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, David shares how he grew up with a love for Math and Physics, and how that changed once he started managing people. We spoke about mentoring and coaching, and the important role of emotions and empathy in building strong relationships. He shared an example of how playing football led to a breakthrough in conversation which was not happening otherwise, and that led to an interesting conversation.

You can find David at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-jayatillake-9962748a/

In the interview, David shares

• A lot of people who go into leadership for the first time still think they need to be firing on all cylinders as an individual contributor as well. And really, once you’ve got a team of three or four, that’s actually the minority of your time, the majority of your time is looking after your team.
• And then, suddenly I’m looking after a team of three or four, and I’ve learned to that I’m supposed to be delegating a fair amount. I think that was helpful for me.
• You need to be doing organizational impact work. And if that’s not there, you begin to feel a bit lost.
• if you’re not involved, you just get isolated. There’s, it’s very difficult.

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, Jami shares about the people who have impacted his journey, the importance of clarity and self-leadership, and how that allows you to move forward with purpose and courage. We spoke about his dreams and ambitions, how he deals with change, and the power of choosing to do something instead of it being an obligation.

You can find Jami at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jami-kiran-7a0b1324/

In the interview, Jami shares

• We have to have very good clarity. Clarity is very important and having core clarity helps us to understand who we are while we are, making choices.
• Leadership is part of life, it is not only related to the business layer but also to the personal layer and on the social and civic and every aspect of it.
• Leadership is not only from driving value, it’s also about the identity and also how you advocate your ideas and how you boldly take the decisions and how you stand for yourself and for others, and how you develop and hope you double up and drive the influence, not only with your connection, with your community, but also how you support to build trust, which will act as an enabler.
• Multi-lateral communication is vital.
• Leadership need two things. One is mind and heart, but now it is heart and mind together. 
  

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.

Kevin spoke about the lessons he learnt from that experience, the value of transparency and honesty, and putting people first. He shares his vision for Nostra for the next 10-15 years, while at the same time expressing gratitude to his family and everybody he works with.

You can find Kevin at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevino11
• http://www.nostra.ie/

In the interview, Kevin shares

• Our key strategy has been getting a customer, look after everything to do with it, including the supply of people, if they’re required and then keeping the customer for as long as you possibly can.
• We very rarely lose a customer.
• I’ve learned that my wife and kids are far more important than any of those things.
• People’s happiness comes from the people that are around them. And one of the things, that I’m blessed with is having a great family, a very supportive wife, and amazing kids who are all flying. 
• Every business is about people and you have to get yourself in a place that you’re in a good place personally. And then you can grow a business 
• The number of times that the directors and the company had to have their salaries delayed for the following couple of years, it was very difficult, but the learning, it was, we learned. How to survive. We learned how to negotiate.  We didn’t lose any people during that period. And, we even had some of the internal staff saying, listen, I’ve got a credit card. If we need to use it to buy things, I had unbelievable support from everybody.
• One of the reasons our accounts were so bad was I wanted to look after the people. So at no point was I gonna let good people go that I cared about, we would carry everyone.
• There are lots in companies that is left unsaid and left undone. And for me, it’s, if you’re not enjoying leadership, there’s something wrong. Go find it, figure it out, have the conversation and deal with things as they come up.
• We said we would get through which we did. And then we’d move on. And that’s something I’m very proud of.
• No matter what challenge or headwind comes out at an organization, there is always a way out.

   

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, she talks about being a women in a male-dominated tech world, and how her mother inspired her to be her own self. We discussed how knowing who you are and trusting yourself first is the key to move forward in a world where you do not feel like you fit in or understand what you are permitted to do. She gave a powerful message of not giving anybody else the permission to make you upset, stressed, or impact your mental health. I loved interviewing her, and I am sure you – the listener – will take a lot away too from this interview.

You can find Nermeen at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/nermenghoniem/
• https://helloada.ai/

In the interview, Nermeen shares

• I’ve continued to live my life from a very young age being a hybrid between I like to be involved in storytelling and impacting people’s life.
• At the same time, I’m also very much a scientist at heart and to sit down and really nerd out the technologies. So I think  I have always been balancing these two 
• The technology world is very male dominated and I’m also currently based now in Silicon valley and it’s also very male dominated.
• I realized that there is a really big gap in how we communicate these fields to women.
• I want more women in technology and especially more women in AI engineering
• More women are working and more women are taking into leadership positions. And a lot of men are welcoming to it and some are less welcoming to it. But that’s part of the journey.
• Unapologetically, be yourself because I think confidence comes up from within. And you can strongly believe that you are being your best self and at the same time also allow room for constructive criticism.
• I cannot dictate what other people will say to me. I cannot dictate how people feel about me, but I can dictate how I react to it.
• I don’t think it’s worth getting personal
• You can control how things affect you. You can control what you want to hear, and if it doesn’t serve your purpose, if it doesn’t serve your growth, it’s not worth putting your energy in. 
• We become too sensitive as the generation sometimes. And if we consider everything to be a negative message, then we will not grow.
• And if you trust a little bit more, I think you were able to do whatever you put your heart to. 
• You are also much more powerful than you think you are. I think a lot of women sometimes put themselves down and don’t think they’re good enough for the job or good enough to get into the engineering field or good enough to start their dream.
• I can do whatever I want.
• I think people don’t realize that I am a work in progress to get to this place. And there are moments where I feel insecure and where I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going and it’s okay.

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 our conversation, we talk about nature vs nurture, how we are shaped as individuals, and how growing up in an entrepreneurial family shaped him. He shared a couple of serendipitous moments which have turned out to be instrumental in his journey. We touched upon the important role of meditation in helping him stay balanced as a leader, and how his leadership style has evolved over the years.

You can find Ennio at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/enniosenese/
• https://twitter.com/enniosn

In the interview, Ennio shares

• I believe that people have to be self-supportive. But if we can’t be, if they can’t be self-supportive, then we as a state or as a society needs need to help those people in moving along.
• There are so many books about leadership. If you have read them all, the risk is that by the end, you still don’t know what leadership is.
• Some bits of an ego you need to have in order to move on because otherwise, it becomes a very passive life, 
• So I’m very grateful for the fact that I’ve been able to fail. On a couple of occasions, which gave me the opportunity to learn and to see that there are better ways to move on.
• I think it’s about balance first thing. So that’s a key word balance.
• In the end, you need to ask yourself, what am I doing? Is that what I’m contributing to? Is that really something that is contributing to, the better of mankind, to improve the world to have some, another type of gold than just purely commercial?
• Those types of existential questions. I think if people would dedicate more time without having their relatives or loved and dying around them but dedicate more time to think about those types of existential questions. I think, first of all, we would live in a better world for sure.
• I always recommend also to people who work with me to do a bit of a retreat for a couple of days in complete silence and just think about, the purpose of life, things that you are grateful for, things that you have experienced, lessons learned, over a period of time.
• I meditate but sometimes events happen. Also, unexpected events, which basically prevent you from, from staying calm because it’s easy to stay calm in a very calm environment where there is no pressure, et cetera, et cetera.
• In the end, it’s always about reflection and the ability to see how unimportant you really are.  at the end.
  

   

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, we speak about how starting JetRockets was not planned but accidental, and why she is running a TEAL self-managed organisation. We spoke about her views on leaders, some of the recent mistakes she had made, and her commitment to her employees was evident from how they moved their employees out of Russia because “it was the right thing to do”.

You can find Natalie at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliekaminski/
• https://jetrockets.com/

In the interview, Natalie shares

• I had to take a step back and learn to delegate. And to learn to focus on working on the business, not in the business.
• You can accomplish a lot more by being an empathetic leader as opposed to being a demanding manager
• if a mistake is made, it’s okay. It’s a learning, it’s a learning opportunity and I actually encourage my people, my employees, to go outside of their box, their thinking box, to try new things because that’s what contributes to creativity and improvement over time.
• You have to treat your employees as children in a right and you allow your children to make mistakes, and that’s how to learn to walk.
• I’ve learned a lesson never to try and address the issue immediately. So if something were to happen, you gotta take a break of a few minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour is not going to change anything dramatically in terms of your response, but it will definitely, in terms of your response time, but it’ll definitely have a drastic effect and quality of your response.
• I want to understand what happened instead of coming to that employee and being, How could you have done this? The question is, what do you think went wrong? What could you have done differently?
• If they take ownership, There are two things that happen. First of all, they see that you’re trying to help them grow. Second of all, they remember that lesson and it, they retain it in their mind. So the likelihood of the same issue occurring again decreases dramatically.
• Ultimately your goal as a leader is to build that relationship with your team so that they come to you. It has nothing to do with fear of punishment or repercussion or anything like that.
• We’re business. We’re not an army.
• So it’s my job to serve them, to empower them to then service our clients, which in turn helps me accomplish my goal of building a, larger and more successful organization.
  

   

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, Tauseef opens up about the very personal loss of his mother and cousin and how that inspired him to start a company to make healthcare easier to access for people from their homes. The conviction in his voice, despite all his challenges, was very strong and decisive, and that is a lesson in the embodiment of a purpose for anybody listening.

You can find Tauseef at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tauseefahmad1/
• https://sprintmedical.in/

In the interview, Tauseef shares

• We have a great mission. And that mission Is the only fuel that we have right now. 
• I am changing The culture and the standard of healthcare in, especially in my community. And I think I will continue to do that. No matter 
• Capital deprived? Yes, we are. Are we worried? No, we are not
• My biggest fear is if you raise venture capital dollars, okay. And five years down the line, I will. I’m sure that we will be very valuable. Okay. And there would be times when people want to acquire us. People wanted to change the direction that we are presently in right now.

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, he spoke about growing up in Iran and the importance of a multicultural approach to leadership today. We talked about the role of chance and serendipity in our journeys, the new skills required when any individual contributor grows to be a manager, and the importance of balance in life.

You can find Shahram at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahrammaralani/
• https://www.amazon.com/Shahram-G.-Maralani/e/B08FCN8GFN

In the interview, Shahram shares

• The balance between taking the opportunities as they unfold, But also planning your career properly is quite important in shaping a successful career. 
• You will never be a hundred per cent correct. Maybe you are only 50, 60% correct. But being able to assume how people perceive how people are seeing their own situation and what are their opportunities and challenges is quite important as an authentic leader. 
• Culture is like the operating system of our brain
• On the other hand, the operating system, which is loaded in our body, which is our culture and the way we grow up and what we experience in life shapes most of who we become as a person, as a professional, but also as a leader.
• But I think in, as a leader, if you want to be successful, maybe the exact opposite is the honest advice because you need to a bit dismantle yourself from the culture you belong to and analyze the situation with the different views you have. 
• And as a leader, you need to understand that and be flexible and allow people to basically express themselves properly.
  

   

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.

Vinod shares in the interview how he and his wife started a coffee house in 2015 to provide a sip of happiness to every customer, and to enhance the experience around coffee. He shares how they navigated covid and are now looking to expand, and how they have leveraged technology during covid. He also talks about caring for people and building a team on a solid foundation of values.

You can find Vinod at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kvinod77/
• https://www.vinodkumar.me/

In the interview, Vinod shares

• We knew immediately that was the first opportunity that we gotta pursue it. So we put our eggs in that basket and we went forward with it.
• It took me five years to find the connection and when I found it, It clicked immediately because we were then able to leverage my background.
• Most business schools don’t necessarily focus on running a small business. This is what we realized.
• only when you make an attempt to actually get closer to the customer, understand the customer, you understand the challenges in it and the actual value of why it is so important.
• We never thought we will be delivering a cup of cappuccino. Pizza is one thing. But delivering a cappuccino is a totally different problem that we never thought we’d be delivering a cappuccino, but now we do. 
• In hindsight, everything is easy and clear, but when you’re going through the process it’s a mess.
• The second thing that motivates us is we feel like we need to take care of the people That work for us. And it’s important to take care of them because quite literally, their livelihood is dependent on the business.
• an entrepreneur needs to be very comfortable with ambiguity. I think that’s the thing. You have to be comfortable with ambiguity and you have to be comfortable with things going wrong and things not going according to plan. 
• And you have to know what the non-negotiables are, You have to pick the right fight, cuz when things go wrong and you have to fight the circumstances, it’s easy to lose energy.

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, Raymond shares about his journey of being 100k dollars in debt before becoming a teacher, coach, and successful businessman. He also shares that he only does what he loves to do, and spoke a bit about some of his crazy adventures – including a 350-mile foot race to the North Pole. We spoke about leadership, growth, commitment, and how to have more than 24 hours in a day.

You can find Raymond at the below links

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

In the interview, Raymond shares

• People typically underguess my age by five to 15 years, and my secret is that I do only what I love. 
• I tried all these businesses and they all failed, and I did extremely well as a salaried employee in math and computer. But I didn’t enjoy it, and so at age 39, I was a 39-year-old life loser. I was a hundred thousand dollars in debt, completely broke. 
• My boss had just fired me. I told my wife I got fired, and she did the only thing a reasonable woman could do. She dumped me out of our marriage and I was depressed. I didn’t know what to do.
• It just exploded because I was meant to be a teacher. And so if you want to know how it all really got started, it’s the day I found out that I was supposed to be a teacher.
• Once you commit the resources come to you. Once you commit, the physical universe gets pushed to the side and the spiritual universe delivers to you whatever you want.
• You can’t know what’s gonna happen. You have to be able to allow chance encounters.
• Not only should you burn plan B and C, which I really love, I’ve never heard that before, but I say you should burn Plan A, and just go for it. Ready, Fire, aim.
• It’s wonderful to have intentions because that’s the fuel of the soul.
• If you don’t have an assistant, you are one. 
• There are always ways to have people help you.

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.