I am on my third read of Devdutt Pattanaik’s Business Sutra and each time, it feels like a different book. Maybe I am reading with a new pair of eyes. This time, it was the story of Ashtavakra that really caught my attention. It is a story of ego, fear and the strange ways leaders end up cursing the very things that could save them.

Here’s long story short (for people who are yet to read this amazing book): Kahoda, a respected scholar, hears his unborn son correct him on a verse. Instead of admiring the brilliance, he feels exposed and curses the child: “May this over-smart child be born deformed.” The child, Ashtavakra, due to this curse, is born with eight bends in his body. Years later, he wins a great debate and frees his imprisoned father. Kahoda realizes his savior is his son only because of those same deformities, the mark of the curse he once placed.

It’s poetic, painful and painfully familiar. Because versions of this play out daily in modern workplaces.

• A CEO hires safe hands, not sharp minds.
• A senior manager sidelines the rising star who asks too many questions.
• A team lead subtly downplays a teammate’s success to protect their own standing.

If they’re smarter, what happens to me?

This is also known as ‘zero-sum thinking’, a mindset in which a person perceives a situation as a "zero-sum game," believing that one person's gain is always equivalent to another's loss.

But if this is so natural How leaders can work with this discomfort?

Awareness is the start, but not the fix. Discomfort won’t disappear with insight alone you have to practice staying with it. Here’s what that looks like in the nature and wild:

1. Notice your physical cues. The tightening jaw when someone challenges you. The quick dismissive comment. The urge to change topic. That’s a way the nervous system indicates, I feel unsafe. Pause there. Take one slow breath before you react. The pause allows your prefrontal cortex time to return back to work.

2. Name the feeling. Tell yourself, “I’m feeling threatened right now.” Not to put yourself down but to name what’s true. Once you label the feeling, you have already moved from reaction to reflection. And this shift brings you power.

3. Separate threat from truth. Ask reflective questions to yourself like, “Is this person actually undermining me or are they just smarter about this part?” Sometimes the thing that stings is simply accurate. Maturity is learning to sit with that and still listen.

4. Reframe the story. Instead of They’re showing me up, try They’re showing me what’s possible. You don’t have to like it in the moment. But that reframe keeps you open instead of defensive.

5. Create structures for challenge. Build it into your team’s culture. Rotate meeting leads. Invite junior voices to critique strategy. Run “pre-mortems” where the team lists all the reasons a plan might fail. When dissent becomes routine, it stops feeling personal.

6. Ask for help regulating. Find a peer, coach or mentor who can call out your Kahoda moments without judgment. You can’t see your blind spots while you’re defending them.

Every time you resist the impulse to silence or shrink someone’s brilliance, your brain rewires a little. You build capacity for nuance, complexity and humility. And with that, your team learns something too, that it’s safe to speak truth upward.

In Devdutt Pattanaik's language, you’re choosing Shakti, the dynamic, sometimes uncomfortable creation over Durga, the safety of control. While Durga keeps things tidy. But Shakti keeps things alive.

Your next big growth moment will almost always arrive wearing discomfort. The colleague who pushes back. The younger team member who sees a better way. The consultant who challenges your playbook. That’s your Ashtavakra.

You have a choice; you can choose to curse them and shrink or learn from them and expand. The difference between the two goes beyond intellect. It’s your courage.

So, pause the next time someone unsettles you. That tension might just be your next evolution knocking.

Who’s the Ashtavakra in your story?