Hurdle Obstacles, Manage Hate, and Revel In Epic Wins

Please welcome today: Photographer, turned NY bartender, turned spy, turned spy hunter, turned serial cybersecurity entrepreneur, turned podcast creator and host Karim Hijazi!

Karim runs run’s the successful Podcast: The Introverted Iconoclast 

He describes his Podcast as: This is the continuing story of my serendipitous journey from shy outcast growing up in an obscure part of the world to becoming a highly successful serial entrepreneur. In this podcast, I obliterate self-imposed limits, deny regret, recognize, and use failure, hurdle obstacles, manage hate, and revel in epic wins… all while trying to stay a decent human being… easier said than done.

Karim has lived a super interesting life where he has reinvented himself more than once.  

So, without further ado, joining us from Hawaii  please welcome Karim Hijazi!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)

Hello, everybody. I'm your host, the gentle yoga warrior. And today is going to be super exciting as we have a special guest on the show today who knows how to spy. Please welcome today photographer turned New York bartender turned spy turned spy Hunter turned serial cyber entrepreneur turned podcast and host Karim Hijazi

Speaker 2 (00:28)

Thank you for having me. Jane.

Speaker 1 (00:30)

Thank you so much for coming onto the show. So, Karim, you run the successful podcast, the introverted Iconoclast. My understanding of Iconoclast is a rebel. I

Speaker 2 (00:46)

Yes, absolutely. Fact, when I was thinking of the name for the podcast, the dichotomy of the two words really explained my personality very well. I wanted to be a change maker. And Iconoclast obviously has more of the negative connotation from historical terms where it was counterreligious concepts and all that. That's not at all the point of that. The more modern terminology is around, as you put it very accurately, kind of a change maker or rebel rule breaker for the purposes of improvement and innovation. But that juxtaposed against being an introvert, which is indeed what I am. So I have a clash internally when it comes to ruffling feathers that I don't like doing. I don't necessarily like the idea of having people not like me, but that comes with the byproduct sometimes of helping facilitate change and evolution.

Speaker 1 (01:36)

Wow, it sounds super exciting, a podcast. And you're quite a glamorous guest to be on the show in the sense that aspire everyone is fascinated with that, your podcast, from my understanding, was born out of your you kind of have a you like to obliterate in your words, obliterate selflimiting beliefs. You deny regret or rather don't kind of let that limit you and you manage hate and revel in epic wins. That's fantastic. But all the time staying as a decent human being. That's absolutely fantastic. So it sounds like you've reinvented yourself quite a few times over the years, but kind of with a really kind of strong transferable skill set. And I know today you're joining us from Hawaii, which is a place I've always wanted to go that is like my top place in the world. So why Hawaii?

Speaker 2 (02:31)

Yeah, it's a great point. And to your point about that narrative that I put together, that is an active narrative. I wish I could tell you it was all past tense and I've picked it. I've got it down. No, it's constantly a learning experience. I'm constantly readjusting and rebalancing. And it's journey, as you well know, more than it is destination always with these kinds of things and shifting from such a corporate and kind of geopolitical career in a lot of ways to something that is for all intents and purposes, more introspective and healthy and more personal, has been wonderful. Right. Because that perspective, having attained a certain level of success, but then shifting it backwards, has been really interesting. And that leads me to the Maui answer which is that I sold the company in 2012. That gave me some really wonderful opportunities and time to explore. And my wife and I came up with some very core premises at the time. We wanted not only for ourselves, but for our kids. And it sounds funny when I tell you this, but believe it or not, what made it a very challenging situation is that we said we need to find a place with clean air, clean water, clean food, and clean sleep.

Speaker 2 (03:46)

Those are the four parameters. And believe it or not, Jane, it was really hard to find.

Speaker 1 (03:49)

I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (03:53)

Because when you think about it, those sounds fairly straightforward, but they're not. You're either dealing with a place that's absolutely beautiful. But then maybe, like, for example, a lot of the places we did find were in South America, but the governmental elements there just didn't make it a stable enough location to be in or someplace was missing one or the other. Right. It might have had a really beautiful kind of serene place, but then there was some pollution, toxic environment next door to it, and it was, like, so frustrating. And all around the world and Maui kind of hit the radar because one had done research on the Island Maui's, that perfect balance between modernized sophistication and the creature comforts that one would expect. But, like, where I live, I'm off in the middle of the countryside here and essentially, believe it or not, we're doing this podcast over my phone's connection, so hopefully it sticks around. Done pretty well so far, but yeah, and that's how I landed here. And I bought the place in 2016 with the intention to retire and sort of do what you do, which is just sort of continue to self explore and then unbelievably, I got sucked back into the world of counterintelligence in a very interesting story, but ultimately, that's what I'm doing now.

Speaker 2 (05:09)

I'm still working, but then I have these moments of peace where I get to come here and rejuvenate, rebalance, and then I go right back into the fray.

Speaker 1 (05:18)

It sounds like a perfect balance and what a beautiful place to be doing that. I was so intrigued and excited to have you on the show because we're going to talk a bit about hurtling obstacles, managing unraveling and epic wins. And I just thought that was such a kind of good thing to speak about today. What a skill set you have. And by pushing yourself a strategy of comfort zone, it appears to me that you've kind of grown as a person. But how did you learn to manage hate and hurdle obstacles and also to get those epic wins in a world that kind of seems so crazy these days?

Speaker 2 (05:57)

Yeah, that one. It's a constant adjustment and reassessment of things. And it's quite binary when you're faced with challenges or obstacles or whatever the case may be or adversity. You really can either just throw your hands up, choose to be the victim, lament it, look for sympathy. You see this with a lot of people that tend to kind of gravitate towards that side of it, which seems like an easier path because complaining about it kind of tends to come naturally to humans, right? It's just like this was horrible. I was betrayed. This was wrong. You know, life is unfair and it is. It's just the nature of things. It's built to challenge you. And I've used the metaphor of kind of a callous with your skin, you do something long enough and eventually your body naturally reacts to it to build up a defense that protects you from it. So I think over time, throwing myself into situations not in a cavalier way, that's reckless. I want to be clear, because I don't want to advocate any of that. That's not a good thing to do. If you're deciding you want to go do something absolutely ridiculous, that could be dangerous.

Speaker 2 (07:15)

No, I mean, look, everything comes with a certain level of risk, so you have to balance that risk to what the reward is effectively going to be. And then in that process, if that risk pushes you out of your comfort zone, to your point, eventually you start to get comfortable with that notional idea that you're going to have that awkward moment, but then you're going to get past it. For example, podcasting. I'm sure you know this even now with as many interviews I've done with media and all that. There's always that moment a few seconds or minutes before you get started, you have that subtle little shiver, and then it dissipates because you get paid and it gets slow. It gets smaller and smaller every time I kind of do it. It's always there, though. There's always some element of unsure, especially when you're doing a podcast like this where you're meeting someone the first time. The sense of gratification when you overcome it is so good. It's a bit like after you finish a workout, that endorphin rush that you get, and that sort of dopamine hit from being pushing yourself out of that comfort zone.

Speaker 2 (08:16)

Getting past it, getting something accomplished is really gratifying. So I've kind of gotten excited about the after effects of putting myself in positions that make me force me to grow because I know what the outcome is going to be. I lean on the potential of what that will be so I can get through the harder times. I don't dwell on the hard times, and that's probably the key to it.

Speaker 1 (08:37)

That's really good point. That's the way we grow with people, isn't it? Like you said, something new that we really want to do, but we might feel like it's easier kind of not to do. But in the long run, I think it's actually harder not to follow our path, but it's kind of learning to be uncomfortable, being comfortable with the uncomfortable because then that's how we kind of get the rewards and grow. I'm really intrigued by your story. How did you become from a New York bartender? You're a successful cyber security entrepreneur and why cyber security as well?

Speaker 2 (09:15)

Yeah, no, it's a great question and it's quite a story, but I'll keep it as concise as I can so that we can get the story to the world, but then leave room for questions and all kinds of other things. So I was young, obviously, as a bartender. I moved to New York because the part I didn't mention in my podcast. I go into the story a little bit more in depth, but I was actually a photography degree from University, so I have no business like, formally trained in any kind of computer technology or anything. But this is in the 90s and ultimately moved to New York because that's where it seemed like the best possible place for me to pursue a photography career. Realized very quickly that a photography career was not in the cards. I would still have to find a way to survive.

Speaker 1 (10:00)

Live and in New York. Whether you're a model or you're an actress or you're inspiring anything, you're usually going to find your way into the food and beverage industry because it's just what's there, and it's the way to get started, and it's a way to pay a rent in New York City, which is brutal, really expensive, still is was then and still is now. And I got a job as a bar center. And there's a funny story on my podcast, if you haven't heard it, the title of the podcast, which everyone gets, is intrigued to get on it. It's called Blood on My shirt. And the short version is the first day of my job as a bartender. I ended up getting in a brawl with this patron that punched out the owner of the bar that hired me. And I was like, what did I get myself into? This is ridiculous. And I got this ridiculous brawl with this person who was drunk and got them taken away by the cops. Ultimately, in the end of it, they came and got him. But ultimately, I stayed in Barton the rest of the night. I persisted through that evening.

Speaker 1 (10:56)

And that boss that I met in those early years when I was like probably 20 still remembers me today. We have this wonderful relationship still after all these years. But then I left New York and I moved well, actually, I grew up in the Middle East. I grew up in Kuwait. I'm not from Kuwait a beautiful place, but I'm not from there, but I grew up there, and my parents were still there. So I actually went back to see them and ended up working for a company that did I should say, I don't believe it's still around, but it ultimately was the representative for European and American companies in the oil sector there. And I had a very clerical job. It was very boring. I was literally someone that ran around and carried papers at people's desks for them for the most part. But in the process of being there for a few months and just watching and learning and listening, I kept overhearing this story over and over of how, well, how are we going to win against this competitor? And is there going to be a means to win here? What are they going to do this?

Speaker 1 (12:01)

And it was just this back. I wasn't part of these conversations. I was just overhearing them. And I finally made heads or tails of it. And it was that, well, there are two competitive companies trying to win business, and the company had no idea, really how to kind of facilitate an advantage to their company that they represented. And I figured out that I could get intelligence by working the angles to get the in this case, the quote that the competitor was going to be issuing to the buyer to us so we could give it to our partner. So they could then price themselves lower and win. So that was my first foray into basically what I didn't even understand. I didn't even have term for it at the time, competitive intelligence or effectively corporate spying. And that launched my career into it. And I eventually did one project. Then I did two, and then I did four. And then I formed a company around it. And I was a pretty sought after individual to help Big Oil and Big Pharma and others that really had a highly competitive business that required them to get ahead or win these highly competitive bids.

Speaker 1 (13:13)

And I helped them win those deals. And then in the early 2000s, 911 happened. I'd moved my company to the US and budget started to dry up for that kind of effort. People were tightening up everything. What they were tightening up on was these luxurious items like competitive intel or being able to get a consultant to come help them win a deal. What they were not pulling their budgets on with security. So one day, literally over lunch with a friend of mine, he said, look, why don't you just simply help your clients that you presently have that you've been getting intelligence for? Why don't you tell them how to protect themselves from guys like you? It was like a backhanded compliment. I was like, I think I like what you're saying. He said, no, I'm being serious. You've got to think there's going to be other guys and teams just like yours on the other side that are trying to break into your clients that you're working for. Why don't you tell them what you would do to get into their environment effectively, what today's world is considered penetration testing or vulnerability assessments. And so I did.

Speaker 1 (14:19)

I built a counterintelligence firm around that effort, which literally did exactly what it sounds like. I would figure out exactly what ways I could get into the organization and help them build defenses and countermeasures to be like, look, this is how I got in. This is I was able to extract information in a social engineering capacity from someone or eventually got into the CEO's files. And I grabbed everything that he had left his office open or left his computer open and had a hacker on my team able to get in there. And that led me progressively more down a cyber path because everything has gone that direction. And then in 2008 and nine, I pivoted almost explicitly to cyber, built a company in 2010, sold that company in 2012, and essentially retired for a while until recently.

Speaker 2 (15:11)

Wow, that very exciting life, but an adventure.

Speaker 1 (15:14)

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (15:17)

I don't know. I guess you would have had to learn how to do. I'm not really an It kind of person. Like, I can do my It abilities. But did you learn on the job or did you have to kind of study to do that? Because like you said, it didn't really exist you're a pioneer in many ways.

Speaker 1 (15:38)

Yeah, I'm what you're calling old timer in this space now. You're absolutely right. There was no place to go train. There was no College courses of any kind for this kind of thing. Quite honestly, it was. And I will say it still is for those that are listening that have been intrigued by this type of life. And in this type of business, it's almost like a Guild or an apprenticeship type of scenario where in my case, I was able to hire specific talent for the task at hand. So I had people that were library scientists for certain aspects of my business. I had former federal and intelligence types of individuals from government that would come and retire and work with me for certain kinds of aspects. I would have computer scientists. I would have actual hackers people that never in a million years went to school for it, but simply had a proclivity and a natural ability to explore and be creative to figure out how to get around things. And that actually has been the foundational pillars of what I've built ever since. Most of my talent even today, in the company that I run today, most of the talent is self taught, most of which haven't even finished high school.

Speaker 1 (16:54)

They simply were so good at their capability. They're more like artists than they are technicians, Jane. They really are very deeply entrenched in the way this all works. And I'm very similar. I'm honestly a guy that doesn't hold any certifications of anything we were so busy doing. We didn't have time to go. And I'm sure a lot of the things that we actually came up with and did in the early days have become textbook at this point. I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 2 (17:25)

I wouldn't be surprised either of here. And this is absolutely intriguing. So did you ever feel your life was in danger for your career choice?

Speaker 1 (17:33)

Well, yeah. I definitely put myself in precarious positions. I think probably more than I even knew at the time. I was young and naive. Thankfully, I think that was the only way I kept going, because had I been as thoughtful about it as I am now in my older age, I probably would never have done it right because it's just way too precarious. But yes, to your point, you take a large organization that has a lot of money at stake, and I'm working on behalf of their competitor to, for all intents and purposes, undermine their ability to win. I become the target if they can identify that it's me that's doing the work to undermine their efforts. And we're not talking about anything horrifically malicious, but we're talking about, simply put, natural capitalistic competitive climate where if they're spending several hundred million dollars to build a formula for something that the other organization gets ahead of and wins the deal, and then all that money is lost. I hate to say it this way. And this is a horrible concept, but money is a very catalyzing device, right? And I am just a simple person that if they could remove from the equation, would save them millions of dollars.

Speaker 1 (18:50)

People, unfortunately, have been disposed of for less. So I think I've managed to get out unscathed, amazingly so. And that was during my competitive intelligence days, more when I was actually getting the information. And then fast forward and if you do any kind of homework on my name, you'll see that in when I built a cyber security company, then I started to get into these battles with hackers because those guys were upset that I was disrupting their abilities. So I was disrupting the bad guys in this case. And in 2011, I had a pretty big dropdown drag out with a splinter group from Anonymous, which we've all been hearing about recently with the guy Fox masks on that are walking around. And there was a team of guys that were part of that group originally. But then he splintered off called Lulz Tech. They went after Sony, they took down the CIA's website. They did a few other things. In 2011, my team and I inadvertently, I say inadvertently because I didn't target them, but we took down their operation in one of our efforts because my business now and similar to what I did before, is we actually hack the hackers to figure out who they're going after.

Speaker 1 (20:01)

So my company is sort of offensive in nature and we go after the actual adversaries to figure out what they're doing. And that really made them mad. And that caused an incredibly difficult situation for my family and I. We had to move because they were putting my house and locations and my kids school online for people to come and harass us. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

Speaker 2 (20:21)

Kids school as well. That's just wild.

Speaker 1 (20:23)

Yeah, it was merciless. They're really bad. They were going after the soft targets. They knew that they couldn't really get me, but they could get my periphery, my family and all that, or get me to comply based on that. So, yeah, it was very tough time, but all turned out for the good. At the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (20:41)

I'm glad you like you're all well, and that kind of really brave.

Speaker 1 (20:47)

A little bit crazy sometimes.

Speaker 2 (20:51)

Crazy as well, definitely from listening to you. You obviously kind of like to explore your limits and try new things. But how did you find or how do you find us? I think it's also a continuous thing, sustainability and balance in the life where there's been much crazier.

Speaker 1 (21:16)

No, you're right. So I've never been one for mediocrity. I think that you said something earlier, which I think is a really good point, which is that if you don't try and you don't take yourself out of your comfort zones and you don't pressurize yourself to do things that maybe are slightly uncomfortable that give you huge amounts of pride. And again, thrill of the fact that you're able to get over something that you otherwise wouldn't do yourself. Naturally, that is the path to regret, because that's where you start to look back on the Times and say, Man, I just forgot all these amazing opportunities. I wish I wasn't so scared of my own shadow. They kept me out of the light for these things. And look, there are certainly stories where people try and things don't work out and they just never try again. And I feel for those folks because I think that ultimately you take it very personally. I had this conversation this morning with someone about wanting to start a business, and it's a friend of mine, and he constantly has the same pattern. He starts off in the beginning of the conversation with an exciting idea, and he's extremely excited.

Speaker 1 (22:28)

And I always just sit and listen. And Jane, literally, in the course of about 30 to 45 minutes, by the end of 45 minutes, he's talked himself out of it by himself. And it's over. And yeah. And so I called him today. I said, you did it again. You did it again. You started really excited. And then all the pressures, external pressures of other people telling you probably wouldn't work. And your own self doubt started to creep in. And you went through your entire cycle where it was dead on arrival before you could even try it. And I said, you're going to hit a point at one point where you go all these ideas. I didn't try a single one. Not a single one. And I'm going to regret it. So to your point about balance is that I'm very happy. I have no regrets about some of the paths I've taken. I'm very lucky that, as you said, I've gotten out unscathed for the most part. But now it's an interesting shift in my view. And part of the reason why I like your podcast is because this is a reflection on balance, reassessing what's important as far as what's valuable.

Speaker 1 (23:34)

I've had the luxury of being able to win big and sell a company for a lot of money and have assets and things. And it's a very Western mentality to be accretive and accrue things and toys while there's a rush with that. And it can be fun and it feels like you've attained a certain level of stature. I was the least happy when I had made money. That was when I was most burdened with life. I had too many things to worry about. I had too many. I know it's hard to tell people this when they're striving to make it, because they see freedom with things like money and all that, which it does afford you a certain level of that. But there's this dark side to it that it traps you as much as it gives you freedom in a lot of ways. So I figured out that now it's experiential. It's a journey based system. It's not a destination based system. So my goal here now is all about the this is why Covet and Lockdowns were so sad, because it was one of those things where I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is probably the worst thing that could happen because you're limiting people to live and see and breathe and explore.

Speaker 1 (24:46)

And I love Europe personally. Like, if I had the choice to, I wouldn't probably ever live in one place, Jane. But I definitely would bounce around between places like Spain and be back in Maui and then spend time in probably the Far East and back and forth. And that limitation was probably the most heart wrenching concept. Right? So balance comes with exploration. As funny as that, sounds like you get balanced by stabilizing. But really, for me, it's much more about exploring and seeing and widening my Horizons. And now that I've seen enough in life, I can't stop right now. It's like one of these things where I'm not ready to sit in just one place. Now I want to go see everything in a peaceful, happy state, not in a mission oriented capacity. And all the places I remember sitting during an op one time, and it was such a beautiful place. I was in Saravo, Bosnia. I was there for work. And I remember sitting, looking around and just sort of every now and then going, I wish I was here just in a human capacity. I wish I wasn't here for what I had to do.

Speaker 1 (25:57)

And so I made a point to myself that someday I would just come back to leisurely, walk through the streets, little cobblestone streets and get coffees and just enjoy myself. And so now that's my agenda is to go and experience it and feel everything rather than fly by, it like a train going 100 miles an hour and just getting glimpses of life.

Speaker 2 (26:18)

Karim, I think from what I'm listening to hearing you, it's just kind of like you can reach that kind of MEDITIVE presence when you're kind of round things. Because the reason I say that I can relate to that if I go for a walk in nature, I find that so meditative and kind of exploring things where you can just be rather than, like you said, go there to work, but just being and just enjoy the kind of little things, because I do find the Salvation or kind of like appreciating little things. It can be like the Orchestra of birds that sing here in the morning. I agree with your point on Lockdown as well. I saw how it kind of deteriorated. Many of my not many because I've got many left alive, but my elderly relatives and kind of missing that kind of like connection, because I think as people, it is important to have that kind of connection. But then there is ways that we can do that through being more mindful, more in the present. So I'm kind of going a long way in this way of asking this. How would you say you kind of switch off?

Speaker 2 (27:28)

What is your number one thing to kind of like kind of holistic thing to switch off?

Speaker 1 (27:33)

Yeah. So I'll speak about literally present times lately. The beautiful thing about being here is the time difference is such that I can get most of my work done essentially early morning, all the way through, maybe noon or so, and I immediately go to the beach here in Maui. And when you get here, which you will, you'll see what I mean. There's something completely primal about this as an island, more than any other island or any Island I should say I've ever seen because you're still dealing you're on the newest made Earth on the planet. It's lava that essentially is just turned into essentially land. And the energy from the electromagnetic forces of this place are so powerful that's the land that's the Terra and then the water, which is incredibly beautiful. And then tonight, for example, because I'm doing this down on the second floor of my house, I had to come down through the balcony. And tonight's one of those rare nights where I shouldn't say rare, it's actually pretty common here. You look up at the sky, you might as well be in a solarium where the stars are so incredibly bright.

Speaker 1 (28:44)

Like, if I look out the window right now, there's several thousand stars that I can see clearly just without a telescope of any kind because there's no light pollution. We're in the middle of the Pacific, 3000 miles from either direction. That is centering. That is the most amazing thing in the world to be able to be under and on both. Right. So you're kind of sandwiched between two perfect mediums that you have zero control over, and that is not easily found in the world anymore. I mean, this looks like a cartoon. It looks like a Bango painting out there. So honestly, it's pretty epic to be here. And when I'm not here, you have to find the beauty in some things and places where you can kind of find that solace. It's harder in some places than others, to be perfectly honest, though.

Speaker 2 (29:33)

Yeah, absolutely. You paint a very vivid picture there, Curry. I think I can picture the stars and the beauty of that all sounds very beautiful. But I guess if you're in a place that isn't supetuous, just look at the little tiny things. There's always some beauty somewhere and kind of build from there. That would be kind of my.

Speaker 1 (29:58)

Yeah, you're exactly right. Because for folks that are listening that don't have this is like the ultimate supercharge zone for things like that. And I get what that is. I can't always be here, unfortunately. Soon, maybe, but the moment no. So when you are in places that are less easily found, to be incredibly bigger than you, right where this is one of those places that makes you feel like tiny, which is good because that's exactly how you can reset, because you're brought down in size as a person. Your head gets out of your way. But in other places, to your point, it has to come from the inside. You've got to find a way to go inward. And I think that I've done martial arts most of my life. And while I don't do that as much as I would have liked to do anymore, I still have taken the principles of meditation tactics and methods from that era forward. And those are the things that center me. And even if it's just 15 minutes of quiet time, go steal away and just hide and enjoy the quiet and peace. And I mean that because in the world we're in today, as you probably know, with a lot of your guests and a lot of what you do, do not bring your phone with you.

Speaker 1 (31:17)

Do not bring a tablet with you. Remove yourself from blue light and all this artificial sort of energy sucking stuff that's out there. And that's probably the most important part of it, because your body will reset itself. You just have to give it the ability to do it. We're just constantly inundating ourselves with so much. We don't realize we are, but that's part of the problem.

Speaker 2 (31:39)

We aren't. We have too much. I'll give you an example. My eyes, and there's a couple of days where I'm on the screen a lot and I just find my eyes. I've even got my glasses tinted. I have a screen tinted because I'm kind of quite sensitive to the blue light. People that find it difficult to sleep just don't go on your electrical things just before you go back to sleep. If you have trouble sleeping, it's kind of stimulating the brain and it's not the most the best way. If you need to look at your phone, just say, I'm going to look at my phone at this time unless it's an emergency, and then kind of leave a bit of space because through that space to kind of find and go. So your podcast also your formula for success. Would you like to explain a bit more about that? I guess, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (32:26)

So the podcast is still evolving. So funny enough, the podcast was literally an experiment. Jane, I was originally wanting to build the podcast or have the podcast built, I should say not even me doing it for the company because I was like, we should probably do a park. It's another medium of getting information out to the world. Seems like that's becoming a very worthy, worthy thing. Ultimately, I was originally going to ask an individual in my company to do it. We had a variety of things come up, never got done. So I was like, well, I'll just do it. So I started doing my own research on what goes into getting a podcast going. And then, Interestingly enough, I always had the intention to write a memoir of how my life's been for the very reason that you and I connected, because I've had such an incredibly bizarre series of events that have been wonderful, but they've been unorthodox and completely abnormal to most people's careers. And yes, I have wonderful stories to tell my kids and grandkids. Eventually it was perfect. Because when I started to learn about the podcast medium, I was like, this is actually what I should be doing, not writing books, because I hate to say it, not many people read as many books as they should anymore.

Speaker 1 (33:38)

And the likelihood that I'll write some books that will be just absolutely raging success is far slimmer than if I just tell the story over a series of episodes. So that's how it began, hence the name. And then the first few episodes became very much. Let's get to know who. Let me let you know who I am. Let me tell you what happened in a series of episodes that talk about the evolution of my career. And then it moved into things like interviews similar to what you're doing, where I have certain folks come aboard onto my podcast to talk about certain ways they've handled things, and the title tends to get everyone because even the extroverts realize they're a little bit more introverted than they want to believe sometimes, and that no one really. And then I get some really high energy people that I can tell are still grappling with how to succeed. And to your second half of the question, which is Recipes for Success. God, I wish there was a simple answer there. I wish there was an honest to God set of steps that you can take. There are some key presets here.

Speaker 1 (34:43)

Then I think I want to walk back for a minute and make sure I define success properly. Because if you had asked me that question five years ago, I would have defined success much more shallowly than I would now. And that's an important distinction, because you say success to the average person, they're going to assume some sort of financial win. That's probably the first thing people think about when you hear the word success. But I really think that real success goes well beyond simply some sort of financial windfall. It may come part and parcel to everything else, but for me now, it's a matter of fulfillment of things really. Like the story I just told you about coming down. I even paused. I thought I might even be late to your podcast because I was so shocked about how amazing it was outside taking that minute to look up at the sky. Tonight was a good night. That was exactly what I should have done. Rather than just simply running around like a busy person trying to get things done and then not appreciating the first thing training myself to stop and slow down, that's going to help everything because you'll make better business decisions, you'll make better life decisions, relationship and personal decisions by slowing the process down, be more languid in your movements rather than bustling, because that's what the world tries to push you into being is constantly moving at a huge clip with a bunch of multitasking.

Speaker 1 (36:12)

The reality is that now there's really absolutely no reason to do that. As I've gotten older, I realized that I actually garnered more respect. I get more dated, breath attention by people when I take my time to explain the situation rather than hurrying through something very rapidly like I used to. So that's a very key thing that I've taken with me through everything I've done now since getting my initial winds under my belt.

Speaker 2 (36:39)

Brunette. That's very sound advice and slow down and do things. Kind of why do we always think we have to rush and listeners do? Check out the introverted iconoclast podcast. And Korea has a very kind of natural way of telling stories and interviewing people. And you've got a real gift gift there. And I think keep on it. And I'm always very happy to speak to a fellow podcaster to interview on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners at all?

Speaker 1 (37:24)

No. I think, look, your podcast really was appealing to me because I love the title. I have to say what you said. There is beautiful. It's the same juxtaposition that I have, which is contrary and concepts that really do work together. And what you're addressing is so incredibly needed. And it's a key part of things in the depths of big corporate venture and business and startups and fundraising, if you do not take time to step back and bring someone like Jane into your existence and what she preaches to the world, you're going to burn out. That's a real thing. And I think that what we sort of ended on with the whole slowing down that dovetails directly into your ability to take that time and be introspective, find a way to sort of zero back into just the self rather than just all the externals, because I was a victim of that as much as anyone. It's just now I finally found my way back to being much more introspective. In fact, I brought this up in the very beginning, and I'll end on it. I was a photographer to start with, which is an artistic medium, and I found my way back to that after all these years, which is really where I'm more centered with all the business aside.

Speaker 1 (38:45)

That's what makes me happy. So I'm back here, which is wonderful.

Speaker 2 (38:48)

Wow. That is wonderful. So do what you love listeners. That's what I would say. The lesson. The lesson is to do what you love. And Karim, you've just got a really wonderful way about you. I know it's been such a pleasure to speak to you today. And the wisdom because people quite often think spiritualities kind of got to fit kind of into a box. I think by hearing people's stories, amazing stories like yours, and it's the way to kind of help people most by hearing that Hareem. I just wish you the best of luck with your podcast and your photography and all your ventures. I will share a link in the show notes, but thank you. And it must be quite late there or quite early, so that's great.

Speaker 1 (39:38)

It's only 1030 in the evening, my time or 1040.

Speaker 2 (39:41)

Oh, well, do stay tuned, listeners. As always, there's a meditation inspired by today's show. But Karim, Hijazi. Thank you so much for your beautiful conversation today. And may you have a lovely day with your family. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (39:57)

Absolute pleasure. Thank you, Jane.

Speaker 2 (39:59)

Thank you. So here is a meditation with minimum instruction. I just wish to help you ride the ways of your meditation practice. So this meditation I invite you to do where you won't be disturbed. So if you're doing something where you need to concentrate, I would just simply ask if you could just pause this. But please don't skip the meditation. It's like the first time you brush your teeth. I'm sure that was a bit of a challenge. It's the same with meditation. You build up the meditation muscle the more that you can practice it. And trust me, for someone who can't sit and concentrate or couldn't, rather, this really helped me. So that's why I'm so passionate about meditation. So with a nice, tall spine, sit up nice and tall and start to breathe in and out through the nostrils. At first, you can exaggerate that breath. Inhaling and exhaling. And this is just going to be a two minute meditation from now. Can you softly feel the breath as it comes in through the nose, as it goes out through the nostrils? So slow and calm, deep and even in and out through the nostrils as you inhale, expansion, as you exhale, retraction, expand, retract, in and out.

Speaker 2 (41:55)

Slow rhythm. Allow the rhythm. No need to force. Just continue that as I'm quiet. And if your mind is starting to drift, just come back to that breath. You don't have to do anything except observe that breath in and out through the nostrils. Slow and calm, deep and even. Slow and calm, deep and even. Now, just take a long, deep inhalation. Just be with yourself just for a moment longer. Just be and calmly. Now come back into the moment. Come back into the room. Become aware of the noises or anything else within the room. Maybe it's the texture of the floor beneath you. And dear one, go about your day. Thank you for listening to this meditation. And with each episode, there is a meditation on the earlier episodes. Just go to the last section for the meditations and I am now starting to also separate the meditation so that they are part of the podcast and also an audio file that you can listen to if you want to repeat it.