IdeaMensch Featured Me. Here Is What I Said.
IdeaMensch is one of the world's most respected founder publications, featuring in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders across industries.
On reinvention, identity, morning routines, a humbling failure in Japan, and the decision that everyone around me questioned.
IdeaMensch just published their founder interview with me.
IdeaMensch is a publication dedicated to the stories behind founders and entrepreneurs. Their interview format is one I have always admired because it does not ask for the polished version. It asks for the real one.
The daily routines. The failures. The beliefs that make people uncomfortable. The advice you wish someone had given you before you learned it the hard way.
I answered all of it as honestly as I know how.
Here is a glimpse of what is in the interview.
On where this all started.
The interview opens with a line that stopped me when I read it back.
"Ruchika Singhal has spent her entire life in transition."
Seven schools in fourteen years as an army kid. Learning early, and repeatedly, what most people spend decades trying to understand. That reinvention is not a crisis. It is a muscle. And every time you are forced to walk into a room full of strangers and rebuild yourself from scratch, that muscle gets stronger.
That early experience is the foundation of everything I now build. Because I did not just study reinvention. I lived it from childhood.
On the decision everyone questioned.
After nearly thirty years in senior leadership across Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca and Medtronic across Asia Pacific, I left.
Not because something had gone wrong. Because something deeper was pulling me forward.
Almost nobody supported that decision. Not my family. Not my friends. Everyone told me to stay. To keep going. To not walk away from something that looked so good from the outside.
I followed my instincts anyway.
And in the interview I talk about why I believe that following your own instincts at a crossroads, even when everyone around you disagrees, is one of the most underrated professional skills there is.
The people who know you best are seeing your life from the outside.
Only you know what is right from the inside.
On the failure that humbled me most.
Early in my Asia Pacific role, I flew to Tokyo to align the Japanese team with our global strategy.
I made my presentations. Everyone nodded. Everyone seemed to agree. I flew back feeling wonderful about how smoothly it had gone.
A month passed. Nothing happened.
What followed was one of the most humbling and lasting lessons of my professional life. About cultural intelligence. About what alignment actually means. About the difference between a room full of people being polite and a room full of people genuinely committing.
I went back to Japan. This time completely differently. And the experience reshaped how I work with people to this day.
On mornings and why they are completely non-negotiable.
My first two hours every morning are blocked permanently.
Gym or tennis. Buddhist meditation. A quiet cup of coffee looking out at the sea.
Nothing gets scheduled during that time. Nothing. And in the interview I explain why protecting those hours is the single most important thing I do for both my work and my clients.
On AI, productivity, and building a business alone.
I talk about the tools that make it possible for one person to do what would previously have required an entire team. And why I genuinely believe this is one of the best times in history to start your own company.
On the business idea I am giving away completely freely.
The Corporate Reinvention Lab.
In the interview I describe exactly what it is, why the need is everywhere and the gap is enormous, and why I believe it could be built and delivered by facilitators and coaches around the world.
If you are someone who builds programmes and facilitates organisational change, read that section carefully.
Read the full IdeaMensch interview here:
https://ideamensch.com/ruchika-singhal/
And if something in this resonates with where you are right now in your own professional journey, whether you are navigating a transition, questioning a decision everyone around you disagrees with, or simply wondering what the next chapter looks like, my door is always open.
Book a free discovery call at elevareadvisory.org
Or connect with me directly on LinkedIn.
Ruchika Singhal is the founder of Elevare Advisory and an identity and career reinvention coach for senior professionals. She works with a small number of clients at a time through her Pause. Pivot. Propel. framework.
elevareadvisory.org | ruchikasinghal.com
