Exploring Coaching and Cultural Integration, with Mai Mahmoud

In this episode, the conversation centers on coaching within educational environments, emphasizing how coaching techniques align with and support both personal growth and community development. Our guest, Mai Mahmoud, shares her journey from initial skepticism to embracing coaching as a way of life, deeply integrated with her Islamic faith. The discussion explores the impact of cultural and linguistic context on the adoption of coaching practices and highlights the importance of listening, empowerment, and creating authentic relationships in educational settings.

00:00 Welcome to Inter Being

02:01 Introducing Our Guest: Mai Mahmoud

03:46 Mai's Journey into Coaching

07:39 The Impact of Coaching on Faith and Teaching

23:09 Creating a Coaching Culture in Schools

27:36 Reflections and Future Directions

39:48 Concluding Thoughts and Farewell

Mai Mahmoud is Head of Islamic and Social Studies in The British School Abu Dhabi. She holds a master’s degree in Teaching Methodology, and is passionate about nurturing young learners through faith-based education that emphasizes character, compassion, and connection. One of the most transformative experiences in her journey has been learning to coach, which helped her truly understand and respect the quality of listening — not just as a skill, but as a core value in human development. She blends her love of coaching deeply with Islamic principles that honor empathy, growth, and the dignity of every individual. Through her work,  she aims to create spaces where children feel spiritually grounded and inspired to live with purpose.

You can find us on Linkedin at

Matt Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hall-msb/

Naomi Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-ward-098a1535/

Interbeing is made by Making Stuff Better https://makingstuffbetter.com/ and produced by Emily Crosby Media https://emilycrosbymedia.com/ 

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

[00:00:00] Naomi Wood: Hello and welcome to series four of the MSB podcast and to our new name, inter being 

[00:00:13] Matt Hall: in our previous seasons, we've explored themes like belonging, organizational health, and the future of education. 

[00:00:19] Naomi Wood: This time, we are returning to the source of what we do. Coaching and how the values of coaching can support people in schools to look both inwards, reconnecting with their own humanity and outwards to cultivating generative relationships with care and curiosity.

[00:00:38] Matt Hall: You might be wondering about our new name. Inter being is a term coined by Zen Master Tick na Horn. It describes the deep interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is in relationship, constantly influencing and being influenced by everything else. 

[00:00:57] Naomi Wood: This thread of relationship of inter being colors, everything we're exploring this season, we are in conversation with voices we are drawn to in the world of coaching and with educators in international schools who are walking with us, reflecting on what's changing for them and the questions they're living into.

Now, 

[00:01:15] Matt Hall: we're not here to present coaching as the answer to everything. Instead, we want to have honest, open conversations about where coaching works, where it doesn't, and what possibilities lie ahead. 

[00:01:26] Naomi Wood: And this season is just the beginning. Inter being is also the name of our annual in-person gathering, a space to explore these themes more deeply face-to-face.

You can find more about that in the show notes. 

[00:01:40] Matt Hall: As always, we are guided by curiosity and by the aliveness of the unfolding conversation between us. We ask everyone the same first and last question, but what happens in between is shaped by the people in the room, including you. 

[00:01:54] Naomi Wood: So thank you for being here.

[00:01:55] Matt Hall: Welcome to Inter Being

looking forward to this conversation, Naomi, and I know you know our guest this week much better than I do. Tell me a little bit about who she is and how you came to know me. 

[00:02:10] Naomi Wood: So, Mai is one of the early students of one of our coach. Um, education programs. So may came into a prologue workshop, which as you'll hear happened by accident and she has a presence and a humor and kind of these powers of observation that.

Were really intriguing and she threw herself in to the process. Um, and as you'll hear, it didn't quite land until she made a connection, a personal connection with coaching. And that was three years ago. And since then, Mae has done more of our programs. She's just a. A real advocate and champion for what we do.

It's really important for May that we, um, appreciate the people who've been part of this journey with her. So I know she would want us to name Vicki Dewitt and our wonderful facilitators, Julie Reese and FD Katz for us who have. We've worked together, haven't we? And this is the name of our podcast is Into being.

We've been together in order to create these connections that enable these shifts, this transformation to happen. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

[00:03:36] Matt Hall: Yeah. We exist through our connection with others. Let's, let's go connect. 

[00:03:41] Naomi Wood: Hello and welcome to this new episode of Inter Being. And we are here with Mai Mahmoud

And it's wonderful to see you, and we would like to begin with this question which we offer everyone, which is simply for you, Mai, what does it mean to be human? 

[00:04:04] Mai Mahmoud: Hi everyone. First. Hi Matt. Nice to see you. And hi, Naomi. Nice to see you again. Uh, thank you for keeping me part of this amazing, uh, episode.

Hopefully we can have fun and understand many things today together. So, wow. A very strong, wonderful question at the start. So human for me, I'm, I'm going to talk. From my position, uh, as a Muslim woman, as a teacher, as a leader, as a mom, as a wife. So it's more about Arabic term that I'm going to use it and I'm going to explain it.

We call it class, and class here means to be sincere in everything we are doing. So it's about understanding why we are here. And the connection between me, my creator, and my position in this world being more positive, being more human, and understanding the connection between all different backgrounds, helping each other, and to discover by doing conversations between us as a people.

People, the capacity, the potential of the people and help them from what they have with what I have. This is very important thing that we usually miss it, even though as a teacher, like I have very high standard, very high expectations, and I feel that everyone should be on the same step, which is not true because we are different, and that's why we need go down to our students, them come up.

Standards that we're looking for. So for me, it's the balance between the actions, the doing, and the understanding. It's the connection between my mind, my heart, my values that I believe in, and the purpose of me as a human. Mm. So I believe that human, for me, is a huge word. It is something that I believe in it and it match my values, and it's something that I believe that we are here and we are going to be judged on it, how we are dealing with each other.

It's very important to understand that we are here.

The design of our world to have the balance between each other. So we cannot live by ourself on this word. It's impossible. Even though in the heavens we're not going to feel that we are living there by ourselves. We are communities. We are part of each other. We are joining to represent each other. The missing things in each other.

No one is perfect. No one is looking for the perfection, but we're looking how together we can live on a perfect world. So yeah, this is what I believe in.

[00:07:39] Matt Hall: Thank you. And I'm, I'm curious to hear more about how coaching has. Helped you develop that understanding, or not, perhaps not, but the, the role that coaching has played for you personally. 

[00:07:53] Mai Mahmoud: Okay. Can I start by the story of, uh, how I understand about coaching from the beginning? 

[00:07:59] Matt Hall: Please do. Yeah. Let's, let's get clear on what it is.

[00:08:03] Mai Mahmoud: Yeah. It was really super funny for me because I'm super kiss person. I like to be in everywhere. To learn everything around me, even though I'm not good in it. But in our school, whenever there is any kind of workshop, you'll find me the first one, even though I dunno it, but I'm be there. So it was an 

[00:08:25] Naomi Wood: accident is what you're saying.

[00:08:30] Mai Mahmoud: So, uh. The one who uh, and really I'm sending a big hi for Vicky from here. She was the one that she prepared the workshops about the coaching at the beginning. So I put my name there and I attend the workshop, and this was the first time ever I hear about coaching.

How can this mix? Like, it was something weird for me at the beginning. Uh, so I, I finished the workshop. I feel happy, extremely happy, but after the workshop, really I didn't care to know anything more about coaching. So it was a workshop. It was fun. Thank you so much. And that's it. And after a couple of days, um, on my office at the end of the day, and our days are usually busy, I found a gift.

On my table. So I was like, wow, someone finally remember me and share a gift for me. So I opened the gift and I saw a book. I'm not good, good reader at all. Like I'm not the best. It's not one of my best habits to read, to be honest. So I was like a book. Uh, okay. So I find a note from Vicki that this book is for you.

And when I opened the book, it was, the name of the book is Coaching in Islamic Culture. So it was super weird for me, like coaching and Islamic, how come it mixed I, I felt that coaching is something like for wasting time, more for lecture life people who has nothing to do, they're only talking. So how come this mix comes between coaching?

So I start reading the book even though again, I'm repeating. I'm not good reader. I'm not the one that like to read. And really this was the real starting for me to understand what's coaching and how it matched my values. It is part of my religion. It is part of what should I be as a person. So it was really something to be, to keep me super surprised about it at that time.

And the book was amazing. The introduction was great. You know when you read the first book and you, you couldn't stop reading. You want to go and move more and more like someone who is very thirsty and he find water, nice water that he would like to drink more from it. Exactly. This book was for me. So the book was the starter for understanding what's coaching for me, how it really have the same boundaries, have the same roots for what I believe it's mentioned there.

Clearly in the Koran, it's mentioned there clearly in the words of our prophet. So I felt that it is more about what should I be as a person. So coaching from that time, it was the way to grow, to be more mature about my religion, my culture, my understanding of my rules, how to link between the past, between the text, between the present, the future, how it'll impact me, my students, my.

It was great to understand that coaching is not like techniques about questions and how to show off that I know how to understand people here. No, it is a way of life. That's a beautiful 

[00:12:24] Naomi Wood: gift that someone put on your, your desk that day. Yeah. And I'm hearing these sort of two themes. There are so many, but there's one sort of about alignment in all these directions and another about sort of deepening your being in the world Yeah.

Versus any kind of doing to someone else. And, and I wonder if there are any examples here about where this. Book and, and I think of the word earth shed is, is that, is that word in the book? Yeah. And the connection with coaching. Where do these two, is there an example you can offer us of where these two things come together?

[00:13:11] Mai Mahmoud: Okay. Another amazing, strong question. Now we thank you. So

Okay. Yeah. Anytime. Okay. So yeah, to be honest. The focusing points in the book was about listening and how part of our religion is to respect listening, because by focusing on listening, it'll help you to understand and show respect for people. Okay, I thought, I thought I was a good listener, I thought, but.

When I start reading more about listening more, I start coding myself how I was very bad listener at the beginning, and this has happened in my department. I start coaching around three years ago from now. So at the beginning when I start listening to people, I was there present. I was listening.

Different reason for the listening. I was listening because I wanna prepare the answers in my mind, so I would be perfect person. Anyone will come and ask me on the spot. I have the answer. I'm the super woman here. The second thing, to prepare a defending plan. From what they're defend myself or whatever.

After few workshop about IC way, listen and the real way of listening and line together, I start understanding that when you are listening for someone, you are not listening for yourself. As a human, which is very important. You're listening to show them that they can find the solution. It's not about you anymore.

They're not coming talk to you to give them answers or to, to start, how can I say, to start destroying the trust that they're trying to build. When they're coming to talk to you, they're trusting you. They're trusting you. So it's, you're not there to pick up facts, to defend yourself or your team or whatever.

You're, you're there to be present. So whenever they look to your eyes, they can see the reflection of themselves there, not yourself. Stop being nosy. Put your nose in everything. It's not about you anymore.

[00:16:17] Naomi Wood: That's a beautiful description of listening. You, you meet someone and you see yourself in their eyes. 

[00:16:23] Mai Mahmoud: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:24] Naomi Wood: Exactly. 

[00:16:25] Mai Mahmoud: They, they want to speak people. When they come to you, they want to speak, they want the space. If we can say. They wanna see the, they want to see their own reflection, not your reflection.

And this was very important point, shifting point in my attitude, like, Hey, I'm Islamic teacher. I know I'm there. I'm trying to follow the rules. I'm trying to be a good Muslim, but to understand is the point. I stopped and I start reading again. The texts, I start reading again, what I believe in, in a proper way.

In the right way, not in my way, not what I wanna understand. Whenever people feel that they're properly, wow, you cannot, you cannot imagine the turning point and the positivity that they're gonna be. And as I said from the beginning. In my beliefs, positivity is the reason why you are here. Yeah, I think so.

It, it helped me a lot. 

[00:17:45] Matt Hall: It sounds, the way you're describing it, that it's changed your relationship with your faith Somewhat. 

[00:17:54] Mai Mahmoud: Yeah. I'm not going to say changing. Because of course, I believe with, with the same, but I'm gonna say that it helped me to understand the purpose of what I believe in. So I believe that I need to be positive.

Perfect. This is something great, but how to be positive, how to reflect positivity in your daily life. It's talking about being positive. It's about being positive. So it's a huge difference here, I believe, to be honest, it's great, but how to be honest, sometimes we feel we are honest, but in situations we cannot reflect dishonesty.

So again. How to do the actions that you believe in. Maybe I can reframe it in this way. Mm-hmm. The beliefs are roots. I'll never change my roots, but it's about how to reflect what you believe in. And still, I'm a beginner in this. Maybe I'm in the first chapter in this to be honest, but I can see myself, you know, when you catch yourself doing something.

I go, how did I used to do it in this silly way? How did I do it? I need to stop it. Like no one will recognize it, but it's about yourself really. Um, I feel more relaxed. I 

[00:19:45] Naomi Wood: think I see that in you, like your face changes a little and your voice changes a little when you talk about this almost settling. Is that, are you, is that, are you aware of?

Yeah, 

[00:20:00] Mai Mahmoud: maybe. I'm not sure. But you're the people who can say that. Not me, but I feel, you know, when you feel that you are heavy, extremely heavy. My position is not easy. Like I have a message here. I'm not a science teacher or math teacher that you. Be finished when the students are gonna graduate. For me, it's more than that.

I am trying to let the students understand their identity in a proper way, which is very risky because I know that these generations. Them understand the culture and the religion in a proper way, I think so it'll be very harmful. So this is my duty. So I feel the huge responsibility here. So it's not about a subject, it's identity.

It's something that they will take it from day one until they die. And they're going to spread it. They're gonna use it, they're gonna show it. So any misunderstanding in any concept will be a huge thing. So usually I feel that it's heavy. It's a heavy message. It's not easy. So usually I'm trying to be well prepared for everything before entering the classes and giving any answer, even though I know the answer still.

I usually try to go back and do a lot of research. When I start doing the coaching, I felt more relaxed. Still. I have the message still, I have the beliefs, but it is about the way, like again, it's not about what you believe, it's about the action students doesn't need from me. Clear value. They want to see it in me, in my personality.

So when one of the students come and he wanna talk about something and I say, okay, gimme five minutes later, or while he's talking to me still I'm checking or doing something. This is not representing respect here. So I'm saying something, but I'm not doing it. 

[00:22:42] Naomi Wood: Mm. 

[00:22:43] Mai Mahmoud: So to do what you believe in. And I think, so this is the massive of the coaching here.

[00:22:50] Naomi Wood: Mm. So this, uh, this alignment, and I see the roots of this tree are sort of, and now the growth of this tree is, is very aligned in who you are and how you're being Yeah. And, and I wonder. It's interesting that you teach in this sort of British international school, um, many cultures and faiths, and I wonder what the opportunity is for coaching across the school, um, and also for working with more coaches from Islamic culture.

I hear you have a. A purpose, a mission, I think. How would you describe, describe that now, having gone through this journey to this point? The end of chapter one maybe? 

[00:23:49] Mai Mahmoud: Yeah. Okay. To be honest, still I'm exploring things as I said, so I said I'm very small about this, uh, but as in said, uh, I'm lucky. I'm really lucky that I'm working in such.

Like my school and my organization, we have different cultures, different uh, religions, different backgrounds, different nationalities. So, uh, this environment is a very healthy, helpful place to start, uh, the mission to achieve the things that we believe in. So it's not easy. Because as you said, we are, we have different cultures and different, uh, backgrounds and different religions, and usually people are mixing between coaching and uh, therapy and advising.

So still there is a misunderstanding about what coaching is gonna do for us. So. It is very important to clarify for everyone what's coaching students, teachers, parents, even though so I think so this is was one of the things that we are working on it now. We are doing a lot of workshops now about coaching.

We have a clear plan for next year, which is really, I'm very proud of it. Again, Vicki is doing great job about these actions before the end of this term. And you know, Naomi, we were having the sessions and we were presenting there, and you cannot imagine the reflection from the teachers that were part of it.

One of them in the survey, he said that at the beginning it was a workshop. By the end, it was a lifestyle. Hmm. Wow. Wow. I was, it was, it touched my heart like, and it comes from a man like, wow, it was great. And you can see it easily in their eyes at the beginning when they enter. Okay, we are here to hear you guys talking or saying something like that.

Give us information what's new here, even though they didn't say it, but it was clear in their eyes. And again, I'm gonna talk about the eyes at the end, the shining eyes, the eyes that have a lot of hopes and new startings, new way of thinking. And this was another thing that we were focusing on. We are not looking for everyone there to be a coachee.

No. We were there looking for the changing of the thinking way to think as a coaching, this was the target. We're not asking them to sit there and start planning for the question. Don't ask why. Don't ask how. Only ask what. This was not the target, but the target here was to look for the person, not the problem.

The target there was to do small steps. To move with the flow. So it's, it's about the principles, it's about the way 

[00:27:36] Naomi Wood: I, I love this phrase like the way, and I hear the principles that we have at MSB, and I'm curious what's going on for Matt, because you know Matt as founder of this, you know, of MSB and now hearing.

May is facilitating our programs and having that impact on the eyes, the soul, the spirit. Yeah. I wonder what, where you are, 

[00:28:05] Matt Hall: oh, you're asking me a question. Uh, it's, it's, it's gorgeous. It's lovely. It's, it's soul, soul food, and it's the, um, it gives me so much hope, you know, and, and, and like everyone who works at MSBI, I've, I went through that process of.

This is, I thought it was gonna be this. I've turned up, I'm ready to receive and to allow a smaller part of my brain and heart space for this. And then it's, it's be like water. You, you can't, you can't resist it. It's coaching. If you're open to coaching and to learning how to coach and the principles of coaching, it's, it's an in irresistible invitation to consider your life in a new and far more.

Abundant way, and I've, I've, I've loved hearing how that has, how that's affected your school and impacted your colleagues, but also I'm absolutely fascinated about how, how that's augmented your relationship with Islam and your faith. Coaching gets a bad rap sometimes for being. Strangely spiritual or subvertly spiritual, and people get nervous when it starts to step into tho that sort of territory.

And yet actually what you are saying to me is it's, it's, it's explicitly spiritual and you are embracing the spirituality in coaching and how it connects you with faith rather than being cautious of it. And that, that really, that really excites me. 

[00:29:46] Mai Mahmoud: Thank you. And I would like to add something here maybe to, to spot it more that by moving further in my journey, I feel that it stops feeling like having techniques.

It's more about making a way of life. Like this is how we need to think. This is the mind setting. This is how the link linking between the heart and mind is very important. I, I'm a really, I love this connection. I cannot do something without thinking about it by both my heart and my mind. So the connection between both of them is, is very powerful to empower people is very, is very.

Powerful. And going back to Matt about the, the, the religion and the roots. One of the huge roots that maybe we forgot about it is empowering others. So how come this is one of the values that we should allow it, but sometimes we don't understand how to do it. So again, the actions of the values.

Empowering our students are very important. Empowering our colleagues are very important. You cannot have the power but you by yourself. It doesn't make any sense because at that time you're not going to be a leading, you're gonna be a boss with one point of view. So nothing to be added here, but to empower.

That means everyone is having part of the responsibility. This is very important 

[00:31:38] Matt Hall: and it lives in the, this conversation that often comes up around how you create a coaching culture. And I, and I'm actually sometimes a bit resistant to that phrase as Nomi knows. Um, I see, I see coaching as a catalyst to a better culture as opposed to a culture in its own right.

Which you are speaking to entirely because I think what I'm hearing you saying is. When you try and bottom line what coaching is for me, it's about allowing people to be more of who they already are and giving people permission to be even brilliant versions of themselves. And if schools could do that more, 'cause that's our ambition for our kids in schools.

If we could do that with the adults in our schools, then we get the culture that we want and we deserve. And we can call it a coaching culture if we want, but you could just call it your school culture. And that's, that's why I'm really. I really love the way you're describing it as you thought it was gonna be a series of tools and techniques and those things matter, but actually it's the thing that you've learned is it's a way of being.

Um, and that connection between heart and head, which again, we don't, it's such an obvious thing to say, but we don't naturally work in that way in school cultures all the time. Yeah. That wasn't a question, that was just me reflecting on what you are, the richness of what you're saying. Maybe ask me a question and now I feel like I'm done.

[00:33:04] Naomi Wood: Yeah. So about Matt, the 

[00:33:05] Matt Hall: Matt podcast, 

[00:33:08] Naomi Wood: but I'm curious, you know, how you would design a coaching workshop to bring, bring in more faith or spirituality, or bring more people in who perhaps feel it's not for me. Because it is quite Eurocentric, um, in terms of how it's framed, the influences. So I, so I wonder if there's one thing you would do differently, or, or is it just to make some of these statements that you are, you are making about this is what, yeah.

Is it about the definition, how we describe it? What would you do? 

[00:33:48] Mai Mahmoud: Now strong question 

[00:33:51] Matt Hall: is always there with the strong questions 

[00:33:54] Naomi Wood: I'm doing, I'm doing some research,

[00:34:00] Mai Mahmoud: okay? So it's very strong question. Uh, I've never think about it in this way, but if we are going to come back. To reality. Reality. And if we're talking about in our schools, uh, maybe in the Middle East schools generally, I think so that language is one of the issues. Uh, I know that, uh, and you said it, Naomi, one of your episode that we are trying the, the feedback one I think so that we are trying usually to use easy language.

Language so everyone can understand it, which is brilliant, but still we have huge amount that they would like to hear in their own language, which will make it easier for them to link to it. So I think, so one of the things that maybe I'll, I'll design it, is the language. It'll help a lot. When you relate things to something that is near to your mind, your heart, it'll be more clear.

Mm-hmm. I'll link it more to the culture and the religion. It'll help more. And like Matt said, some people are afraid. They're, they don't wanna be part of it because they feel maybe it's something wrong. It's something against what they believe in. It's something that's not related to their values. So I think, so this is very important thing also to show that no guys, it's reality is it's part of what you believe in.

[00:35:50] Naomi Wood: We're talking about people bringing more of themselves. Exactly. So, so if we said, no, this isn't this work, the workplace isn't a place for your spirituality or faith, then that's painful. Or I don't, I don't know. I haven't had that experience. 

[00:36:07] Mai Mahmoud: But yeah, so usually when people, they understand the real meaning of the terms, they can accept it.

So it's very important to clarify the term itself. Many of our teachers, to be honest, they were part of the workshop, the same one that I did it, the first one, the one that I did it accidentally. So many of them, they were there, but who continued, who was having the curiosity to move on Really without the book that Vicky gave it to me as a gift, I would be one of them.

Mm, I'll not, I'll never be here now. So reading and really, Vicki was very smart with this gift that she knows how to tickle. You know, tickling here, your heart and your mind. And she knows me how I'm community about learning new things and she knows me well. That's how I'm going back to my culture and my roots and everything.

So she want to do this connection. Without this connection, without this link, I would never be here. So we need to figure out this connection for them. And again, it's not about, I don't want my words to be more like about Islamic culture. No, it's, it's more about culture. It's about about roots, whatever is the culture.

As Matt said, we'll design the.

Only to understand that this term, I'm not going to say term. This is what comes to my mind now. I don't like the word coaching as a term or a definition. It's a value. Coaching is a value, so they need to understand the value. Maybe they know it, but they know how to do it. So again, the changing. Hmm. Giving them the space and time to reflect, to digest this value, to link this value with the, you know, when you have a tree.

So coaching is part of this tree and they need to connect the leaves together, going back to find the roots. So the reflection time is very important. I have been working for three years. I read a lot of books. At of the day. I'm trying, so, uh, I'm listening to workshops here. Uh, everything that now shared on the platform, usually I'm there to hear it, to understand, to digest it, so I have time.

So no quick turning will happen.

It's not a magic stick here.

Okay. Nothing is there. Things will take time. We need to give them space to reflect, to practice, to understand, to find the connection. Everyone from us as a human have a way to connect things together to his own roots, so we need to give them the time to find the roots. Mm, clarifying identity and the roots are very important for me 

[00:39:47] Matt Hall: to be continued.

Um, we're out of time today, but I feel like we're, as always, we're just getting started. Thank you so much. It's been such a rich and fruitful conversation and um, I hope we can pick it up again with you sometime. 

[00:40:03] Naomi Wood: Yeah. And, and. You know, I hear that, I hear that invitation and that challenge around language, time, patience, roots, coaching as a value.

I mean, this is all stuff that you've offered us that we will be really thinking about and hopefully collaborating with you on May in some way going forward. So yeah, thank you for your generosity in, in the richness of your thinking. And, and I have one final question for you.

So, um, a little while ago I asked you the question, what does it mean to be human? And I wonder, in light of our conversation, has that answer changed 

[00:40:42] Mai Mahmoud: or expanded. My understanding for human will be the same, but I'm going to say one thing. Being human is enough and we need to start from here. Again, sincere and everything we're doing is very important.

What comes from heart, usually it'll land to another heart. Thank you. We we'll take 

[00:41:07] Naomi Wood: that with us and I hope that our listeners, our listeners will too. Thank you. May. 

[00:41:12] Mai Mahmoud: Thank you so much, Naomi. Thank you, Matt, for your time. 

[00:41:16] Matt Hall: Thank you. Uh, you were right. That's, I, it's just lovely to hear that that journey that she's been on, as, as you kind of framed in our introduction, coaching is a value that, that's really stuck with me.

Um, and that's given, I mean, there's loads in that conversation that's given me food for thought, but that in particular, really, really stood out. And I'm still making, making sense of it. What about you? 

[00:41:44] Naomi Wood: Very much so. I, I think Mae's language, it's sort of the imagery of it. You know, I'm thinking about the eyes, the reflections, the roots, the tree identity, and it just speaks to how we need to immerse ourselves in different perspectives, perspectives and cultures, so that our collective imagination.

Becomes more abundant in, in service of a future that we all, we all want to create and be part of. Um, and I thought it was fascinating what she's saying about coach education and how it, how it needs to evolve. We know it does. Mm. So, um, yeah, looking forward to more conversations this season to take this further.

[00:42:30] Matt Hall: Yeah. And if there are anything like that, then there's lots to look forward to. So. Yeah, see you next time.

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