Kaushik Mitra is the Vice President and CFO at PepsiCo India. A Chartered Accountant and IIM-Kolkata alumnus, he brings over 30 years of global leadership experience from the Tata Group, GE, and Reckitt Benckiser. In his book, The Career Edge: The Unwritten Rules of Success published by Penguin Random House (India), one of the many ideas, he brings to the table is the need for a beginner’s mind.

In the modern professional world, we are taught to climb. We accumulate titles, certifications, and decades of experience, viewing each step as a strengthening of our "expert" status. But there is a hidden danger in this ascent. As we move up the professional ladder, our hard-earned wisdom can quietly morph into baggage. We become anchored to our own opinions, and our expertise can ironically become the very thing that closes us off to fresh perspectives.