Podcast

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Silvia shares how she is empowering women and couples by translating medical research into valuable information for family planning. She shares how the mission of her startup is also her personal mission, how similar leadership is to parenting, and the challenges of convincing investors as well as other stakeholders about what they are doing and why.

You can find Silvia at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-hecher-b637b598/
• https://www.levy.health/

In the interview, Silvia shares

• When you’re struggling to conceive, it’s not just women who are part of the equation, but also men.
• Part of my life that led me here was wanting to be a mom for a long time.
• And you wanna have kids and then it didn’t work. And  I was overwhelmed by that sense of urgency, that belonging, or that desire to have a child. Was so strong all of a sudden, and then realizing that you want something badly, then not able to get it. That like really sparked something in me and gave me the energy to do something about that.
• There are so many hundreds and thousands of clinical studies where issues regarding fertility diagnostics and fertility therapy are discussed. Are found great results, but they’re not made available to the people who really need them.
• Patients typically think that doctors should have all the answers. They should know everything, but that is an unrealistic expectation from my point of view. 
• We have to empower women to make good decisions for family planning and for diagnosing fertility and addressing fertility issues.
• I wouldn’t say that it’s so niche because every sixth to seventh, a couple struggles to conceive it really depends on who, and how open your friends and family are.
• People just don’t open up that they’re doing IVF because they’re embarrassed. Very few couples share fertility struggles openly, or even with their family and friends. 
• It’s impossible to know everything. 
• When it comes to coaches the important thing is to not get a coach when everything is falling apart, but to get a coach way before and when you’re doing well.
• many people tell you no, you can’t do this. No, this can’t be done. No, you’re too early for this. No, you’re not the right person. And I think having a coach helps you navigate all the different responses from your environment and the different expectations from customers and the expectations from your team and how you grow with that and how you struggle with that.
• I see a coach like a mirror on the wall, really reflecting things and pushing back things to me and giving me things to think about. And to question not as somebody who’s giving me the solutions.
• Motherhood for me is challenging just like, for everybody, I would say it is very fulfilling.  It is a lot of fun. I just love the directness and the honesty that you get from your kids.
• I struggle to be a mother and have a startup at the same time, I feel like I’m never doing enough on the one end and I’m never doing enough on the other. I always would like to have more time for my children more quality time. And I always have things for my startup at the end of the day.
  

   

   

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In a very candid conversation, I don’t even want to call it an interview, Chris shares so much of his life that we normally keep hidden – not just from others but also from ourselves. He opens up and shares about his childhood, his tryst with entrepreneurship, failure, success, mental heath challenges, and what gives his life meaning. Listen to this conversation to understand who Chris is and his story. We talk about material success as well as meditation, doing more as well as doing nothing, and fear as well as courage.

You can find Chris at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisfederspiel/
• https://blackthorn.io/

In the interview, Chris shares

• I ended up spending a lot of time after my parents split and got divorced when I was very depressed, just sitting at my computer and it helped me be very comfortable with computers.
• And I ended up finding computers to be very safe. There was nothing that could like physically or emotionally hurt me with a computer.
• I got diagnosed with bipolar two when I was 20 or 21.
• Whenever I had to do something interpersonal, I did not deal with it very well. I tended to be very abrupt or brash when talking to people like they were a computer  I wasn’t empathetic and I tended to type strong messages
• It was very painful. Going through therapy sucks. I don’t enjoy one bit of it, but the benefits of it really helped me in my life.
• If anyone has a mental illness where there’s like heavy anxiety, it helps to do a lot of exercises to manage that it helps to level it out.
• From the base of the mountain, you can see the mountain, but from the top of the mountain, you can no longer see the mountain. And the concept is about the journey. It’s not about achieving the thing in the end. And there’s something rewarding about the journey that I look forward to.
• Boys are taught to not talk about their emotions and girls are taught to shut up. And it’s interesting the struggles that men and women have after getting a bit older
• The last company I co-founded, when I sold it when I sold my interest, it really hurt because this thing that I had devoted, like almost every waking hour or two for a year and a half, it was suddenly gone.
• And it made me realize one, one day, I want to be able to change that dynamic if I can because you hear all these things. If you had a day to live, what would you do? And if your company’s gonna go away from you, what would you do? It was a big lesson I learned.

   

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, we talk about how that led him to create a software solution to fix communication breakdowns. Brian shared how any corporate group behaves like a larger organism. We spoke about the transition from working in a company to starting your own thing, and how that requires stopping being anonymous and becoming comfortable with being in the limelight.

You can find Brian at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-curtis-78842358/
• https://decentralizedsystems.net

In the interview, Brian shares

• What happens is there’s this slow disengagement of the employee over a long period of time.
• The decentralized process has more to do with the efficiency of creating better relationships than it does, even information because information only travels when the relationships are in a growth cycle.
• You have to put yourself out there and say, Hey, this is what I’ve got. This is who I am. And it’s a totally different process. You become a promoter of yourself and then you’re creating, new relationships constantly on the outside.
• We’re all part of basically the same growing organism, and that organism works better when our relationships work better.
• COVID pulled us apart. And we saw the, I think we’re seeing the after-effects of that.
• Unfortunately, sometimes it takes an accident before people realized how important they are to one another.
• A bigger group has an emotional body and a mental body just like you.
• Organizations are built like a tree.
• I don’t think anybody wants to be in a state of conflict. So any system that we can put in place where. We get out of that state of conflict. All you have to do is start the growing cycle. 
• Conflict is a negative growing cycle where you’re, you’re growing up apart. You just have to overcome that negative growing cycle.
• Nobody grows without failures. And well, what we conceive as failures actually tell us more about ourselves in order for us to keep moving forward. So I think I’m grateful for all those experiences

   

   

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to celebrate leaders for the choices they have made, which are not always easy or comfortable, and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Yasmina spoke about the power of being yourself and then demonstrated it wonderfully by being her wonderful self. We talked about thinking outside the box, connecting with people as human beings first, and her journey from her roots in Africa to working in many male-dominated industries. She shares with us the valuable lesson she learned from her dad about working for passion and not for making money.

You can find Yasmina Kazitani at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasmina-kazitani-mba-ms-52576bb/
• https://twitter.com/ferielyasmina

In the interview, Yasmina shares

• We are doing it because we love doing it. And we impress people because we are driven by our passion. So passion is, again, all about your leadership.
• I do not consider my teams like team members. I always keep them as a family because we grow together. We nurture together. I’m not your leader or your manager. I’m the person who’s just having the job title.
• When we talk about leadership. It’s tribal, it’s really, tribal’s ways of doing.
• Don’t be nice. Be yourself because you have your ups and downs.
• As a leader, you can not fear being wrong or being not knowing.
  

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Gilad talks about how he spent 25 years of his life doing M&As and realised he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his career making rich people richer. He now works to solve the biggest challenge humanity faces – climate change – through a rewards based approach. Listen to this episode as we discuss fear, ego, greed, taking responsibility without burden, seeing money as energy, and the importance of our body when it comes to leadership.

You can find Gilad at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilad-regev/

In the interview, Gilad shares

• The way to scale up climate action is through changing of the economy.
• I started many years ago to work on my fears. I didn’t want my fears to control me. And then suddenly I realized that there is another guy that controls my life and that’s the ego. And. I see by the way, ego and fear as a ying-yang
• And then once you start to look at your ego, it’s much easier for you to look at the mirror and say, Hey where is my responsibility?
• There was less and less resistance from my being for me to ask these questions. It was less and less. I could be more and more honest with myself because that ego, that small devil did not take over and reject those thoughts. And I think that really what helped a lot.
• Fear can be my friend, which means I’m not trying to control my fear. I also don’t try to control my ego. When they’re popping out, I look at them, they look at me, and I get the information from them but I’m not trying to suppress them.
• I physically felt that money is energy. Because when you’re practising Tai Chi, you’re practising on energies. 
• I’m more in harmony with myself. Hence I’m not afraid of letting go.
• Maybe the best advice I can give is if any person can, from time to time, just stop all the noise. We have so much noise around. It’s coming from all directions. And just try to be with oneself and try to become observant. It doesn’t have to be meditation, people sometimes afraid, but just to breathe, just to turn off everything, for five minutes or for seven minutes, and maybe that’s can be the starting of the process.
• Everything is in front of you, but because you are not stopping or you are always in that rush, you’re not seeing it. And sometimes by just stopping pausing, and allowing things to settle down, you will see it for yourself.
  

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Anshul shares how his life took a sudden turn from the world of corporates and finance when he listened to a deep inner voice and pursued the unknown path. We talk about how that path led him to many serendipitous moments – including meeting many coaches and mentors who have taught him how to listen to the deep wisdom and intelligence of our intuition and body – and the science behind it.

You can find Anshul at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshulkamath/
• https://evolveinc.io

In the interview, Anshul shares

• at some point, you start to pay attention to some of the subtler signs. It’s very hard to describe it, but there is just an internal feeling that feels this is not right.
• I know how you just tune in and listen in to yourself and understand what your body’s really telling you.
• There are three kinds of lives people lead, which are survival, success and significance.
• Ever since I left. I was very clear that I’m just gonna pave my own path. And there is no set path for me in front of me.
• This is scientific stuff. 75% of the communication that happens is actually your body trying to tell your mind something. And only 25% is your mind actually trying to tell your body, but we only pay attention to that 25%. 
• The answers don’t come to your mind because a lot of times we will tell ourselves the stories we want to listen to in our mind.
• The best decisions when you are actually listening to yourself come from a place of absolute common stillness.
• I’ve always believed in authenticity. One of the defining kinds of quotes, I remember when I was when I just left shell and started this sort of unknown path and life was the privilege of a lifetime is to discover who you truly are.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Laimonas shares how he is building his 10th company, and how being bullied at school gave him the drive to succeed and prove others wrong. He also talks about family and the importance of placing people first, and how business is only a reflection of the energy of its people. He also shares how he has learned to hire people smarter than himself and not try to do everything by himself – which was limiting his growth at one point.

You can find Arturs at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/laimonasnoreika/

In the interview, Laimonas shares

• While you’re actually failing you’re learning a lot. That’s what created me as an entrepreneur,
• I was bullied at school and that made me a bit angry with the world. So I have to go and prove things.
• I really want to show that it’s possible to seek success while you’re smiling while you’re good to people while you are helping. And don’t be that douchebag businessman who is mean and really controlling things.
• I want to prove the other way of doing business. That it’s fun. It’s pleasant and it’s doable
• Business is just a reflection of people and the energy people create.
• When I started my business, I tried to do everything myself. Like I did marketing, I did sales. I did a one-man show, but that limited my organization from growing.
• when you go to do business, you expect stressful situations. You expect things to change super fast. So if you expect that, so why stress then? Why would you stress? This is the normal life of the startup things change so fast. So just don’t stress about it.
• a lot of times people sometimes think that I’m, too relaxed too optimistic, but it’s just me being myself
• if you want to outshine in this world, be yourself. 
• focus on building something meaningful provide results for yourself, and your team and keep building,
• you can be a leader and still be yourself.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

Henny is someone who doesn’t follow the normal route in life. She lost both her parents at an early age and learnt quickly that life is too short to not make your own decisions. She wants to be happy and also create an environment where her teams can also learn, grow, and be happy at work. She acknowledges that she can be too hard on herself, and tries to let things go and find a balance.

You can find Henny at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/hennyhoekstra/

In the interview, Henny shares

• Life is too short to make decisions that you don’t want to have. 
• I also feel like no matter what happens, if I die out, I will be happy because I have the feeling that I created a positive impact on the world.
• If you look at leaders there they’re mostly like very angry or tough people. Not exactly, always vulnerable. I do believe that people that are able to show vulnerability make sense because we’re all human beings. And if, and then we connect with each other when we’re trying to be vulnerable, when we try to open up with each other, we get more connected.
• Our emotions and our inclusion play a bigger role in our decision-making than our rational minds.
• it is better to also take the time for yourself. So when you’re working you’re doing the right things, because if you’re very tired, you make bad decisions and that’s not what you want to do as a leader.
• almost all choices are reversible. So it is worse to not choose.
• Always be learning. Always develop yourself. Always you can learn something from someone. Everybody can teach you something, be open to it, keep developing yourself, and they will also keep developing everything around you.

   

This is the Humble Inquiries series. In this episode, Leslie joins me as my co-host to humbly inquire into Focus for leaders and teams. How to stay focused and get quality work done in the age of distraction? How to train your mind to get into a state of flow without getting interrupted every now and then? 

In each episode of Humble Inquiries, we are deliberately going to put ourselves in the uncomfortable space of not knowing the answer and humbly inquiring about these challenges – with the aim to provoke new thoughts, actions, and practices – to help us better serve our coaching clients, and also to help the leader in you navigate the biggest challenges – at life and at work.

Show Notes

• Leslie – “coming back to the why and why am I doing this is really what has helped me generate more focus. “
• Sumit – “before we talk about focus, it’s very important to identify what to focus on and not just focus for the sake of focus, but focus always for the sake of producing a result.” 
• Sumit – “we have to choose because if you try to focus on everything in a way you’re not focused on anything, “
• Sumit – “focus is also very closely tied to being committed, being responsible for what big responsibility that you have taken on.”
• Leslie – “not only does productivity go down because you’re flipping back and forth and then you’re slower. Your risk of errors is greater. “
• Sumit – “So if you’re driving, you can keep the whole route in your mind, but you have to focus on the road in front of you. So focusing on the present moment or the today is very important. “
• Leslie – “You think you need to do more, but that’s not necessarily how it pays off.”
• Sumit – “Does the phone owns you or do you own the phone? So again, as you said just because you have a phone doesn’t mean that you have to answer every call or you don’t mean that you have to keep it on at all times.”
• Sumit – “It’s just not healthy to hear a ping sound every five seconds or every five minutes, even, it’s just, or brains or bodies are not built for that. “
• Sumit – ” It’s not just about productivity. It’s also about health and wellbeing, which is so much more important. “
• Sumit – “You’re choosing at any moment. If you’re in a meeting and your phone rings, you’re choosing to answer that phone, right? If you’re in a meeting and your boss suddenly calls you, you’re choosing to answer your boss or choosing not to, but all of these are choices and we get away. We make it easier psychologically by using these like defence mechanisms or escapist language. Like I did not have a choice or I have been trying, but I have not been able to.”
• Leslie – “There are those moments of when and what suits, your kind of biological clock. So paying attention to it is really important. And, my way of doing that is noticing it and capturing it and journaling it and then adjusting my schedule so that I can take advantage of when suits me the best.”
• Sumit – “Multitasking is a myth. “
• Sumit – “the human brain is just not capable of doing two things at a time. You can do as many things as you want, but in any given moment, you can only focus on one thing.”
• Leslie – “you can quickly see how slow you are when you’re switching back and forth, as opposed to accomplishing one and then accomplishing the other task.”
• Sumit – “focus requires energy.”
• Leslie – “Just like your windows browsers, and you have too many tabs open, I have too many tabs open in my brain and I need to shut them down so that I can focus.”
• Sumit – ” we can hold only five to seven things in our short-term memory at a time.”
• Sumit – “If you take a bike and load it with so much stuff that it can’t move, that’s not the problem of the bike.”
• Leslie – ” I’ve now gone back to, headphones free and just enjoy the sight and sounds of nature.”
• Sumit – “there is also that notion associated that if I take time for myself then to feel guilty about that, that’s wrong or that’s selfish. But again, coming back to the metaphor of you always putting your own oxygen mask first, and in fact, that is necessary.”

As quoted by Edgar Schein in his book Humble Inquiry, an humble inquiry is recognizing that insights most often come from conversations and relationships in which we have learned to listen to each other and have learned to respond appropriately, to make joint sense out of our shared context, rather than arguing with each other into submission.

This is the Humble Inquiries series. In this episode, Leslie joins me as my co-host to humbly inquire into how to prioritise the long-term and short-term as a leader. How to find the critical balance in business as leaders – where we are responsible for short-term metrics – and yet also for the long-term growth and sustainability of our business? 

In each episode of Humble Inquiries, we are deliberately going to put ourselves in the uncomfortable space of not knowing the answer and humbly inquiring about these challenges – with the aim to provoke new thoughts, actions, and practices – to help us better serve our coaching clients, and also to help the leader in you navigate the biggest challenges – at life and at work.

Show Notes

• Sumit – “we all agree on this is a big problem but we still can’t agree on what to do because the structures of the world we live in is still derived or run by a lot of short-term thinking”
• Leslie – ” it’s really, what is that most important thing of where we’re going? So that then as a leader, you can help decide for your team, how. Support the organization in getting there. I think the first is to have courage and ask specific questions to get that direction. “
• Sumit – ” if you realize something is missing from a long-term point of view, The way to do it is not to do it alone, but to build a consensus so that the team or the company can do it as a group, as a unit.”
• Leslie – “Having the courage to ask, and then when you get the answer of the direction, ensuring that’s something that you feel passionate about and is the right thing to do, and you want to do it so that you can convey that to your team.”
• Leslie – “To step into that space and maybe not know how we’re gonna get there. But this is where we know we should be going.”
• Sumit – “it shouldn’t become a match like somebody needs to win and somebody needs to lose. It needs to become a partnership. It needs to become a team effort.”
• Sumit – “it’s very important to measure numbers in the short term, but not to see those numbers going up and down as a direct measure of the performance of your people, of your teams. Because then there is a lot of hidden elements.”
• Sumit – “What if you like hit your numbers, but destroy your reputation in the market, in the industry. So there’s a lot of things which you cannot measure like trust. What if you like, you certainly go through a downturn. And to save cost in the short term you do a round of layoffs, but it destroys the culture and the trust in the organization.”
• Sumit – “If leaders who want to focus on the short term will not get followers, they will automatically have to change.”
• Leslie – “It requires courage and trust in self to know what is right for you.”
• Sumit – “Nothing stops you from sending an email to the CEO or sending an email to, to your high people, higher up in your hierarchy or to or to find them somewhere and to engage them in a conversation.”
• Sumit – “There are many places that you can find help if you go looking for it.”
• Sumit – “That’s the definition of courage, right? Courage is not about giving up at the first disappointment, but courage is about trusting that this is important and then moving forward, no matter how slow or fast the progress is.”

Asquoted by Edgar Schein in his book Humble Inquiry, an humble inquiry is recognizing that insights most often come from conversations and relationships in which we have learned to listen to each other and have learned to respond appropriately, to make joint sense out of our shared context, rather than arguing with each other into submission.

This is the Humble Inquiries series. In this episode, Leslie joins me as my co-host to humbly inquire into how to keep oneself motivated as a leader. If we are not motivated ourselves, it shows its impact on everything we do and every responsibility we have. Leadership starts with finding and staying connected with our own motivation first.

In each episode of Humble Inquiries, we are deliberately going to put ourselves in the uncomfortable space of not knowing the answer and humbly inquiring about these challenges – with the aim to provoke new thoughts, actions, and practices – to help us better serve our coaching clients, and also to help the leader in you navigate the biggest challenges – at life and at work.

Show Notes

• Sumit – “if we get our body moving, it lifts our moods, it lifts our spirits.”
• Leslie – “my personal practice is sitting with coffee and enjoying a bit of cosy time and journaling, and that helps me reflect on yesterday and set the intention for what today is.”
• Sumit – “another practice which works very well for me is to just highlight three or four areas where I want to complete something today”
• Sumit – “anybody can build a new practice, even if that is uncomfortable for them.”
• Sumit – “motivation is  it’s it’s connecting to that fire, which is within you and then giving it a little bit of air so that it becomes like a flame”
• Sumit – “You don’t have to do anything as an obligation. Because that’s, again, going against motivation, right? Motivation is when you are free to choose and do something.”
• Leslie – “Some other ways are just taking that time to pause and maybe asking for help, as a leader that could be. An opportunity, not only for yourself but the team as well ask for help. “
• Sumit – “sitting in silence or sometimes taking a break allows all of those matters, which we deeply care about, but we don’t really address because we are so busy, just having that moment of peace allows them to come up and then we can listen to them and actually put it into our actions and practices.”
• Leslie – “going for a walking meeting together is a great way to combine a lot of what we’ve talked about when it comes to finding that motivation”
• Sumit – “I think an overcrowded mind sometimes can stop us from being motivated. And once we empty our mind, either through reflection or through journaling, it allows us to touch those deep levels of feelings, which actually is motivation. Motivation is not a thought process. It’s not something you can reason yourself into it. It’s a feeling that you already have. But sometimes the mind is so cluttered that you get lost or you’d lost touch with it”
• Leslie – “it is different for everyone and the leader can’t take sole responsibility for motivating each person on the team. It’s each of the individual’s responsibility to find that too, but there is value in communicating what motivates.”
• Sumit – “there is no such thing as a motivated or a demotivated person. There are only moments in which you are motivated and demotivated. And then every moment is a new opportunity,”
• Sumit – “every moment is basically telling you that if you’re demotivated, that something is missing, either you need to say no to something, or you need to do something differently that you can make the experience fun”
• Sumit – “Motivation is not something which you can design or control. You can only create the conditions for motivation to happen, but not really directly motivate somebody. You can direct somebody or force somebody to be motivated.”
• Leslie – “One of my suggestions, which I got from another organization was let someone from the team lead, let them bring a topic, let them change the format. So again, creating that space and really injecting some air back into it, to give motivation and really the opportunity for that motivation all over again, as a team.”
• Sumit – “if you don’t take a shower, that doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or something is wrong. You just take a shower, if you wash your hands and they become dirty again, you simply wash your hands again. Similarly with motivation, right? If you’re not motivated or if you don’t feel that energy, it’s not like something is wrong or something is missing. You just shift. Connect with something and then you’re motivated again.”

As quoted by Edgar Schein in his book Humble Inquiry, an humble inquiry is recognizing that insights most often come from conversations and relationships in which we have learned to listen to each other and have learned to respond appropriately, to make joint sense out of our shared context, rather than arguing with each other into submission.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Arturs shares his vision for the future and how he plans to take his company from 15 to 50 people. He is a leader who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and he is ready to do any job in his company. He has no false pride of being a CEO, and yet, at the same time, takes time to step way from the day-to-day to focus on the long-term strategy for his company, and then supporting his team to execute on that.

You can find Arturs at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/aburnins/
• https://atommobility.com/

In the interview, Arturs shares

• I always wanted to do things my way. And do the things that I believe it’s the right thing to do.
• Nothing happens in weeks or months. it usually takes years. Or at least half a year to see some initial result. You need to work hard and at least for some time you need to work on idea on a project before you see any reasonable results.
• Energy is a limited resource. You cannot utilize your energy forever without any recharge. you sometimes to recharge your battery to get new energy and new ideas.
• The thing that’s helped me probably the most, I think it’s doing sports. I personally play football. During this one to hour session with the team, you physically cannot think about the business. You cannot think about the problems you just focus on the ball on the team, on the situation on the field. So basically the moment when you basically recharge your mind.
• That’s probably challenge number one. How do we keep everything on the same page? When we have 15 people versus when we have 50 people in a team. 
• So how you communicate, how you make a decision. So that’s one of the challenges to making it very transparent. And not over-micromanage everybody to achieve that.
• I feel comfortable doing any work which is good for the company. Some people think that okay, the CEO should only basically lead or show the vision and don’t do some not CEO stuff. In my opinion, like as far as it’s a company if it helps. I can do any part of the job as far as it helps

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Bhav shares not just his leadership style but also the madman part of him. He talks about the incredible role luck plays in our journeys, and how he uses drawing to bring a deep focus to his work – and how that helps him stay balanced as a leader.

You can find Bhav at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dodonerd

In the interview, Bhav shares

• I’ve always put a lot of my journey down to luck. Like just having been at the right place at the right time with the right manager who was able to guide me into the role.
• I certainly try to think about decisions I make that impact the company that impacts the team. Just like the bigger picture, as opposed to always just focusing on the team.
• I talk about this with my team constantly when we have career development conversations generally. What gives you energy? Like, what is it that gets you up? What do you enjoy? 
• Energy is like a balance. There’s gonna be things that give you energy and things that drain you on an adventure. 
• A large part of like my early influence has always been maths, science, and believe it or not, art. I feel like between those three subjects, you kind of get to see the world with different lenses. So from the math and science perspective, you get to see the world from a very quantitative matter-of-fact, point of view, then from art, you kind of have this very abstract interpretation of what things mean and how people interpret them.
• Everyone’s different. And people react to situations very differently.
• I like to paint and draw when I’m not working. Obviously I’ve got two kids, which means that my free time is limited and precious. Sitting down and painting or drawing helps me take my mind off things and just focus on being in the moment.
• When I focus, I can, I’ll put myself into almost a meditative state where it’s nothing but the problem I’m working on.
• I’ll split my week between like being really close to the problems and what my team working on, but also then taking a huge step back to actually, are we as a team heading on the right track?
• If you don’t want to be misinterpreted or you want to get to some outcome. You have to recognize who you’re speaking to. Adopt and adapt the way you talk to their style.
• If you adopt the right style for your audience. You at least minimize the risk of something being lost in translation. 
• I think there is this distinct lack of training in all organizations, even in education, which prepares people for these non-technical skills. That’s also critical as you progress into leadership positions. 
• We communicate in so many different ways that people sometimes forget.
• If I’m being completely honest. I don’t know what the answer is, what the future holds.
• I use the expression we’re so focused on the gravestone. We forget the graveyard.
• It’s easy to be a good leader when things are looking great. It’s only when you know, you’re staring down the barrel of a gun and you have to make like big decisions and know, you have to prioritize ruthlessly and you have to, you’re going to disappoint people that actually your skills as a leader and your authenticity and your concept communications, they really started to show themselves in you your true character is revealed.
• I’ve said it before and I’ll say again, I think people often forget. Yes, of course you’ve earned your right to be, uh in a position of leadership, but there’s an incredible amount of luck for every person who makes it into a management position, probably like 10X who don’t.
• It took me a while to recognize that I can’t solve every problem. I can’t, I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to be the advocate. I’m supposed to have the hard conversations when I need to. I need to motivate them when I need to. I need to praise them. 
• All of the skills that got me into this position are not going to be the skillset that will make me successful moving forward.
• I think having a network of peers, people who are at the same level as you don’t have to be in your discipline, Talking to them, understanding what the challenges are, reaching out to people, and understanding what you need to develop a service mindset sooner. It’s going to be super helpful. 

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In this interview, which is one of the longest ones I have done because both of us were having so much fun, Bart talks about his goal to offer meaningful and fun work to a thousand people. We also talk about the value of stopping and celebrating and what all happens under the surface of spoken words when it comes to people, conversations, and leadership. You do not want to miss listening to this one.

You can find Bart at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/snijdersbart/
• https://www.sprintsandsneakers.com/
• https://twitter.com/Bart_Snijders

In the interview, Bart shares

• A big part of my life is my family. So it’s definitely worth mentioning. And, uh, yeah, there’s no book words written how to raise a kid.
• I try to create like a unique company culture and create a legacy with it can inspire other companies as well, how we work together.
• I believe that people can do everything if they want it bad enough.
• We don’t really judge on what you can do at this point, but we look at people at the potential. Like the learning capacity, how fast can they learn something? How willing are they to go the next mile and, and to really push towards the result? And I think that’s failure is a big part of our culture here. 
• I am nothing more than anyone else here. It doesn’t matter if you’re like, if you have a hundred million or not, if you have super smart, super, pretty like rural people. And I think that’s the base of the culture here under leadership, uh, how we try to do it and try to help each other.
• I want to offer a thousand people meaningful and fun work. ’cause I think for a lot of people, work is something you need to do to get paid for. And I really believe that it should be a lot of fun and it should be meaningful.
• Psychological safety is one of the most important things for high-performance teams.
• I don’t offer people work, but offer people meaning. I give them the opportunity to do meaningful work and contribute like, if you look back in 10 years or 20 years, and even like at the end of your life, you can look back and say, Hey, you know, this is what I left behind. This is how I changed the world a bit. 
• Most people in my team understand that having fun and meaningful work is way more important than having a high salary.
• You can never put revenue in front of mental or like even physical health in any way.
• I think we’re the top 50 fastest-growing companies in the Netherlands. And, uh, this is something that we can really be proud of. So I’m really thankful.
• I try to be a good example. So to my teams, uh, I tried to walk in the office like at a different time. Just to, to, to show them that you don’t have to be at nine, like nine to five now, please. Now. And I go to the gym in the middle of the day to show them, and I try not to send slack messages in a weekend or evenings, but to give you the example as well, and, and to, to have that flexibility and to, to be in control of your own life.
• Working for 14 hours straight – that’s the stupidest thing you can do.
• I think in general, like if you can do six hours really productive work a day, and I think you’re very busy and then you can do some like email stuff around it. Please like go to the gym and then work because you will be way more effective and. Yeah, which I do try to support that in older, all the way we can similar as mental health.
• Life is – you cannot, you can never put a filter on everything. I thought it was also stuff that you need to deal with. And people that say that they don’t have any issue. Like. They’re lying because everybody has their own sort of shit.
• I think being a, being a parent is kind of very related to being a leader. because it helps you, first of all, focus on something bigger than yourself. It helps you focus on long term rather than just thinking of short term, uh, many times the way children deal with things. It teaches you a lot.
• If you really look at communication, then words might be the least important thing. You can feel so many different things when you communicate and when you’re leading. And I’m very aware of that energy that I bring.
• Recently I went to a colleague and, and when I was at a desk, she starts crying and I just, I, I saw it. I felt that I needed to be there, but in the past I would never have been capable of doing this because I was not aware of, uh, I was just listening to words, looking at people.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In our interview, Sandeep talks about his career as a series of base-camps on the way to the summit. He spoke about his learnings from his father, shared his views on leadership – and how leadership all starts with being authentic. He also gave some advice on trust, building relationships, and putting down the weight or burden we unnecessarily put on your shoulders – as a leader. Those who are listening, this is going to be an inspirational listen for you.

You can find Sandeep at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeepbsharma

In the interview, Sandeep shares

• You believe in people they believe in you and that’s when great things happen. And that’s when trust builds.
• People recognize me for my smile and I keep smiling, even during the toughest of my days.
• A lot of times in leadership, people say that to hide their emotions, they need to read a mask. And I don’t think so. Those times are there right now. Post the pandemic, you need to be authentic, you need to be truthful.
• I’ve always, probably been in the background, not confident about myself. To now be in the foreground um, is been conscious of not being it’s taken a lot of hard work and effort work.
• When people are able to express themselves, that is a validation of a leader. I think that’s what we need to be. 
• You just be what you are. I don’t think so. You need to fake it. Because people will see it if you fake it.
• Fundamentally, if you do three things that 1) give people clarity, 2) enable them to do the job and 3) keep motivating them, you will be successful in anything which you do. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. 
• I’m happy at the end of the day when you yourself are happy and the people we’re supporting are happy. 
• Nobody’s perfect in this world actually its imperfections are what makes us so human beings.
• What got you here will not get you there. we had to shed some weight because when the oxygen would be less, the lighter you are, the better you walk.