Episode 285 | Grow Through Adversity | Guest: Sanjiv Patel - Authentic Talks 2.0 with Shanta

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, welcome back to Authentic Talks two point Oh.
I'm super excited about today's episode because we're talking about
growing through what you're going through. And on today's episode,
we're talking with the former ted X speaker, someone who
is diving into a story of resilience, faith and transformation.

(00:21):
Today's conversation is one that will lead you feeling inspired
and empowered. You guys, my guest knows firsthand what it
means to grow through adversity. He's sharing a powerful story
of resilience and revealing his unique formula called Hills h
ea LS, a framework that's designed to help you navigate

(00:45):
life's toughest challenges and come out stronger on the other side.
If you've ever faced obstacles and wondered how to turn
pain into purpose, this is the episode for you, you guys.
Before we dive in introducing today's guest, I do want
to share with you guys that we are now uploading
all of the prior episodes on YouTube. The YouTube channel

(01:08):
was paused for about four and a half years, and
now we're moving forward and I just want to get
the word out and share with you and have you
share with your family and your friends that we're now
uploading those podcasts and onto YouTube for you guys to
be able to see the prior guests. And if you
were a guest on the show, you now get to
see your episode and see you if it was one

(01:30):
that was recorded with video. If you're new too Authentic Talks, welcome.
I'm extending an open invitation for you to come back
again and again, and I'm extending an invitation for you
to hit that subscribe button. That way you will not
miss an episode. Once I upload a show, you guys,
get ready to share this episode with your family members,

(01:51):
your friends, your coworkers, and even people that you don't know.
You can let them know that this is an awesome
podcast where we're talking about growth, we're talking about love,
we're talking about respect, putting it all together for mind, body,
in spirit. You guys, all right, let's go. Today's guest
is a former Tetech speaker. He is the chief officer

(02:14):
of Sanjeev Speaks. Please welcome Sanjie Patel two Authentic Talks.
Authentic Talks is all about authentic conversations. This show is
all about growth, love, respect, success, mind, body, and spirit.
If you're looking to grow and become your authentic self.
Then this is the podcast for you, and I am

(02:37):
your host, Chante. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show, Sanjeev.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Thank you, Shante. Let me see here.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I'm excited to have you here. We have an awesome
topic or a lot that we could talk about where
our listeners can definitely benefit before we dive in, Can
I have you introduce yourself to our listeners.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Sure, I'm Senji Fettel. I'm the chief transformation officer at
Send You Speaks. A journey that started informally probably about
fifteen twenty years ago and more formally since COVID. I
took the turbulent times and the near death experience of
COVID to really reflect on what I want to do
with every day of my life following that journey and

(03:22):
reinforce the desire to make a difference each day's moment
in a small way, big way. It doesn't matter to me,
just want to make a difference to people.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I love that you mentioned COVID. I know that COVID
was definitely something that changed the way that we're operating
to this very day, and we're trying to give back
to the way things were and we still have not
quite returned there. Some people want the old way back
and some people definitely want to just keep moving forward.

(03:53):
You said that you almost had a near death experience.
Can we talk about that?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah? Sure, absolutely So if I think back to my
early years, my childhood, my journey till then, I guess
I've always been that calm person in the room. So
I've had all sorts of curb boards in life and
in business. I come from a family who settled and
moved from Africa to the UK. I came in difficult

(04:18):
times in the seventies when you know things were tough
for an immigrant. I guess we're seeing that full circle nowadays,
or that time come again, but specifically down to COVID.
One of the lessons I've learned in life is that
you can plan as much as you like for the future,
but life happens to you. There are no guarantees, and

(04:41):
that doesn't mean you don't plan. It just means you
plan as best as you can, and then you face
things as they come and make your decisions as they unfold. So,
if I take you back to twenty twenty early twenty twenty,
I have a brother who ideally love he lives out
in Australia. I call him the smartest doctor in the world.
To use that super intelligent. He can talk about anything.

(05:03):
But I remember having these conversations with him back in
about January, saying, Sanji, this is coming. It's real. We've
had lots of false you know, alarms in the past
with chicken flu and this and the other decade or
so ago, but this is different. Said, so, what does
that mean? The way you have to prepare for lockdown?
Now this is unheard about the time, but I remember

(05:26):
kind of one Sunday morning. I came down and I
said to my wife and my kids, Hey, I'm going
to the hardware stool. Well, I'm going to pick up
all these supplies in preparation the lockdown. And at the time,
everybody was in denial. Chanted although you could, you know,
if you had your feelings out, you could see what
was going on in Wulhan district. You could see it

(05:47):
was spreading this direction. You could actually start to sense
that this is just inevitable. So I went, look, what's
the work is going to happen? They told me I
was overthinking this and probably taking it too seriously. I said, listen,
the worst that can happen is I will have a
bunch of supplies that will stay in the garage and
we'll use them up over time. But I'd better do this,

(06:08):
So that was the starting point. I remember speaking to
the loved ones and family and friends, casual conversations, touch
the water and say, hey, guys, what preparations are you making?
And I used to get a similar reply from people,
really lovely, intelligent people who ordinarily would be open minded,
but everybody was in denial. So I found myself kind

(06:30):
of ready for this situation as best as I could
understand it. But as fate would have it, in the
first week, first ten days of March twenty twenty, a
maternal uncle of mine, who had been terminally ill for
like four years, suddenly took a turn for the worst
and that was his last leg. And I was really

(06:50):
close to him. I was brought up with this extended
family and he was like a father to me. So
I used to see him every week anyway, and I
couldn't not be there. So I remember I'll go into
the hospital seeing him through to the last breath, and
then thinking really rapidly on my feet, Okay, what do
we need to do here, And in our tradition there's
a whole big way of giving somebody a send off

(07:12):
when they pass away. So I plan a press service
for that weekend, which is a couple of days away,
and then following that, the rest of the family, his kids,
my brother in law, et cetera, were thinking about the
formal funeral arrangements. And I remember Shanty about middle of
that week, we had a call about eleven thirty this
kind of time, UK time, eleven thirty at night, and

(07:35):
it was a conference call, and I said, Sanji, we
hear your concern What are your concerns? I said, Look,
everybody's talking about they've guarding the elderly and the frail.
Perhaps on the funeral invite, we should bear that in
mind and maybe put that and the kind of a
gesture and of warning to people say look, come, but
we understand. If you can't, please don't come if you're frail.

(07:57):
And I remember the time in motion to get the
best of us at times of stress, and the response
I had was, well, people make their own decisions. I
knew kind of By that time, it was even more
pleay to me what was going to happen. It was
just a matter of time before we faced lockdown. It's
literally a week or so before. So I had to
make a decision for my family. And I think we

(08:18):
all make these tough choices. Sometimes we know things that are
going to be risky or difficult, but because of emotional
precious we take a judgment call. And I had living
with me my mother and father throughout my life. I'd
had the privilege of caring for them, for them throughout
my life again, which is kind of normal in my culture,
had my wife and my two kids living together, lovely home.

(08:42):
We took the choice. I made that decision to go
to the funeral. I went with my kids to my
father to play the Lost Respects that weekend, and as
fate would have it, the following Monday evening, my wife
was burning up with a fever and we knew at
the time. We didn't want to talk about it, but
we knew at the time this is more lightly than not,

(09:04):
this thing that was coming towards us, this invisible monster,
alien that people had no understanding about, but it was
taking other people's lives. We'd seen you know, body bags
and more cheries and truckload the people being taken out
homes in Italy up until then. But as the kind
of the the person who's role in that family is
to look after people, it was really difficult for me.

(09:26):
And what I was focusing on is trying to keep
come and trying to just hope, hope against hope, pray
that this isn't what it is, and just keep going
day by day. By the next day I had the
same fever. Now they talked at the time about social distancing,
there was no support and then well, by the time

(09:47):
you got to that stage, it's too late because you're
in a household, living with each other, mingling with each other,
and there was no word for me to separate people
out anyway. So it was just a matter of doing
hoping again me just do the usual things I did
to deal with illnesses. The flu you get, the pain
you get, the fever you get, the cough and you sitlinder. Yeah,
I'll manage this. I was the type of person who

(10:10):
never took painkillers up until then. I remember as this
thing started to unfold, it got worse and worse and
worse over days. As I saw those symptoms start to
unfold in my kids, you can imagine the horror and
the fear for somebody whose role in life was to
look after his family. I've been brought up by a
fatherhood lost his father when he was twelve years old,

(10:33):
and you took the responsibility of being that person to
be strong for everybody. I've taken that role on naturally,
And there's a joy in looking after your family, right,
looking after loved ones, but feeling inadequate, feeling well, there's
only so much I can do, but hoping against hope
that this thing doesn't spread the way I'm seeing it,
because I was feeling the symptoms really severely. So that

(10:58):
unfolded where my kids suddenly symptoms over a period of time,
so I didn't know what was happening with them over
a period of two weeks. Thankfully they seem to have
settled a bit by that time. But I saw it
unfolded my father, my or did his father, eighty year
old who I loved dearly, who had been kind of
dealing with Parkinson's for three or four years of his

(11:20):
last life at the end, but we'd looked after him
and it had lovely memories at home, and you know,
I'd kind of roll over, curl up in my room
every day in the flow of that pain. People who
had that kind of severe COVID, well, no, it came
in waves. She had intense pain, intense fever, and then

(11:42):
you get periods of well it's not better, but it's
not as intense that you kind of get okay. There
was no guidance in terms of, well, how do you
manage this? So I was in those periods when I
was kind of a bit more aware. I'd be chatting
with my brother and saying, hey, what can I do
about this? He'd test my breathing, He'll check in and

(12:05):
what medications they could research, And I was trying everything.
Nothing worked, Nothing worked, and so it became inevitable. There
came a day when I had to take the call
to let them take my father away to hospital, and
we'd seen I knew what that meant. The chances of
him coming back were very limited. My daughters, three or

(12:25):
four days before that, kept saying to me every evening,
messaging me Dad called the ambulance. Dad called it for
me because I was that ill. I was literally cruelly.
I couldn't get myself up to the washroom. It was
that bad, gasping for breath, and twelve hours later they
had to call the ambulance and take me in. So

(12:47):
there was I heading away from home. I remember being
a sunny day and looking back as they took me
away from my house, knowing deep down that this couldn't
be the last time save this place. But at that time, Chante,
I want to say, I was at peace. And that's
one of my first lost lessons and learnings that why

(13:09):
was I in that state state of peace? For me,
one of my pillars is my faith. Having a faith,
something to lean on in those difficult times that gives
you hope, that gives you strength, is so important in life.
And so I had that, and I know I'd lived
in accordance with that. I know I'd been the best father,
best partner, best son as I could have been through

(13:29):
those years. I never let any moment go. And as
the message to everybody listening, don't wait till tomorrow. If
there's somebody in your family, somebody in loved once, in
your circle who thinks they want something, needs something like
you can do something for, don't wait till tomorrow. The
only things I remember for the next few days in
hospital were when they checked me in and in between

(13:49):
the tests, the consultant came up to me and said, listen,
some bad news. It's all over your lungs. I can
see the crystals. I've seen enough of these to know
how bad this is. We don't need to wait for
the tests. But the good news is you qualify for
intubation for an it you And that was scary if

(14:09):
in all that journey, that was a scary moment for
me because having to do the intubation, will they be
able to pull me back out of that or not?
Who knows how that trajectory happened. But again, all I
did is focus on the moment, and I found myself
trying to sit in any posture I could and focus
on my breathing. So there was that journey of storm

(14:31):
where you see this thing coming. I'm trying to find
that information through news, through WhatsApp whatever as it was happening.
As it got worse, I cut out the noise. One
of my letters in business and in light as things
get more difficult, don't drown yourself in lots of information.
Focus on a few sources of information that you can
rely upon the best as you can, and make your calls.

(14:52):
And that's what I focus on doing. And I got
to the plate on just focusing on my breath, and
that's when I realized the power of breath work. Now
we all take so casually, so lightly. Oh yes, I
love that, and we take it for granted. And that
just focusing on the moment, focusing on my inner self,

(15:13):
closing out the noise from the outside world, and really centering,
and that kept me calm, and being calm was part
of me being stable because fear sits here. For those
of you who felt anxiety and fear, you'll know that sensation.
It sits in your chest and it debilitates you. That
My practice over the years of yoga and ritual practice

(15:36):
of meditating every single day came to play there. And
it's just focusing on the moment and focusing on that
pure source that you were on and being at peace
with it. I didn't give up. I didn't give up once,
and I was determined to keep fighting. A few I've
been talking to him in the lead up to this.
He'd been messaging me and saying, are you okay? He's

(15:57):
taking on me. But after I got out of hospital,
the good news is I managed to fight my way out.
I remember him telling me he goes, Look, I was
really worried about you. I said, that's very kind of you,
you know. He said, no, you don't understand that message,
that last message you sent me. I said, what was
that last message I sent you? He said, the last

(16:18):
message you sent me? It was my kids are great kids,
to look after them. Now. That touched me. But you
can imagine the state when I say near debt. That's
how much I was kind of prepared. So this is
going to be here. Wow. And I was at peace
with it.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
During that period I got as I said, I thought
out I was fighting and I heard the news my
father wasn't going to make it. I had to make
my peace with that. He was in a different hospital.
But I was determined in that moment to fight. And
remember when I was fighting through this, my focus was
on my family. My focus is on being there for

(16:57):
my mom, my kids. Worrying about them wasn't worrying about me. Again,
one of the lessons I've learnt in life is when
you focus your energies on serving others, an caring and
loving other, you don't think about your own a load.
It becomes lighter. I don't know if that makes sense
to you chante. You must have listened to so many
as buying people in the passt and so off the

(17:20):
back of that, I came out with a lot of
knowledge because I've learned about how this thing operates. I'd
learned how battling it and how I was overcoming it,
and I used that. I was determined to use every
single bit of learning and insight I had to share
with others authentically. So for the first time ever, I

(17:43):
put something out on Facebook, like a video. I looked
a mess, But as soon as I was able to
competently write something down, you know, I had to start writing, stop,
start writing stock brain fog had really taken over at
that time. But I got this message out and it
went viral. People across the world were sharing my message
about really techniques, about how to cope with this, about

(18:05):
not to let the fear take over it. Those things,
those little things made such a difference, and I was
I found myself speaking on radio and TV and you know,
people reaching out to me to coach them through that
take them through the field. So that's that was my
journey of Sonday Speaks. That's where it started. And I
had some wonderful people who had mentored over the last
ten years prior to that, said we need to get

(18:28):
you at them more, we need to help you serve more.
And that's where SENTI you speak started.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Wow, I love your story, your share. That's really awesome.
I think it's interesting how sometimes it takes a life
event that is almost catastrophic to get us to move
forward and to land where we are supposed to be.
Not saying that your life was not going in the

(18:55):
way that it should, because I think that we are
where we are because we're supposed to be there and
it just goes away it should go. But it took
that and now you have an amazing message that can
speak to anyone, any age, any race, any ethnicity, any ethnicity,
it doesn't matter. It's like it's a clean, clear, powerful message,

(19:19):
and that even in your leadership. I know you have
something called the three RS that I would love to
talk about today, but I do have this question for
you as we transition into how you like you're talking
about transitional leadership, like what is that? Could you define

(19:41):
what that means? And transformation transformational leadership.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
So you talked to earlier about people trying to think
back to COVID some people want to get back to
how it ware. Some people are figuring it somewhere in between.
But you know the reality of life and the world
is this constant change.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
And the times that we're in demand is a step up.
With the world of social media bombarding us, not knowing
what's true, what's real, what's not, with artificial intelligence, with
the pressures of the economy, leaders have to step up.
And when I'm talking about transformational leadership, I'm talking about

(20:27):
stepping up in every sense. So I'm not just talking
simple business school numbers here. I've gone an MBA from
one of the top business schools in the world. But
I'm talking about the real human starting point. It starts
with me. So when I'm talking to leaders and leadership team,
it's about stepping back from the noise. So that's where

(20:48):
it brings in the three hours model. I did a
Ted talk the three hours and in the leadership context,
if the listeners out there are running their own business,
are leaders within all thezations? Heck where leaders in our families.
This still applies because when we're in the mix of everything,

(21:09):
when constantly is trying to stay afloat, battling what's in
front of this, we become desensitized, We could become fearful,
and we become numb. So what do I do? I
hope leaders and groups of people, individual and teams to
stand back and be in a safe space where it
helps them reflect. The first r of the three hours

(21:32):
is reflect. Let me try and illustrate that to you.
I say to many people I'm standing forn of an audience,
I said, everybody in his room is the smartest person
in the world when he's talking about somebody else or
looking at something else outside of our lives. So what
do I mean? Let me give you a simple example.
If we're watching a movie or something on the TV,

(21:52):
a TV serial, we can sit in the cinema seat here,
what's the big screen, and we can relate to the
characters in there. Maybe some of them we have a
personal affinity to. Some of them are like us. But
even if they're not, we connect with them, and we
connect with them emotionally and intelligently. So what do we do? Then?
We sit there and go when they're you know, how

(22:13):
are moving? The story is scripted. There's a high, there's
a lower, there's a high, there's a lower that there's
a climax, right, But through that we're sitting there, Hey, hey, hey,
you should be doing this, Hey you should be doing that.
Why do you not do this? Why are you not
doing that? Why? Because we're standing back as and when
we can do that with our own lives in a
safe space, get off the treadmill, in a safe space

(22:35):
to go okay, stand back, let'st think openly, objectively, put
the ego aside, put whatever you know aside, and let's
just look at this as a clean, slick what do
you see self reflection. You don't have to share it
with everybody, but quite often you get people in tears
because they notice things about their behaviors, their challenges, things

(22:57):
come out, and then the stress of dealing with what
they're coping with. But when they can stand back and
then have the reassurance that they're not alone in this,
that's the other thing that people tend to get into.
We all get that feeling that it's we're struggling with this.
But the more I've experienced life, more I've led teams,
more I've helped coach people, the more it's coming to

(23:21):
you know, the reality is, we're all human. Some of
us wear masks, better than others. Some of them. Us
probably have going through a phase of life where it
doesn't shake us as much. But the realities we're all
human and in this time it's more important than ever
to stand back and be human, to get back down
to basics. Where's your balance, what's the purpose of all

(23:43):
of this? Create purpose, meaning for people in your environment,
and doing it in a strategic way rather than literally
making a decision day to day. Sometimes we have to
make tough decisions. The way we can do it standing
back from the flames, you still feel the heat, but
you're not being burnt, you're not firefighting in the middle

(24:05):
of that, So you can go back and go, Okay,
I'm going to go back and tackle it like this.
So that's the reflect You stand back and you see
different patterns. Imagine the ninth sky. There's furse ancestors of ours.
So you looked up at the night sky and say, hey,
I can see a bear, I can see a plow.
I can see it. Because they were looking at these
and making patterns. Humans connect to stories, right, That's how

(24:27):
faith comes into it. That's how belief comes into things.
That's how meaning and purpose come into whatever we do.
So you reframe. You've heard this on many of your guests,
I'm sure, and people have explored the field of human
performance and NLP, they won't know about reframing. So what
do we do? We literally look at the stars of
the docks on the page and you go, right, how

(24:48):
can we repattern this? The docs are always there at
the moment our circuit shows this pattern. What are the
patterns are there that are more useful to me? You know,
we don't all have a perfect choice. We rarely have
a perfect choice, but we have a choice. And getting
to that stage that we have a choice empowers us.

(25:08):
Chante empowers us to go, Okay, I'm not being bombarded,
I'm making a conscious choice. And then you own it.
So that's that reframe. And then owning is resetting. So reflect,
stand back from the noise, rebring, make a different choice
or choices, and then research, let go and constantly understanding

(25:34):
that loop. Sometimes in life with if something that is
happening so intensely, you have to do this loop regularly
that's okay, or more frequently. And then the business run
it can be strategic as well as more short term.
So that's the three us, and that's transformational leadership, transforming
people to step up and be the best person that
they are because we all have that potential within us

(25:57):
and looking at the world in a different way, connecting
with people, not letting the machinery and the technology take
over our lives. The people are going to arrivee to
the top are the ones who will connect with humans
as humans.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I love that share. So we get to take away
the three rs. Do you believe that to be a
leadership that a person would have to be like an extrovert?
Or is that like a misconception.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
From my experience my early CHILDHO would have told me
it has to be an extrovert. But I absolutely don't
believe that anymore. Yeah, I think the most powerful leaders
leaders are those who are able to stand back and
be reflected, the ones who listen. I've actually got a
model that I created for leadership in my world that
I try to promote. It's called a heals model. I

(26:48):
believe leaders the leader heels, So it's an abbreviation. So
the characteristics are A great leader firstly hates sunds for humility.
A great leader has to have humility to accept that
whatever you've achieved, whatever you think you've done You haven't

(27:10):
done it alone. You've had the right sale of circumstances,
the right deck of cards, and yeah, you use your intellect.
You've had your part in that. Treating people goes back
to the human position. You treat people whatever status they have,
whatever position they have as a human. So humility, that
conscious humility, and it's something that I practice every single day.

(27:32):
I reflect on my behavior and I look to serve.
One of my prayers in the morning. Part of my
prayers is let me serve those in need, and then
e for empathy and emotionally intelligent a leader who you
know again you talked about extravert introvert. I find the

(27:52):
most mature, emotionally intelligent leaders are the ones who are
able to have that humility and have the ability to
observe and understand people. I think it's important emotional intelligence
one of the characters. It's amazing ability to understand others
rather than choose to be understood.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
I love that emotional intelligence and a leader, it makes
it difficult for them to be able to have the
skills to really lead other people because their emotions are
always overtaking them. For me, it's something I need in
a leader. It's hard to want to follow if I
see that you're not able to be in control of

(28:35):
your emotions. And I'm not saying that they cannot be human,
because everyone's human, but when you're leading people, we need
that emotional intelligence there. You have to be able to
have that leadership hat on. I just feel like you
just need it. It's this might sound awful, but I
feel like when you're a leader, there's like a different standard.

(28:58):
It's like those are qualities that you apper what we
must have, otherwise you should not be leading people.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Chante. What the world has inherited over many years are
leaders who have become leaders because they're technical competence, and
that doesn't make you a great leader.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
The challenge in business you have all of these amazing
people who are absolutely brilliant in their technical space, but
those qualities of leading people, leading organizations having emotional intelligence
are missing. You thought about how important that is, and
that's why I said, you can see, I'm an evangelist
in terms of whatever I believe in, whatever I experience,

(29:42):
I'm going to go out there and talk to leaders
and organizations objectively for who's good for their good. And
that takes me to the next step of this, So humility,
emotional intelligence, empathy to awareness. Now this is a bit
that leaders have to be aware. So awareness starts from themselves.

(30:03):
So self awareness takes you back to the three hours model.
The first step of the three hours model is stand
back to read blad with and put your ego aside. Right, yeah,
you put your ego aside and you It starts with me,
what and then hearing from other people? So do it?
And I do a lot of collective work where we've
got leaders together when you know what here different organizations.

(30:25):
It's fine or within your organization, but let's put it
inside your tired versus. Look at this situation and those
leaders who truly want to lead are the ones who
embrace change and take those lessons on and I share
examples with them, I give them exercises to do. But
that awareness starts with me. Do I have to do?

(30:49):
What are my traits that perhaps aren't working for me
as well as the people I'm it's responsible for how
many people? How many leaders are out there who literally
instead run an organization without understanding their people. You hire
amazing people on this, you know, you go on this
recruitment drive where you spec out a job, you put
our salaries for it, and yeah, if it doesn't work out,

(31:12):
you check them. If you think somebody's got enough, understand
what good means for this role, what qualities that you need.
The world has changed. We need leaders and people who
can think on their feet, who are emotionally sound and intelligent.
Oh yes, who can work in diverse environments, who can
take on change. That's a mindset thing. Oh yeah, looking

(31:32):
for people with the right mindset. If you've got people already,
then find investing them if they make mistakes. Mistakes is
how inventions happen, right, Yeah, having the courage to go
it's okay. But until you have an awareness of who
you have and an objective like I said, objective awareness
with empathy, with the right communication, and there'll be some

(31:55):
difficult conversations, that's life. But having that ability to be
aware and then aware of the environment that you have
business and the world is in, and making sure that
everything that you do has that level of nuance based
on that understanding. So now it becomes complicated. It's not
I'm really good at programming, I'm really good at this finance.
Yeah sure, great, but how does that qualify you to

(32:18):
be a leader.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
What is your opinion about people leading from Okay, so
you know how with COVID everybody was like working from
home and then what happened is like all the staff
had to go back to work. And then there's some
states that are places where they don't have offices or
either they turn these companies or like half of their
staff is hybrid or permanent work from home. How what

(32:43):
is your opinion about leadership from at home? But then
your staff is in the office where the people leading
it are not able to understand the culture or the
environment in which the staff is working in, but they're
leading it and making decisions for that staff that's there,

(33:03):
not understanding the conflict or the challenges that they're facing.
Is that something that could be worked through or is
it best for that style of leadership to change? What
are your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
I think that's a great question, and I'll share what
I believe on it because I've always believed in this,
and I'll show an example from my own journey. When
I left the university, I started with banking as a
graduate trainee, and as part of that program, they send
you to different functionalities on a three month roster. You

(33:38):
go into departments, you get yourself technically up to speed,
and then you move on and kind of that was
the leadership program. And then I remember a time when
is economically difficult, interest rates arising, house read possessions of
were going through the roofs. I was given the responsibility
as a young person to manage a department, whether managing

(33:59):
more bitch books, from the applications of mortgages, through to
the life of it and through to payment challenges. And
I remembered my very first day in that room and
the way the office was set times at the time
prior to me taking over, was very much like a classroom.
The deaths were like this, and the manager will sit

(34:20):
at the front and people would do their thing because
it got to speak to them as I was learning,
and I called them thirtday in the morning, I remember, okay,
let's have some coffee and biscuits together. I got the
coffee and biscuits. Yeah, it's not for somebody else to do,
because people sit there and go, Okay, what's the leader do.
Leader did everything? Oh yes, And I remember sitting down,

(34:41):
I said, listen, guys, I'm just a facilitator. The experts.
Are you guys helped me help us? So come talk
to me. What challenges do we face? Let me sit
with each of you, Let's work through this. And they went,
nobody said the us that before, And I went, yeah,

(35:03):
but genuinely, how much can I know? You guys are
at the coal face of this right, You're at the
front end, the sharp end, So that's where the real
knowledge is. And sure, as a leader, I have to
help manage all that information and knowledge, but I want
to help need your help for us to work something

(35:23):
out differently. And that was such a powerful thing, powerful approach,
and I really believe that in every single role I've
taken on every single place I've been to, a leader
who started at the button or who walks the floor,
who walks at the front tend coal face of the
organization is a leader who has a better chance of

(35:46):
tuning into what's really happening. As I said, with the
bombardment of information and the challenges financially, it's so easy,
but leaders adrift into sitting at a desk and making
judgment calls. But they have to walk and the life
of the people that they're leading. I believe to really
truly understand to really truly then to make judgment clause,

(36:09):
but also from a morale point of view, a leader
who's with you at the front facing the challenges, picking
up the phone, take you know, dealing with difficult situations
that your front facing staff often have to deal with
is really powerful. And I really believe that's what certainly
the style of leadership that I promote. You know, it's

(36:32):
based on certain leaderships as a basis, but certain leadership
has much more to it than just the sad face.
You know, certain leaders do also have to make tough decisions, yes,
but if you have that humility, the emotion, intelligence and empathy,
the awareness an awareness. Part of that awareness is knowing
your people, being around them and living their life. I

(36:54):
was speaking to the CEO that I was working with
recently and we do some amazing work in those field
of mentoring, and she said, look, Sanji, this is what
I'm finding when I was speaking to other senior leaders
and hr professionals. They're saying they're finding their leadership switching
off the silent resignation. If you like, leaders they've invested

(37:20):
ten fifteen years to get to that position are basically
becoming disenchanted because they're becoming numbs. So they're making decisions
that they don't connect with that meaning and that purpose
is lost, so that they need to tune back into purpose.
So one of the things I do is help people
find their reason why and their purpose and again back

(37:41):
down to being human. What do we have that's unique
that God has given us above every other part of
creation is that humanness, that ability communicate, have empathy and
reflect on how we do things and make a difference
to people we will never perhaps meet physically, but we
can make a difference in their lives.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Oh, yes, it does.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
It does.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
I know that I was speaking with a few people
who were sharing with me that they were having some
morale issues and that they were feeling like their particular
leadership group was making decisions for them without really understanding
the culture. A certain percentage of their management was working
from home, not because they want to, they actually don't

(38:25):
have an office location for them to go into in
that particular state. Just speaking with different people who don't
even speak with one another or know each other, they
were sharing similar stories where their morale is down and
it's because they feel that there's a huge disconnect with
their leadership and when most of them come on site,

(38:45):
they won't even greet half of the staff. Just a
certain portion of them they will go and say good
morning to them, but the certain people, they won't even
speak to them, even though they don't work with them
them every day. And so that's a part of their
morale issue as well as that they were feeling like
this is not real leadership, you know, because like you

(39:08):
only acknowledge certain people. And so I was wondering, like,
for a group like that, with that type of challenge,
how they would be able to the Only way to
fix that it has to come from the top.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
The tone and the culture of an organization starts at
the top. I've been invited to speak and work with
some really large organizations that when they talked to me
about inclusion and the culture, and the CEO says this,
and they want to drive change and engagement within the
within the workforce through the sources of challenges you've described.

(39:48):
I sit there and say, okay, so how are they
actually listening, How are they actually implementing this. Are they
just doing this for the sake of yeah, we're doing
this inclusivity work, or we're listening to you who are
you reporting to if you have a challenge, think about this.
If you're a worker and you have a challenge because
of the culture of your next line manager, for example,

(40:11):
the CEO, how determine is the chief of that organizing
or the leadership of that organized it should really understand
what's going on. Have they got the courage? Should really
find out because sometimes they don't want to find out
because they know the answer they will get. You're basically
creating a bigger problem for yourself in the future. You're
in denial. So for me, as if you're a worker

(40:32):
and you've got leadership like this, try to suggest some
sort of quality circles or focus groups where you get
to feedback, but feedback without being personal I mean feedback
here nobody likes feedback, feedback in a way of behaviors
and impact as opposed to people. So describing a situation saying, look,

(40:57):
what this is, how it feels where leader comes in
and the only thing to certain people that has this
impact on the morally everybody else. So what theesic asking
the question what else could you do? And the benefit
of having a better morality organization? What benefit would that

(41:18):
have to the business? So talking to the leadership in
language or terms that kind of work for them if
you like. But certainly I think it's the responsibility of
a leader for sure, and then to have leaders in
his team who that leader takes the responsibility of to
ensure they then carry out that same culture across their

(41:41):
span of control or domain, because it has to be
this pushing up with this hard impossible. You can make
a difference in the pockets and the bubbles that you're in,
because life is like that, make a difference where you can,
when you can, how you can.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yes, yes, it would just be a faster and a
broad impact if it came from the top down. So
they're in a situation there where they are just in
that situation.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
They're in a situation, but you know, maybe even the leader.
Let's put yourself in the issues of the leader. And
this is maybe I'm not saying this is what's happening,
but it can get very lonely as a leader. And
this is something I hear a lot from senior leaders
in the world of business and organizations that they understand
that they're causing they're in difficult times. They understand that

(42:32):
then kind of affecting a lot of people and are
not close. So that's a loomed place figuring out if
somebody reached out to them, or if there's a way
of reaching out to them or starting an initiative and
kind of pushing it that way. Maybe, you know, if

(42:52):
there's centers of influct even in the organizations. It's not
a linear liner behavior, right, There'll be some people within
organizations who get it somewhere in that structure, and some don't.
I always I say to people often look for a
senior champion somewhere. It might not be the people right
at the top, but look for people stakeholders who get it.

(43:15):
I'm going to have a coffee with them, a virtual coffee,
share your thoughts, have a representative, you know, and say yeah,
this is how it was feeling. Even them. Kind of
listening to you and finding somebody who empathizes with you
can be a starting point of saying, okay, so what
kinds of things can we explore? What kinds of things

(43:35):
can we do? It's applying it and making sure it
happens all the way through and all the way through
that there's layers of people, right m hm. And you
know the sort of information that gets fed back and
sometimes they filter it, so sometimes a leader doesn't know
or they might have the feeling of isolation themselves, thinking well,

(43:59):
so that's why I work with the leadership teams and
people who are writings do that to give them options,
get them to explore options of how they can break
out that m h You know, sometimes people have a
tournhold and say, right, okay, we're going to do this
once a quarter. Share what's going on, share the sorts
of things that we're facing, share how we do this

(44:22):
as an organization as a team. But yeah, we can't
influence the leaders directly until the leaders here at the
top make the decision that this is now it's going
to go mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
I love that you're doing this because I think that
what started happening for some time is that people were
being put in positions without having the proper training. And
being a good worker doesn't always mean that you're a
good leader. Sometimes you could be promoted based off of

(44:54):
like you're a great employee without having those people skills,
without having the heel, without having the are are if
the three rs. Something in there is missing and so
people like you leading people, you know, like being someone
who helps to coach and teach your models. I think
is really amazing because they need that. I think it's

(45:17):
absolutely necessary, especially after COVID, because there was a disconnect
for some years in between. Change is inevitable, so it's
time to get with the new way of doing things.
You mentioned AI. We have to talk about AI. Every organization, yes, no, no, no,
good for it. I was gonna say, every organization is

(45:38):
now coming out with AI and they're finding ways to
bring it in and embrace it. At first, we thought
we were gonna like not need people, you know, like
they started pulling out cashiers from the stores, and now
we see that they're pulling these machines out that were
ringing people up, you know, where they would do self checkout,
and they're now removing them and bringing people back in.

(46:02):
And then Corporate America has now brought AI in into
call centers and helping their staff to be able to
utilize this AI to help them to be better. What
is your opinion about AI and do you think that
utilizing it in the way that they're starting to now

(46:23):
is that it could lead to Is that a positive
thing or is it something that could lead us in
the wrong direction?

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Okay, and another great question. The answer we just covered
in terms of leaders okay, model humility, empathy, awareness, listen.
So your question about it, I can't believe I forgot
the l So when you're saying leaders sitting by themselves
and not connecting with peoples, the leader has to learn
how to listen, even if they're not physical offices, they

(46:56):
have to figure out how they're going to listen. That's
a good leader. You have to learn to listen. If
you look at a leadership role as a responsibility and
an opportunity to serve, then your whole lens changes, your
perspective changes. So heal stands for humility, empathy, awareness, listening,
and service.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh I love it.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Heals heals, right, so someone healing somebody from pain, healing
somebody from an injury, but healing an organization. So I
believe this model really works in the day we are
and you talk about AI. So I've been in panels
and conversations about AI from a very technical point of view,

(47:38):
but also from a human behavior point of view, and
we're seeing this. The pace of change is so rapid. Yes,
where it leads. We have to be controlling, We have
to control, we have to be wary of it. Why
because it's like having the genie out of the box.
At the moment, the level of intelligence and energy being
used by data centers is incredible. But what you're describing

(48:03):
is that what initially the implementation of technology meant be
going to lose people and like you said, on the
cashiers on checkouts, disappearing and then they weren't. Actually this
isn't working, figure, so plug them back in. Then in
an organization, like you said in a call center, are
you going to replace a person just because something could

(48:25):
replicate a voice? Well, no, because humans make human decision
and so using AI as an enabler, AI is just
an enabler. It's not a So people go, I'm in
the AI business or what does that mean? AI is everywhere.
It's how do you use this when ability to manage
data and technology to enable more effective work basically more

(48:49):
effective business. And there'll be certain I still believe there'll
be certain types of work that will become obsolete because
it would just be done. I mean we talked about software.
Sun was trained in software programming. He works in big data.
But he tells me that some of the stuff that
he used to have to do and used to take
days to figure out this technology can help them go yeah,

(49:12):
this is the answer. Great, but that doesn't remove the
need for people who are software inking it is because
it's like having a pilot on the plane. The planes
have the technology to or to take off, auto land,
but there's something you take away the damn pilot. No, no,
not right? Thing right you or I believe that there
will be key you know, people need to think about

(49:35):
how they evolve because there is change and you have
to embrace the change. And you can either sit there
and say, no, I'm not going to change. Life will change.
Everything changes, like the season's changed, like there's planet that's
changed over the years. Or you can embrace it and say, okay,
so what can I do to equip myself? And if

(49:56):
you're an organization organization, you should make things available for
people to help them learn, to facilitate learning. It doesn't
have to be on the job. Give them access to
tools that they can self to learn. Because when you
look at a change in a positive light, let me
figure out how to embrace this. And my father was
a lovely man, but human technology, he's like he'll have

(50:18):
three thumbers that kind of he just couldn't get anything
by it right, And whenever I used to have a
conversation with him, he said, look, we're too old, and
I used to say, listen, we're never too old. Yeah,
we're never too old. Lights. We don't know how many
breaths we have. We could be there till one hundred
or something, we could be going tomorrow. Embrace each day

(50:39):
with a positive mindset. It's not a criticism. It's an opportunity.
And if those opportunities are laid in front of you,
embrace them. If they're not there, go find them. Right. Yes,
take control of your life. And that's that's kind of
my general advice to people that you can't control. As

(51:00):
we've talked about with COVID and my journey in there,
I've had that in business as well. You know, I've
ended up in business where I've had to make some
really tough calls, where I've made business decisions and choices
going into business with somebody with some partners based on
my judgment of them at the time that they had
all the right business qualifications, corporate experience, and we had

(51:23):
this great opportunity that they pulled me into. Got excited
by the business idea, and signed, you know, a contract
and invested in the business without understanding who I was
getting into bed with. Right and difficult. That's when you
realize who. Okay, hang on a second. I use those
challenges that I've faced to kind of when I'm now

(51:45):
working with organization leaders entrepreneurs and they've got this idea, go,
who's your team? Tell me about your team. It's important.
Tell me about your team and how that team works,
and what's that stake for each individual. For me, I
had situation Chantate where one of the founders got greedy

(52:06):
and he wanted to get rid of another one just
as our business are taking off. And he took me
for a walk one day and he said, send you.
You and I make this business tick. You and I
have built this business and this great opportunity. It's going
to explode. I've got an investor who wants to come in.
Let's pull him in and let's get rid of the
director shareholder. Ooh ooh. That doesn't work with me. He said, no,

(52:31):
you don't understand big business because he'd been on the
boards of larger corporations for many years and he said,
this is how it works. And I said, well, it
might work there, but it doesn't work in any business, Amparta.
I can't do that. So long story short. He tried
to dangle carrots infronted me on different conversations, saying, look,
if you agree to this, here's a fancy service contract.

(52:53):
I'll sign yours, you signed mine, and when the investment
money comes in, we can live it up. Basically, I went,
that's not fair only investor either, because until we're making money, morally,
I can't be getting people to invest in a business
to basically fund a lifestyle for me. They investing in
the business and me. But equally, you can't get rid

(53:15):
of this guy. If he wants to be bought out,
buy him out. And he said no, no, no, he
has to walk away with nothing because the business is
worse and nothing at the moment. Yeah, that was the
ing And I went, that's stealing. He said, no, no, no,
that's how businesses were. Let me tell you what was
at stake, Shun. I had worked harder than I'd ever

(53:36):
worked in my life.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
I wrapped up my borrowing, my credit cards, I'd sold
things to just basically get to this position, and everything
in the business was about to take on like we
had everything lined up. But on this point of principle,
this moral point of principle, I had to make aditional
pool and I didn't think twice about it. I said, no,
I can't back it. He said, well, then I'm going

(54:02):
to have to bring the business down.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I said, what did he mean by bringing it down?

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, exactly right, that's a great I didn't understand that either,
so I said, no, I can't support it. He walks away.
We went home. We came back the next morning to
the office and the door had been broken in. Somebody
had ripped out the hard drives, somebody had taken away
some of our data. We didn't know what the heck
was going on. Obviously, we kind of suspect who it was,

(54:30):
but we had no expectation that somebody would do something
so crazy. And then I was due to fly out
to our offshoing partners that we can with him, and
on the way to the airport, I was getting called
saying what's going on from somebody's off showing partners, saying,
what's going on in your business? I said nothing? Why

(54:50):
are you still flying out to see it? Yeah? Are
we still doing this launch? Yeah? Chantey what he'd been doing?
And I realized this as the days went by. A
poison emails. Now, I don't know if people understand what
poison email is. In law in this country, you can
allege anything you want without getting into legal trouble. Now

(55:13):
that in Laura that had no basis of challenge, I
couldn't do anything about it. So basically the banks throw
the business bank account. I got the advice of a
barrister and the barrister said, you are absolutely at you too.
He is doing this, but this will take a long
drawn out legal battle back and forth. How much money

(55:35):
do you want to waste? So what do you suggest?
He said, you either stop the business or you buy
him out, And we were so close to taking us
we took the decision to buy him out, despite him
being so nasty. Now, the challenge in the curve balls
that we had after he left were ridiculous, like he

(55:57):
had taken our business plan gone to a competitor. He'd
sold the idea to them. They're going to double the
money we were paying them for the asposition. So then
we were having to deal with and reinvent ourselves. It
was an absolute roller coaster, but I am at peace

(56:17):
that I did the right thing. Yes, financially I suffered,
but I learned a lot in business. I managed to
turn the business around and stabilize it and eventually we
solved the business. But the lessons you learn in those
difficult times are the ones that make you. You know,
gold is forged in fire right, diamonds are polished, broken,

(56:43):
bashed to bits. But then that's when you get this
true scarf of the diamond. And I believe I see
the diamond and the potential in everybody, the jewel and
everybody and every organization. It's up to them to have
their courage and the conviction to stay the court and
be a part of this journey to help bring out
the real, true beauty and strengthen somebody. But life isn't

(57:05):
a simple straight line. I wish it was ABCD and
apele b a PC and you're going to be a
millionaire overnight. But when you learn these skills, you can
navigate life better. You can navigate the challenges better. You've
got to embrace life rather than fear it.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
I love that you have. I would say resilience is
definitely there for sure, and it has shown up in
your life. You definitely have that badge of resilience.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
I'm not sitting in my laurels because I've seen in circumbats.
You've only had some of it.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
So you know what's interesting. I would say that ninety
percent of the people that have successful businesses, if you
ever really have a conversation with them in private, they
would share with you that they did something similar to
what the guy wanted you to do. And I'm not
saying that the entire world is a horrible place, you know,

(57:58):
and that people are bad or anything like that. But
if you've ever had a really good conversation with someone
who was really like they would share with you that
a lot of them said that they've done things in
their past that was unethical or that if they had
to go back and change something when they're looking at
their entire life, that sometimes the way that they did

(58:20):
business in a cutthroat way would be something that they
would go back and change. And because it was, it
was something that they were taught that that's how you
get ahead, and that's how you get the way that
you do do things. Not every single person is like that,
you know, but the way how he's thinking, a lot
of them that's how they think, which is terrible.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
It's the reality. Yeah, yeah, I've experienced it a lot,
but you still have as me, I just go back
to my choices.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, people have morals. You have to have morals and values.
What do you value the most? When you have a
solid set of you can sometimes stand back and go, wow,
I wonder how they're sleeping at night, because it's about
having peace. It's about your values, your morals, and what
matters to you the most. Some people have never had

(59:13):
an opportunity to sit down and say what do I
value the most? What's important to me? They think that
it's success and money. But you can't get there and
have real peace doing it in a way where it's unethical.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Can I share a perspective with you? Yes, which might
be a bit controversial, but again, okay. I used to
be very much exactly that simple in terms of thinking
how do they sleep at night? But what I've seen
is people do sleep at night. However, for me, it's
about you know, when I go back to knowing yourself,

(59:49):
knowing yourself and knowing what your values are, is you
who have to be congruous If we have these values
and we're tuned into our values, however much we try
and break out of them. We want to sleep at night,
but equally that being in the world unfortunately for whatever reason,
who can become unnumb to it, oblivious to it, for

(01:00:11):
whatever else it is. And you know, it's a much
bigger philosophical question about how we're born, what de could cause,
we're born with, what environment? You know, all of those
kinds of things say it's might a deeper conversation. So
I've learned to accept that. My choice and that's back
down to owning it. My choice is I want, based

(01:00:31):
on my moral compass, to be able to sleep at night.
I will put all of this above that shortcut. I
think everybody morally has you know, nobody would say that
immoral if you ask anybody whoever they are. But I
think when the pressure is on is when you really
find out what you're made of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
And that's how I kind of shared that example for
all of us. We're facing tough economic time, me, you, everybody,
but you know, being true to what's important, and you know,
when you declutter. One of my kind of recommendations that
I've done is I declutter, chase and run and doing
this and doing that, we kind of accumulate things in

(01:01:13):
your life, in your possessions. What I start to do
is declutter. I suggest to people go and do things altruistically.
Start pick something small I don't care. Go help out
he a shelter, go and help a local charity. I
do stuff like winter food banks. So when I go
shopping for the food banks chante, sometimes I'm in tears

(01:01:33):
because I'm sitting there going, I'm stuffing up these trolleys,
and I'm thinking, here's a choice between something that's got
a chocolate filling in it biscuits, or here's a plane
one I can buy more plain ones, and there's choucl
in my family. I'm blessed that I don't never have
to make that decision with my kid. I'm thinking, but
then I'm not gonna make a choice like that for

(01:01:54):
anybody else. If I'm gonna give back, let me give
back with my whole heart.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
I love that when you're helping and serving those less fortunate,
whatever traubmas and challenges you've been through, kind of puts
it into perspective of my kind of spiritual master, my guru,
his holiness promos. I mean, he literally WoT the talk.
His message in life was in the joy of others lives,
our own, in the progress of other's rests our own,
and for me that has become an embedded compass. And

(01:02:22):
I think you have the same right in terms of
you have your morals and you have your values, and
that is your compass. So live true to that because
that's why you'll get peace. And I think that the
focus for everybody should be what's going to bring you peace?

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Yeah, and that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. But it's one
of those lessons in life and you kind of accept it.
And what I change you who I am?

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Mhm, wow, that's awesome. And so you and that you
were able to sell the business. That's good that you
were able to sell the business. And I love everything
that you're doing. I think that it's really awesome. And
you mentioned that you did a ted X talk. That's right, Well,
I love that. I love ted X talks and I've
had former guests who were also a part of TEEDX

(01:03:10):
and I think that when people don't realize you don't
just wake up and go, oh, I'm just gonna go
on TED talk. There's a process and you actually have
to be at a certain level of speaking to be
able to make it to that point to be a
ted X speaker. It's just a different level.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Look. I think there's doing the best you can and
then the stars aligning, and I think it's a combination
of that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
My TEDx talk I did shortly after COVID, and I
wanted to do it. This is my mindset. I deliver
told for a living, I do training for a living,
right mm hmm. And so I'm like this in any room,
you give me a subject to topic, I'm gonna talk
about it. I'll em break it and I'll enjoy it.

(01:03:54):
But for that ted talk hours, really, I mean that
became the toughest thing for me because I said, I
want to make make a difference to the people in
the room right now, because the world is in st
difficult times and with a ted X it's a university,
right and so or those that demographic onwards. And I
think I want to give something to everybody at every
stage in life. So that's why I thought, let me

(01:04:16):
try and illustrate this three hours model in a way
that everybody can relate to. So I talked about my
early life and how I was that kid who always
observed and Despine, the challenges. This is what I was.
I was the one who was watching for the patterns,
trying to make sense of the world and how challenges

(01:04:37):
them and difficult times are a normal life, but with
how humans have this amazing ability to adapt so challenges
stretches and trying to give that perspective. And that's how
I started the three Hours Conversation. When you when you
hear it, the listeners will will see that I was
still in flame with COVID. Like the long COVID part

(01:04:59):
of it, I was very much kind of okay, composed,
keep going, but I was determined to deliver it something
that meant and the more emotionally it's the more really
is kind of you feel it here anyway, right, someb
was desperately wanting to share something that people could relate to.
And I had so many people in the audience and

(01:05:20):
afterworts come back to me and saying that was something
that brought them to tears, but that they could really
relate to and was beautifully it was the people from
around the world that people from all generations and people
still message me saying I needed to hear that. So
is it the most fluid, fluent talk I've given definitely not.
Is it something I'm proud of in terms of I

(01:05:40):
gave something back that I wanted to make a difference
in that moment for that time. Yeah, I would love
to do another one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I think that you. I could totally see you doing
another one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Everybody's out there listening doing the TED conference unavailable.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
I totally can see it. If I can find the link,
I definitely will have it. You guys can look in
the show notes and click on the link. All of
the information for son Jave. Did I say your name right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Gee?

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Sonji Speaks will be in the show notes where you
can connect with him on social media. And if someone
wanted you to come to the organization to speak with
the leadership, how would they get you there?

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Ping me, D and me. I have an Instagram page
Sunday Speaks. I'm on LinkedIn Aday Speaks. My name is
Sanji Bttel. I have a website www dot sjayspeaks dot com.
Get in touch. You can hear what I'm about. I'm
passionate and I've lived there of what I'm talking about.
I'd love to try and help anybody I can. If
there's organizations and leaders out there who think I can

(01:06:49):
help start the conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Absolutely, I love it. People need you, the organizations need you.
What's happening across the board is that there's a shift happening.
And in that shift, I believe organizations are realizing that
they need to bring people in. They need you. They
need you to come on in and help them to
be able to help the people, you know, because I

(01:07:14):
think that leadership is a smaller portion than the next level.
So it has to start there with getting their minds right,
and then they can help to shift the minds of
their employees. And so I think that your three R
model is beautiful and I love heels both of them.
This is like amazing. I've enjoyed talking with you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Bless you and thank you for having me on the show. Shante,
thank you for coming on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Is there anything that you want to leave the listeners
with before we end our episode.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
I want to leave the listeners, I guess with hope
and understanding that whatever life's challenges and the noise of
that around is, we have the ability to take control
and cut out the noise. So whatever that means. But
I hope what I've left the listeners with is something
that they can connect with, something that feels real, something

(01:08:07):
that's relatable, and something that gives them food for thought
or exploration of how they can take some of those
insights and use them practically for themselves. And it can
be small steps like creating cutting out the noise. I
talked about breastwork, simple things like just taking a breath,
but a controlled breath. The US Navy Seals use it

(01:08:30):
for a full breath blots system, so we're a count
of four breathe in, hold for four, breathe out before
hold for for and the US Navy Seals use this
to focus and detwetter in stressful moments. So if it's
powerful enough, something as simple as that in breastwork is
powerful enough to the US Navy Seal, then I'm sure

(01:08:51):
it's something that it's worth trying for each and every
one of us.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
Actually actually talk about that in a book that I
have about mindfulness that comes out in November. That's like
one of the sections I talk about how maybe sales
uses it's a certain type of breath work because there's
like different than to be a book.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Looks it forward shanty.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
It's jam with me a journey to your higher self.
And then it's like the part for mindfulness. They should
have taught us this when we were kids. So it's
super long, you know, but there's three parts already out
that's been out for a couple of years or maybe
three years. But that's the number four about mindfulness.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Can I share something else in that case?

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
So I'm working on in the last stages of a
journal nice and I'm calling it growing through what You're
going through.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Oh I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
So it'll be available toward it through the website and
through the Toby Journey. Remember I told you about how
traumatic it was and dealing with the pain and long covid,
et cetera. There's a book that I'm working on us
a bit further down the line, but it's called just Breathe.
So let's breathe so through the storms of life, through

(01:10:05):
the phases of life. Then you know, going back down
to just breathe. A lot of the practical exercises you're
talking about, because as I said, I come from a
place culturally where meditation and yoga has been a part
of my daily routine and the power of that breath
of kind of standing back is about just breathing, dealing
with traumatic, difficult situation, breathing through it, strengthening yourself, healing

(01:10:30):
yourself through breathwork. But it's not just literally a breath work,
it's the way of thinking as well. So that's how
this book is going to come together nice. Look after
that too, Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
So there's some good things and the works with you
that you guys have to look forward to, and I
think that that is really a great thing. It's definitely
been an enjoyable conversation. And when your journal gets ready
to come out or your book, either one, you are
definitely welcome to come back. And that's an open invitation
for you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Let me know how I engage touch with you. Absolutely
location listen. They're blessed. Keep it the amazing work you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Thank you. Thank you so much Sanji for coming on
authentic talks and for hanging out with me. You guys,
I hope that you found hills h ea LS will
be beneficial for you in your life and to use
this model when you're facing life's tough situations or diversity.

(01:11:28):
We've had a lot going on in the United States
over the past few weeks where there's a lot of tension,
and there's a lot of division that's being injected or
inflicted or forced upon people. And I just want to
take a moment to remind you that Hills the Hills
model can be applied to so many different areas of

(01:11:48):
our lives, and we have to remember, like in his
story of what he shared on this show, it reminds
us in life's darkest moments, we have the power to reflect,
to re frame, and to reset, and that leadership isn't
just about titles, but it's about humanity, empathy and serving others.

(01:12:09):
If this episode spoke to you, please share it with
someone who could use a reminder that resilience is possible
and that authenticity is power. Don't forget to subscribe to
the show, you guys, Authentic Talks two point oh. That way,
you will never miss an episode that's filled with conversations
to help you grow in the mind, body, and spirit.

(01:12:31):
All the information is in the show notes on how
you can connect with today's guests, and as always, until
next time, keep walking in your truth and becoming your
most authentic self. Thank you all so much for tuning in.
My name is Chante with Authentic talks

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Episode 285 | Grow Through Adversity | Guest: Sanjiv Patel

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 285 | Grow Through Adversity | Guest: Sanjiv Patel