Graduate Theory

Adam Geha | On Time Management and Leadership

March 08, 2022 James Fricker Episode 20
Graduate Theory
Adam Geha | On Time Management and Leadership
Show Notes Transcript

Adam Geha is CEO and co-founder of EG, a data-driven investment manager and developer with over AU$4.3 billion in assets under management and a $3.9 billion development pipeline.

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Adam:

it seems to be a, a glitch in the human. That it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overconfidence

James:

hello, and welcome to graduate theory. Today's guest has over 25 years of experience in the investment management industry. He's a CEO and co-founder of EEG, a data driven investment manager and developer with over$4.3 billion of assets under management. And at 3.9 billion development pipeline. He's a thought leader and a philosopher at heart. Please. Welcome Adam.

Adam:

Thank you, James. Very nice to be with

James:

you. Thanks, Matt. It's great to have you on the show today, and I want to start by asking you things to do with your time management. It's obviously a big focus for leaders today, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts. How important do you think time management is for leaders in 2022? I

Adam:

think time management is always important. I think it was important since. Adam was a young boy, and that's not speaking of me. That's going back to China. And and I think that any leader worth their salt in any era I dare say it was true for Kings in medieval times knows this very basic truth. We all have 24 hours in a day. It doesn't matter how rich we are, how powerful. How experienced we are. We still only have 24 hours in a day. And when you, if you're sensible, a big chunk of that is sleep. So what remains typically 16 hours is the lot that we all are given each. To perform all of the important tasks of the day and that not only includes of course your business life, because that's just one aspect. It's also needs to go to personal care and exercise. It goes to leisure and it goes to relationships most important of which is family. So if you are not interested in the question of how to extract maximum impact from the re from those 16 waking up. In my view, you are not thinking straight and you're frankly, you're not even on the field. As in terms of a high-performance.

James:

Yeah. It's really interesting to hear like how, yeah. How important you place, time management. Certainly it's, you know, it's really an all encompassing thing. I'm curious to hear, you know, You know, how do you go about managing your time? Is there any like structures or practices that you have in place to help manage your time more efficiently?

Adam:

Yes, we all do. Or every high-performing person has thought deeply about time management and has developed certain routines that are adapted to their personality and needs. So the first law is that nothing is, you know, Human beings are unique. We have idiosyncrasies, we've got temperaments that are different. And we have preferences that are different. So some people are morning people, some people are night people. So I'll just give you a smattering of things that work for me. And then hopefully it's a smorgasbord for your readers to trial. The first thing is reveal a routine routine is your friend. I used to think of routine as that's what the boring. Um, You know, I don't want to be routined. I'm a creative person. I'm an inventor, I'm an entrepreneur. So some days I'll stay up late. Some days I'll go to sleep early. Some days I'll brush my teeth in the morning. Sometimes I'll brush my teeth at night. Some days I'll exercise in the morning. Some days I won't exercise at all. Sometimes I'll exercise at night, turns out this type of. Creativity is actually not creativity at all. It leads to a less productive life and it is less creative. I'll come back to how it is less creative shortly, but it's certainly less productive because you're using Ram every day to invent a new routine. And so what happens is you're having to use more brain power. To achieve the tasks of the day, which leaves you with less Ram to use for the unique problems of the day. So if you know, you've got tasks that are routine, you should have routines to deal with the routine tasks so that they don't use rant because you are going to get problems and tasks than a non-routine for which you need to consume genuine ramp. So I know of highly successful people, for example, who reverse park their car so that it saves them time in the morning when they're getting out. So that, that I need to reverse out. I, I, for example, standardized what I wear. So I have 10 H shirts, 10 EG jackets, so that they're always washed ready and just put a jeans on. I wear, I've got two pairs of the same shoe. So I'm never having to look for repair. And so I literally get ready in three minutes. Once I'm showered. I always showered the same time. I always brush my teeth in the shower. I've always shower. I always shave just before I go into the shower. So there are routines designed to save me time. The same is true of my exercise routine. Same is true of my gratitudes. I always do. I always recite five or six things that I'm grateful for when I turned the tap on in the morning shower. So I've anchored my mind. The minute I turned the tap on, I start reciting the things that I'm grateful for. So my day is full of these anchors and routines designed to free up my time for the non-routine tasks. I've found that I've become more creative. By eliminating Ram being used for routine tasks. So if you are recreative, I'm here to tell you my experiences routine is your friends. By doing routine in a routine way, routine tasks performed in a routine way. You actually liberate your mind for the higher functions of creativity. So that's just one aspect. Another little tip would be I've learned that don't default to one hour meeting. When people approach me say on LinkedIn, they want to have a coffee with me. I typically default to 30 minutes or 45, depending on the person's profile. Because it's a meet and greet. I don't want to spend an hour meeting and reading somebody meeting and greeting typically takes me half an hour. And if the person and I can. There's always the prospect for me to do another meeting. I think we're lazy and the way we set meetings with default way too often to one hour meetings, we should think typically more half an hour to 45 minutes. You find that very little is lost between an hour and 45. And between an hour and 30 minutes, the bit that's lost. The bond homie there, the wrap party, the introduct, the, this is soft stuff. So where I find that I don't want to lose that, but if I'm meeting with somebody that's well-known to me, I don't have to have that preamble. I can go straight into the work that needs to be done and apologize for the fact that my, my busy schedule does not permit more time. And I still try and squeeze in five minutes at the end, which is more of a personal. Nature. Yeah, just a couple of tips. There's literally a score of these. And you, you, you can, we could be talking for an hour just on time management. It's that important?

James:

Yeah, certainly. Yeah. What aspects of time management do you think people under, like you have a great example there, you know, the routine. Unless you're doing something that you, you know, you know, you need to set yourself up well for that. So you can focus your time and energy on the things that aren't routine. But are there any other things that you think are undervalued or, or people sort of don't take,

Adam:

I suppose the books aren't written in that there are books written about time management and some of them are indeed excellent. The area that I think probably people don't talk about enough is Getting appropriate support for your three-year executive assistant or assistance. So, I've got a full-time dedicated executive assistant. Oftentimes there are pressures on her to be shared. I resist because I need her to be very focused on me to help liberate my time. And I think that's a really good bang for the buck for the business, given the. You know, my time is my hourly rights is, is, is very high. So using that wisely for the business is, is a top priority for the business. So I get it to help me with personal stuff, because if I spend time during the business day working on. You know, my, my daughter, my, my, the camp that I'm doing with my daughter through her school, I could do that. But if I delegate it, that's better for the business. So I don't have any reservations about using an executive assistant to liberate my time during business hours on personal stuff. Cause I think it's off direct benefit to the business. She also reads all my emails before I read them. So my inbox, I don't reach. She takes about 10% of it and puts it into what's called the important emails. And I tell all my staff, if you have, if you're writing an email and my name does not appear at the front of the email, or you have a specific action item for me, I'm not reading the. You're just say, seeing me for comfort and I don't have time to kind of be checking on what your work is and whether you're doing it well, you know, your authority, you know, your limits in terms of what you can do without referring back to me. And if it's not urgent, you have a meeting with me weekly, raise it, then don't write me an email. I'm not interested in background. So I just say, if I'm being CC'd, I'm not reading. You have to specifically ask for an action item. For me, that happens. It goes into my important emails. If I feel that that should not have been an email, it should have been raised in a meeting I'll just politely and gently remind you to have brought me emails that I'd have time to read them. If this can wait for the weekly meeting, batch your questions and ask them to meet at the weekly meeting. So there's some things that I think are important. I think emails are a distraction. I encourage people to communicate with me through WhatsApp. And the reason for that is they then become briefer. They, they WhatsApp because of the size of the text box. It subliminally encourages you to chunk your thoughts into sentences. That are short and sharp. And then I can literally respond to each component of your thoughts by, by responding to each sentence separately. And so I tell people unless you've got like a really detailed memo, in which case I think you should present it to me at a meeting where I can ask your questions. You should just send me text messages through WhatsApp. That's all I'm interested. Yeah. So unfortunately email encourages people to write three pages, two pages. I don't have the time to read two pages. So I say do that with the rest of the people who like reading emails. That's not my gig.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I mean, for me, I'm picking up a lot of things that even just like your really strong boundaries around your time, like, there's a really, like, something's got to be quite valuable to sort of get, get through the barrier, you know, get through that boundary. And I think that's, that's really important

Adam:

yeah, it's not rude by the way, to police your time. It's important to let your listeners know that it's not rude to police the boundaries of your time. It's actually an act of kindness to them and to you and to the. It's just, don't be gruff or rude about doing it. I'd tried to be always soft and delivery, but hard on content. And the, the point that I would make on policing your time is if people don't get the sense that your time is super valuable commodity, then you're sending the wrong signal to the world. They should immediately feel that when they're handling your time, they're handling something super valuable. So, when a meeting ends early, if the content is early, I go, are we finished? Okay. So can I now leave just because it's a half an hour meeting, if we've done it in 15 minutes. Fantastic. If I can hop out 15 minutes early and make a couple of phone calls when my wife calls me, I almost always answer. Or tell her that I'll call her shortly back, but I'll let her know I'm in a meeting. Is it important and show she'd? My wife during business hours never has a relaxed conversation with me because I'm sending her the signal that I'm on the field. I'm in the world cup. I'm playing. I don't have time for distractions. So if it's important, tell me what it is. If it's not, let's wait until after the game, when I've got the Headspace nuts with my wife. So, you know, but I will, I'll always take a call from my mom cause she calls me very irregularly and I worry about whether it's she needs my. Well, she's in a, in a, in a a bad spot. So, yeah, you know, you, you do need to take certain calls, but you need to be you need to be very clear with everyone who treats with your time that they're dealing with a valuable commodity.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's a great pace for your boss. And I certainly, I liked how you use saying that kind of. You know, reflect psych your, how you value your time, you know, and how you let other people respect your time. And thinking into intertwines, I think is really, really powerful. I was rating race in my I was going through your LinkedIn and looking at all the wonderful places you have. And one of them was around you saying how the universe is a fractal and how like, you know, looking at one day is kind of almost looking at your whole year, looking at your whole life. And you know, I thought that was really profound and I, I can link this in the show notes so people can go and rate it. Cause I thought it was really fascinating. But like, what was your inspiration? You know, does this, do you remember this poster? Yeah, like what's the sort of inspiration. I wonder if you can kind

Adam:

of, I can guess of course I can. Okay. So I'm mystically inclined. So I'm very interested in transcendental meditation. The union that one gets in deeper realization that we are part of something far greater. I very much feel that my life is part of a broader tapestry. Human evolution as a species towards a higher consciousness. So I see myself as part of a great adventure of raising human consciousness to a level where it feels centeredness in a peace compassion, and non-judgment so from that context of often. Very fascinated with Eastern mysticism, which has lots of repetitive patterns in the way. For example, the thousand petaled Lotus is fractal. It's, it's a vision you get in deep meditation and it's signifies a feeling of union with the greater a stream of consciousness, which is the, the manifested creation. So I'm an admirer of trees. I'm an admirer rough cloud. And I take lots and lots of photos of trees and clouds that are Epiphanes for me. Especially when I'm exercising in the morning, I'm cycling. I'll pause. If I see a beautiful pattern of clouds or a beautiful tree I'll, I'll take detailed photos, both clouds entries on fractal. They are a symbol of how the universe is constructed and from the little. Comes the big, it is the pattern of the universe. And it is absolutely the case that if you live your day disciplines in thought and action. So too, will you be your year? So two will be your your life. And so be always faithful with the little, because from the little comes, the big.

James:

Yeah, well than that's really profound. I think Greg great advice there. I think certainly I want to ask again, you know, this idea of your time management, you know, you've probably, you know, you've been talking about the executive assistant and that's perhaps something that's only really come into your life, perhaps in the last, you know, recent period. I'm curious to how you. Time management has kind of changed over time because often, you know, some people might not have that or like, you know, I'm curious to, you know, how yeah. How, yeah. How, like, how that's changed for you. Like

Adam:

very much the changes as you get. So as you get older and more senior and with greater responsibilities. So just to give you an idea with. Um, managing, um, eight companies in some capacity. And and, and I've got two investments on personal account that involve that are companies and and three charitable foundations that I'm involved in. So there's 13 organizations that I make a meaningful contribution to at a strategic level. And there's a couple that I make a meaningful contribution to on an operation. So I'm always busy now. I don't have the luxury of not thinking about one of those 13 things when I've got a spare moment. Cause I know I can add value. It's really interesting life. But, but I need to obviously learn how to put boundaries on it so that my wife and my children also get access to me and vice versa. But to, to mention definitely your, your attitude towards time, you Revere time more as you get more senior. So I would love to be able to say to your young listeners, treat time. As though it is super precious while you're 23, because you will most certainly treat it a super precious when you're my age and you're 50. So why not commence that practice, knowing that it will become a, a reality of your life. Bring it early, make it a part of your life today. And you will get so much more. I just wish I had the disciplines that I have now when I was 23. And by the way, I've had a PA an EA that's been fully dedicated to me for about 10 years. She's in Manila. So it costs me a fraction of what. To hire an Australian executive assistant. I can actually afford to have two or three in Manila. And indeed I might well go down the path of getting a second executive assistant. Once I feel that the workload for the first is maxed out and it's every bit worth the investment. As soon as you can afford an executive assistant, whether it's paid for by your business or not, you should actually invest in that because that person's going to enable. To, to perform. I'm able literally to do two or three times the output of what my F my 35 year old self used to be able to do. And what's that worth millions of

James:

dollars. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. I don't know. That's a great point too, because yeah. I didn't even think of doing that. Like having someone that's international you know, take care of that side. Yeah, because

Adam:

fortunately for Australians th th the we can hire at a fraction of the cost overseas, and there's lots of jurisdictions of the Philippines because of time sign and cultural and English speaking skill. Faith is amazing. She's my EA. Her English speaking skills are better than some of the Australian stuff that we've got. She's absolutely fluent. She's got a beautiful speaking voice. So when she calls our clients to set up meetings, I'm always nice. She represents the brand in a very professional way, and she has a very beautiful nature and demeanor. She's highly intelligent and a very capable support for me.

James:

Yeah, and that's great. And it's great to see how much value that someone like that can provide and you like working together, you're able to achieve so much more. It's really exciting.

Adam:

Yeah. It's actually, you know, one, one of the most important people in my life, actually.

James:

Yeah. Yeah, well, I, I wanna like talk about now, you know, a bit more of the leadership side of things. Cause I know this is something you're really passionate about is leadership and the young ladies as well. You know what, I, I know you've said you've mentors and people you know, that are sort of up and coming leaders. I mean, what kind of advice and tips do you often give to people that are sort of starting out on that leadership journey? Is it. You know, similar things that you often share with those kinds of people that's you know, you know, is there any similarities?

Adam:

I mean, I, I think you're right the same. If you look, if you look at I think LinkedIn under the store six months worth of my posts, I, I started more or less a year ago to do two or three posts a week. I'm now re every week, I'll do three posts Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If you were to look at the content about 70 to 80% of it is on the. And so I've got, I've got in the hundreds of messages in terms of what I believe leadership is about. If you asked me what is near and dear to my heart, to broadcast, to to an audience. I would say that I'm the most. The thing that's nearest and dearest to my heart is that corporate Australia. And I think this is true of Western economies generally promote people into leadership based on public speaking and and their ego, their level of outward confidence. Th we, we seem, it seems to be a, a glitch in the human. That it confuses leadership for public speaking ability and, and overconfidence. This is a great lament for me because over and over again, I hear about leaders who are very confident, great public speakers, but self. And self-centeredness is a disqualifier for leadership. Leadership is not management. Management is about how to extract efficiencies from resources. I think it applies well to innate in, objects. So it's applied. You know well to inventory, to, to to resources that are dug out of the ground. But it does not apply one. Shouldn't manage people. One should lead people. And the reason you lead people is because they are living and and, and they are Functioning at a level of consciousness that should not be confused with an object, but I've got human beings have feelings. They have dreams, they have aspirations and they need to be handled with wisdom and care. And and sadly, if you're self-centered you treat them as a regional. You treat them as a cog in your machine? No human being as a cog in your machine. Emmanuel Kant, a philosopher German idealist philosopher in the 19th century had a categorical imperative that said that people. Not a means to an end. They are an end in themselves. And that's one of his ethical principles. When you treat human beings, as a means to an end, you are treating them as a cog in a wheel. You're treating them as an object. You are treating them as subservient to your dream. You could commit a category error, and therefore you are committing an unethical. You are not a leader. You can only be a leader. If you treat human beings as an end in themselves, they've got their own dreams. They've got their own aspirations and they need to, you need to manage, you need to lead them by aligning the problem you want to solve with the dream. They want to attain that's leadership. How, how to align the people that are working with you, align their dreams with the problem you're trying to solve. It's a spiritual vocation. It cannot, you cannot turn it into like a mathematical equation designed to maximize efficiency. That's a tool, but leadership in the end is spiritual.

James:

Yeah. Wow. That's what I think that's really profound. Definitely. Yeah. I liked that a lot. What is some advice then? Like, I don't know if you're across like leadership advice generally. Is there any leadership advice that you say that is like, okay, that's not good leadership advice, you know, I'm like, I can't understand why people are being told this, you know, that they shouldn't be told that it should be something else. Is there any bad advice that, that you've heard that you think is.

Adam:

I don't tend to focus on advice that I disagree with. I, I live my life by promulgating, what I believe in, I don't think it's helpful to criticize other people's work because it just simply draws out a defensive posture and and, and quite often, People will say you've misunderstood me. What I really meant was this and so on. So my attitude is not to focus on bad advice. The one area I would say is steer away from anyone who confuses ego. And public speaking ability. It was leadership. It's just it's a category error. You're making a you're, you're confusing, the skilled public speaking and a temperament confidence. Yes. Good leaders are confident, but they don't have to be overtly confident. They don't have, certainly don't need to have a loud ego that can have a very quiet confidence. But certainly leaders need to be confident because if they're insecure, They'll project their insecurities onto their onto their team. Yeah.

James:

Yeah. I think that's, that's fascinating. Definitely. And how do you go, like you're a lady, a self, you know, you assigned, you're running all these companies and helping out in so many different ways. How do you go about leading and in creating that culture where, you know, High-performing striving for things that are, you know, like you said, matching their own interests with the interests of the business. Are there, I know it's quite broad, but are there any things that you, you know, any like principles that you turn to, or is there any like things that. Use in that process. Of

Adam:

course. I mean, I mean, culture building is an essential function of leadership and culture is real and culture is very impactful and culture can be defined not only what we do around here, not only how we do it, but also why we do it this way. And so once you get the, what, the, how and the why and there are absorbed at a subconscious level. It's extremely powerful guide to behavior. And over time, people actually change in the direction of the culture in which they live. Day-to-day so never underestimate the power of culture. It's a hugely important behavioral guide and it's It's very much is the Supreme function and responsibility of a leader to lead the culture. There are many things that we do on a cultural level. It's worthy of a separate interview. We've got about 25 different policies. We've experimented with about 50 of them. We're constantly innovating on culture. How do we send the message to people that we want them to be ambitious? And we also want them to be. And that means we need them to have a gross mindset. We need them to give a damn, we need them to honor their word. We need them to take risks. We need them to give back. We need them to value relationships. And how do we instill those values is a very creative endeavor. I'm forever coming up with new ideas. And we were constantly innovating in that regard, whether it be paid sabbaticals. We've got, you know, milestone celebrations where we take the whole team with us overseas for 10 days. We've got poppy program, you know, D you know, connected to additional annual leave. We make the hobby program alternate between sporting and cultural. We paid for 70% of the hobby. We encourage. To do it with a work colleague. If you do it with a work colleague will pay for a hundred percent of it. If you we, we also encourage you to do your hobby with your family and we'd pay a full 70% of that. So we're, we're forever looking for ways to engage our staff. In life and living the inspired life, not just being a high performer at work, but we also invest in training sessions. We've actually got one coming up on the art of extraordinary confidence. It's a book that I recommend to people I mentor. And we're doing a workshop around that. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, culture is, it's the stuff of leadership.

James:

Yeah, that's amazing. I'm curious, you've mentioned that you have a book that you recommend to people. What, are there any, what kinds of things do you recommend to people that you mentor? Is there any,

Adam:

there's a whole battery of them. And it depends on what is the, you know, the main tasks. So if you want to be good at mentoring, you have to listen deeply to what does that person need at that particular time? And it's a bit like a chess game. So the next move depends on where all the pieces are. So the first task is to find out where all the pieces are and then find out where that person's got a bottleneck and, and that's where their focus what's where their reading and podcasting should be focused on liberating. The bottleneck that they're currently experiencing, because all you've got to do is get the next move. Right? The next move. Yeah, but to give you an example, I mean, like for people who are interested in spiritual thoughts, I often will recommend the way of the peaceful warrior and the soliciting prophecy, which helps you understand the world energetically. If, for people who are wanting to pluck the courage to start the art, the war of art for for people who are looking to develop self-esteem, self-worth confidence, the art of extraordinary confidence is a great book. And there are many others, but are just for those who are interested in leading teams, the five dysfunctions of a team is an excellent book. It's actually the cultural Bible of, of H E

James:

yeah. Yeah, the festival to go, Dan, I think some of those resources will be really helpful for myself and for the audience. I wanna like take a step back now into like what you were like when you were a bit younger, perhaps in your twenties. And I want to ask you, you know, did you have any like transformational experiences during that period or perhaps, maybe there were some, some failures in that period that, you know, worked out well and turned out to be things that were really quite valuable for yourself. Is there anything that comes to.

Adam:

Yeah, of course, a lot. I mean, I would say that in my twenties I already knew that I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, so that always helps. I often say what made Madonna and Tom cruise successful? When I look at them even when I was 20, I used to say this the reason why they're successful is because they knew at an early age. Who they wanted to be and what they wanted to achieve. And when you get that clarity of vision about your life, the world bends in the direction of your vision, the clearer it is, the more certain it is, the more the world bends in your direction. So that's the first thing in terms of early experiences like this two that spring to mind the first day. I had a mystical experience when I was in my twenties. I, when I met my wife, I, I literally felt there was a hand pushing me towards her and insisting that I introduced myself to her. I basically, for the first time in my life, I walked up to her not knowing her and. Introduce myself cold. And this was her just exiting law school and I accosted her and I just never, I've never done that before. I've never done it since. It was a totally new experience to me. I felt I was being commanded to do it. And as a result of that, I've been extremely open to the idea that. Much in the unseen world. And that is real. And that, that should inform a wise and inspirational life. So I've always made sure to feed my spiritual self as well as my business mind and my physical body and my emotional self, et cetera. I feel like there's a dimension that's spiritual that needs to be nurtured, separate. And will and should be given command of all other aspects of your life, because it is actually the wisest part of you. So I would say that's a Seminole experience. Separately, I suffered from chronic fatigue at the age of about 21. I was doing my honors year in, in economics. And that basically told me two things. One is that. I felt like my spirit was taking deliberately wanting me to take time out, to reflect on the meaning of the life that I wanted to live. So it was giving me the time to reflect. Secondly it was emphasizing to me the importance of physical routine and, and friendship, because I had become a bit disconnected from my friends that moved. To the next academic year, I stayed behind with a small group of people doing honors. And so I became a little bit disconnected from my social network and I was, I felt out of rhythm with my exercise. So as a result, my body sent me the signal, all this not well, but I also felt it had spiritual import as well. So for me, I'm a student of. So I look for whenever I see a pattern I look for what is the cause of the pattern and what do I learn from the course? How can I then now use this knowledge to create a more positive. Hmm, it's fractal.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. I'm loving that thread, the CSMs to character, a lot of what you do, the philosophy and the fractals and, and these kinds of things. I think it's, it's quite a unique, and it's really fascinating to hear how that really impacts him affects a lot of the decisions or things that you do. Yeah, very cool. I want to ask you, you know, I've got two more questions for you. One is. What has been like, what would you say has been your most worthwhile investment of time or money and perhaps it's a course you did, or perhaps it's a job that you had or a book that you've read, or maybe it's an experience that you have?

Adam:

In my late teens, I became deeply interested in mysticism. I re I read the Bible for the first time. From scratch the, the, the four gospels. And if you do that with a sincere heart, you encounter a real person called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, whatever you may think of him was an extraordinary human being and a great leader. He was bold. He was a great communicator, amazing communicator. He was decisive. He was purposefully. And I think because I got acquainted with him and was inspired by him, I would say that is probably the most significant investment of time that I've made in any particular task or book. Because it's foundational. And to this day I draw inspiration from his life and his behavior and his mission and his principles. And I think it's really important whether it's Christ or someone else. I mean, I'm also very deeply inspired by my HUD by Ganti. His, his he's my hero of the 20th century followed closely by Nelson Mandela and Einstein. They're three amazing people. And I read biographies, autobiographies. I read quotations from their journals. I'm constantly looking to learn from them because I think they're amazing human beings.

James:

Yeah, that's really cool. Definitely. I think like, you know, people like that, that you know, have done amazing things are really worth investigating further.

Adam:

Yeah. And not also recommend to go for your listeners if they haven't watched it. Watch the 1981 Mo movie at one an Oscar for best film called Ghana. So Ben Kingsley is act scanty and he's so good in that role that you literally forget that he's an actor and you, you literally start feeling it's Gandy himself. And whenever I feel I'm a native inspiration, I watched that movie, the power of a person one individual with, with, with principles and, and a desire and, and, and the ticket sacrifice for the principal.

James:

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I'll have to give it a watch.

Adam:

Should watch it. It's an amazing movie. You need a couple hours. Okay.

James:

Sure. And I've got one last question for you Adam, just to finish off. And that is, you know, a lot of the listeners here are younger that they're perhaps starting their careers or in the first few years of that career. And I wonder if there's any advice. Or any lessons that you would, you know, even thinking back to your own experience at that time, any advice that you would give yourself if you in, in those in that position again?

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. I think dream, dream, big people that it takes just as much effort to achieve big, big goals as it does small ones. So might as well dream pig and, and make sure you. Believe in yourself. So I'm going to write a series of micro blogs on self-belief because it's becoming apparent to me that a number of people that are beginning on the entrepreneurial journey they, they just need to increase their self-belief and self-belief means no matter what happens, no matter what task or. Up to the task equal to an up to the task. This is a type of self-worth this type of self belief and is, is absolutely indispensable to success. And then I would just say, go out and find a mentor or two, you know, I have two or three at any given time. And I mentor about six or seven because I believe the world is a big circle. So you, when you're receiving, you need to give. And then the universe keeps giving you more and more mentors if you're mentoring others. And so I would definitely say you know, believe in yourself, dream big and surround yourself by one or two wise mentors. And go for walks in the park with them and put the problems of the week in front of them and ask them what they think you should do. And if you do that often enough, you'll gain a lot of.

James:

Yeah, I think that's great advice. Certainly. It's been fascinating chatting to you today, Adam uh, some uh, and value in he, I think for people around productivity, leadership and all those kinds of things we've discussed if someone is listening and I want to find out more about yourself and more about what you do, is it w where would you like people to go to find out more?

Adam:

My LinkedIn profile is the only place where I've played. About business in time, I will, I'll also set up a separate log on spirituality and philosophy because I think they are hugely valuable in guiding a human life. But I haven't begun that yet. It's a separate website that I'll set up. So my LinkedIn profile, Adam Gohari at each. And you can also find out a bit about EG by visiting the EG website, eg.com that I use. You'll find out a little bit about our thinking, which is building good thinking how to integrate philosophical principles into the very fabric of your business.

James:

Great. Thanks so much for sharing that with Austin. Thanks so much for your time.

Adam:

It's been a pleasure meeting you.