Ruth Gotian on Success Factors

Dr. Ruth Gotian has studied extensively what it takes to be successful. That is, at the end of the day, what she’s obsessed with, interested in, and curious about. She also has spent a lot of time thinking about mentorship and mentoring. She is currently the Chief Learning Officer, Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology, and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of The Mentoring Academy at Cornell Medicine. And so, today we focus more on her focus on success and less on mentoring. She has a book coming up in the future about mentoring, but today this conversation is really about her research and dedication and, to be honest, an obsession with success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, which is dubbed the Oscars of Management Thinking, and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 over 50 list. During her extensive career, she’s personally coached and mentored thousands of people, ranging from faculty members to undergraduates, and as an Assistant Dean for mentoring, she oversaw the success of nearly 1800 faculty members at Cornell.

Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel Laureates, astronauts, CEOs, Olympic champions, and more. We get into that in today’s conversation. Dr. Gotian received her BS and an MS in Business Management from The University at Stony Brook in New York, and certificates in Executive Leadership and Managing for Execution from Cornell. She earned her doctorate at teacher’s college at Columbia University. So, she’s well educated, she plays in the lab, but she also plays in the field. She works with athletes, she works as an executive coach, and she regularly publishes in journals such as Nature, Scientific American, Academic Medicines, Psychology Today, Forbes, and The Harvard Business Review. So, this conversation really focuses on her book, The Success Factor, which is all about developing the mindset and skillset for peak performance, and if you know anything about me you know that is a topic I am quite interested in.

Ruth had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“If I want to be better, I need to know what the best of the best are doing and then I reverse engineer their path” (7:50).

“I knew if I leverage my peak performance hours I will write better and I will be more effective” (12:40).

“I need to be able to rest” (15:25).

“I work really hard to be around people who jazz me up and don’t drain me” (15:30).

“Very often people get overlooked, misunderstood, because they’re different” (20:00).

“Sometimes it’s the people who carve out a different path that have the greatest learning journey” (20:15).

“[Success] is very personal” (21:55).

“I have interviewed hundreds of people who are at the top of their game. Not one has gotten there alone” (25:15).

“Any person who has achieved anything has done it with the support of other people” (25:50).

“The extrinsic motivation is fleeting” (28:55).

“If you really want to maximize everything that’s going forward, take a break” (34:00).

“Having a positive impact and leaving this world better than I found it, to me, that’s my way of doing something important and not just interesting” (39:15).

“Do something important and not just interesting” (42:05).

“When our situations change, our passions can change” (43:25).

“Mindsets trump habits because we can take the idea of the habit but customize it to our life” (46:10).

“Just because you’re moving up doesn’t mean you know more. You actually know less” (53:25).

“A leader is someone who can inspire other people to be the best versions of themselves” (55:00).

Additionally, you can find all of Ruth’s information and connect with her via her website.

Thank you so much to Ruth for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.