The achievements of Asheesh Advani W94 aren’t difficult to spot — at least, not in the traditional sense. The three-time CEO sold CircleLending, a financial services firm he launched in 2001, to Richard Branson’s Virgin Group while in his 30s and later led investment technology startup Covestor to a sale while helming the company. Today, as the CEO of nonprofit JA Worldwide, a.k.a. Junior Achievement, Advani oversees a global team that engages millions of students around the world annually with programming in financial literacy, employment readiness, and entrepreneurship. That work has earned the organization three Nobel Peace Prize nominations in the past three years.
However, in light of massive global changes in recent years — including the seismic shifts in the labor market — Advani argues that our notion of achievement must expand to encompass more than just what’s on our résumés. “In a world that has that much change, the definition of achievement also has to change,” he says. His new book, Modern Achievement, co-authored with executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, aims to move the needle with 30 lessons for aspiring leaders, focusing not only on their career growth, but also on their personal growth. Wharton Magazine caught up with Advani to chat about the book, the next generation of young leaders, and his reflections on his own achievement journey.
Wharton Magazine: How does “achievement” as you define it in the book differ from traditional concepts of the word?
Asheesh Advani: The average person who’s coming out of any university right now is going to have 20 different jobs and seven different careers, according to the World Economic Forum. Traditional books on achievement define it as setting a long-term goal, writing it down, and visualizing it, and then the universe helps it happen. But in reality, today’s young graduates are going to need to have multiple goals. They’re going to have to lean into the process of achievement, not just goal attainment. To answer your question, one way the modern definition of achievement varies from the traditional one is that it’s not just about goal attainment; it’s also about the process and about enjoying the journey.
WM: The book seems to have been in your head for quite a while. What inspired you to actually put pen to paper and write it?
AA: Marshall has been a coach and mentor for me. We were at a dinner in New York City at the end of the pandemic, and at the time, JA Worldwide had just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It was our first time being nominated, and it really helped us bring attention to the connection between economic empowerment of young people, prosperity, and peace. You can’t have peace without prosperity, and you can’t have prosperity in any community without youth who are economically empowered. We were discussing that, and it was in that discussion that we decided to write the book. But the book’s topic stems from my strong belief that most books written for aspiring leaders provide advice that is focused on traditional definitions of achievement, and I wanted to write something that was very different from that.
WM: Personal and professional aspects of achievement are one of the main ways that you organize the book — with lessons for one’s career and lessons for oneself. When did it click with you in your own life that those personal and professional journeys are intertwined?
AA: I think when you’re in college or graduate school, you tend to view your professional life as what is going to come after you get educated and trained, and you tend to view your personal life as what’s happening throughout. However, I think with the benefit of hindsight, you realize that you’re always learning, whether in a school environment or an organizational environment. You tend to realize that once your education is done and you’re learning by doing. That is, I think, an “aha” moment for a lot of people.
WM: Can you give a sneak peek at some of the book’s takeaways? What’s one lesson readers are going to learn?
AA: If you’re going to have many jobs and careers, you’re going to have to always be networking to support your transitions. One lesson is to not only make friends five to 10 years older than you, but also friends five to 10 years younger than you.
A big surprise for me from early readers was that mid- and late-career leaders have found this book as impactful as younger leaders. Making friends who are both younger and older than you is a very powerful lesson for both groups.
WM: If you had to choose three characteristics that are important for the next generation of young leaders to have, what would they be?
AA: One is self-efficacy, or self-belief. Then there’s being curious and truly eager to learn new things. That’s a super-critical skill. And the third, I would say, is being collaborative: To get anything big done, you have to have great social and communication skills.
WM: This book is filled with references to Wharton: Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, and more. What was the most impactful thing you took away from your time at school?
AA: To be honest, my wife [laughs]. But no — Wharton introduced me to so many lifelong friends, and they all have a shared sense of ambition and self-belief and have the ability to push each other to do more. That has been critical for me.
WM: How would you define your own achievement journey?
AA: Each of my CEO experiences has required a very different leadership skill set. In my current leadership journey, my job as a global leader is to empower the amazing leaders who run national offices and different JA entities around the world to accomplish their goals. When you start to think of leadership and achievement as empowering others, it is incredibly fulfilling, and great things happen.
