Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Rupal Patel on Identity-Driven Leadership: Lessons Learnt from the CIA, to being a CEO (#036)

Transcript

Rupal Patel on Identity-Driven Leadership: Lessons Learnt from the CIA, to being a CEO (#036) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

0:00
SPEAKER_00: The best leaders will ask good questions, will surround themselves with other people who are smarter than them, and engage and recognize that good ideas and ways of doing things will not just originate from them.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't make them any less of a leader.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not a sign of weakness when you ask the question or you let somebody else take the glory or you let somebody else's idea win.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: It's a sign that you acknowledge the reality that no one human being can ever have all the answers or all of the information.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay to let other people shine as well.
0:48
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for uh being a guest in our podcast.
0:51
SPEAKER_04: It's an absolute privilege to have you here and share your thoughts with our audience.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a privilege for me as well, Swami.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the uh the invitation to be chatting with you.
1:01
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, uh I will straight away dive into the uh uh chat and uh the first thing I I I found really interesting, uh Rupal is uh your backstory, right?
1:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh being uh uh you know being uh immigrant, the kind of uh uh you know background that you come from, uh I think it instills a lot of uh values in what you do.
1:25
SPEAKER_04: And talk to me about some of the things that uh you know it built into what you do in your life today and how it is shaped up the values in your life.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh gosh.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think sort of any any conversation around my backstory would first have to start with my my family.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: So um I come from a Gudrati family.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: My parents both moved to in uh to America, sorry, uh before any of us were born.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: So they brought up me and my my three siblings in New York.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And once they got established in America, then they slowly started to uh help bring their brothers and sisters and my grandparents to America.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And they the the the fundamental sort of values that we grew up around was first and foremost that you take care of your family.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: We have a very big family, we have a very close family, and uh that was always a part of what my parents said, both explicitly but also in the way they lived their lives, because for a long period of my childhood up until I was around sort of 13, 14 years old, I had cousins, aunts, uncles, cousins of aunts and uncles, and you know, distant relatives living with us.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was, like I said, sort of it just reinforced how important family was.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: But the bigger picture was also this idea that, you know, as they did within our family, that you do something to improve your life, to to to you know, to develop your career, your your profession, whatever it is.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: But at every stage of that process, you help other people around you.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: So of course, you first and foremost help your family, but then the idea was also what can you do for your community or for you know other people that are are less fortunate than you are.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And again, my parents both actively told us these things, but also lived that example by, you know, when after moving to India to America, for example, they would, you know, build libraries and schools in the villages that they were were born in, or do other charitable work.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And and even now in their 70s, my parents regularly go back to India as as doctors and do uh medical clinics in in rural areas and you know, try to use their position as well as their expertise to help other people around them.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So those were sort of the threads that I grew up with was you know, try to improve yourself, to you know, to develop your career, to get a good education, all of that stuff.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: But as you are doing that, always make sure you're helping those around you.
3:51
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
3:52
SPEAKER_04: Uh one anecdote that I picked up was uh your uh grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:59
SPEAKER_04: And uh he did some great work and you're proud of.
4:03
SPEAKER_04: So where did it all begin?
4:05
SPEAKER_04: And uh uh what that uh you know what that had to do with many of the things that uh you uh you know you uh you bring into your work today.
4:14
SPEAKER_04: So the work ethic, the discipline.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: So my grandfather was a self-taught Sanskrit scholar, so he went to school and you know, he became an English teacher and then a headmaster, but his passion for knowledge was something that he always indulged in, and again, I think infused in in my dad and his siblings, but then you know, also in us.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And he, like I said, was a self-taught Sanskrit scholar, he loved to write, and he was very poetic.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that also was something because my grandfather lived with us my entire uh childhood until I left home for for university, that was something that I adored.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, he would at the at the kitchen table at dinner time, he'd be asking me the definition of you know vocabulary words that I had never heard of, or you know, in instilling in me the love of literature and the love of language.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And so it was that thing of of always learning, of always being curious, and of um, you know, just to see what you were made of, to see not just how much you could do in your area of expertise, but to have a wide understanding of the world around you and to constantly be learning.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: So that idea of always learning, never getting comfortable, of um, you know, pushing yourself and stretching yourself in different directions, whether that was in your career or not, was again something that I picked up uh from both the way my grandfather lived his life, but also in some of the conversations and in the interactions we had.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's been it's been such a gift because I have that love of learning and that of constantly sort of stretching myself in new directions and trying different things and not getting comfortable because I think it's it's kept things very interesting for me.
5:53
SPEAKER_04: So, how important is uh curiosity and career building?
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I think it's probably one of the most important things that we forget about.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So for many people, uh there's you know, sort of a set path that someone puts out in front of you, whether it's your society or your family or your peer group, and you think, okay, well, you know, you go to a university, you get a good degree, then you get maybe a further degree, you get a job at a you know a prestigious corporation, and then you stay there forever and then you retire, right?
6:24
SPEAKER_00: That's sort of the traditional path that many people find themselves on.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine, you know, it can work as long as it's in alignment with what you care about and and you enjoy the work you're doing and you feel it's uh it allows you to uh live your values on a regular basis.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: But for many people, because that path is often something that is given to them or dictated to them, at some point they find there's a tension that, you know, either they're unhappy or they feel they're burning out, or they feel that, you know, they've been chasing this dream that was never their dream to begin with.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: And so curiosity is so, so important throughout our careers because it always it, you know, for me, being curious, it comes back to that question of asking ourselves why.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, why am I in this industry?
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Why am I chasing this career?
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Why do I think it's important for me to, I don't know, work at this company?
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And and having not a judgmental attitude, not saying, oh, well, this is wrong and this is right, but a more open-minded, curious, almost like an exploratory uh attitude of like, well, why did I end up here?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Or how did I end up here?
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And why am I still where I'm at?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, are there things that I could be doing differently?
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Are there other interests, perhaps, that I could be exploring or at least weaving into my day-to-day life in a more meaningful way, if I do feel that there's something unsettled or some tension or some uh feeling of being out of alignment with what would make me happy.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it's that curiosity about oneself that I think is so, so important.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And we're never given the tools to indulge it because it's seen as self-indulgent, right?
7:59
SPEAKER_00: To be thinking about yourself and to be one asking yourself these questions.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So I would say, you know, now that we're adults and we can uh hopefully manage our time a bit more in the way we want to, is to take that time out and be curious about ourselves.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, what is it that makes me tick?
8:14
SPEAKER_00: What do I care about?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: What are my values?
8:16
SPEAKER_00: What do I want my legacy to legacy to be?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: What are my strengths?
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And on all of these questions, um, and yeah, and turn that curiosity into ourselves is very, very important.
8:28
SPEAKER_04: So uh one thing you really uh talk about, uh Rupal is uh the importance of personal mission, right?
8:36
SPEAKER_04: Uh but most often uh when we are working, uh there's always a conflict between the corporate mission and the personal mission.
8:45
SPEAKER_04: So how do you reconcile and balance this uh you know, divergent, if at all if there is a divergent part, how do you reconcile this and how do you suggest uh you know people balance this out?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I think for me it's about it's it's to not be black or white about it, to not say, oh well, I have to be 100% pursuing my mission and you know, every single thing I do, or not at all.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: I think for all of us, first and foremost, the idea of a mission might not be natural.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: We might feel we have many missions, we might feel we have many uh values that we care about or things, again, those those themes and those recurrent um sort of strings that follow us throughout our lives.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: So, first and foremost, it's for me it's it's to understand what your mission is.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: When I did that, again, that self-exploration, that sort of curiosity turning inwards exercises for myself, the themes and the patterns that emerged were consistent.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: No matter what age and what stage in my life I was, there was always an element of learning and then of sharing that learning with other people.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So when I was a child, I loved reading books and then I'd tell everybody about them.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: When I moved into a career, uh, you know, my job at the CIA was about developing a deep expertise in whatever field I was I was uh working in, and then sharing that knowledge so that other decision makers can make use of it.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Then when I moved into a corporate environment, again, it's about developing an expertise as a business owner myself, and then helping other business owners or leaders with the lessons that I've learned.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: So those themes of learning and developing expertise and then sharing it have been my mission, my personal mission.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And the way I've brought it into my life and into my career has been by doing that as much as possible.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So in my career, I wasn't always able to only develop my expertise and then share it with others.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: There were other things that I had to do, administrative things or team-building things or you know, meetings and other miscellaneous tasks.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: But first and foremost, whenever we can, I think we all owe it to ourselves to find the ways to bring that mission into our careers as it stands.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to, you know, leave your job or to make this overnight wholesale change to everything you do.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: But first understand what you think your mission might be.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, what are the things where you feel you really come alive, where you feel like the hours are just flying by and you're in your flow, or that, you know, that state that people often talk about.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Know what that is, and then think about how you can weave that into your career in even a small way.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: And so many times we think either I have to be 100% on or 100% off, and that's not the case.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Another small example of that for myself is I've always loved to write.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I've always been a writer, as I shared with you know, my uh my experiences, my grandfather, the power of words and and of language has always been a theme in my life and in my home.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And when I was building my, but again, sort of when I was building my business, writing wasn't a part of it.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes, when I was at the CIA, I got to do some writing and that was great.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: But when I was building my first business, that wasn't a part of it.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: But because I knew for me personally, that was a deep part of what I care about and what makes my feel life feel fulfilled, I found a way in a small way to bring writing into my day-to-day life.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: So I started out by writing a blog just where I was capturing my thoughts and my frustrations and my experiences.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't share it with anyone.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: This was just for me to scratch that itch in what I was doing in that moment.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And then it evolved into something else, and then I did start sharing it, and then it evolved and evolved and evolved and eventually turned into a book.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: But for me, it was just bringing it in a small way into my day-to-day life, however, I could, and doing it consistently, because my view is, you know, how we and there's a great quote that goes something like, you know, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's true, right?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: We often just fall into a rut and do the same thing again.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So if you have that calling and you can't do it 100% of the time, find a way to do it even two percent of the time in your day-to-day life.
12:53
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: Uh so when you went into work into the CIA, uh you had to rewire your body and mind to the way uh, you know, the work uh was done there.
13:07
SPEAKER_04: So what did you have to uh uh rewire and how was that learning very, very important for the rest of your life?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so, you know, as with all organizations, the the CIA has a certain way of doing things.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: So the the mental rewiring wasn't about uh adopting a certain way of thinking, but it was uh as absorbing a different uh approach to how we think about things.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, there are frameworks and methodologies, and again, the the problems and the challenges that we were called to weigh in on are so complex, are so multifaceted.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it was from that the the intellectual standpoint, is uh it was, you know, this is the the way that we uh these are the frameworks that we use to help make sense of these big, very complex problems.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: These are some of the ways that we communicate, you know, that we had a CIA style of communicating.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So when you are presenting information to the president, for example, you know, there's a very specific, almost journalistic approach that you have to take in your writing.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: So that was that was the mechanics, like the technical side of things that had to be wired into me because of course I had never worked at the CO before or written for the president before.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So it was learning that and and getting that, you know, sort of again on-the-job training effectively.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And then the physical rewiring was along the lines of my preparation for deploying to to hostile environments.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: So before you know, I deployed to an active war zone, you do have to do some physical training to make sure that in the worst case scenario, you would be able to at the very least try to defend yourself or try to, you know, to get out of the sticky situation.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So that you know entailed sort of uh you know driving courses and how to escape, you know, get out of a scene very quickly.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: It was weapons training, um, and it was all that kind of sort of training that I would hopefully never need to use, but needed to learn so that I could operate safely in a hostile environment.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And and I think what that helped me bring to sort of bring it into the the second part of your question, that approach was you have to be adaptable.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: You can't have just one set way of doing things.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And and that training gives you the fundamental sort of tools that you can rely on.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: But then when you're actually operating in the field or actually doing a briefing for the president or for a senator, then that training can't anticipate every single scenario you're going to confront.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: So you use those tools and then you adapt them for the scenario in front of you.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And that is a useful lifelong skill for anything is you know, have the fundamentals really, really strong, know, you know, the essential skills and the tools that you need.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And then when you're in an unfamiliar environment, both in a business context or a professional or personal context, then it's using that those same skills and tools and adapting them to the purposes in front of you.
15:57
SPEAKER_04: So uh today you are a business advisor.
16:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, you work with corporates, uh, you know, you uh you know with your mentor, uh mentor with founders.
16:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh so what do you think uh is the difference in the work ethic?
16:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh you've worked in a company uh that you believe are the best practices that you think can be brought in into the corporate world uh from this experience of yours?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So for me, first and foremost, it's a uh commitment to excellence.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of companies say they care about excellence and they have really high standards, you know, they have these beautiful slogans, but oftentimes when you look under the cover or you know, behind the facade, there's a lot of things slipping through the cracks.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that excellence comes first and foremost from the values of the organization and how those values are lived every day and not just you know nice motto to have on a wall.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But then the excellence also comes from the people, of course, right?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: So it's you know, how are you recruiting?
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Where are you recruiting from?
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And then how are you training people?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, you can have the smartest people from you know any Ivy League institution, but they're not gonna have the specific skills for that specific role.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So you have to train them properly and get them to understand how your specific business operates.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And then I think a lot of companies do that well, they'll recruit well and they'll train well.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Where so many companies, and this is just as true for you know smaller earlier stage startups as it is for multinational companies with tens of thousands of employees, where they really start um sort of falling apart is in having the difficult conversations with their workforce.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: So if you want excellence from people, you can't settle for second best, you can't settle for mediocrity, you can't.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Often what I hear from companies is, oh, we have a difficult uh employee or a difficult team member, we're just gonna make them somebody else's problem.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, this idea of shifting that problem that problem child to somebody else happens everywhere.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so damaging for the company, of course, because then all of a sudden you have effectively dead weight, you know, sort of weighing you down.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: It also erodes the morale of the other people who are trying hard, who are giving it their best, who are, you know, sort of the high performers, because they see, oh, well, this person's just, you know, showing up and and sort of punching a clock and doing very little else, but they still get a job and they still get paid.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: So it erodes the morale of the people who are doing their jobs.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And then it's also really um damaging to the person who is the problem.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Because if you never, if nobody ever sits them down and says, hey, look, this is where you're struggling, this is where we think your performance can improve, and these are the tools that we will give you or the training we will give you to help you improve on those things, then that person never gets the opportunity to actually do better or become better.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: So it's not helping anybody by pretending the problem doesn't exist, but so many managers, leaders, et cetera, don't want to have that difficult conversation because they feel it's awkward or maybe they're worried about a lawsuit or whatever it is.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's having the strength of leadership to finally say to somebody, hey, look, this isn't going to work for us anymore.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: You're you're not, you know, you're not performing, or this is the problem, and this is you know what, and then have a conversation.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Don't say, oh, well, this is, you know, it's either you do this or you do that, or you're leaving.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: It's, hey, this is how we see the problem.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about it?
19:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, do you also recognize that you are perhaps underperforming?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes people will.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people will, you know, think, oh, well, I haven't been doing my best, but I can get away with it.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Or other people just don't know how to do better and they do need training, they need some mentoring, they need some skill, upskilling, whatever it is.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: So give them the opportunity to improve.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And then if everybody's on the same page about what the problem is and how they can improve it, and then the problem persists, then that's a different conversation.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: But at least give them the chance to improve.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, so many companies get this wrong.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: They have sometimes thousands of people weighing them down across, you know, for the bigger companies where you know global and tens of thousands of people.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's not serving anyone.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's not serving the company, it's not, it's gonna devalue the morale and the reputation of you know of the other uh the team members, and it also keeps the person who is the problem child from ever improving themselves.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And so they'll always go through life just sort of mediocre.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And that again is not is not the the way a true leader lets people sort of uh you know operate within within their organization.
20:31
SPEAKER_04: So uh how did you have difficult conversations uh in the CIA and how can how can we bring that into a corporate world?
20:40
SPEAKER_00: So again, it's it is just having the conversation.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: It's not overthinking it.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: There's not like some formula where you say, okay, well, first you say this and then you say that.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: It's just having a conversation.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And it can look like different things in different contexts, but it's if there is, you know, the one thing that I learned at the CIA, and this is true in this context as well, if there is an elephant in the room, talk about the elephant, right?
21:04
SPEAKER_00: There's no because everybody knows it's there.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows that this person is a problem or they're talking about them behind their back, or the other team members are saying, you know, grumbling about it.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: So that exists.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't pretend it doesn't exist.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And that and that's true also for problems, right?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: If there's a big problem, don't pretend it doesn't exist and hope it goes away.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it's gonna get better.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: So just have the conversation.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And whether it's the line manager or somebody from HR, it's having that frank conversation.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And again, doing it in a way that's not, hey, either you do this and you shape up or you ship out.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: It's more, hey, this is the problem as we see it.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's be very clear about look, these were the standards and the expectations that we set up from the outset.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And then this is where we feel that there's a bit of a mismatch between what we expect and what you're delivering.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Here are some of the ideas we have about how we can close that gap.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any other ideas?
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And if we, you know, were to go through a program of I don't know, again, upskilling or training or whatever.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, are you going to commit to it?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes people don't want to commit.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people actually do just want to half ass it.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And then again, if you have that conversation, you'll get an understanding of does this person want to get better?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And she'll be, can can we help them?
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Or if they don't, then maybe it's time to ask them to leave.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And then it's having that second tough conversation of, okay, well, we're going to have to ask you to leave.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And so again, it's like I said, it's not all or nothing.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, either, you know, one day they're there and they're a problem, and the next day they're fired.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: It's giving people an opportunity to raise their standards and their performance.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And then if they don't, then yes, having potentially that conversation to say it's time to go.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: But also I think it starts even before these difficult conversations arrive, it's fundamentally begins with setting the expectations from the beginning and being very clear about this is what we expect.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: This is how you know your performance will be uh will be um will be assessed, and not just leaving it then, okay, we'll have this one conversation and then we'll only talk to you, you know, at the end of the year during your performance review.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: It's having regular check-ins and saying how, you know, not every day or every week, but you know, maybe every few months or every six months, and just saying, hey, look, you know, these were the standards and the expectations we communicated.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: This is what you agreed to do.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Six months later, how's it all going?
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Here are some of the challenges or the problems, or and again, have that conversation.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: What do they think are some of the challenges and problems?
23:19
SPEAKER_00: And then having that performance review that accurately captures where they're at.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not, I think nobody is served by pretending something is better than it is, but also people need to be given an opportunity to first understand what's expected of them and then the tools to deliver that.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And as long as you've created clear expectations and and communicated those expectations and empowered them with the tools or the resources they need, then it really shouldn't be that hard.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And having regular commun uh communication, it shouldn't be that hard for people to deliver what what you need them to deliver.
23:53
SPEAKER_04: So uh you talk about uh talking the truth to the power, right?
23:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh somewhere the difficult conversations are also uh about not talking to your peers, but actually talking to the bosses, right?
24:09
SPEAKER_04: And to the leaders.
24:11
SPEAKER_04: Um can you give me one of your experiences?
24:15
SPEAKER_04: Uh especially when you've dealt with uh, you know, probably uh, you know, leaders like the president uh in general, talking truth to the power is far more harder than talking to a CEO, right?
24:29
SPEAKER_04: So therefore, uh, you know, so how did you approach the problem?
24:32
SPEAKER_04: How did you deconstruct talking the truth?
24:35
SPEAKER_04: And uh how did you do that?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: So it's a couple of things.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: One, it's making sure you know what you're talking about.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: So you don't just go to the president, for example, and say, hey, you know, this is happening or this is wrong, and we think, you know, what you've done here has created this problem, without making sure you know your stuff.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: So any conversation where it is sort of speaking truth to power, first and foremost, you have to make sure that you have done your analysis, you have done your due diligence, and you know as much as you possibly can, given the changing sort of nature of the environment you're in, that you have done your best job to come up with your assessment or your your analysis.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Then if the next step is you don't just go in and deliver, you know, sort of this bombshell.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: It's what is that person's communication style?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do they like to receive information?
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Do are they a, you know, do they prefer sort of bullet point, you know, high-level uh picture things, or do they really want the specifics and they want to know sort of how we arrived at this analysis and want to see all of the data points?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Do they want, you know, do they prefer things to be graphically represented because are they visual learners and they just want to see the trends or whatever it is?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: It's so it's both matching, so making sure you've got your expertise and then matching your delivery of that message with the way that person receives information.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: So, very concretely, for example, when I was serving in a war zone, one of my jobs was to be the civilian intelligence briefer for the commanding general of the US and international forces.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: This is a four-star general, you know, if you were in an active war zone, and I'm a civilian and a young woman, and there were often times where I would have to speak truth to power to him and give him bad news or say, hey, look, you know, this military campaign that you delivered didn't have the intended effect, or the intelligence you're getting from your sources is actually in conflict with ours, and as ours is slightly, you know, sort of more reliable because of these reasons.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to have those difficult conversations, but I never went in and was like, I'm right, you're wrong, and you know, and then left it at that, right?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: It's he wanted to have that conversation.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: He needed to know where what the source of our analysis was and what the again, the foundation was of that assessment.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: And in talking to him through it, he slowly, not always, but most of the time, would finally come to see when we were right and when he was wrong.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And he appreciated the fact that it wasn't a like, hey, you know, it was never judgmental.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: It was never, you know, oh, you're wrong or your analysts are stupid or anything like that.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: It was look, these are the facts as we see them.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: This is where there's a disconnect between what you've been told before from other people or what you, you know, what you've been doing.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: But this is why.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is the huge body of I don't know, expertise or experience or uh information or intelligence that we're relying on.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And this is, you know, and then and then making it about the how he needs to receive the information and what level of information he needs, because he can't control every single thing down to the you know 90th millionth detail.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: So it's adapting that message and delivering it in a way that is in um that matches the way they receive information.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's not something you can just sort of guess and assume that comes with time and experience, and it's also asking the people around them, their advisors.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So in a CEO context, you know, who's their chief of staff or who's their COO, is there somebody else that you can talk to to get some of that information about how does this decision maker in this position of power, how do they receive information the best?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And if I am delivering a slightly negative message or a difficult message, you know, is there anything that I need to be aware of?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Because not every person is going to be the same way.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: So adapt the message for the person you're delivering it to, and then make sure you know your stuff.
28:18
SPEAKER_04: Which brings me to uh one of the points that you talk about, which is uh identity identity-driven leadership.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:27
SPEAKER_04: Uh can you talk to me about what is identity-driven leadership?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: So for me, so often, and this is true across cultures and across industries, we have been, and we collectively as human beings, I think, have been given a very specific image of what a leader looks like.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: So that can be quite physically what how they dress, how they speak, you know, what they look like in their grooming, the way they carry themselves, their personality traits, all of these things.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: And yes, it won't be the same in every country or every culture, but at least here in the West, typically when someone talks about a leader, we've been given these images of someone who's a you know, middle-aged white man, six feet tall, wearing a suit, and usually very aggressive and slightly rude to the people around him, and uh, you know, very uh sort of outgoing and gregarious.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And all of that we sometimes internalize and think, oh my gosh, well, if I don't look that way, or if I don't act that way, if I didn't go to that university, or if I don't want to lead in that way, then I can't be a leader.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, and again, this is now based on my experience, you know, across industries, across sectors, across the world, literally leadership looks as different as there are people in the world.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And but the problem is that we are given archetypes that we think that's what a leader is supposed to be like.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So we feel that we have to conform to that.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: So I think first and foremost, it's questioning what do we, what have we assumed a leader is supposed to be like, supposed to act like?
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And then asking the more important question is well, what do I want to be like?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: What kind of leader do I want to be?
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Do I want to be the kind that inspires and to, you know, creates these great big town hall messages?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Or am I the type of person who wants to develop more intimate relationships and sort of walk the halls of my company?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Or am I a more introverted leader where doing anything sort of public-facing is a bit difficult, but I want to be able to reach out to my team members, and so I'll do things maybe like sending an email instead, right?
30:28
SPEAKER_00: So these are all very small examples, but the key here is first and foremost is to understand what kind of leader you want to be.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, what are your values going to be?
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to create a sort of a very aggressive culture or do you want to create a collaborative culture?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you care about?
30:44
SPEAKER_00: What kind of um, you know, sort of uh culture you want to create, what what values are going to infuse that?
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And then also what kind of leader are you going to be when you are delivering your leadership style?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be collaborative or combative?
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be more extroverted or more uh introverted and listening?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And and this is like I said, the answers to these questions will be different for everybody.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: But the key is to remember that who you are by this point in your life is pretty much fixed, right?
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we can all make improvements on the margins, and nothing, you know, if you want to change, you can change anything.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: But generally, your strengths and your blind spots by the time you're 30, 40, 50 are pretty much settled into who you are.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: So instead of fighting against that constantly and feeling, oh God, but you know, I'm an introvert and I have to force myself to be an extrovert or you know, I'm a really good strategic thinker, but now I have to force myself to become, you know, wetted into the details and into the weeds.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: It's you can do it, but again, that friction and that energy and that effort that goes into becoming someone you're not is wasted energy because the time it takes you to do that will be time that you can't be the best version of the leader you would naturally be.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: So if you are more naturally introverted, if you are more naturally collaborative, if you are more naturally anything, then find a way to bring that to the forefront instead of feeling like you have to conform to somebody else's image or the previous CEO's way of doing things or the, you know, the way that leaders are in your industry or whatever that is.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Again, question why you think you have to change.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, sometimes there will be good reasons to potentially change, but a lot of the times we think we do and we don't need to.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: So understand what your values are, understand what your specific strengths are, and then find a way to weave that in.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Again, like we were saying earlier, find a way to weave that in into your leadership style because different people will also resonate with different styles, right?
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Every human being is different.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: So not every human being is gonna want to be inspired all the time, or not everybody's gonna wanna, you know, a boss who shouts at them in responds to that kind of behavior.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be different.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So own who you are, really understand who that is, what your strengths are, what your blind spots are, and then don't be afraid to be that type of a leader.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: As long as you're not an asshole.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, don't be a horrible person.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: But uh, I think again, fundamentally, if you're even asking yourself these questions, then you're not gonna be an asshole, right?
33:09
SPEAKER_00: So it's okay to be who you are.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: I give you permission to be the type of leader you want to be, and that you would naturally be instead of conforming to a mold that somebody else has put that put out there.
33:22
SPEAKER_04: What's uh interesting to me is uh you also talk about uh you know leaders of equals.
33:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and uh how do you contrast that with the leaders at the CIA and the leaders in a corporation?
33:37
SPEAKER_04: How did you see the difference?
33:39
SPEAKER_04: And what is it that you can learn from the CIA which you can apply it back into the civilian society and the uh companies?
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the the good thing is that everything that was true at the CIA, in this capacity at least, is true in a corporate context, in the sense that I saw very hierarchical, very aggressive, uh terrible leaders at the CIA.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And I also saw leaders who did treat other people as equals, who did take responsibility when things went wrong, who did uh sort of try to protect their teeth their team or their people from you know sort of any uh fallout or whatever else.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And you see that across the board, both in industry and at the CIA.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: The three sort of the best leaders I worked under at the CIA, again, they were not afraid to be who they were, and they had very different leadership styles from each other.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't worry about conforming to a stereotype.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: They didn't worry.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: One of them was my boss when I was operating out in a war zone.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, in a war zone setting, you think, oh gosh, a leader's gotta be very aggressive and very dominating and very, you know, I say what goes, and you just have to fall in line and do it and be very hierarchical.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: He was the total opposite.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: He was the best example I can think of of someone who treated everybody as equals.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, just because you treat people as equals, because they are, we're all equally human beings, doesn't mean that the responsibility is equal.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the distinction, right?
35:03
SPEAKER_00: People think, oh, well, if I treat everyone as equals, then all of a sudden I don't have any power, I don't have any authority.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: No, the buck always stops with you.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: If you are the CEO, if you are the, in that case, the chief of station, or if you are the person who's heading that team or that organization, then the then you're always the final arbiter, you're always the final decision maker.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: But the way you treat your people doesn't have to be superior, you don't have to always lord that power over others.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think the best leaders can make that to can negotiate that uh seemingly contradictory uh way of doing things, but it's not at all, right?
35:37
SPEAKER_00: You can treat people equal, but still be the boss.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay to acknowledge that sometimes good ideas will come from other people.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have, you don't have to have all the answers.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's these these notions that we get from popular culture usually and movies, is like, oh, leaders know everything and they make all the decisions and everything has to come from them.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Best leaders will ask good questions, will surround themselves with other people who are smarter than them, and engage and recognize that good ideas and and ways of doing things will not just originate from them.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't make them any less of a leader.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: It does, it's not a sign of weakness when you ask the question or you let somebody else take the glory or you let somebody else's idea win.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a sign that you acknowledge the reality that no one human being can ever have all the answers or all of the information.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay to let other people shine as well.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Your job as a leader is to bring, you know, it sounds a bit cliche, but it is to bring the best out of those around you and to, and then to never, you don't ever have to take all of the advice you're given.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Of course, again, as the leader, you get to decide what you listen to and what you don't.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: But at least be willing to have that conversation, to invite opposing views, to invite other people to have an opinion about something that might not fit your own.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And then you can choose to listen or not listen, but at least that conversation is treating others as equals, and then you can still assert your authority by what you decide to do, because there can only be one decision, and you can be the person to make that decision, but the process of getting there can be equal and flat and collaborative, and not just okay, well, you have to do what I say and everything, you know, and ignore everything else.
37:22
SPEAKER_04: And why do uh leaders find it difficult to uh do what you are saying, right?
37:28
SPEAKER_04: So it's so it's so it's so uh you know, it's so uh you know apparent, right?
37:32
SPEAKER_04: So you said you had three leaders in CIA whom you were with different leadership styles.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:38
SPEAKER_04: And uh what you're saying is common sense.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:41
SPEAKER_04: Uh but why is it so difficult to implement it in a uh you know, in a work to be honest, and I don't want to reduce anything to one cause, but I think a big part of that is ego.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think a lot of people feel like, oh gosh, if I do something wrong, then it shows that I'm weak.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm weak, then I can't be a leader anymore.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: And and it's this obsession with being right and doing things perfectly and never making a mistake.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: And again, the reality of life is everyone at every stage of life and careers and all up and down in organization, everyone will screw up at some time.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Everyone will.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Everyone will get it, get it wrong, everyone will make a mistake, everyone will do something that either is a huge catastrophe or a small one, but everybody will screw up.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And yet we still expect the leaders to get everything right all the time.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is an unrealistic expectation.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: So society has a part to play in it because we do demand a lot of our leaders or expect them to be perfect when nobody can be.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: But then the second part is that the leaders themselves often have this ego thing about, oh, well, you know, look at me, I've got this title now and I'm so important and I'm making all this money, and so I have to justify my salary and my position by always seeming like I know all the answers and I have everything figured out when oftentimes I don't, right?
39:01
SPEAKER_00: And so again, it's that the ego combined with all of the other sort of noise and the pressures that can sometimes create these really toxic environments where people can't feel like they can make you know a mistake or feel like they're constantly being scrutinized.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And look, sometimes it is the realities, you know, that you've got boards, you've got shareholders, and and and they might not be as enlightened as you want them to be.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying it's you know it's just people's egos are getting overinflated.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a combination of things.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, having more leaders who are, you know, again, it's become a bit of a buzzword, but who are vulnerable, who are uh acknowledging when they get things wrong and acknowledging when they get things right and not afraid to admit when they've made a mistake, I think that will go a long way into sort of shaking up some of these, again, these really crazy expectations we have for leaders to always be perfect, because the reality, and this again, this comes back to my time in the CIA, the world always changes.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: You can have the best plan, the most detailed mission, the most detailed, I don't know, sort of organizational strategy, and all of the best people working on it.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And then when you bring that paper exercise into the reality of the world, it meets customers, it meets shareholders, it meets the economy, it meets global pandemics, it's confronting, you know, unexpected wars in Ukraine, all of these things outside of your control can totally destabilize the most beautifully, perfectly put together plan.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: And so the reality again is for the leaders to acknowledge look, I can only control what I can control.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: I can't control what you know Russian presidents do, I can't control, you know, pandemics coming out of the blue, you know, that nobody could have foreseen.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: I can't control, you know, the bigger things that are happening around us.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: So as a leader, I have to make a decision given all of this uncertainty, given this rapidly changing things that sometimes can change overnight.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: I have to be willing to adapt sometimes, you know, to make a decision because you can't just be paralyzed all the time because that's not what leaders do.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: So to make a decision and then to always be willing to change not the total course of everything, but to adapt or to pivot or to just make tweaks to that plan.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, when it meets reality, the most perfect plan will always fall apart.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: And not all of it.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Some things might stand the test of being, you know, sort of confronted with battle, you know, actual battle or commercial battle.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the times the things, a lot of things won't.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: And so it's having that humility to know, you know, okay, well, now we we made this decision with the best of intentions, with the best information we have in the moment.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: This is the situation we're in now.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: What can we control and what can we do from here to make it less of a disaster than it might otherwise be?
41:51
SPEAKER_01: ContraMinds is a podcast dedicated to decoding people, minds, strategy, and culture.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: We interview and learn from high performers so that you can apply these lessons on your journey to becoming the knowledge worker athlete you were meant to be.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: The Contraminds Podcast is available on all leading podcast players.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: And if you are interested in revisiting past episodes or taking a look at our show notes from this episode, please visit us at www.contraminds.com forward slash blog.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: And now, back to the show.
42:23
SPEAKER_04: So uh how did the leaders in uh the CIA handle failure?
42:28
SPEAKER_04: And what lessons would you tell the CEOs in the corporate world to take those lessons?
42:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's one, everyone will fail.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Everyone will fail.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: So just acknowledge that you can be the smartest, the best, the most highly credentialed, have all the degrees from all the amazing schools.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: There will be a time in your career, and again, it might be big or small, but you will fail.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Failure is just a part of the universal human experience, right?
42:52
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that makes you uniquely cursed or uniquely sort of bad because you failed.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: That happens to everyone.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: But again, it's that cliche of well, what do you do with that failure?
43:00
SPEAKER_00: So at the CIA, we got many things wrong.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we couldn't talk about it publicly, but often, you know, the press would try to make things uh look really, really bad.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: But when you get something wrong, when there is a failure or a big setback, don't just let it be a failure or setback that sits there and sort of you know sucks the life out of you and your company.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: Again, what can you learn from that failure, right?
43:22
SPEAKER_00: There's that great, I think it's Churchill quote where it says, you know, never waste a good crisis.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, if there was a big failure, what can you learn?
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where your company will develop the resilience, right?
43:33
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not in being perfect all the time.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: It's in, okay, well, this is the challenge, and this is what we can learn, and this is what we're going to do differently because of this challenge.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: And doing that again and again and again is where the resilience starts to become institutionalized, because then you've got this attitude of yes, we will have a challenge, we will have a setback, but the things that we do in response to that is what's going to make us stronger in the future.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: So don't waste a good crisis.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Big or small.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, it might be a personnel crisis, or it might be a global pandemic crisis, or it might be anything in between.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: But don't waste a good failure.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: So learn from it after the lessons from it.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: And then the next step, which is again, this can't just be a paper exercise.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: What do you need to institutionalize to make sure those failures never happen again?
44:19
SPEAKER_00: Or that you don't get, you know, those blind spots again in the future.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: And again, this happened at the agency, right?
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Anytime there was a mission failure or something big that went wrong, yes, we did this analysis.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what went wrong and what could we have done differently?
44:31
SPEAKER_00: Or where, where, where did we do everything right and it still went wrong?
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And then the next, the most important part of that learning process is, well, what are we going to do differently?
44:40
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to change our structure?
44:42
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to change our hiring practices?
44:44
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to change our, I don't know, our cash uh position?
44:47
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to change, you know, how how leveraged we are?
44:50
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to change the types of products we offer?
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is for your industry, learn from that and then make sure you implement the learnings in some tangible way in your company so you don't have that same vulnerability in the future.
45:06
SPEAKER_04: Coming to uh you know, uh people uh who are to be leaders and who are starting their life or in the uh you know in a media uh life crisis, why do they find it very hard to redesign their life and career?
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: I think some of it is you know what we laughingly refer to in America as golden handcuffs, right?
45:29
SPEAKER_00: You get used to a certain lifestyle, you get used to a certain income, you get used to a certain level of prestige.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: And again, there's a lot, and all of these things are important.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Look, you need to support yourself, and if you have a family, you need to have an income and your reputation is important.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: But so often we get um uh so set in having that certain, like I said, that ego boost of, oh, I work at this company, oh I get this, I make this much money, oh, I have you know this uh this level of position or whatever it is.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And and that's why I think it's so hard because we've become, we've told ourselves that who we are or what our title is and what how much we earn and where we work and how much, you know, where we live and how big our house is.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: We've told ourselves that that is who we are.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, of course, none of us is any of those things, right?
46:20
SPEAKER_00: You are not your job title, you are not your company, you are not your income, you are your self-worth as a human being has nothing to do with those things.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: But we all think that it does.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard, again, in high-achieving cultures and high achieving industries, and as high achieving individuals, it's so, so hard to separate our sense of self-worth and our value from all of those other things, from you know how much we earn and where we live and what our title is and what we can say on our resumes and all that stuff.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: So I think that is a really hard thing to change, right?
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Because all of a sudden it's having to recreate or or reassess your relationship with your own identity effectively, right?
47:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big thing.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that, you know, just happens overnight.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: And for me personally, that happened.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: I feel somewhat lucky that it happened relatively early in my life, where you know, when I made that transition from working at the CIA and then going to business school and then starting my own business, all of a sudden I was nobody, right?
47:20
SPEAKER_00: Before I was like this cool person who worked at the CIA, and then I was an MBA student at this amazing uh MBA program, and then I was nobody.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: I was someone who was starting a business in the middle of nowhere, and and the nobody had heard of this business because it hadn't had a track record yet.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: I was building it, right?
47:35
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that was a real uh part of my my experience of like, holy shit, all of a sudden, I can't be like, oh, look at me, I'm so cool because I've got this business card that tells me, you know, I've got this position with this amazing company.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: That that was gone.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: And it was a really difficult internal process to go through of like, oh my gosh, wait, if I'm not a student at a prestigious university or if I'm not working at a prestigious institution, who the hell am I?
48:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is a scary question to ask.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: It is a real it's probably the scariest question to ask.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's not an easy process.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: So I wish I could say, oh, well, you know, I went through this process, and yeah, after a couple of months, like it was no, it's it goes and fits and starts, and even now it's a work in progress.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are still times where I revert back into to making that conflation of, well, how much I earn is how much I'm worth, right?
48:24
SPEAKER_00: And of course that's not the reality.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: So all I would say is it takes practice, but you have to ask the question because for me, the reason I went through that painful process is I didn't want to go through that pain at the end of my life where I look back and think, oh man, I totally screwed this up, or I was chasing somebody else's dream, or I didn't really uh tap into the potential that I thought I had, and I was always just doing the safe thing.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: So again, no value judgment here, right?
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Both are equally hard, but it's either you f you feel the pain now or you feel it later.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: And I would rather feel it now when I can do something about it and change it than later in life where it is too late to change.
49:07
SPEAKER_04: So is this what uh you know you talk about how you are running family taught you the difference between an absolute life and a relative life in the book.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: My dad, my dad is amazing.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: He, like his father, has a great way with words.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: And uh, when I was very young, I remember we were talking in the car, he was driving us to school.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, at our drive from our house to my school, we would pass all of these big mansions, you know, huge, sprawling homes.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: And I remember we were in the car, and one of us, me or my brothers or somebody, would have said something about this house that we had just passed.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: And my dad, out of nowhere, I don't know how it just came to him in the moment, he's like, you know, Ripple, it's really important to live an absolute life instead of a relative life.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: So instead of constantly comparing yourself to this person has this much or this person has this thing, or they live in this area, or they have this salary, or they have this title, you'll always be worse than somebody.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Always.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: Even at the very, very top, right?
50:06
SPEAKER_00: There's always gonna be someone richer, smarter, more beautiful, more successful, more everything than you.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: So live an absolute life.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: And again, it goes back to this idea of what do you care about?
50:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about big houses, right?
50:20
SPEAKER_00: But it was one of those things that I had internalized even as a child.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you have to have a big house because that shows you make money.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: And if you make money, that means you're successful.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: And if you're successful, people will respect you and all of that stuff.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: But I as an individual didn't actually care about that stuff.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: Even now I don't care, right?
50:35
SPEAKER_00: And so again, it goes back to what do you care about?
50:38
SPEAKER_00: What are your values?
50:40
SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you want to be?
50:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, what kind of person do you want to be?
50:44
SPEAKER_00: What kind of leader do you want to be?
50:46
SPEAKER_00: What are the kinds of things you want to do with your life?
50:48
SPEAKER_00: For some people, earning money is that thing, and that's fine.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Again, no value judgment.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: If all you want to do is be really, really rich, go do that as long as you're not hurting people and being horrible along the way.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't want to do that, if there are other things and you have that choice.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: And also, what do you want to have?
51:04
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to want to have things, right?
51:06
SPEAKER_00: We all need to live somewhere, we all need to get around from A to B.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: We all need some things, but you might not want the big mansion or the fancy car or the mega salary, and the things that you actually care about are a bit more modest.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: So stop getting sucked into that comparisonitis or, you know, saying, oh, well, this person I work with has this thing, or they've got this holiday home.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Like all of those things that we get wrapped up in and start really focusing on what you care about.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: For me, I care about financial freedom and independence.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, getting lots of expensive things is actually not in alignment with that.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm, and I'm happy with that, right?
51:40
SPEAKER_00: I have a big enough home that fits me and my family.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: I have a car that does the job.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, and I, for me, the way I want to splurge is on traveling.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: I want, you know, I want to take my family around the world.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: And I would rather have the money and the freedom to do that than any sort of multi-quatrillion dollar home.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's me.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, no value judgment.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, I do whatever is important to you.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: But for me, living an absolute life is what makes me happy?
52:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, what are my values?
52:09
SPEAKER_00: What do I want out of this one experience that I will get on earth as who I am right now?
52:15
SPEAKER_00: What do I care about?
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And then stop comparing myself to everybody else.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Because like I said, there's always gonna be so many people who are better, smarter, prettier, more successful, etc.
52:25
SPEAKER_04: But it doesn't matter because there's only one you so uh what you really do if uh uh in the book, you really talk about uh a methodical way of going through this transformation.
52:40
SPEAKER_04: For example, uh you talk about your backstory, then you move into your uh you know personal energy maps.
52:47
SPEAKER_04: Uh uh in a uh you know, can you walk us through a couple of steps that probably people will have to uh you know do this because being realistic is very hard, right?
53:00
SPEAKER_04: So uh and you outline it very beautifully in the book.
53:03
SPEAKER_04: So can you walk us through the couple of steps that people need to go through to come to uh a conclusion that this is exactly what I enjoy and this is what fulfills me?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: So there first it I would say give yourself time.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: All of these questions, the self-reflection, this self-curiosity is not something you can do while you're commuting or on your lunch break or you know, in between phone calls or whatever.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: Give yourself any time you have a big question and a new question, perhaps.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: Many of these questions will be new to you.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: Give yourself time and solitude.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: So, quite literally go somewhere where there are no distractions, no phones, no, you know, pings of your email or alerts going off, etc.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: And just be with yourself.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: And the first step that I think is, and and there's no right or wrong way to do this.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: Write down your life story.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: And that can start at any point in your life.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, you decide I'm not gonna, it's it's it's not important where you start.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: But whatever that means to you, what is your life story, your backstory, right?
54:05
SPEAKER_00: And some of the questions that will help uh maybe guide this process, I I do outline in the book, but it's things like, you know, what were the times in your life, in every aspect of your life, personal, professional, at home, at school, you know, at university, wherever.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: But just those highlight moments where you were in your flow or you were, you remember being so happy or so fulfilled and so alive.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, there we will all hopefully have at least a few of those moments in our lives that we can recall very easily.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: What were those moments?
54:36
SPEAKER_00: And then think, what were you doing in those moments?
54:39
SPEAKER_00: What kinds of people were you surrounding yourself with?
54:42
SPEAKER_00: What were you doing either physically or intellectually?
54:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, what how was your time being used in that in that moment or in those series of moments?
54:50
SPEAKER_00: And then the flip side as well, what were those sort of the darker times?
54:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, where were those times where you felt like really low and real things were really slow and it felt really difficult and there was a lot of tension or whatever it is?
55:02
SPEAKER_00: And similarly, you know, what were you actually doing?
55:05
SPEAKER_00: What kinds of people were you with?
55:06
SPEAKER_00: How were you using your brain?
55:08
SPEAKER_00: What were you doing physically?
55:09
SPEAKER_00: All of these things.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: And as you start answering these questions from your backstory, your own life, you will learn and pick up so many patterns that you probably felt or intuited were there, but never really made concrete.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: Because again, how often do we ever sit down and try to write these things down?
55:27
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first step is really just describing, right?
55:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not in analyzing, it's not uh in criticizing, it's just describing.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: This is how I see my life story: the highs and the lows, and some of the tensions and the frictions, and some of the the great things and the less great things.
55:44
SPEAKER_00: And then then the analysis comes.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: Then it's looking at, well, what were the recurring themes in the high moments and what were the recurring themes in the low moments?
55:52
SPEAKER_00: And and again, I think sometimes operating in extremes is helpful because it gives you just two very strong baselines.
55:58
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, there will be other things in between.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: But so, you know, when you were the happiest and those most important moments, and and and and again, doing the analysis there, and then similarly for the low points, and then thinking, you know, what are those trends that keep coming up again and again and again?
56:14
SPEAKER_00: And it from my own personal experience, like I said, my biggest moments of fulfillment and feeling alive were things like, you know, when I won my uh my soccer championship, or when I was uh doing a briefing in front of you know 500 uh military officers who were about to be deployed to a war zone.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: And and it seems like those are two very different things.
56:38
SPEAKER_00: And yet, through some analysis, well, what was I doing in those moments?
56:42
SPEAKER_00: I had developed an expertise, again, whether it was on the football pitch or you know, in a in an intellectual capacity, and then I was doing it in a collaborative environment.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: For me, the team, the collaboration, that was an N element of what made that feel so amazing.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: But there was also an element of individual success there because you know, I did a brilliant job at defending the goals, for example, in that championship, or I delivered a really powerful briefing.
57:06
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, do that analysis, and then you will see these themes recurring.
57:11
SPEAKER_00: And as I shared earlier, when I did that backstory exercise, for me, the things that came up again and again was learning or developing an expertise, sharing it with others, and communicating that with others in whatever way I could.
57:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's one part of the process.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: A parallel process is again thinking in extremes.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what are my ideals?
57:30
SPEAKER_00: What is what does my ideal day look like?
57:33
SPEAKER_00: What does my ideal lifestyle look like?
57:35
SPEAKER_00: Going back to that thing about, you know, sort of what you want to be, do, and have.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: And then what is my ideal legacy?
57:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, in hopefully 50, 60, maybe 70 years, I don't know how long people will live soon.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: But when I look back on my life, what is that legacy I want to have left behind?
57:49
SPEAKER_00: And and and the sky is the limit here, right?
57:51
SPEAKER_00: No one can tell you what is your ideal.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: For me, the ideals were were going to inevitably be different from yours.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: But again, by thinking in extremes, it helps give us signposts.
58:00
SPEAKER_00: And then again, do the analysis.
58:02
SPEAKER_00: What are the recurring themes?
58:04
SPEAKER_00: What are the values that show up in your ideals?
58:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, is it being around people?
58:08
SPEAKER_00: Is it being with family?
58:09
SPEAKER_00: Is it having independent sort of use of your time?
58:12
SPEAKER_00: Is it doing creative work?
58:14
SPEAKER_00: These themes will start to emerge once you give yourself the time to explore them, but you have to give yourself the time to do it.
58:21
SPEAKER_00: And then the final step there is again what we shared, talked about earlier, is given this picture of what are my values, what are the recurring themes, what are the highlights and the lowlights, what are uh the things that make me feel really alive and what are my ideals.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: The next and most important step, I think, is thinking concretely about how you're gonna bring that into your everyday life.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: In a small way to begin with, at the very least, and then over time make it more and more and more.
58:48
SPEAKER_04: So, one thing uh that I can see from this uh framework that you put out, uh you've got a lot of learnings around how you gather data, uh, how do you analyze the data and how do you do the uh briefing?
59:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh in the case of your CIA experience, you debriefed somebody, but here you're debriefing yourself.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
59:11
SPEAKER_04: So, what are the best practices of gathering data which you learnt at the CIA, which you can apply back to your own life?
59:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh, what's the best way to analyze the data?
59:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and uh, what's the best way to debrief?
59:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's a that's a really good question.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: No one's ever asked me that before.
59:28
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh so first part about gathering the data.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: Again, at the CIA, we prided ourselves on being all source analysts.
59:36
SPEAKER_00: So looking at literally every source of relevant information, but not only relying on the covertly collected secret stuff, but what are all of the sources of information and insight on this particular topic?
59:49
SPEAKER_00: The same is true for your own life.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: So, of course, you have to do your own inner reflections and your own inner data collection, but then it and choose carefully here, but it can never hurt as long as you choose carefully to ask other people, collect other data from external sources.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: Again, what are what do you see as my strengths?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: What do you see as some of my blind spots?
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: What do you think I'm uniquely qualified to do or really good at or whatever?
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: And again, choose people whose opinion you respect and who have actually had some experience of you in that context.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: So don't ask, you know, your best friend who you've never worked with in a job together how he thinks of you as a professional because he has no experience of that, right?
1:00:29
SPEAKER_00: So collect relevant data from people who have relevant information about the question you're asking.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: And then, like I said, be all sorts about it.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can get information from yourself, from the people around you, perhaps from some of the performance reviews you've gotten in the past, but be a bit broad based in your in your collection.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: Then the analysis of it comes.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's again, there's no sort of um hard or fast way of doing this, but you will see the patterns starting to emerge.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: So group those things together.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, what are some of the personal uh attributes that people keep telling you that you're really strong in?
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the technical things that people say you're really good at?
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: And again, just group things together, and then it's it's a it's another conversation with yourself of like this feels right intuitively, you know, this collection of things that people have told me, or this uh emerging pattern that I'm seeing, it starts to feel right, and then you dig into it a little bit more.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_00: And again, that goes back to that process of okay, internal reflection, external sort of sense checking, etc.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's a it's an iterative process.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not like you do it once and then it stays, you know, like that forever.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's the data, the collection and the analysis.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: And then the debriefing part, it comes into just crystallizing it effectively into a plan.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: So you've done the data collection, you've done the self-analysis, you've done, you know, you've gotten the relevant inputs from other people.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do with that now?
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you do nothing, right?
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just a useful exercise and you decide to just sit on it.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: But maybe you think, oh wow, well, I see these are the themes and the patterns.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: I see these are the recurring trends.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: And I actually feel a bit of a tension or a mismatch between what I'm doing and what, you know, what makes me, you know, makes me feel like I'm coming alive and thriving, etc.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_00: So these are the specific things that I'm going to do to try to weave more of the things that fulfill me into my day-to-day life.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: And then the debriefing is is sharing that plan with the people who will be affected by that plan.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: So let's say you have come to the conclusion that maybe you're going to consider uh a career change, or maybe you're gonna get back into your hobby of playing the piano.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, if nobody else is affected by that, then they don't need to know.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_00: But if you're changing your career, for example, or at least exploring it, and you're married andor have kids, then those people, they don't need to be a part of the plan or the process, but at least share with them that there might be this change coming and you are exploring this thing.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: Or if the fact that you want to start playing piano again means you, you know, can't have dinner with your friends on a Friday night like you normally do, share that with your friends.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be asking for permission, but at least share that things will change.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you choose to, you don't have to, but you can just share with them why you're changing it.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have always loved to play the piano, and since I started my job, I haven't, you know, for the past 20 years of building my career, I haven't had time to indulge, and this thing is collecting dust, but I, you know, it brings me joy.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna do this every Friday night when we would normally have our dinners because that's when I have most uh free time.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, right?
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: That's a small example.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_00: But don't be afraid of having those conversations.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, sadly, there will be pushback, and the people you share things with will not want you to do the change and and and want you to stay the same or to to keep things the way they've always been.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_00: And that perhaps is another difficult conversation because the people who come with us to up to a certain point in our lives aren't always going to be the people we bring with us for the rest of our lives.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's those same people who have been with us for a long time, who have their set view of who we are and how we fit into their lives that can be the most um uh committed to keeping us the same.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to change and we feel that calling and we feel that urge and that need, but the people around us might not want us to do that.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: So that is part of the process, sadly.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, people sometimes want you to stay the same for their selfish purposes, sometimes they just don't understand, and so it's a conversation to explain it.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes they just, you know, if you change, all of a sudden it calls into question the way they're doing things and it makes them feel a little bit uncertain about, oh gosh, well, if he's deciding to do this, why am I not doing it?
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so sometimes it's about their insecurity.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: So share, you know, debrief the people who might need to know, but also be prepared that sometimes you'll have to maybe spend less time with certain people or just carve out sort of a mental protective barrier from their inputs and their negativity, because at the end of the day, no one is going to care about your life as much as you do.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: And nobody can live it for you the way you want it to do it.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: So don't be afraid to say no to some people or to spend less time or to carve them out entirely from your life if it comes to that, even if they've been with you your whole life.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_00: It's it's uh it's not a nice thing to say, but it is the reality because they will either be pulling you forward and towards this thing, this change, this dream, ambition, whatever, or it'll be holding you back.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have time for people to be holding you back.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_04: So on that note, uh I'm going to be asking you a couple of rapid side questions.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_04: Um so what does uh success mean to you?
1:05:48
SPEAKER_00: Success means living my life on my terms.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_00: As long as I'm not hurting anybody else.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_04: Uh what is one piece of uh advice best piece of advice?
1:06:00
SPEAKER_04: That you ever got?
1:06:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it's that one from my father earlier about living an absolute life and not a relative life.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_00: It's probably the hardest piece of advice I've ever gotten, but it is it is by far the best.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_04: What would you uh give as an advice to an 18-year-old who's studying in a university today?
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_00: I would say be open, but also be careful about the inputs you let in.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_00: So that's the people, the ideas, all of that kind of stuff.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_00: But the world is an amazing place.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_00: So if you think you know you want you want to do just one thing, that's fine.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_00: Be focused, but also at least be curious about other things and have an awareness of other things because you you never know where you're gonna get your next big idea or your passion.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_00: So have a focus, but also be open.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_04: What's one thing that uh you believe in that uh others don't agree with you on?
1:07:01
SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: That's uh, I think it might be this um the what we shared uh sort of in the last question about uh curating the people you have around you, right?
1:07:13
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not a nice polite thing to say, oh, you've been my best friend for so long, but now you know I've sort of moved on.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_00: But I think I think it's probably that.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not everybody who's in your life and has been in it for a long time deserves to stay in it for a long time.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_00: Some people do, but not everybody does.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh if you were to invite uh, you know, four people or five people for a for your dream dinner, yeah.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_04: Uh who would they be and why?
1:07:41
SPEAKER_00: I would want to invite my um the women in my family.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: So my maternal and paternal grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and up to however many generations I could go back.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_00: Because I feel such a deep sense of debt to my ancestors, and I have no idea what they were like.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: I know they grew up probably very poor, and they all grew up in various parts of Gadrah, but I want to know about their stories, you know, what were they like as people, what were their ambitions and their dreams to the extent that they even had them or allowed themselves to have them?
1:08:17
SPEAKER_00: But it's particularly for the women.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_00: Um I would love, yeah, I would love to talk to them and and and know where I come from, you know, and what what values that I still have that they they had themselves.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh now that you know about the Contramines Podcast, yeah, if you were to uh recommend a guest, yeah, who would you think you want us uh to be a part of uh Contra Minds Podcast as a gift?
1:08:43
SPEAKER_04: Who would you think is a good guest?
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: What would the criteria be?
1:08:48
SPEAKER_04: The criteria would be uh, you know, if you were listening, uh you know, uh you could say that this is one person I want to listen to, but I never have had a chance to listen to this person in this podcast.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_04: In any podcast.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_04: Uh so somebody who somebody who you may admire, somebody who you get inspired.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_04: And uh that's really what the idea is.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's no one famous, um, and I hope she doesn't hate me for her name.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: But it's a woman who um is here in the UK who practices as a doula.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: So a doula is for most people don't know what that is, a doula is a uh another birth partner who helps women go through um uh the process of childbirth, and it's sort of like a midwife, but it's a little bit different.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this woman who I'm thinking of, uh her name is Marie, and she is amazing.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I think more people need to hear from her is because she has a real deep sense of intuition around humanity and around um people's uh sort of powers as human beings, but is also also very scientific in her views on on things like neuroscience and childbirth and and the combination of of intuition and and learning that she brings to her work is really, really powerful and transformative.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that a lot of people talk about, but she is an expert in sort of um in women's health, but also in things like um uh what was it?
1:10:19
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a com it's sort of like menopause as well as childbirth and everything having to do with women and their bodies.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_00: And she brings this great combination of science as well as intuition.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, she's brilliant.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: And I I could talk to her.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_04: Thanks.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_04: I think that'll be great.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, it was a fantastic conversation.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I think uh uh what I really heard in the last hour or so was this whole thing about being authentic, being completely realistic about what you enjoy, what you what fulfills you, yeah, building your own personal roadmap.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that was uh that's refreshing.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_04: And uh thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts, and it was a brilliant conversation.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_00: It was an absolute pleasure, and I could have continued chatting with you all afternoon.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for being such a wonderful host.
1:11:10
unknown: Thanks.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for listening to this episode.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_03: For selected links and detailed show notes, visit www.contramines.com slash blog.
1:11:26
SPEAKER_03: Follow Contraminds on social media and let us know who you would like to see next on the podcast.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_03: If you're listening to Contramines on Apple Podcasts, do share your comments and give us a rating.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_03: We are keen to know what you're thinking.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_03: Contramines is also on YouTube.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_03: If you are listening to the podcast on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and stay up to date on all our releases.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for listening and stay safe.