51. Ahmed Moussa: Unraveling Leadership Secrets, Embracing Curiosity and Adaptability in a Technological World

Unravel the secrets of leadership with Ahmed Moussa, the Managing Director of Signature Markets at Verizon Business Group, as he explores how his upbringing in Kuwait and Egypt has influenced his leadership style. Discover the curious connection between tennis and leadership that Ahmed wrote about in his article Nerves in Leadership - The Wimbledon Edition as his observation about the Women's Wimbledon Finals and the critical role curiosity plays in staying ahead of technological shifts. You'll be inspired by his journey, adapting from Egypt to New Zealand, and his continuous learning of new skills – a story of adaptability that is as compelling as it is insightful.

Dive into the depths of leadership and technology as Ahmed shares his experiences and mindset, shaped by his upbringing and his journey through the global telecommunications industry. Learn from a captivating conversation about the importance of understanding culture and environment when making decisions. Also, delve deeper into the role of curiosity in leadership and how it's essential to understand the technology leaders manage to help unlock the team's potential.

This episode doesn't shy away from hitting some sensitive notes - we talk about the often-overlooked loneliness of leadership, drawing parallels between leadership roles and sports. You'll hear about the importance of feedback and seeking support, as well as the pressures and expectations from teams that can become overwhelming. We wrap up with a reflection on management and leadership styles. Ahmed shares his experience as a middle manager and how it has shaped his understanding of empathy and vulnerability in modern leadership. This is an episode you won't want to miss - join us for an enlightening journey into the heart of leadership with Ahmed Moussa.

Resources
Nerves in Leadership - The Wimbledon Edition
The Mindset Of a Winner | Kobe Bryant Champions Advice
MAMBA MENTALITY - Kobe Bryant Motivational Speech
Lex & Yuval Noah Harari podcast

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Transcript

Ahmed: 0:00

So you do need to know the technology and you need to develop some understanding of the technology that you're managing and where it's going and build an own opinion on where things are going and what needs to happen today and what needs to happen in a year, what needs to happen later. And anyone can develop that. The difference between the ones that do and the ones that don't is Curiosity. If you're curious about the technology or curious about whatever the topic is, you will build that view better than people that have done this job for years, Because there is also that proximity bias in a way that you can have when you're still close to something that you think you know it but you're not able sometimes to see some of the major shifts that happen with it. I see this concept being more and more important here in the world.

Klara: 0:49

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential, sports, life after sports and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership and whatever we decide to put our minds into. For my guest today, areas of leadership in the telecom industry. This is your host, Klara Jagosova, and today I bring you Ahmed Moussa. Ahmet is currently the managing director of Signature Markets at Verizon Business Group. He leads a team of technical sales solution architects who are partnering with Verizon's top 26 business customers to transform to a future that makes the best of digital, mobile and cloud capabilities in a secure and differentiated fashion. Ahmet's passion is building profitable networks and solutions while empowering people, having fun and learning every day. He likes to set the example of how engineers can be book and business smart, customer focused and boast excellent leadership and communication skills. Ahmet has gone through some amazing experiences personally and professionally, such as leading network planning experts to launch Manifigy and IoT technologies and enhancements, as well as leading system performance and in building teams to launch Volte, which means voice over LTE, and innovative in building solutions. With Verizon, he has led RAN design and optimization teams at Vodafone launching New Zealand's first 4G LD network from lab to mass field deployment.

Klara: 2:52

During this conversation we dive into all things leadership. Ahmed shares lessons from his upbringing in Kuwait and Egypt and how that shaped his leadership style and the way he operates work hard, play hard mentality. I have to say that Ahmet is a great observer. Curiosity pulls him deep to understand and then he adds his own experience and perspective. Ahmet has been a tennis fan for a long time and one of the reasons that triggered my conversation with Ahmed was an article he wrote observing Ons Jabeur playing Wimbledon against Marketa Vondrousova. It was a sad day for many, as Ons had created a large group of fans and unfortunately she wasn't able to perform to her own expectations that day and handle the pressure of the finals. Back to Ahmed. I found his article very thought provoking and I recommend you to read it. You can find a link in the episode notes.

Klara: 4:02

During this conversation we share some of our personal experiences comparing leadership to sport, tennis in particular the importance of curiosity, adaptability, trusting and believing in the broader vision and strategy, viral visualization and Kobe's Mamba mentality, just to name a few. There are many reasons why I started my podcast. I find this conversation builds up beautifully on my last episode with Skip that talks about the importance of leadership, practicing growth mindset and psychological safety, and Ahmed is a great example of just that growing his leadership skills and inspiring employees in his team and outside of his team to be better and helping them grow their own potential. Edith Wharton, an American writer and designer, once said there are two ways of spreading light to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. I hope this conversation shines a light on what great leadership may look like, and perhaps it may inspire to take a few tips on strengthening your own personal leadership, whether it is in your organizations, at your household or communities.

Klara: 5:30

Please note that opinions and thoughts shared in this episode are of our own and should not be attributed to our employers, apple and Verizon. If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please share it with someone who you believe may enjoy it as well. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode, and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. And now I bring you Ahmed Moussa. Hello, Ahmed, thank you for creating time and joining the Grand Slam Journey Podcast. It's a pleasure to have you on. How are you?

Ahmed: 6:05

I'm doing great. Thank you, Kl. It's an honor for me to be invited. We've known each other for years and, like everybody else, I don't think we get to talk as often as we'd like, so I'm really, really excited we're going to talk today.

Klara: 6:18

Yes, time to. We've worked in some shape or form together or known off each other from the personal world for a number of years, and I have to say I'm awful at keeping in touch, which is one of the many reasons why I created this podcast. So when I see some of my connections sharing great things and creating great things, it inspires me to invite them on and create time to slow down and have the conversation, which I'm really excited about. I know you've been creating fantastic things in the realm of technology and leadership, and so I look forward to diving into these areas with you, but before we do, I want to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Ahmed: 7:02

Sure. So, ahmet Musa, I'm originally from Egypt. I was born in Kuwait to Egyptian expats and then one summer, when you were visiting our folks in Egypt, my dad came out and said hey, kids, I want to tell you something. Golf War happened. I think we're going to stay in Egypt longer than we expected. Wow, and luckily everyone we knew was safe. But we did move to Egypt and I'll finish all my education in Egypt, did my electrical engineering and telecommunication undergrad degree there. I followed through the MBA and marketing and finance there and worked there for a few years. Then met my beautiful wife, sanja, and we decided to see the world a little more and diversify our backgrounds a little more. So I moved to New Zealand for five years and then from there Sanja grew up in the US. So we decided to move to the States and I've been in the US for almost 10 years now.

Klara: 8:08

Wow, time flies.

Ahmed: 8:10

I know, I know.

Klara: 8:12

I have so many questions about your path to America and even through the technology, leadership. So it's super interesting background and even just the Egyptian culture. I didn't know you were actually originally from Kuwait. How old were you when you moved to Egypt?

Ahmed: 8:28

I was nine. I don't remember so much about it. We did have a big family there, so I remember the family more than the place as much. But it's interesting because Kuwait was such a diverse place to live in. The economy of Kuwait is stronger than Egypt, so that drives a lot of experts to come in. So I remember in school being, I think, in like 10 kids coming from 10, 15 different nationalities, so I really loved that about Kuwait. And then moving to Egypt, we had an extended family. So it was more about getting to know the family and enjoying feeling kind of that sense that you're at home, more than something that we felt more in Egypt being the fact that we were from Egypt but then 99.9% of the people you know are Egyptian and they live there all the time. Very, very monoculture and later in life. That's why, as I said, we wanted to diversify our experience a little bit and that's why one of the drivers we moved elsewhere and started seeing the world.

Klara: 9:33

Amazing, and we're in Egypt. Did you live in Cairo, the capital, yeah?

Ahmed: 9:38

in Cairo.

Klara: 9:40

I have to share with listeners that you probably know I've shared, but I've been in Egypt a few times. I have some of the best memories on the country, including vacations as well as tennis tournaments. I've played a few back in the ITF, years 18 and under, and I went to ride a horse right next to the pyramids during a sunset. Wow, and it's still one of the best memories I have when I was maybe 17 years old. It's just a feeling that you never forget. I feel as one of those rare history experience and there's only a few of them. It's almost similar like Rome when you go walk the Colosseum there are just few sites, I feel in the world where, when you're there, you can almost feel and sense the presence of the whole history. And so I've always been fascinated with the Egyptian culture and, obviously, the history going back I've shared.

Klara: 10:36

I've recently made a trip back to Egypt. We went to visit Luxor. We were super hot. But I'm curious. Obviously it's one thing to go to a country and experience it as a tourist and it's another thing to grow up there and live there and I guess, in some ways also grow up there in a minority because you're not Egyptian by nature. So how is that for you growing up in Cairo and those forming years? Because I think childhood, whether we want it or not, shapes a lot of our mental models and what we're excited towards and invest our time and energy into.

Ahmed: 11:14

Yes, that's a great question. And my whole career was in technology, but I started also my leadership career technology quite early on. So I'm closing in on, I think, 16 years now of being a leader and I think that our childhood and our experience in general plays a bigger role in the way we lead and then we like to believe as well. It's great to reflect on that. So I'll tell you, I didn't feel like I was an outsider, for sure For two reasons. I think having Egyptian parents in Kuwait made the culture very relevant. But also, egyptians are great hosts. Whether you're a tourist or whether you're coming again, they're really, really great hosts. So I felt like I spent zero effort integrating into the society.

Ahmed: 12:04

And then Egypt is a developing country. It's a survival of the fittest a little bit right. It's a survival mentality that you built there. So you have to work really hard to build a set of skill sets and knowledge that would set you apart. So you're one of the small percentage of folks that are able to get the job that you really want to have.

Ahmed: 12:30

But then what's interesting to me is the counterbalance of all that is a very, very strong social system where there's a lot of focus in having fun, right Like after you go home. You're always meeting tens of friends, really big social circles. You can't take yourself seriously among your friends, otherwise you're not going to have friends, because there's a lot of focus on pranking and comedy and pulling your leg and having fun, which kind of shaped me too. I'm a perfectionist at work and I take work really, really seriously, but I also like to build connections with people. I recently did a Clifton Strengths personality assessment and I found out that one of the ways I communicate and influence is individualization. So that kind of rang a bell to me.

Ahmed: 13:19

I think that came from my background in Egypt that you get to know the people. You're not just painting with a broad brush. You really get to know the people personally. You get to know what makes them motivated. You know what jokes they like, what makes them laugh, what makes them connect with you better.

Klara: 13:37

Yeah, I love it. What comes into mind? People always say treat people the way you want to be treated. But I think there's nuance treat people the way they want to be treated, because I think, getting to know that person, that seems like that personalization what might be right for me may not be right for the other person. So it seems like you're really good and, through that variety of your experience and having, as you mentioned, many social connections, really tuning into what's right for that person and how can you help them grow in wherever they want to go. Next, Absolutely.

Ahmed: 14:14

That's a very interesting point because I agree with you. I think you start, you scratch the surface first by treating people the way you want to be treated, so that's the established baseline of respect and genuine care. But then how are you going to build that into something really great? And I think your point is the personalization piece. What about you? Do you think your upbringing impacted the way you deal with people as well?

Klara: 14:39

Definitely, and I think it was a bit of learning experience for me to be a leader early on, which I think was quite privileged. Right out of college I actually started my career in telecom retail, which not many people know. So I worked for one of the largest spring-preferred retailer at that point in time and, by sheer of luck, the CEO knew me, hired me through a tennis contact, but I had to learn how to lead retail stores and so, being 25 years or so, well, I graduated later with my MBA and, probably most due to tennis, you learn really early, this humble leadership, that just telling people what to do doesn't really work, especially when those people are even older. Most of them who were leading the stores were perhaps even a decade or more older than me and so how do you create this enablement and be more of a support structure? So I think it was a hard learning. Definitely at the beginning I was like, oh my gosh, this is not really working. You can't just tell somebody what to do.

Klara: 15:46

But I think it was a great school for my kind of next chapter as I grew in my career and I've been so grateful and privileged to have that experience that early on and really trying to find out as a young kid with their experience kind of now managing a large team of about 60 people, and how do I create that value and how do I support them to unlock the potential.

Klara: 16:10

And I think that was the clash of me being the tennis player that always wanted to be the best and perfectionist. How does not everybody want to be that way? How does not everyone take their job as seriously? You know, it was for me a lot of kind of death of life situation, but then kind of switching more to a role of a coach and really reflecting what the best coaches in tennis, how they sort of nurtured me and helped develop the strength and sort of more and more positioning my mindset towards how do I become the best coach, as some of the coaches I've had in my life on the tennis court actually, and taking a little bit of their mentality.

Ahmed: 16:55

I love that and I love when I find some of my team members or people that coach. I love when I find that they had a background playing a sport in a competitive way. You just see it to your point. You see it in their eyes, you see it in the way they approach problem solving and and the urgency that they have and the perfection level that they achieve. Then, depending on the job, you you start working with them to work from there to maximize their potential and bring their best to what the job requires.

Ahmed: 17:27

In some cases you really don't have enough inputs to know that you're going to get what you consider is a perfect outcome. Sometimes you have to just go with the 80 to 90 percent. That's good enough, because we need to get something out there. We need to get a quick. The urgency is more important than the perfection In some cases. No, you have the time where the job requires you to do a perfect to get to that 100 percent. I always found it fascinating to work through some of these individually with people that I met throughout my career.

Klara: 17:59

Yeah, it sounds like you're really able to tap into different sorts of leadership and step into different shoes, depending on the situation and the person which I want to touch base on more, because I read your article online on LinkedIn and I'll ensure I link it to the episode notes because I thought it was really deep and well written. Obviously, I resonate with a lot of things, including your tennis analogy, so I want to dive a little bit into that. But before we do, I want to go even more towards your background in technology. If you look back in your childhood or career, is there a specific time or person or moment where you realized this is what I want to do and I want to have a technical background? I don't know, Was it common in Egypt to dive into this technology telecom that you had studied and have you chose for yourself?

Ahmed: 18:55

Way too common, oh really Way too common. Egypt is like some cultures joke about, like all the parents one their kids to be engineers, doctors or lawyers. Egypt, they just want them to be engineers or doctors. So, it's.

Ahmed: 19:10

It's even extra funny because my dad was a very, very successful accountant and accounting professor and he wanted to open his own business later in his career. And I remember that talk you know like have you thought about becoming an accountant? I'm like, what are you talking about? All my friends are being basically told what to do and my dad is like ask me questions about what would I'd like to do and maybe accounting could be a profitable path. And I was like shocked no, of course not. I want to be an engineer. So I think there's some of that Plus. Just my natural tendencies at school was that I was good at math, good at science, showed a lot more interest in these things. I did show a bit of interest in art as well, but that's where kind of the. I'm not going to call brain washing, I'll call it coaching. I'm a parental. Coaching kind of deverted me more towards math and science. So that played a big role in, I think, of the decision making later on.

Klara: 20:09

And, looking back on your career, when somebody looks at your LinkedIn and hopefully you're OK, I'll add it to the notes as well If anybody wants to reach out and connect. It's really interesting how you've kind of grown through the deep technical engineering to your leadership shoes and continue to kind of grow on that path through different professions. As you reflect back, are there specific moments through your career that you really want to call out Key moments that you remember that helped you grow to your next career step?

Ahmed: 20:46

When I reflect on, I think that every point in time, if there is anything that helped me, it was I had a good self awareness of what I'm good at. And I don't know if you talk enough or to think enough internally with ourselves or talk to others that were coaching and advising about also looking at this differentially in terms of what do you think you get at and how does it compare to others around you. And that's the thing. I was in a school that was not the most competitive, so I was really good at math and science. I was top of my class. I was like, ok, I'm going to go to the top engineering school major, of course I'm going to be a top of my class. And then the big shock right, like you're not the only smart one in town, buddy, I still did very well, but it was very clear to me that I've met so many smart people that I was like, ok, I'm not the biggest game in town, like I thought I was when I start working, when I left school and start working, I realized that I actually connect with people I'd say above average, I'm able to build relationships above average and I'm able to listen as well. And back to the point about individualizing the communication style and the eventual influence that you have on people. So I had a ton of friends. I found myself becoming kind of the organizer and another thing from the Quiffton strength that was one of the top five. So myself I'm the one kind of almost a social butterfly that even some of my friends groups the person who organizes the outings and the person who brings people together. So these sounded like leadership skills that I can leverage in a leadership role more than coding or design. At least I think they're doing well too. But I could see so many other people doing good as well or better than me, and then that doesn't necessarily mean that I was doing well at leadership.

Ahmed: 22:49

In the beginning you start everything. You're very self out there, start everything, get on doing really well, right. So I think I went from being a very, very bad manager the first time to learning, and that in some of the learning experience because that opened my mind I was like, okay, that's harder than I thought. I thought I had what it takes. And then I think at that point I moved to New Zealand and I met one of my best friends and best mentors ever. She's my first manager in New Zealand, the one that hired me, and she impacted my manager style, I think, the most, because I saw what good looks like first hand and she would coach me through it. And I saw how she's able to lead a team, have the technical prowess and be able to build relationships and all that. But also, how do you lead a team? How do you make the team more cohesive, how to bring them together and do all the different things as managers and leaders we have to do when you have a team.

Klara: 23:53

I love it, and there's many things that you were mentioning and I wanna dive into. I'm taking just some notes. I don't forget them, but I do wanna also zoom in on your transitions and your willingness to step out of comfort zone, because you mentioned that I moved from Egypt to New Zealand and then you also moved to the US. Those are some big leaps when it comes to, obviously, language, but also cultural expectations and sort of societal frameworks and structures. So even just the first one, from Egypt, where it never snows, to going to New Zealand, how is that transition in that, and even just that decision, what was the process like? It's time for me now to leave Egypt and I need to find a new job, career and place where I wanna live.

Ahmed: 24:46

Yeah, you're bringing back memories, Clara. So it was definitely tough. I do think that I like to try new things and I'm comfortable throwing myself in new environments that I'm not familiar with. But I'm not gonna take full credit there because I think the fact that I grew up in Kuwait tuition parents surrounded by a hundred different nationalities my family actually is. Not a lot of people know that, but I'm 25% Palestinian.

Ahmed: 25:14

My grandfather grew up in Palestine and he moved to Egypt to study in the same engineering school I went to. He was studying mechanical engineering and then 1948 happened and he just lost connections with his old family. Half of them moved to Kuwait, other half moved to Jordan. So we are kind of you can call us no man in a way as a family. So I think that played a role that kind of demystified it a little bit.

Ahmed: 25:38

Right, it's a lot harder, I think, if someone, their whole life they spent in one city or one town. That's all they know, that's all where their parents and friends knew, right? So what are you gonna build on? What are you gonna drive that confidence from? So I had that, but then I think I used it well in terms of being able to always assess. Here's the information that I have in my hand, right. If I'm making the decision in this case it was me and my wife Helps as well to say that my wife is a nomad of her own. She's a Brazilian American. She grew up in Brazil, moved to US at a young age. I then decided she was gonna see the world and we met in Egypt. So we're sitting together and thinking about what we wanna do. We looked at the information we have a hand. We just made the best possible decision we can with it and not worrying about what we know. Sometimes people are like oh, I'm gonna move to a different culture, different language.

Ahmed: 26:36

what am I gonna do? Well, it's New Zealand. It's an immigration country. There's millions of people that figured out what to do, and I think that's what helps us make the decision Now. Does it make it easier once you move in? No, you still?

Ahmed: 26:51

have to do all the work that everyone does to integrate, and we did that. We loved our time in New Zealand. It was a great, great five years Very welcoming, expat, friendly environment and, yeah, that changes in a good way, right Like we integrate the society to a completely different society. Well, our English improved. I even learned a management and leadership lesson from that itself, because one of the people that helped improve my English was my first manager. I would go, I put myself out there.

Ahmed: 27:26

I use idioms that I'm sometimes or phrases that turn out to be wrong. So I always laugh about the fact that I would go and say, look, we're barking the wrong tree, and she would come to me on the side and say it's bark up the wrong tree. Imagine a tree, a dog at the bottom of the tree and they're barking up the tree. How many people comfortable doing that in the first place, but then adding that visual. Now, every time I say this phrase, I remember her sitting next to me and I knew walking through it.

Ahmed: 27:58

After we put ourselves out there, the process and having to support structure and environment around us, everything else will fall in place.

Ahmed: 28:07

It might take a little longer for someone compared to another, but they eventually get there.

Ahmed: 28:13

One of the things that I'll close with that, one of the things that happened as well after I moved, is there are more and more Egyptians in the telecom industry that I know. More and more Egyptians came as well to New Zealand, because it's not necessarily a place that you'll find a lot of Egyptians going to and migrating to. So it was unknown to a lot of the people I know. But then as they come in, some of them integrated faster, some of them integrate slower, but they all did and they all having a great time and adapted well and brought their own culture to the place too. Like in Egypt, the engineering schools they're really good. So the problem solving techniques, the level of knowledge that you have on the subject, is very good. So I would say even we managed to raise expectations on what does a good engineer look like and in terms of their knowledge they're able to command of the technology and whatnot. So we brought our own taste from home as well to New Zealand.

Klara: 29:16

Love it. If you reflect back again one more time, what would you say are some of the key things that really helped you say yes to this opportunity? Cause it seems like it wasn't completely black and white decision. There had to be some evaluation of what the pros and cons are. So, as you look back, what were the things you were most looking forward to and excited about?

Ahmed: 29:43

We researched the place, Auckland in particular, and we saw a lot of good things. The nature is beautiful, but also we saw a lot of good information online about how expat friendly and immigrant friendly the place is. I didn't know anyone not in the company I went to. I didn't know anyone in New Zealand as a whole right, so there was no friends, anyone that I can friends of friends that I could call at the time, so we had to just use information that was available online. I worked for Vodafone there as well.

Ahmed: 30:17

I was working for Vodafone in Egypt, so I had familiarity with the company as well. But for my wife there isn't. She was going to go move to a new place, so we needed to make sure that she's going to also. For her, it was important to know more about the culture and the place itself, more than basically basing the whole decision on we're still with Vodafone. We're moving to a company that we understand as culture. That was the biggest thing is knowing that the place is expert, friendly and feeling connected to the place via the information you can find online.

Klara: 30:54

I love it, and I do want to touch base also on the change of climate, and you even picked up snowboarding, and so these are things. When I look back at your career and just even what you're saying now this amazing adaptability, flexibility, looking at the world through a lens of opportunity and as something, what am I looking forward to? Instead of being fair driven, I'm curious if you can reflect back what helped you gain that perspective, and which is the fact that Egypt has mostly desert, if not all desert. So you now go, I'm going to learn snowboarding. Like even just that fact. I'm a big proponent how you do anything is how you do everything, and so probably a lot of that mindset helps again with the sense of leadership. But let me just stop there. How do you reflect on that?

Ahmed: 31:46

In the spirit of being vulnerable, and I don't know if you will agree or not. I'm really interested in your opinion here too, Cause I feel like it's one area that I'm different from some of the friends and people that I met that did play sports professionally. I'm okay of being mediocre at certain things.

Klara: 32:08

That's such a strength. It takes so much to admit it. I feel like especially that shame and losing face I was just recording another podcast and just that fear that most of us humans have, especially as we grow through life. I feel that is such a superpower.

Ahmed: 32:24

Yeah, cause I'm a mediocre guitar player, I'm a mediocre snowboarder, I can have a conversation at a mediocre level and maybe five or six different languages. The way I explain it to myself is these are things I'm doing to have fun and maybe elevate some of the experiences I have, like a travel experience. When you know a little bit about the language, that elevates your travel experience to the places for this place or a place to speak the language. So I tell myself this is why I'm doing it. It helps me connect with people that are. It creates different conversations with different people and, selfishly, I do it because it's fun, not because I want to be good at it, and I think that helps to your point. I think it also helps you start some of these things. We have a finite amount of time. But then back to your point.

Ahmed: 33:12

In my climate, I moved from Egypt in June, literally, I think my last weekend or two we were at the Mediterranean Sea, silking Sun and having great time. And then I moved to winter in New Zealand. The first day I was there, I think Auckland was almost flooded. I learned very harshly as well how the weather changes, because Egypt it never snows, but it almost never rains either. You don't even look at the weather forecast before you go out. So, yeah, so I started making friends and talking to colleagues in New Zealand like, guys, what are you doing this rain? And I was alone at the time. Sandra took a little longer to, she had some projects and things to finish in Egypt, so I was there alone in the beginning and I asked what do you do in this weather? And they said you know all that precipitation of rain is snow. Five hours drive south of here, south right, because of the Southern House, feels snow. Okay, maybe that's something to try.

Ahmed: 34:14

A friend of mine said look, I can give you a quick lesson in one of the indoor snow facilities in Auckland. We went there. I got hooked. I invited to a group at work, but this quite regularly goes almost every week or every other week in season. I sucked that in the beginning, but people would wait for me. You know that had a snowboard much better than I am, and I saw the grace and support of many people through learning some of these sports as well, and at some point I was like, okay, guys, you don't really have to wait for me. You know I don't want to feel like a burden either, but it was a good balance. We enjoyed each other's company. At the same time, I got to pick up a sport that we love. Sandra picked it up as well, and we try to go as often as we can.

Klara: 35:04

I love it. There was few things that stand out to me from this. You seem to be a curious learner because there's so much courage. I feel from my perspective that goes into it. But before I go there, I also want to disagree with you about being mediocre. I don't think you're a mediocre guitar player. I've seen some of your videos, ahmed and they're just fantastic.

Klara: 35:24

So please feel free to continue sharing those. I think they're great. So maybe you judge yourself too hard in some aspects. But going back to even just learning how to navigate winter and snow at a later age, I feel it's so much more difficult because, obviously, czech Republic, I grew up in four seasons and so as a kid you sort of learn what ice is and kind of the nature of snow and how to walk or drive on it. And one of my dear friends I'm still from Ericsson she's from Spain and she grew up by the ocean and moved to Jersey and she was telling me her first story how she had to scrape the ice from the car. That she's never had to do in Spain and she fell because the ice is so slippery so she had to put crampons on, like literally on the shoe, so she doesn't slide.

Klara: 36:13

So I always admire people learning in the later stage of the life what does it mean to be on snow or even, especially like skink, snowboarding? I feel it's so much easier to learn because I learned as a kid In fact I probably started skiing before I started playing tennis and it's so much easier to fall when you're a kid right, because the gravity you're closer to the ground, so you actually learn to fall. When you're four or five years old it's easier to fall down, but there's a different thing of falling down when you're older adults because even just that center of gravity it's so much higher and so when you fall I feel like it hurts much more than when you're a kid. So I just wanted to comment on you I'm at on adaptability and curiosity and willingness to try new things and not judging yourself whether it's going good, but really trying to enjoy through a lens of fun.

Ahmed: 37:14

I'd like to break it down to two things. Curiosity is super important and I'd like to explain why later. But here's what I think on this topic. Life will always throw another curveball at you, like you think that you've seen the most of it and you didn't. And New Zealand doesn't snow that often or rain as often as other places. So, yeah, I moved to New Zealand, snowed every now and then learned how to snowboard, learned how to drive in different weather a little bit. But then I moved to Atlanta, warmer climate, and then we moved to Jersey and literally first or second week in the year, second weekend there, I hear a snowstorm coming. I don't know what that means In New Zealand it doesn't happen often.

Ahmed: 38:02

And then I wake up and I look outside and there's literally a few feet of snow. And I had to do the embarrassing call to my boss saying, hey, I don't think I can come to the office today because I don't own a shovel. So he's like what do you mean? You know he wasn't angry at it, I had a great boss. But he's like what do you mean? You know I was like I just moved from Atlanta, I don't have a shovel. You know, the plow truck came in, cleaned everything. The car is buried in like two feet of snow and the three feet or five feet of snow that is contouring it. Because of the car that came in and plowed all the snow, I can't walk to the nearby store. It's too far and I'm just going to have to wait for all this to melt down. So there's always going to be something else that life will throw at you, and I think that helps get you off the square one as well, or square zero.

Ahmed: 38:54

When you're trying new things, you know you try. It's a constant learning experience. Now back to curiosity. I'm learning more and more how important this word is, because I think it was two years ago. I was coaching some aspiring leaders and I joined a panel as part of a coaching program for aspiring leaders in the company that I worked for. They were all technical and individual contributors, and one of them asked me how are you able to do the job of managing a team that you did not do the work that the team does as an individual contributor? You didn't do it yourself. How are you able to do it? How is that even possible? And I had to think about it a little bit and I was like as a leader and a manager. You're not doing the work. You're trying to get the most out of the people and make them operate at the best possible version of themselves. Having said that, I get what you mean, especially with senior technical and individual contributors and engineers.

Ahmed: 39:58

There's that level of respect they have to build. You have to be their bouncing board of ideas for them. As their leader. They want to feel like you know enough about the role and understand it enough so you can help them achieve whatever project or thing they're working on. So you do need to know the technology. You need to develop some understanding of the technology that you're managing and where it's going and build an own opinion on the strategy and where things are going and what needs to happen today and what needs to happen in a year and what needs to happen later. And anyone can develop that.

Ahmed: 40:34

The difference between the ones that do and the ones that don't is curiosity. If you're curious about the technology or curious about whatever the topic is, you will build that view better than people that have done this job for years. Because there is also that proximity bias, in a way that you can have when you're so close to something that you think you know it but you're not able sometimes to see some of the major shifts that happen with it. Now I see this concept being more and more important and more and more relevant because, with AI, there is a very interesting interview between Lex Fridman and Yuval Harari.

Klara: 41:16

I heard it. I'm a fan of both, so it was a fun conversation. I'll add it to the episode notes for everyone, just so they can easily go back and listen to it as well.

Ahmed: 41:25

And if you remember what Yuval said when, I think, lex asked them what is the skills of the future, he said I think the skill of the future is to be able to be adaptable and curious, and something like that, because I can't tell you what knowledge you need in the future. I can tell you what skills you need to be able to gain that knowledge. And I think curiosity comes way ahead of everything else. It's important in a technology company like the one I work for, like I work in Verizon. Again, everyone will see that it's important because things are changing so fast.

Ahmed: 41:59

15 years ago I was working on 2G, now we're working on 5G plus 5G advanced. So I've managed so many different teams that do a nuanced way of different things. So being able to understand what they're doing and what would be successful, what would help the team be successful, is reliant on me in this case, digging deep and finding that curiosity to learn and to understand their points of view and to research and do all these things A lot more than the fact that I was an RF engineer for years. I think that comes second.

Klara: 42:38

I love it and it seems like asking questions to bring storm things together, at least from my perspective, when I reflect on best managers that I've had. I think that also establishes trust and sometimes coming in even you mentioned a little bit the new person perspective being curious. Sometimes, the more you don't know about something, you have to have some trust, especially in your field, the technical field, the people need to know that you understand the basics about technology. But there's, I think, a beauty that I have learned even early on in telecom, because I wasn't an engineer and I was asking questions from the business perspective a just clearly curious mindset. I think it really allowed me to learn a lot from the engineers and allowed them to get slightly different perspective because I wasn't asking the traditional technical questions. But I think that unleashes the power and makes us think things through in a different perspective, in a collaborative way and, as you mentioned earlier, helps elevate the whole team instead of just telling someone what to do. It's kind of this open, collaborative way of growing the team and leadership.

Klara: 43:54

I do want to go back a little bit or forward to your article that you wrote, the Wimbladon edition you mentioned you're a big tennis fan. You're picking up tennis as a sport. I've seen you being a big on stand, which is not surprising. Many people love her, her personality, obviously, and all she's working to do for this sport Curious. What attracts you to tennis and what do you find enjoyable about the game, emmett?

Ahmed: 44:21

I was a tennis fan for a long time, but then I had this moment I don't know why in New Zealand tennis is big. In Australia I don't think it's as big in New Zealand, or I feel that in my social circle I was in and that made things fade away a little bit, but I was a big Samper's fan.

Klara: 44:37

OK, I love being at. Sam here.

Ahmed: 44:41

Yeah, and at some point in my life.

Ahmed: 44:43

I had a group of friends that now I don't remember why, but they used to call me Guga Because I guess I wouldn't shut up at the Gustavo Quartet on the fact that I like the style of play too. But then I went away a little bit and I came back Tennis to me it's a very exciting sport. It's a very fun sport to watch. I don't know if there's anything else that can maintain my level of attention and my focus for five hours. I don't know I can watch a five hour tennis game. There's a lot of other things I can't do for even 30 minutes, so it's definitely fun.

Ahmed: 45:21

I think it's amazing to me how it's a game of inches truly and that was what the article was about how nerves play a huge role in the sport and it's mentality management over five hours. It doesn't have to be five hours over more than an hour. Some of the games last that long, but still it's a very, very long game and maintaining the focus for more than a set for me is amazing. I'm so impressed by tennis players like you and anyone who played the sport is competitively, because I can't think of another sport where, from a starting point early in career, I guess you have to learn how to play on different surfaces.

Klara: 46:04

Yeah.

Ahmed: 46:05

And that's fascinating for me, and I was even reading on how, to me, I thought hard courts are hard courts, but then different hard courts have different ball responses and the way you play on them could be different. So talk about adaptability, not just that I engage or a starting point, but even adaptability as you go and play different courts at different locations, and then the adaptability to different players that are playing in different styles is fascinating to me. So I think the mentality, the in-game mentality, and the adaptability of tennis players are things that I find fascinating.

Klara: 46:43

Well, thank you for recognizing that first, and I do want to say that I 100% agree with your article and I actually want to dive into some aspects of it Because I was so impressed the way you wrote it, thank you.

Klara: 46:56

And I think that also speaks to the attention of detail and your introspection and the way you're able to make connections between different things that you call fun and work. I did love that connection between the tennis that you observed and your leadership style and I do want to dive into a few and we can pick whichever you want to go first. But some of the things like managing your nerves as a leader, making the big changes versus the small tweaks, I thought that was really great. Feeling alone, I think that's a big part and it is so true.

Klara: 47:33

Just reflecting on my career, one of the things, especially as you continue to play longer the tour can be very lonely.

Klara: 47:43

You have sort of your team that sometimes you're able to travel with, but that loneliness gets really weird to a point that I literally end of my tennis career, got tired of being alone. So people say, oh, you're like individual sport player, you're not with teamwork, and I'm actually twist the company the opposite because being an individual contributor doesn't excite me anymore. I can do it, but I've done it for so many years in my life that I just this is so boring, it's almost annoying. So I really love being part of a team Because I think I've been alone for so many years of my life and I did find that commonality actually resonate with me even more so when you wrote that article. I read it as I've been climbing also through my career. The top gets so lonely, and that is true also for tennis, as well as leadership, and sorry, I guess I'm circling back around. I said you can pick, but I would want to start with this one because I think it is so true. I feel not enough people talk about it.

Ahmed: 48:45

I agree. First of all, thank you for reading the article and reflecting to it. I have to say, the more I watched tennis and the more I thought about it as a sport, I got to appreciate you more Because I kind of see how difficult it was. I think Kylie of you, but that gives me some of the underlying reasons and understanding of what shaped you as a person. So, putting even the outside, it is very lonely and I think the amount of feedback you get as you climb the leadership ladder it reduces. Like we thrive on feedback and the amount of feedback you get is less and less.

Ahmed: 49:29

I think what I learned is the feedback is always there, the extra information and the extra support, depending on what person is looking for. Are you looking for information? Are you looking for emotional support? What are you looking for at the moment? It's out there. It's just not in your filter and it's not presenting itself to you on a plate as often as it did before. So I learned to put myself out there more and more and go to people and say, hey, what do you think I need to do better?

Ahmed: 50:01

I spent the first 10 years of my life career not asking that question. I don't think kids ever ask that question right now what do you need me to do better, dad? Like no one does that, but I learned the more I ruin my leadership career to seek that answer instead of it being presented to. Or sometimes it's not that I'm looking for what I need to do better, but I'm looking for support. So I seek that support more than I did before. I think that's the trick. There will be cases I'm not going to draw full comparison to a tennis player in a game, alone in meters of space with so many people watching, but there is a very small comparison to leaders when you're trying to make a decision and you're calling the shot and at that point everyone is watching, yes, but it's your shut the call and that could be a little lonely.

Klara: 50:58

Hmm.

Ahmed: 51:00

I think, as I said, seeking out the support, I was making the point and on this, that's another thing, like if you're watching tennis for the first time, you might be flustered by the fact that they look at the crowd or they look at your wonder why are they looking at their team of mumbling stuff at them? I think they'll understand why and I did know whether it's right or wrong and I put it in the article that I don't think on state at all during the game or not as often as I think she usually does.

Klara: 51:26

I think that's a great observation. I actually just have to say I haven't noticed that, but I wasn't watching for that in the match. So just another thing that you caught and I didn't.

Ahmed: 51:37

And if it's true or not, we'll never know but I think she was feeling a lot of emotions going through her mind, probably when she felt like she was losing the big moment of winning a slam.

Klara: 51:49

Yes.

Ahmed: 51:49

When she felt like she was slipping through her fingers. Honestly, she felt lonely more than anything else. It's hard to say yeah, I'm having goosebumps a little bit, but I think she probably felt lonely more than angry, more than sad, more than anything else.

Klara: 52:03

Yeah, and I think sometimes you truly get overwhelmed. Again, I haven't played that level of tennis, obviously, although I think there's sometimes similarities because some of the levels I've played it's kind of the same with, I think, businesses, whether you are small business or big business, I sometimes find that the problems are, in a big scheme, the same. They're just presenting itself bigger or smaller, but kind of the categories are in some way similar A lot of percent.

Klara: 52:33

And so I think when you're dare competing and you so want to win and you are so close and we all know how much he wanted to win, it kind of tightens you up to a point where the wanting is actually creating the opposite Instead of playing your best game. It kind of contracts you to the space and you're not able to be yourself. And when you get to that thing and you know you're not even playing up to your level that you want to perform, then you start almost being embarrassed for yourself. I was like, oh my God, everybody's watching the expectation that I so want.

Klara: 53:09

So it gets to this like mind spiral that is really hard to get out and it was interesting and sort of sad that clearly hasn't been able to play the game that she wanted to play and create that show that she wanted to create, obviously for herself as well as the fans. And so the harder you are on yourself you start judging yourself one day and after another, deeper you get into that negative spiral and tunnel. And I do think you the comparison you wrote and you mentioned in the rooms, in the boardrooms, I think it is very simple, because sometimes we can sit in even a big room of people. Everybody's looking at you and I have sense that the same. You still feel like you're alone and the area is very thick and trying to see what's coming next. How do you handle that? I'm mad.

Ahmed: 54:04

Can I throw back the question at you? I'm really curious, if you don't mind me asking how did you handle that spiral when you felt it, when you were playing important matches to you?

Klara: 54:16

Not well at the beginning. I think this is a really different mindset that you have to learn to develop. I think I talked about a little bit in episode one of the last one with Dan on transitions. I think what really helped me to figure out is to switch how do I thrive and try to go from stress to excitement, so you reframe it. You really got to create a bridge and reframe it from.

Klara: 54:44

This is terrifying and I really want to win. You got to try to erase all the thoughts of winning and just be present, feel the crowd and really focus on yourself, on your game, and try to get out of all expectations or judgments, which is so much easier to say than to do. But when I managed to do it, at least on that level that I have played, it elevated my game to the next level. So you literally reframe to. Not that this moment is stressful, but this is the moment where the leadership matters the most and this is where I thrive and you trust all the preparation you've put in. So this is where you show off all the hard work and effort that you had put in in the past months, years, etc. There's a switch almost that I had to create in my thought process internally that helped me transition to that thrive on the pressure instead of being tense and feeling alone from it.

Ahmed: 55:54

I couldn't have said it any better. I agree with everything you said and I agree also, or say it applies, to leadership. When you're making a decision, I think the nerves come and the feeling of loneliness comes from thinking too much about the outcome and, at the end of the day, as a test player, you have your body, including your mentality and brain, and the body, and you got your ball coming at you and that's all that matters and that point to point. And I think leadership the same. You have the information, you have the support and you have a decision to make and that's all you think about in the moment versus oh, what if I'm wrong? What happens if I'm wrong? That's where things spiral in the negative direction and I think, if I'm going to pick something else to talk about, it would be the Mamba mentality and the belief as well, because I think that's related. But before that, how crazy is it or how fascinating is it to you that Carlos Alcaraz can put a drop shot when he's down a match point or something?

Ahmed: 56:54

like what well of energy or confidence is he drive this from?

Klara: 56:59

This kid is just so talented and obviously not just talented physically you have to be to get to that level but from what I see he's a performer, because to be able to play such a big game so early on in his career at this age. I always feel like there's two types of people, which is the trainers and performers. I think the vast majority of us can put in the work and train hard, but there's just a very few percentage of people that are worn with this performing mindset to where you actually you put them in a game and that game elevates and they thrive on that pressure naturally is just the way their brain is wired. And I think that percentage is much, much, much smaller than the rest. And from my observation I feel he's that performer guy. He was just born in some ways with that talent because again being able to do what he does, especially in the important points, at this stage of his life, is just unbelievable. I mean that's the best way to put it.

Ahmed: 58:06

It is yeah, and I like how you characterize that. It's so true To me the peril that I draw into leadership as well, and I can't remember which part of the article I talked about that piece and that he decides that I know how to do a drop shot. Well, and it's almost like he doesn't think with it, I'm down and add to the other player or or is this a match point saver, match point when? Or the first point of the game? That's something else. Yeah, I know how to do a drop shot, I know what's the risk related to that and how to do it, and I'm just going to deploy it to where I think.

Ahmed: 58:40

I think it's that in management that's important too. I think is it's a matter of the results are on track or not on track. I think there's certain good management behaviors to be applied and leadership behaviors to be applied, and some of what drives big chefs and leadership to like maybe inspect more and things like that is because the leader is not inspecting enough. When things are well Right Like I try to remind myself with that all the time is there's a certain level of inspection that I employ or deploy with my team, and I try to do that regardless of whether things are going well or going tough. I think that was one of the things that I related to that I really liked about this game.

Klara: 59:23

I do want to go back on one of your comments that you mentioned good versus bad managers, and I'm curious if you look at your career, which one do you think shaped your management and leadership style the most? Was it actually the good leaders or the bad leaders that you had experienced?

Ahmed: 59:42

I was blessed of having a lot of good leaders, but I always keep an eye on as I said, I'm kind of a social butterfly a little bit at the companies I worked on. So I always have a lot of friends and colleagues and that I'm close to you know they can pull me in and ask me for my opinion on things in almost the whole organization. So I think you learned from both. As a team leader at some point when I started in Egypt, I don't think I did well and I learned from that. I learned certain things from that myself, but I think you learned from both and I'm a true believer that people leave managers, not companies. Anyone would enjoy working for good managers, but you do learn from both. In my opinion, that's the more constructive when you're working with the good leaders, because I think the challenge with management leaders is connecting the behaviors to outcomes so you can have, maybe, a team they don't have the best leader or manager, but they're doing well. How do you translate that? And that becomes very tough for an organization to translate right. Yes, I thought it was very interesting.

Ahmed: 1:00:47

When I got my first director job, there was an induction program in Verizon. That's when your circle of impact, the circle of influence, expands quite a bit, and the first leader that came in said I had my worst performance review when I achieved my biggest project in the company. Wow, exactly. We were like what are you talking about? What is he talking about? He's like I burned every bridge in the way, I pissed off so many people and I was not managing my team effectively and leading my team effectively.

Ahmed: 1:01:20

But we won, he's like, but I don't think it's a sustainable way of winning. So you're going to have these situations and you're going to see it. You're going to see people winning, but then the question of why they're winning and the question of are they going to win consistently becomes more important than the fact that they won in this look. So you know, it's easier said than done. So that's why it's a little more constructive and easier to learn from seeing good managers and being able to observe their behavior, what's working for their team and the empowerment of their team than learning from ones that are not as good. But there's something to learn either way. What do you think?

Klara: 1:02:01

I've been thinking about this quite a bit. Obviously, having great managers inspires you to see what the good habits are and which one I want to pick and sort of make mine, so put my own spin on them. I personally actually think that sometimes it's easier to know who you don't want to be than who you want to be, and so learning from the worst managers or leaders I have seen is like oh okay, I really don't want to do this and I don't want to behave like that, and living through of what I do not enjoy about that leadership helps me to figure out, well, what's the opposite of that and how can I serve be the opposite. So, weirdly enough, I have probably mostly learned from the bad management experience, because I just know how it feels and how it makes you feel if you work under a leader that you don't enjoy learning from, which is kind of ironic, but the hard times is probably a lot of what shaped me to try to be better.

Ahmed: 1:03:03

That's very interesting. I haven't thought about it this way. Thank you for sharing this. As I said, I started my management career quite early and as the middle manager you know the dynamics of the middle manager is when I think people don't talk enough about it's one of the toughest jobs to be a middle manager. But I love what you said. I think I agree with you. It's very true. Back to the point about outcome Sometimes bad managers that are achieving good things can make us question ourselves.

Ahmed: 1:03:33

I was talking to a friend recently. She's a female leader in another company and she's like she's telling me that she thinks one of the things that drives her approach is she thinks that she's not being taken seriously and people think that she's too soft. She tries to show a harder shell than herself. I said look, if you think that's working great, but also know that what's good in the leader changed big time over time.

Ahmed: 1:04:00

I don't remember starting in the early 2000s that much focus on empathy and vulnerability. Now every leader everywhere doesn't matter what's their gender or whether women or men. There's so much focus on empathy and vulnerability. Make sure you don't miss that train either, or don't over rotate too much. She'll tell me how everyone is where she works is there's so much that hard shell right and people are their quotes tough. You can be thick-skinned and tough in crisis and all those things, but you can also be vulnerable and you can be a great guy or grow to hang around, so there's no one right way to do it either. That's the other aspect of what I think.

Klara: 1:04:41

I agree. I can't wait too many thoughts on that feedback because, surprisingly, I've been on both sides many years. I've been coached, I'm too direct and I talk too much.

Ahmed: 1:04:53

That happens too.

Klara: 1:04:54

And then there's the opposite sign of the coin, where I've been told I'm not tough enough and I need to be harder, and so it depends who's delivering the feedback, what I find and also who's observing you, because everyone sees you in a different situation and so how you act in one setting might be different in the other, and so even being able to switch and step into different leadership styles based on the situation, which you also touched, based on the article I know we're running on time here, ahmed Anything else we want to touch base? Before last two closing questions, we talked quite a bit about changing management style, feeling alone how do you manage our nurse as leaders One of the other things I had here, the big changes versus small tweaks and the power of visualization. Anything else you want to mention before we end here?

Ahmed: 1:05:44

Maybe I'll close with the last one, because personally, the concept of mamba mentality and that's a whole separate read right Kobe Bryant's mamba mentality I think that is a concept that I was against early on and it grew on me over time. So maybe highlight that one where I was in a meeting with one of my partners I deal with and someone said higher up leaders said to the leadership team they're hey, we got to believe in our strategy and our winning plan and we want to work with the team to believe. And there was a panelist. I told them why do we have to bring dog mind to everything? And what are you talking about when you say believe? And that sparked an interesting conversation and I was I'm thinking, yeah, I was there too. There was a time where, like I believe in data and I believe in what I know, that I'm going to act based on that, on that set.

Ahmed: 1:06:40

Over time, I realized, and as I grew in the company as well, started managing bigger teams working on bigger projects that are multidisciplinary in nature. You're not going to have access to all the data and even when you're working with your team, you're not implementing your own strategy and your own thoughts. Others are implementing it. You're never going to have enough inspection or information to tell you that what the corporate strategy if you're working a bigger company corporate strategy is sound or not right Like. You're not going to have all the answers, but what you have is whether you how do you understand how it translates to what you're doing in your shop and a gauge of the level of trust, of the culture that you have in the company and the level of trust you have of your peer organizations and people.

Ahmed: 1:07:29

Do you feel like the team has the winning mindset? Do you feel like they are kind and really care for each other? And if they do, then we have a decision to make to believe and visualize that what you think will happen will happen. And then more and more athletes are talking about that. Right, they're saying this is what wakes us up in the morning. This is why we train so hard. We don't train because we want to score a goal. We want to win the whole championship, and there's so many variables that we're playing to that. But this is how we train our mind as well as we know how to train our bodies. So that's an important concept that I invite everyone to look into more.

Klara: 1:08:07

And last two closing questions. There's lots going on in the world now. I hope everybody's stepping up their leadership style, and this conversation inspired them to do that. But what would you want to inspire people to be doing more or less?

Ahmed: 1:08:21

I think we talked about all of it. I'll highlight three things Be curious, be empathetic to the people around you and to yourself, and visualize the outcomes and use the mobile mentality we talked about.

Klara: 1:08:37

And how can people reach you? Anybody who wants to connect, network or just learn more about some of the tips you've shared on the podcast.

Ahmed: 1:08:45

Thank you for asking that question. I'm quite active on LinkedIn, so anyone can reach out to me on LinkedIn and I know you're going to link the profile. Thank you for doing that too, and thank you for the opportunity card. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. I'm glad that we got to spend more time here and talk with each other. I really, really enjoyed it.

Klara: 1:09:05

It was great learning more about your journey and your leadership style. I hope there's more leaders learning from this conversation and stepping up their leadership. If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please do two things. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcasting platform that you used to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. Thank you for listening.

: 1:10:00

To my personality, observing every detail and technicality. One man, army, strong individuality, obsessed with greatness, pursuing it emphatically. I watched Kobe on the court 24 years. Then I heard the news and shared 24 tears. People say they want to be great but they ain't willing to make the sacrifices necessary. They be chilling. It's gonna take up so much time, so much dedication. You're gonna miss some club nights and some celebrations. They gonna think you crazy and you might be probably the mind, but mentality ain't for everybody.

: 1:10:36

And that was the most important thing for me is to leave no stone unturned, get better every single day, and if I lived that way, then over time I'd have something else.

: 1:11:16

My ability. That's your soul intention. It's not about seeking out knowledge. It's about the process and how you conquer it. I'm on the mission. I'm trying to dominate my demons. I beat the eyes, though the playing field wasn't even a lot of inspiration. Kobe said to me glad I got to meet him and tell him how much he meant to me. Trying to be the best came to not a pressure, but you never feel the pressure. You apply the pressure and even when you're hurting, you never complain. That's what it takes to be a mind. But in this game, black Mamba. Kobe, what a monster. No, giant Brian.

: 1:12:17

Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant, their brother, fallen soldier, we respect your legacy.