From Dairy Queen to Corporate Success: Embracing Change and Growth (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Bob Maglani. I moved to the U.S. from India with my family at the age of 9 with nothing more than $75 and a desire to pursue the American dream. I grew up mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, and helping my family run our Dairy Queen store. Yes, I ran a Dairy Queen. Ice cream cones, blizzards, sundaes, motherhood, and apple pie. It was in running the Dairy Queen where I learned the valuable lessons of hard work and a positive can-do attitude which became the subject of my first book called Treat Your Customers, 30 Lessons on Sales and Service that I learned at my family's Dairy Queen store. It was published by Hatchet Books in 2006. I started my professional career as a sales rep for a Fortune 50 company in New York City, one of the most competitive places in the world, where I turned around a sales territory making it number one. I had this idea that if you work hard, you'll find success. And you know that formula, it worked for a while. I worked really hard and became successful. I grew dramatically as I moved up the career ladder at this Fortune 50 company, namely Pfizer, in the corporate world headquarters, starting at the bottom and working my way up to becoming a successful executive, creating new functions and opportunities. I got to do really fun things. I got to manage large and small teams, work on really important strategies, working with customers and colleagues in over 30 countries. It was an awesome experience. But something happened, 2007, 2008, where we had this massive change in the company. In our society with the financial crisis, a new CEO, massive reorganization, a merger shortly afterwards, our customers, competitors, regulatory landscape, all of it was changing so fast. You know that formula I grew up with, work hard and succeed, it wasn't working. I hit a wall. Even with years of high performance and success, I felt overwhelmed and stressed. I felt stuck. I made all the change that was happening. I had this remarkable experience that changed my life forever. A friend of mine invited me to accompany him to India, a country that is the capital of change and chaos, where through his eyes, I rediscovered and realized that in order for us to thrive and change, in order for us to grow, that we have to change. You cannot change anything else except ourselves, that we can't run away from the chaos, we can only embrace it. We can't fight the change, only embrace it. The only thing we can really control is our words, our thoughts, and our actions. I learned how to embrace the chaos. I learned how to move forward and change disruption and complexity and the turbulence. Back home in New York City, I began to reinvent myself, my job, and my career. As a result, I changed. I grew and started becoming more successful. More importantly, finding more meaning in my life. My book about my experience of dealing with change is called Embrace the Chaos. It hit the bestseller list. In 2016, after 23 years at one of the biggest companies in the world, I left my job to pursue a somewhat non-linear path. What I do today as a bestselling author and speaker is to help people and companies embrace change, transform, and grow. Using my experience in growing up with humble means to the Dairy Queen, to corporate career at one of the biggest companies, to managing small teams, to large teams, and small budgets, and big budgets, to startups, to my books, and my advisory work. All of these experiences contribute to the unique value I provide my clients in speaking or in consulting. I serve as a keynote speaker to large and small organizations all over the world. I advise CEOs and leaders of companies on two areas, change and growth in bringing new ideas to market. I love what I do, which is ultimately about helping other people achieve a sense of success and more importantly, meaning.