working with this client.
I,
I was justifying and rationalizing and I was operating out of fear.
Right? And so after a lot of understanding, cognitive biases, psychology of decision making,
I created what's called the clarity loop. Takes a couple minutes. It's four questions that we can ask ourselves at any moment.
It's. The first is what am I feeling right now? Because we often are reacting based on emotion and we don't recognize how we're reacting out of emotion. Right. In my case,
in the moment. And of course, hopefully your, your listeners will have a chance to get to know my story a little bit better.
But in the moment. When I met this real estate developer in 2007,
I was operating out of fear of I need this client to survive the fear that otherwise I'm not gonna be able to cover payroll, pay for my kids lives, their school, all of those things.
But I didn't see it as fear. I saw it as ambition and strategy and strategic thinking and boldness, right? And so that level of understanding, so what am I feeling right now?
Two is what story am I telling myself?
So we create this narrative in our head and oftentimes it's a binary, right? In my case, I was like, I have to get the client or I'm not going to survive.
And it rarely is a binary, but we, when we create a story,
it allows us to rationalize and justify what we want to do.
If we recognize the story we're telling ourselves and deconstruct it and then be able to see, hmm, is that story actually true? Then the rationalizations and justifications that we're making fall apart.
Three,
what matters most here,
and this is where we really begin to align with our core values.
In my case,
I come from an incredible family and culture of Very strong core values and principles. And I grew up, I lived them my whole life until I didn't.
And in the moment when things are happening, the pressure, speed, noise of life,
it is not easy, but it can happen that we lose sight of what our core values are, and then we're just operating out of that speed as a reaction. So what matters most here is, helps us basically align.
We go from performance to alignment. And the final question is most important, what choice can I own later?
Like in five years?
Is it okay if this choice I'm making shows up on the front page of the newspaper in front of a board meeting,
in front of my family?
Will I be okay with it? Can I own it?
That level of what I call moral humility,
which is all my research taught me that moral humility is the recognition that all of us are capable of drift. All of us are capable of making a bad decision in a moment.
Not because we're bad people,
but because we're doers. We are the ones to figure it out. And in a hot moment, we might do something and not even realize it. So what choice can I own later?
That's accountability. So if we ask ourselves these four questions,
it's not that we're never going to make a bad decision,
but then we have awareness of all of these principles to avoid the Drift and then actually, hopefully make a better decision.
Magdalina Atanassova: It also feels like it gives you a moment, just separate yourself from the situation. And I feel sometimes we don't allow ourselves that moment of clarity. It's rather, let's rush to the thing, pause, and let's just figure it out.
And yeah, this pause is like.
Rashmi Airan: Yeah, it's, you know, it's fascinating. So the, the keynote I'm giving and for business event summit is titled Rise to the Moment.
Because that's exactly the point. Right. Like we're. When we're in the moment, we have to recognize that if we rise to the moment, that means we're looking for clarity.
We're not just allowing ourselves to fall into the Drift. So we just have to keep reminding ourselves to rise to the moment and then know that every moment matters. And that's, you know, that's every moment, every decision.
And I think that the more we commit to those moments,
we build unshakable trust.
We create power within ourselves and our teams. Like that's how where our cultures are going to grow, our teams are going to grow in the events world and in the corporate world.
Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. And that doesn't take away your confidence.
It's actually Building on it. Right? Because often people seem to feel like if I take this moment to think, I'll seem very,
you know, not knowing how to react, unsure, uncertain.
Oftentimes it's the opposite. Like the team on the other side, the people on the other side, they see you and they're like,
perfect. It's like. It's this lower energy. It's not the rush. It's like the moment to thoughtfully take the next step.
Rashmi Airan: So it's. It's fascinating, right? The pause feels like a threat to our identity. It feels like we're somehow failing. It feels like we're somehow losing momentum.
But it is when we make and take the pause with. With focus and clarity,
that allows us to move forward with awareness and intention. Right? And then the people that are around us on our teams,
as we're planning an event, as we're working with a vendor, talking to a speaker,
the people around us then see and can witness our intention,
our desire to actually be thoughtful about are we making the right decision?
I don't want to just jump. I need to actually think about what I'm doing before I say yes or before I commit to this outcome. Right. And so I think you're right.
I think that the track record or the history,
the status quo is react, react, react, make decisions really, really fast.
And AI, like I said, forces us to think that we have to go faster,
to somehow separate ourselves, to make ourselves better, to keep up with everybody else.
And the responsibility that we had as individuals, as a vet, industry professionals,
is. It's in the slowing down, it's in the pause. And I'm not saying for a very long time, you know, we're talking about a few minutes,
just a few minutes to find that clarity that allows us to rise to the moment.
Magdalina Atanassova: You've said strength isn't built in certainty, and I feel our conversation so far really drives that point.
For event professionals who are expected to have all the answers, what is the real cost of projecting certainty?
And how can leaders model clarity without pretending they know everything?
Rashmi Airan: It's so important.
So certainty,
let's just say this. Uncertainty is the universal truth.
Struggle is the universal truth.
We're not supposed to have all the answers. We're human beings.
We're figuring it out every single day.
And so the more we can remind ourselves that strength is built in owning and knowing that uncertainty is where we're going to grow. Uncertainty is where we push and we learn and we lift each other up.
Right? So what I think is going to separate the business leaders that Understand this and grow through the discomfort and through the uncertainty versus the leaders that believe that they have to just know the answers right away is the leaders that begin to react.
They're reacting because of the drift, they're reacting because of these four walls and will inevitably make bad decisions.
And, you know, again, it's the universal truth that we will all make bad decisions and we hope we'll own it. But the goal is we want to have clarity so we don't make bad decisions.
So we have the sense of owning the fact that there is going to be uncertainty,
empowering our teams around us to also feel that discomfort. And then we talk about it and we connect on it and we learn from each other. And then we discuss what are the ups and the downs, the goods and the bads and the consequences of what we're about to do and then make an informed decision.
Right in that level of uncertainty,
which is never going to go away. We just have to live through that and make better decisions is what I believe.
Magdalina Atanassova: I love how you're bringing the whole team together.
Part of your story shows how unexamined rules can lead good people to bad outcomes. So in this organizational setting with the team,
there are many organizations that really pride themselves on best practices, right? So how can leaders challenge the rules without undermining trust or culture?
Rashmi Airan: So this is where that silence comes in, right? So when we are challenging an existing norm, an existing role, or maybe it's just always been done this way, and then something internally in my inner gut makes me feel like that doesn't feel right,
or I just heard of another way to do this.
We want to empower the people around us to be able to disagree with us,
to be able to rise and say something and have a voice and say, well, what about this idea?
I know that we've been doing it for 20 years in this one way, but what if we just decided to explore a different way?
And so that freedom to be able to speak up and not just create disagreement, but also talk about what are different options available,
I think really will end up leveling up the entire team.
So if we just stay in status quo,
things ultimately are going to get pretty boring.
And, you know, how are we going to learn if, you know, PCMA is here to lead minds and lead change.
How do we lead change? We lead change by going into the discomfort, by challenging the norms, by thinking at the next level and being disruptive. And the only way to do that is to have clarity around, like, what's okay.
And we need to be Able to have given others the courage to be able to speak up even when it's hard.
Magdalina Atanassova: Which brings me to this point that the rush also sometimes leads us into creating these ethical blind spots. So how can teams build safeguards before something goes wrong?
Rashmi Airan: Well, so the blind spots exist when we're not aware of, like, the full 360 around us.
And if we're only thinking about, like, okay, a sponsor's asking me to do X and you're like, in your lane, then you're not able to see the consequences of what this sponsor is asking you to do.
The responsibility for us to avoid blind spots and red flags is to be able to have these open conversations.
I call them courageous conversations, vulnerably with courage around every single question topic. You know, so a leader, an event planner that is planning an event might have, let's say, one person that you talk to, but we have an entire team that we're working with.
And oftentimes it's recognizing that when there's an issue or a moment or a situation that's arisen,
getting the feedback of others on the team and actually having a conversation. Now, sometimes we don't have time to do this, right? And this is where then we apply the clarity loop to at least recognize the Clarity loop really does help with the blind spots.
I mean, that's kind of what it exists for, is to,
like, acknowledge all the blind spots. The blind spots come up in those four questions. But I do believe that we can also be asking our teams to help us.
Magdalina Atanassova: You address this situation where there is a crisis that arises. Right. And the team is trying to figure it out. So how would you coach an event leader in this situation to apply the Rise through it framework in real time,
not just in hindsight?
Rashmi Airan: So I have. I have two frameworks. I have the Rise framework, which is in the book. And that's really to rise through struggle and uncertainty.
Any kind of moment of struggle that we're facing, which is inevitable and come out strong on the other side. And so that's what the whole book is about. And then there's the clarity loop, which is how do we make better decisions when we're in the moment?
So crisis is inevitable.
We are going to face crisis, whether it's a speaker not being able to show up because of weather,
an AV team that somehow has some disconnect or malfunction on some sort of technology,
the lighting goes out in the. In the venue. I mean, there's so many things that can happen. A sponsor pulls out last minute because They've gone bankrupt. And gosh, there's so many ways that this could happen.
So in the moment, the rise framework is reframe.
So in the moment, even though something feels really negative, we have to be able to reframe it and say, okay, why is this happening? I'm going to trust that it's happening for my good.
I'm going to reframe this as something that I can get through and something that's positive. And I just have to have the faith to know that when I'm in the darkness,
there's light on the other side of that mountain. I just have to have faith that it's there. So first is reframing. And that means you have to, like, feel that pain in your bones until you can get to the next step,
because it's not supposed to be easy. Discomfort is hard, as we know. And when we're in real struggle,
it hurts. And we. And. And the rise framework says we have to actually root into that pain and feel it and get and go through it. That's why it's called rise through,
not rise above.
Second is identify.
Identifying is identify who are the people in your life that will be your unapologetic truth tellers that will be there to lift you and guide you when things go get hard?
I believe we have to recognize and figure out who is our constellation of stars,
who we can lean on. So it could be people we work with,
people in our families, our best friends. But we need those people to remind us that we can rise through anything.
Then it's surrender.
Surrendering means we have to let go of our ego,
because ego is a trap man, isn't it?
Then let go of control,
because we really don't have control over anything. So we got to let. Of course you keep working hard, but you got to let go of the control that we don't have.
We have to let go of fear,
because fear just overtakes us. But we gotta. We gotta act in the face of fear. And then finally we have to let go of judgment.
Because as I learned, I was passing a lot of judgment on others,
and I had to own that,
but I was also passing a lot of judgment on myself.
And so oftentimes we have to be able to forgive ourselves in the moment and recognize like, okay, I have to surrender to all these things because there's power in letting go.
And then finally you can evolve.
So when you evolve is. There's lots of practices on how we evolve. Gratitude, finding presence, finding joy. And there's so many Aspects of how we evolve into better humans,
and then we become better team players, better, you know, mothers, sisters, all of those things.
Magdalina Atanassova: It sounds like a lot of heavy work,
and I'm saying it in the best possible way, but it's really.
It's hard work to kind of figure it out for yourself, right? To. To be able to not judge yourself. I think that's one of the hardest things for all of us, especially women.
And the vision industry is made up first of women,
most of women,
so they all would get it.
Not judging ourselves. Letting go.
Letting go of the control very hard. Asks for anyone.
Rashmi Airan: Well, again, because we're event planners. We're, We're. I'm an event plan industry professional, as a speaker, but in the events industry,
again, we don't want to let go because we're known as the people that have control and can get things done and figure it out and show up at the last minute and all of those things.
And so having the ability to let go doesn't mean we let go of our identities. It just makes us stronger in who we are. It makes us better in what we do as event professionals.
And then I believe if our teams see us having the courage to let go of things like ego, things like judgment, I mean, forgiving yourself means you own it in front of others and then you forgive yourself for it.
So if I've made a bad decision and I realize it the next day, the next week, the next year,
I have a responsibility as, as. As a team player, as a leader,
as a professional, to own it. When I do realize it,
and we're so scared of what will people say,
what will be the reaction, what will happen to my job.
But the more we begin to own up to,
you know, whatever the struggle is or whatever the fear is or whatever we've done wrong,
the more we are creating the power for others to do the same and have real conversations, and then we fix it and we go forward, you know, again, we are imperfect beings.
We are not supposed to know it all. We are not supposed to get it all right?
Of course we try to.
That's why the clarity loop is there. We try,
but we also have to know that we're not always going to get it right. We're, you know,
like we tell our kids, you're going to mess up. It's okay.
Just learn from it, you know,
Magdalina Atanassova: and you often say that culture determines behavior when no one is watching. And I feel that applies here very well, you know, in the sense of just a single human being,
a single Event professional,
from your perspective,
what cultural signals should event leaders pay closer attention to if they want to prevent future crisis?
Rashmi Airan: Wow.
I mean, I think cultural signals are fascinating because having grown up in an Indian family,
the cultural signals that I received or that I began to believe were, were, were fact was that I had to achieve to be loved,
right? And so that absolutely contributed to who I became as like my identity.
And so our cultural signals come in many different ways. They come either from our families, they come from our cultures, they come from our friends.
Maybe we're at a school that's,
you know, kind of has its own culture, right? And so those cultural signals often also exist within the corporations within which we work.
And so the cultural pressures,
I believe, are there. And hopefully the culture is well established and hopefully creates alignment and opportunity to innovate and discover ourselves.
But we also have to own and recognize the fact that we can also try to improve our cultures if we believe that it needs to be and then challenge them.
And this is where the silence comes in, like actually speaking.
So the cultural principles, I think that challenge us are the ones if we feel like we're challenged from a cultural.
Any sort of culture that we're in.
I feel like we have to reevaluate it, evaluate it for ourselves,
speak up if we need to speak up,
create change if we need to create change.
Or it means that something with internally, whether it's how I'm seeing myself,
what identity is it challenging for, for myself,
like, once we start questioning ourselves, that also can create some great growth.
Magdalina Atanassova: I love it the past few years. And I think even the moment that we are in right now is very.
It's moving very fast. There's a lot of disruption happening pretty much on a daily basis at this point,
ever since COVID So how can leaders, Hubbard teams extract growth and wisdom from these experiences rather than just moving on exhausted.
Rashmi Airan: Oh, gosh,
I feel like we're all moving through exhaustion all the time. It's like making time to evaluate what did I learn from this, what was heard in this moment.
What I find interesting is that drift,
when we find ourselves in these four walls that I was talking about, and I'm going to go into depth in this at business event summit. But when we find ourselves within these walls,
right,
One of the aspects of drift is that it doesn't just deter us, right. It also and like make us feel like we're exhausted. It also distorts our perception because we begin to believe that we have to operate in at this level of pace and exhaustion.
To keep going, to keep our identity going and that becomes part of our identity. And so if we can acknowledge that this doesn't feel right or like, how do I not pass judgment on others and like reevaluate?
So much of this is having the self awareness to know in the moment how I can do better.
Because at the end of the day, whether I'm at the top of the ladder and I am the event planner, VP of education,
or I just started with an organization and I'm, you know, running around doing, you know, setting up chairs, every one of us has a responsibility to own up to our own challenges,
beliefs,
practices and actions.
And so if there's something within me that doesn't sit right, I need to own it and take responsibility for it and then change it. Right? Like we all have the power to change again.
PCMA is here to lead that change.
Every single event professional has a capacity to lead that change. And if we have a sponsor or a vendor that's pushing us to the envelope,
we have to push back and say, I can't do that right now. Or no, that doesn't sound right.
Or I know that AI and technology is like, here we ask AI for a question to help us make a decision and AI spits out a response. Well, we have a responsibility to then question what AI is telling us.
It's not always right.
And so all of these things about letting go, which feel sort of like antithetical to what we've been taught and have done our whole lives,
we now have a responsibility to reexamine how we operate in this world, how we operate as leaders, as team, in our teams, you know, for our, for our clients, for our companies, because that's the only way we're going to get to the next level.
Letting go is not easy. You know, we're not wired that way.
It feels wrong.
You know, passing judgment on others is not,
is not something that we want to own about ourselves. It feels ugly.
But we are human beings and forgiving ourselves is not easy.
In my case, it was really hard.
You know, I was a lawyer that ended up in federal prison and I had to understand what went wrong.
And so that process for me of like thinking, I mean, my gosh, I remember running and running and running, praying to God, screaming until I could finally forgive myself because I was so mad at myself.
You know, we all go through that, but we,
when we forgive ourselves and stop passing judgment on ourselves, we can stop passing judgment on others and see their own humanity because we're all just humans. Drops from the same ocean,
Flawed figuring it out.
Magdalina Atanassova: I love the when I forgive myself.
That's why I said it sounds like hard work because I know it takes time.
It takes time to unload and learn and figure yourself out. Pretty much,
yeah.
Before making a high impact decision,
what is the one uncomfortable question you believe every event leader should ask themselves but often avoid?
Rashmi Airan: Hmm.
I mean, I want to say all four questions for my clarity loop, but I think the one question,
if we, if we're only going to go with one question, the question should be,
can I own this later?
The one question in the, in the moment,
if I only have 20 seconds, which I'm saying we have three minutes, we can always go for the clarity loop. But what's the one question that we should be thinking about for every decision?
Can I own this later?
Can I hold myself accountable?
Can I say this to my teens?
You know,
is it something that I'm okay with the world knowing and if it's not,
you know, if you're cutting a corner,
if you're thinking too quickly and you're hoping nobody else finds out,
you probably shouldn't do it?
Magdalina Atanassova: What was that question for you before you published your new book?
Rashmi Airan: Oh, God. Before I published my new book? Oh, Lord. Yeah.
You know,
when I was writing my book, I started writing it really for my children.
The kids have lived this with me. And when I came home and started speaking, they,
they went to so many speeches right at the time, they. I think they probably could have delivered that speech. Now, that has evolved over 10 years, of course,
but there's so much of my story, there's so much of my history, like my parents and my grandparents that they still don't know. And so that was why I started writing the book.
And it was interesting because as I continued to write the book, I recognized, well, there's like some real lessons here that apply to everybody because I believe we're all leaders in some way.
You asked me, what was the one question I asked myself. The one question I asked myself ultimately was, am I writing this just as a memoir or am I writing this so that there's real leadership benefit to others down the road?
Because I could have just written it as a memoir and a story,
but as I was writing the chapters and I had organized it around rise, funny enough, but as I was writing it, I realized, wait, this applies to this group that I just worked or this executive team that I just worked with.
And so I recognized that there was real value here and that I didn't want to just Write it as a memoir. So my publisher and I had a conversation,
and he said, I think you should write it as a leadership prescriptive memoir. So the way the book has been written,
I basically tried to relate aspects of every chapter to leadership groups, either through my own experience or just what I believe.
And then every chapter ends with leadership lessons and reflective questions so that each person can go back in.
You know, it's meant to be a working book, to go keep going back and rereading, like,
what are the lessons here that I can learn from this stage of the book?
And that was a really pivotal moment for me to shift from memoir to leadership prescriptive memoir. And the feedback I'm getting has been that it's really, really powerful. So I'm excited about that.
Magdalina Atanassova: You want to share what else excites you for the foreseeable future? We know you will be at BES.
Rashmi Airan: Yes.
Magdalina Atanassova: What else is there?
Rashmi Airan: Well, I'm excited that Convening Leaders is in Miami. Hopefully I'll be able to participate in some way. For sure. I'll be there.
I actually, in the process, there is a documentary producer who is working on a documentary series on me. We are launching a podcast as well that will coincide with the docu series.
I mean, I have big goals, right. I already know what my second book will be on, which will likely be around this clarity loop and rising to clarity.
But I have big goals. The producer of my docu series plans to try to sell my life rights. There's a larger story here, an immigrant story.
What I haven't talked about is that my sister passed away seven years ago from mental health issues.
And I would say the immigrant story of my parents coming with nothing making it. And as you'll read in the book, then they lost it in the real estate crisis in 89.
And then, you know, the story of my sister and then my story, right. It's. It's sort of like different from any other immigrant story because there's a lot of, like,
wins, but lots of losses, which is basically the pattern of life, ups and downs.
So that's the goal for that. For me, you know,
I tell people, like, my goal is to impact people every day,
and that excites me to be able on a big stage in a small boardroom, doing coaching in the C suite executive team.
All of that excites me.
Magdalina Atanassova: I'm sure you've touched a lot of people in our audience. But before we end, was there anything we didn't mention? We definitely should before we wrap up.
Rashmi Airan: Well, let's talk about my book. You know, I talked about it a little bit, but the book just came out a few weeks ago and I'm really excited about the impact it's already having on the world.
I'm getting texts and emails and DMs from people that I don't know. Right. It's different when it's somebody I know who's like, wow, that was amazing. You know, oh, I love listening to your voice.
For some reason, people love my audible voice, which is so funny to me.
But it's powerful when somebody writes an Amazon review or calls you or sends you a DM and says,
I don't know you, but this changed my life like that. That's why I wrote it. That's why I do. What I do is to impact others. And so I'm really excited about about the book and the possibility to touch others lives that I don't get to be on stage in front of.
Like that's really exciting to me.
Magdalina Atanassova: There will be links to your website, to your book.
Rashmi Airan: Amazing.
Magdalina Atanassova: And everything else that as I said at the very beginning, that I feel people really need to live in your world a little bit to just make these connections a bit more clear.
The fact that you're open about it and sharing all the learnings from it, it's really powerful and you're definitely touching people.
So thank you for sharing and thank you for making the time being on the podcast with me.
Rashmi Airan: Oh, thank you so much, Magdalina. It's been really fun and I'm excited to see everyone at bs.
Magdalina Atanassova: Thank you again and I hope you'll meet a lot of fun people in Puerto Rico.
Rashmi Airan: Oh, I'm sure I will. I'm sure I will.
Magdalina Atanassova: Remember to subscribe to the Convene Podcast on your favorite listening platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. For further industry insights from the Convene team, head over to PCMA.org/convene. My name is Maggie. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.