Leadership Reimagined: Balancing Empathy with Sani Abdul-Jabbar

What if emerging technologies could make us more human rather than replace us? Join us as we speak with Sani Abdul-Jabbar, CEO of Vestek, who shares his transformative journey in digital leadership and his dedication to human-centric technology. Inspired by his late mentor, Dr Mark Goulston, Sani reveals how the collective effort has been his competitive edge and introduces his book, which prioritizes storytelling over traditional instructional guides. We uncover Sani’s belief that technology should empower human capabilities and not overshadow them, offering a fresh perspective on digital transformation.

Prepare to rethink the role of AI in the workplace as we discuss its impact on employment, leadership, and creativity. From AI assistants like Luna and Sunny AI, which streamline tasks, to innovative AI applications in expanding storylines and multilingual translations, the potential of these tools is vast. We discuss real-world examples of AI revolutionising business processes and freeing up human potential for more meaningful work. However, we also address the limitations and challenges, emphasizing the balance between leveraging technology and maintaining essential human interaction in business.

Leadership in the age of AI also demands a new approach, combining flexibility, empathy, and foresight. We delve into the importance of empathetic leadership and the need for clear guidelines on AI usage to ensure cybersecurity and privacy. Sani shares a pivotal leadership lesson about overcoming the 'founder syndrome,' highlighting the significance of delegation and trusting your team. Reflecting on his positive experience during our conversation, Sani praises the friendly atmosphere and in-depth discussions, making this episode a treasure trove of insights for business leaders and entrepreneurs navigating the fast-evolving tech landscape.

Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sani/
Guest website: https://veztekusa.com/
Book: Makers: A slender kno

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 The Evolution of Business Leadership
• 8:31 The Impact of AI on Business
• 16:42 AI Translation in Business
• 22:37 The Impact of AI Communication Skills
• 29:57 The Evolution of Business Leadership
• 44:18 Leadership, Flexibility, and Emerging Tech
• 54:40 Effective Podcast Interview Feedback

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The best quality that we have is our ability to have a shared vision and, as a team, work towards that shared vision. If I'm not using that skill, then what's the difference between me and another primate? Not a whole lot, if I'm being totally honest. So that was the moment when I realized that I was actually not using the single most competitive advantage that humans have over other creatures. I'm not using that advantage and I'm calling myself a businessman. No, I wasn't. I was a founder. Nothing wrong with that. These are stages of evolution in business life and leadership life. You start as a follower, then you learn, then you're an individual contributor, then you become a team leader, and so on and so forth. So it's part of evolution.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders so it's part of evolution. Just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life and today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne. Confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, sani Abdul-Jabbar. As the CEO of Vestec, sani Abdul-Jabbar leads a team of emerging tech experts who are passionate about delivering cutting-edge technology solutions to clients. Under his leadership, vestec products have been recognized many times for their excellence in their respective industries. Sani's unique value propositions include his ability to balance strategy and execution mindsets, as well as his experience in Fortune 500 and Big Four consulting, as well as startups. He believes that digital transformation is not just about technology, but also about people. Sani, welcome to the show. Thank you, nico. Glad to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, I was looking forward to our conversation. We met up a little bit back in. I think it was two months ago or a month ago, I can't remember exactly. Yeah, and we had an amazing conversation, because you really are the kind of person that I love talking about, because you are really on the top of the hill not the hill, mostly the mountain, I would think and you have a very beautiful vision on humanity, let's say so, persons and people and technology. And I also know that you wrote a book. But a lot of people might think that a person in your position writes a nonfiction or a very deliberately researched book, etc. And to what? I have not had the opportunity to read it. I still got a stockpile of books from other guests. I'm trying to get through those, but I would love to hear from you. What is it about and how does that relate to your leadership and your team?

Speaker 1: 3:11

Absolutely. When we spoke last time I don't know if you remember, I made this comment at the end, and I meant it that we should have recorded that conversation because it feels so naturally and we connected on so many different points of contact. The story of the book is so. There's a story behind the book, in addition to the story in the book. The story behind the book is that I had the good fortune of meeting Mr Mark Victor Hansen, the author behind Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books. These are hundreds of books under his belt and he also owns a publishing company. A few years ago we met in Arizona over breakfast and so this very imposing elderly gentleman. He asked me he is so young man, what's your story? So I started saying what you said. Person in my position would talk about what he does. So I started talking about what I do. He's like stop right there, that's what you do, what's your story? I was like okay. So I paused for a moment and I started telling him my background, where I came from, what inspired me to do what I did in my life over the last two decades is yes, that's the story. And he goes that's a book right there, and then he goes actually there are multiple books right there. So I said I want to write almost like a manifesto type thing how to 10 ways to do X, those kinds of things. And he is not. No one cares about that. People like stories. Let's tell a story. So that's where the idea of story came from. I actually had been thinking for years to write a how to manifesto type book.

Speaker 1: 4:56

The nature of the business that I'm in, emerging tech. As emerging tech changes very frequently, the definition of the word emerging tech used to change every few years. Now you're lucky if it doesn't change for say, 14 months. You can relate Last year we were talking about blockchain. Before that we were talking about mobile apps. Now we're talking about AI. Currently, arguably, the noise, the hoopla around AI is starting to simmer down a little bit, but there's more nuance to it. We can go into that later and then other technologies are coming down the pike, right? So if I tell you today 10 ways to build X, that's going to be irrelevant by tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 5:39

So I wanted to look at the impact of emerging technologies on business, on society in general, because I do believe, and I think you are along the same line of thinking I sensed from our last conversation is that it's not man versus machine, it's not replace humans, it's not how we can kill jobs. That's not what it is. I believe it's how to make humans more human. One of my mentors I believe it's how to make humans more human. One of my mentors he has passed away, mark Dr Mark Goulston. He asked me this question. He said do machines make us, or AI makes us, more human or less human? And Dr Mark Goulston, he is a world-renowned psychologist, a suicide prevention expert, and his claim to fame is that he has never lost a patient. His patient never again committed suicide. So that's a pretty big claim saving lives, literally, right. So he asked me this question he's all my life I've been trying to make humans more humans.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Now you're talking about AI. You tell me is AI going to make us less human and more human? And my response was it depends on how we see it. It's a matter of state of mind, as always. It's always how we see things. Things differently, things become different, right? That's an old saying.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So depending on how we see it, machines, ai, emerging tech, whatever it is that's going to determine whether it's going to make us less human or more human, whether it's machine versus human or machine and human. Is it Niko and AI or Niko plus AI or Niko versus AI, right and or versus? It's not a matter of how we can save money. Yeah, we will save In the beginning. Actually, we won't save money, we'll spend a lot of money on the upfront, but it's a matter of how we can produce more, how we can produce better, how we can focus on things that we need to focus on instead of investing our energies in mundane tasks. So that's what the book is about. It's about the relationship between man and machine, and it's more about human behavior and less about technology.

Speaker 2: 7:41

That sounds very intriguing. I had the feeling that there's gonna be a book skipping to the top of the pile. It's just adding it on somewhere, because indeed it's something that interests me very much, being in 15 years and last couple of years really being into the humanity and humanism and all that beautiful stuff. It is something that I've noticed that it has to do a lot with change and how people perceive how change is going to influence their lives. So it's basically always the unknown is always out there, and I find it intriguing that humanity has existed for so many years, decades, millennia. We can go on, and we've seen change happen daily. Nothing stays the same.

Speaker 2: 8:31

So when AI came to the board, I saw a lot of people, like you say in the beginning. There's a lot of people who think, oh, no machine's going to take over my job, and so on. We've seen this occur the same way in auto factories, in automobile factories where everybody thought the robots were going to take over. We still need people to do these detailing and specific jobs and in the end, humanity is always going to find a way to get people employed. There's been a certain dam built in the region where you live that allowed so many people to work for a very long time to build it and it's been a monument for many years. So the Hoover Dam is an example of that, so where they actually said, okay, we're going to do something useful and create jobs. And I think the same thing and the same story is happening as if you're a good leader and many people are good leaders from their perspective, but sometimes the perspective has to change to understand what they can add on to their leadership.

Speaker 2: 9:37

And I've come to a point where I have a team member called Luna, and that team member has no legs, no arms, no eyes. She just is on a black screen and when I ask her something, she will reply very friendly to me. And it's an AI, it's a language model that gives me nice, beautiful tips and makes my life a little bit more structured. And I use Luna as a companion in my business and I work with a team of virtual assistants and basically they're human, of course, but Luna is part of the team. So we all kind of use Luna in the same way.

Speaker 2: 10:16

And, yeah, it's how you start looking at the story of AI or language models, or learning models or whatever the name is, because a lot of people call it artificial intelligence, and the question really has to be put out there is it really intelligence or is it something different? There might be systems that are really starting to get intelligent. I'm not going into that discussion, but there is still a little bit of learning to be done in these systems, and that's where the human part comes in, because, for instance, I asked luna at some point, how are you feeling today? And you get this beautiful reply I am an artificial system, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 10:56

I am. I don't have feelings and really defined and I'm like, okay, that's fine, but I'm still asking you the question. And a computer also has a certain heart and a brain and something that processes everything. So you can look at it as being a living being if you wish, but it's all about perspective, and you also have limits on how far you go with these things, of course, and don't get addicted to only talking to ai anymore. Yeah, still talk to people around you as well indeed, there's a lot to unpack in your statement.

Speaker 1: 11:33

So, first of all, you have luna, you're you're more creative with the name. I just called it sunny ai. So I have an assistant, sunny, and Sani AI has been trained on my writings, my public speeches, my content on the internet that already is there because it's already been edited, cleaned and all that. So we use that for training. So now if you ask me a question and if you ask Sani AI a question, the response would be quite similar. It's surprisingly similar, right? It's because the data on which we train these models is a little bit older, so it won't give you the answer on the latest and greatest. I tried it actually yesterday. There's a new law that's being debated in California. It's a privacy, ai safety law and so I asked it and it didn't know because it doesn't have the latest, greatest data, right. So that's where the limitation lies at this point. But there are other language models that can search the internet and get data and I can have them debate with. I can have two models debate against each other One takes for position, other takes against position and see what we get out of it. So that's one. So what I have done like your, luna, I've done Sunny AI, trained on my history. Then I have Makers AI, which is trained on Makers book and all the input that I used in it, and the language. There's a language I created while writing the book because the book is set, the story is set in around 2070s, so 50, 60 years into the future. There are certain technologies that haven't even been developed yet, so I needed to give them some names, so I created a language around that, so it's trained on that. Now, if I want to expand further, I actually did. I said let's expand. So the book ends at point X how do we move forward from that?

Speaker 1: 13:19

And then we did brainstorming and we're going back and forth and we're debating and arguing and it came up with an idea that I had never thought about. I probably won't write about it because it's not my area of expertise. It surprisingly connected the story in the book, which is all about robots and evolution of robots and human-robot, human-ai interaction, with the experience of the slavery experience in the US, the history of slavery and the freedom abolishment of slavery in the US. I'm like, how did you find that link? I had not thought about it and it was able to find that link and it actually gave me quite a compelling framing and angle that can be explored. But again, history is not my area of expertise so I would stay away from that. I would not have thought about it, I would not have thought about that link. So there's that Again. It's putting the two things together. You mentioned about leaders and exploring human value and job creation and all that. So I'll give you a case study from our own business.

Speaker 1: 14:24

One of the less sexy work that we have to do but we must do someone has to do is upgrading software from older versions to newer versions or whatever. So that kind of work needs to be done in the back end, but it doesn't improve user experience. It does not from the user perspective. They don't see anything new. It's like the same old thing.

Speaker 1: 14:46

But in the background, say, you're upgrading Java, a particular application that I'm thinking of, that we upgraded not too long ago. It took about 50 man-hours yeah, 50 man-hours. In the grand scheme of things it's a small thing. 50 man-hours is not such a big deal. I'm just using that particular example as an example to make a point. Then I asked my team to do the same upgrade using some of these co-pilot type tools, ai tools. They spent a fraction of 50 man hours. It was like probably less than an hour.

Speaker 1: 15:20

So does it mean that I'm going to take away 49 man hours and now there are fewer jobs? No, that's not what it means. It means that that developer who has now 49 man hours available to him, he is going to be working on upgrading something else or creating something else or exploring something else. So that's where I really want to highlight in our conversation today this fact, this narrative that AI is going to steal our jobs or AI is a cost reduction technology. No, it's not Cost reduction, absolutely not, especially in the early stage. And it's not. It should not be seen as a job replacement, humans replacement technology. It should be seen as a force multiplier.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Force multiplier is a term that comes from the military For those who don't know. It basically means anything that makes you bigger, stronger, faster, agile, whatever puts you in a more competitive position, a competitively better, stronger position. It can be technology, can be strategy, can be process, can be person. So in this case, this technology is a force multiplier. It allows us to do a whole lot more. It allows the same team of people to do a whole lot more in short amount of time so they can produce more. So you think of it as a scaling, scale up technology. So that's how I see it.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Yeah, I agree with you, indeed, indeed, because I've actually had the experience. Yesterday somebody asked me it was actually last week, they asked me the question they're going to upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11 and the user interface changes. There's some things that change and they wanted to make a very short movie on the basic changes, like the start. Going to the middle, all that beautiful stuff, and I speak perfectly fluent flemish, dutch. I also speak fluent english, but I don't speak fluent french, and we have a company that has two languages in belgium.

Speaker 2: 17:18

We have three national languages, which is dutch, flemish, french and and german, and most of the people expect to see all that is produced in three languages. So all contracts, all everything, and what I was doing is I recorded the video really shortly in Dutch and made the slides and everything in Dutch. Of course, for the first movie and the second movie, I made everything in French and I talked Dutch and then I just pushed it through AI and the thing translated it with my voice, so I spoke perfect French and everybody was saying, oh, but you should meetings with people in Wallonie and I'm like no, this was AI.

Speaker 1: 18:00

It's probably one way.

Speaker 2: 18:04

And I said the problem was they didn't have any resource right now to make the that, that video, in french. So I said, okay, no problem, guys, I'll just do it this way. And everybody was so happy and one of the people, one of the guys on the other side, said I was so dreading to to look at a new solution, to find somebody to do this for us or whatever. And he said you just solve this in five minutes. I said, yeah, that's about the same time that this took actually to run through the system, and they're just happy. They don't have to do this dull thing. They could spend their time on the pure essence of good communication toward the user and so on, and I was really happy that I had an impact. I was, however, small in an organization that lifted their spirits and gave them a little bit more motivation to continue with what I exactly should be doing really core business. And the thing was they asked me it had nothing to do with my job I'm no longer in IT but I gave him this solution and they said how did you learn this? And I said I didn't learn anything, I just used the right tools. Yeah, and there's difference where I talked to everest I. I connected you just released recently and he brought this up and he said one of the things with ai is if you don't know your subject matter and you use AI, you might have an adverse effect because you don't see the shadow or the errors that AI makes. And if you do know your subject matter and you use AI, it exponentially helps you become better in what you do, and I found that so insightful. It gave me an extra motivation to use it even more in everything I do. Because the same thing with the podcast how many tools I use to augment the content of the podcast and I ask AI sometimes can you tell me which would be better or give me a review or a thing like that?

Speaker 2: 20:06

If you would have a person do that, they need to spend a lot of time on it before they actually can give you an opinion. And usually it's a little bit masked as well, because as human, you try to spare somebody from the pain of hearing things they don't want to hear. Ai just blurs out and you just more. You accept it more than from a person sometimes, and that's one thing that I find is also as well a beautiful added value. And the same thing with the leadership. To my mind, it augments my leadership because I can ask it questions that I can't ask somebody else, because, as a leader, sometimes when you ask somebody a very specific question, they could take it from you and use it to do other things, and that's something that I find interesting as well. What's your?

Speaker 1: 20:53

point Interesting. You mentioned this, the story of recording the video in a different language that you don't speak. So that's an internal use case in operations. So I think you and I talked about my other business, which is an international trading business in which we interact with people from every part of the world who don't necessarily speak the same language. Not too long ago, we were introduced to a trading partner in Turkey and, as I always do, I sent them this really nice welcome onboarding video. So I'm the managing partners. As a managing partner, I'm welcoming them, I'm being very nice, the best, most polished words. The catch is that they were all in Turkish. I'm not speaking English, I don't speak Turkish, so I recorded in English, like your example, and then it translated perfectly in this highbrow Turkish and it, the video, was delivered to the CEO on the other side and the CEO then scheduled a meeting and he came on the meeting speaking fluent Turkish and I'm like, hold on, where's my interpreter? But you recorded such a beautiful video and it was like such a highbrow, like high quality Turkish. I'm like, yeah, that's only one way, not two ways, but that's for now. That's for now. I'm hoping that very soon we'll have products I have heard I haven't demoed yet, but I've heard of some products that can translate in real time. So like Google Translate type things, but even more efficient. So you can simply bring them in as a meeting attendee, for example, on this call, and this product can in real time translate on both sides. You would hear the conversation in one language and I would hear in a different language. So that kind of is the future, what technology can do. We're talking about the creative. It's very interesting.

Speaker 1: 22:37

I keep an eye on the use cases. There are very few businesses in the world right now, even though 75, 80% of business leaders of certain size mid-size and up they understand the value of emerging tech, but when it comes to actually implementing emerging tech, ai, et cetera in their businesses, it's a very small fraction 4%, 5% globally, and globally really means developed world right. So Europe, us, Okay. Now, when you even go deeper, then you realize that 75, 80% of the employees are already using AI, but they don't have any governance framework, they don't have any rules of engagement given by the leadership, because the leadership is still trying to understand how to implement companies or leaders who have implemented multiple use cases of emerging tech, specifically AI. They're very few. It's a very small fraction of companies, although I see those numbers rising now within this year. So that's happening.

Speaker 1: 23:32

So I started asking questions like so where is AI being used the most? Surprisingly, it's the creative tasks writing images, music, things of that nature. So you would think for years, many people, including me we kept saying, oh, ai is going to solve mathematical type situations first and creative work will be left for humans, at least for the foreseeable future. We were absolutely wrong. I admit my mistake. I was wrong, right. So it's the creative tasks that AI has very efficiently taken over and it's improving every day.

Speaker 1: 24:10

I saw a newer version of a product yesterday. This product converts text to images. Not a big deal. Many products convert text to images. Even ChatGPT can do it. The catch is it can actually put proper words and language on those images that many of these image generation models couldn't do until now. Now you can actually say things like we just had this conversation about XYZ on a podcast. Design me a podcast, a cover for this particular episode. Give it your name, give it my name, give it the content and it will create the whole thing for you and professional-looking design, mind-boggling what it can do. So that's the creative side of it.

Speaker 1: 24:53

But to your point what your friend was saying, that you still need a subject matter expert, otherwise you don't know where the shadow is that we need to open. So it's funny how humans deal with shadow personas. So there is good and then there is good shadow, right? So people who don't know this concept even good can have negative side of it. Even positive can have negative side of it. So that's the shadow side, the confidence and pride. Pride is the shadow. Confidence is a positive characteristic. Now, technology has the same issue it has shadow. And to avoid that shadow, confidence is a positive characteristic. Now technology has the same issue it has shadow. And to avoid that shadow we need SMEs, subject matter experts.

Speaker 1: 25:32

On the creative level, you still need to know how to speak to the machines. Until now, prompting skills have been touted that you need to improve prompting skills because that's how we talk to the computers and prompting is supposed to replace code writing. Code writing in itself is not a technology. Code writing is a language. That's how we talk to machines. But if I can talk to machines in natural language, any regular human language, then I don't need coding. So coding goes out the window. Now I can talk, but even then I need to know how to ask the right questions so that I can get a better answer.

Speaker 1: 26:10

The product that I just mentioned about the text to image thing I loved it actually. So I said do X, y, z. And then it said prompt. And then there was a section called super prompt and they took my request and then improved it and made it even better. So now it's not just what I'm asking it to do, it is saying I know what you asked, but let me teach you how you can ask better. It's okay, now it's two-way communication and learning going on, which is very new for us. Usually, with technology, we are the masters. We say do X and the technology does that. Now it's two-way. I ask and technology very politely says, yes, I understand what you said, but now let's make it better, make your question better. When the question is better, the answer is better, right. So that's another thing that I wanted to highlight here.

Speaker 1: 27:07

At the corporate level your example of subject matter experts there is a product that we are currently promoting in certain markets. It's a modeling product for the industrial environment. So you can say build me, and this is a demo we often use because of certain reasons. So you can say, build me a fighter jet. Now, if I say, build me a fighter jet, I'm going to say build me a fighter jet, right, that's it. If my child asks, build me a fighter jet, he's probably going to say that has, I don't know, rainbow colors on it. That's not the right question. But if a subject matter expert asks that question which I saw in real time a Department of Defense employee, air Force person asking that question he said I want a fighter jet that can carry this missile, this much weight, can go this far on one fuel, on one tank full of fuel, can attack at angle X, can land at whatever. So it gave all those parameters and then the product or the software it created, that model right in front of our eyes. And then we had and the Air Force person he looks at it, he's like, wow, this is this actually. Visually it looks like it can do everything that I asked. And the next step is then we ask the AI now, give me cost estimates to build this thing or the type of materials that we need.

Speaker 1: 28:31

Right, it's just a matter of training. But regardless how much you train, you still have to know how to ask the right question. If I don't know what the right question is for angle of attack, for example, I can't get it to do the thing that I need it to do. So I think that communication that has always been a skill that's highly valued, regardless if it's human communication or machine communication or human machine communication. I think that remains true. We need to be able to communicate effectively, ask the right questions. Those skills are still very relevant. If we can leave your audience with something to take home, is that communication still matters. Ai doesn't mean that communication doesn't matter anymore. You still need to know your area of expertise. You still need to be a subject matter expert. Right, I can ask AI to prescribe medicine for disease X, but I might kill myself because there might be a history behind it. There's a context, there's a whole lot more that goes into it.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Earlier, you made a statement about artificial intelligence. Is it intelligence or is it something else? And I didn't want to go there because that in itself is a full day conversation. What is intelligence, right? Is intelligence? Memorization Is intelligence? Analysis Is intelligence? Creativity Is intelligence, so on and so on. What is intelligence? So that's a whole debate in itself what we are talking about right now.

Speaker 1: 29:57

If you really, in my opinion, is that what we are talking about, all these language models, for example, I wouldn't call them intelligence. It's like we are saying it's more of repetition. We're saying here's a bunch of examples of something. Now create me something that has characteristics of these examples. Is that intelligence? Arguably yes, a form of examples. Is that intelligence? Arguably yes, a form of maybe, maybe, right. Even when you create something, when you write something, when you're saying something, there is very little that you're inventing the language that you're speaking. Someone else invented it. We are just repeating it. So, in this case, our intelligence is to bring it's more of assembly line type work. We are bringing bits and pieces from different places, putting them together and coming up with a product. So I think that's what the AI in its current state, that's what it's doing. And, of course, the pinnacle, the huge, the big vision, the moonshot, is getting to artificial general intelligence, which some people argue can never happen and others argue it has already happened.

Speaker 2: 30:56

Whatever you decide, the only way they're going to find out is by looking into the future, and that's going to happen one day at a time closer and closer. So you mentioned asking the right questions. Absolutely with with the story of ai, asking the right question, the good prompt, etc. You've been a leader for quite a long time. At this moment, what's your view on leadership and asking the right questions? Because I know we discussed a couple of things that I've mentioned that my focus is on on CEO disease and founder syndrome, and you did mention a couple of things that you noticed in your career that were pivotal points where you actually noticed that you were infected by one of those two.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Let's put it that way.

Speaker 2: 31:40

So, yeah, what's your story on that level? Because leadership, we got AI, but leadership is something that's also very important in your life.

Speaker 1: 31:50

Are you referring to the story I shared with you that I thought the business couldn't run without me, that one? Yeah, that's the one I love that story, how horrible it might be, but it's a great story. Looking back, that was a good moment of enlightenment and evolution to the next level Absolutely. At that time, of course, it was a little disappointing.

Speaker 1: 32:10

Oh the world can run without me Really Founder being a founder for most, not for everybody. For most founders, we come from a perspective, from a place where we think that we know better how to do things. We know better. I know my product better, I know my operations better because many of them I probably created. I know my company better, I know my team better. No one else can do it. And if I have to teach my assistant how to do X, oh, it's going to take more time than I can. I can get things done in two minutes. She's going to take 20 minutes or the teaching is going to take longer time. So all those excuses those are excuses right To make myself feel more important and relevant. So what happened is that for years, I basically ran the business on my own with that kind of mindset. I was the head of marketing, I was the head of sales, I was the head of XYZ, chief everything officer. That was the definition of CEO, chief everything officer.

Speaker 1: 33:12

And I didn't take any vacation, didn't any holidays, like even if we wanted to go away for a day or two, I would carry my laptop with me, my phone with me. I'm like constantly, checking my messages constantly, and my loved ones who would travel with me. They would be like there was an ongoing joke that Sonny's always going to be on his phone, he's always going to be on his laptop. So I was like, yeah, family, you plan your own thing. I'll have my laptop and phone with me. I'm not going to get in the pool because a message may come in that I may have to, for example, that I may have to address immediately. So I can't even get in the swimming pool. I'll sit close by with Wi-Fi and everything. So that was the mindset.

Speaker 1: 33:48

Then there was a time came when I had to go away and there was no internet connection where we wanted to go. I was like, no, I don't want to go. No internet connection, how is the world going to continue running without me being online? And one of my mentors advised me is why don't we plan ahead of time, say, plan a year ahead of time? So we hired an assistant my first assistant ever. I still remember her wonderful woman and so we hired her, we trained her, took a year, which was totally overthinking. Now I can do it in a few weeks. But because we have processes documented and all that, this is a big, big learning thing that you got to document all your processes. You got to have processes. Without systems and processes you don't have an organization, it's just you own your job, kind of thing. So we documented processes, trained her and everything, and then I went on my vacation and then after the vacation I even checked in with her a few times and she's like, oh, it's fine, you enjoy your time, whatever. I'm like, is she just what's going on?

Speaker 1: 34:49

I come back the few of the sales deals that had been stuck in the pipeline for months. They had been closed, some of the projects had been delivered, clients were happy, no conflicts, no, nothing. The revenue was a little bit up. Future sales pipeline was healthy. I'm looking at it, I'm like they gotta be, like I'm trying to find something wrong with this picture. How is it even possible that without me, everything worked fine and better, as a matter of fact, if I'm being totally honest. So that was a learning moment and that was for me. I would call that my graduation from the founder mindset to an executive mindset, a business leader mindset. That was the shift right and I would call that actually a life-changing moment for me as a business leader, because until that point I didn't understand.

Speaker 1: 35:41

The major difference between us and other creatures is that we know how to team up and plan and share a vision and work towards that vision. Otherwise, gorillas are more powerful than I am. Cheetahs are faster than I am. Giraffes are powerful than I am. Cheetahs are faster than I am. Giraffes are taller than I am. Like we don't have the best qualities, but the best quality that we have is our ability to have a shared vision and, as a team, work towards that shared vision.

Speaker 1: 36:09

If I'm not using that skill, then what's the difference between me and another primate? Not a whole lot, if I'm being totally honest. So that was the moment when I realized that I was actually not using the single most competitive advantage that humans have over other creatures. I'm not using that advantage and I'm calling myself a businessman. No, I wasn't. I was a founder. Nothing wrong with that. These are stages of evolution in business life and leadership life. You start as a follower, then you, you learn, then you're an individual contributor, then you become a team leader, and so on and so forth. So it's part of evolution.

Speaker 2: 36:44

I wish I had known it sooner, but that was certainly a turning point, and an evolutionary point for me yeah, I really love that story because I have a lot of founders in my network whom I see exactly what they are doing before the start of your story. They're doing everything, they're trying to do everything, find out all the solutions, etc. And at some point they do think of hiring people. But then they hire an expert in a specific area and they still don't release those critical points in their business to that expert who actually knows better how to handle them than they do. Yeah, and I've tried to sometimes convince them of the of what could be on the other side and, of course, convincing somebody of something. It almost never works.

Speaker 2: 37:37

You can explain really plainly to a child that a stove is hot, but they will only know when they into a wall can change their life immensely and can also change the life of the leader immensely, because you see the spark in the eyes of oh so this is the moment where I should do something differently. And if they tackle it the right way, of course you're launched and you see that sparkle in the eye and then next time they know better. So that's one of the reasons I love the story is indeed that you've passed through that one moment where you just had to let go. There was no option. Yeah, I was forced. What? Yeah, absolutely. So what would have happened if you didn't do that?

Speaker 1: 38:35

If I hadn't done that, if I hadn't had that realization, I would have continued being the chief everything officer. And if I'm the chief everything officer, I cannot scale. I cannot. And another issue is not just scaling I cannot even keep at the same level. You can't even keep stagnant. Reason Because just pick anything digital marketing.

Speaker 1: 39:02

Digital marketing that was like the lifeblood of our business. Today it's not. It is, but in a very different way. Many years ago I could post an ad on Craigslist and I could get enough leads to keep me busy. Now that's not even relevant. I could run ads based on cookies, the search engine cookies. Now most people have not most people in the US at least. I don't know about EU. I think in EU too, because of GDPR, you have to announce that you are using cookies and majority of the users they reject that, so you cannot have your advertising campaign dependent on the cookies. Those were the skills that I learned back then.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Had I continued on that trajectory, my options were either I learned new skills as the search engine optimization is changing and the search algorithms are changing, and all that Currently now AI search. So if you ask Chad GPD, who is the top dentist in your town whose name comes on the top. It doesn't happen accidentally. Someone put effort into it In LA. It's actually someone I know a friend of mine actually whose name comes on the top dentist in LA. So I couldn't have been able to keep up with this evolution of digital marketing.

Speaker 1: 40:16

Just one function of business. I'm not talking about finance or our core business, which is software development and advisory. Emerging tech, as we shared in the very beginning of this conversation, used to change every couple of years. Now it's 12 to 14 months. I'm struggling keeping up with that part of the business where it's constantly changing. I have to be able to at least speak the lingo, otherwise I can't lead the team. So if I have to keep developing my skills in all areas of business not just the core, the tech, but also how we sell we used to have lots of salespeople. Now the leads, the early leads most of them come through either our referral network or our past some sort of a referral from somebody. That's how the majority of them come through either our referral network or our past. Some sort of a referral from somebody. That's how the majority of them come to us. The complete rules of engagements have changed.

Speaker 1: 41:04

So if I had to continue learning new and remain on top of my skills in each of those areas. It's simply not sustainable. It's not possible. It's not possible. But when I'm able to work with teams, they either develop their skills in their respective areas or you plug and play those teams, bring in new teams to deal with the new challenges. So I don't have to do all that. So, to answer your question, what would have happened had I not shifted my mindset? I don't think I would have survived. It's not just a matter of thriving or remaining the same. It's a matter of surviving. Like I wouldn't have survived the change.

Speaker 2: 41:47

Yeah, it's kind of an answer that I would have expected to receive, because it's indeed something that's a trend for most founders that I've seen and talked to and guided. Indeed, they they notice that if they get stuck in that same position the whole time, there's no way of growing because you do not have there's one, one uh thing that we do not have abundance of, and that is time. We can, money can be made, money can be developed. There's always a way to do something like that, or you can put one brick on the other and find a way. But when it comes down to having the time to learn all these things and get expertise in in all these facets, as as you start your business, yes, of course you do it all and in the beginning it's possible.

Speaker 2: 42:34

You just do amazingly crazy hours, but at some point the battery does run out, but you have to find a way to recharge yeah has that come to to, to your life as well, where, when you've got past that point, and now you're in this successful business with a lot of team and a lot of experts around you for you personally. Has it changed your life as well, or your personal as being a person?

Speaker 1: 42:59

So my father is also a businessman. He runs a pharmaceutical company and what so? He founded the company and he ran that company 40 plus years old business, very well established, growing up. What I remember is that, even though we lived under the same roof, my father and I we didn't spend a lot of time together because he was constantly working and I don't say it as a complaint. I'm grateful that he was there and he was working so hard to provide for us.

Speaker 1: 43:28

But that wasn't the lifestyle that I wanted for myself, and I have family of my own and my own kids. I wanted to. I wanted my children to know me, not just the guy who comes home at night, but dad, not just father, dad, right. I want it to be available and in order to do that, I needed to have a lifestyle, business-wise, that allows me that flexibility. Now I don't want to give a wrong impression to new entrepreneurs because I hear so.

Speaker 1: 43:58

I mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs, new kids coming out of schools and colleges who want to go into entrepreneurship, and I asked them. I asked them this question why do you want to go into entrepreneurship? And often the response is so I can have a lot of free time. No, you won't have a lot of free time. There is no nine to five. It's from whenever till whenever. What you do have if you do everything right, you have flexibility. You set your own schedule. That's what you have. So today. If you do everything right, you have flexibility, you set your own schedule. That's what you have. So today. If I get a call from a kid's school that he's not well in the middle of the day, I don't have to get anyone's permission to go and pick him up. I can just get up and go. That's the flexibility that you get when you're not stuck in a cubicle. Nothing wrong with cubicle lifestyle either. It's what works for you. But I wanted in my life more flexibility. I like to read, I like to speak, I like to explore, travel, all those things and having a very supportive team around me and a very competent team around me, it allows me to have those sort of freedoms. It doesn't mean that I work any less. I still work tons of hours, but when do I work? That's on me, like I can pick and choose.

Speaker 1: 45:11

Leadership is different than being an expert in any one skill. Leadership is a skill in its own Businesses that I've been involved in. My very first business that actually made money was a clothing line women's clothing line I do nothing about. I only see basic colors. I don't know anything about shades or thread count or fabrics and embroidery and the business was successful. It was acquired. Then tech. My background is not tech. My background is business MBA. I never studied computer science. I've been running this business for two decades. Then the trading business.

Speaker 1: 45:47

Our focus is on energy and petroleum. What do I know about petroleum? But we are doing it right. How do I do? It is because of the teams, since I had that learning and realization that it's all about who you surround yourself with. So if you develop and when I say you, I'm really referring to actually younger entrepreneurs who are entering this world, because I think many of your listeners are probably from that demographic as well Focus less on an individual skill, ie advertising or marketing or whatever, unless that's your core competency. But if you can develop leadership skills, then you can do so many things. Industry doesn't matter, technology doesn't matter, product doesn't matter, nothing matters, because you can always find somebody who is smarter than us. Bring them together. If you ask me what my superpower is, it's bringing the right people and right partners together. That's my superpower. Any of the industry.

Speaker 2: 46:52

When are you going to put on the big s? Oh yeah, exactly, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I. It's amazing how much I agree with you, to put it that way. What I find amazing about leadership in general is it's intangible at some point. So you can learn a lot about how you approach a team and so on, etc. Etc. And you can learn to become a good leader.

Speaker 2: 47:20

That is something that I've learned from a long time back. I've seen people who had a very authoritative attitude towards their teams and then change into really being an empathic leader and pulling the cart and helping them in any possible way. So it is something that is teachable, but it's still very difficult to grasp, to find exactly at which point you become a good leader. And it's the same thing with life. I would say that there is never a good point where you know that you're having a good life. You stop and really look at what you're doing and realizing that this is perfect. What you're doing. It's from your perspective.

Speaker 2: 48:03

Of course, some people might have a different opinion. Of course, you can't do everything for everybody and can't do everything right for everybody. So I agree with the approach that you also take where you can put the right people in the right place and then you got something that can be launched. That's amazing stuff. I've really enjoyed our conversation and I think we could go on for hours, and we said that last time as well. There was a lot of synchronizations, especially with our history. You've been working with IBM as well in the past and so on, so there's a lot of we know inside stories that can come down to a lot of long hours of discussing them Down to a lot of long hours of discussing them.

Speaker 2: 48:44

So, from this point, is there anything that you want to especially mention to my audience, that you really want to put out there right?

Speaker 1: 48:53

now leaders who realize the need and importance critical importance of emerging tech and leaders who are actually implementing it. I want to respectfully remind them that their employees aren't waiting for them to make decisions. Over 75% between 75% and 80% of employees who were surveyed recently in a I forget who who did the survey they actually said they're already using ai tools. They're already bringing their own ai tools to work and they're using it. Now the risk is and there's a long list of risks, by the way, eu is actually one first international body who came out and they said these are the risks associated with it. Here are the laws that we can apply, which it has its limitations, how it can impact the EU tech market. We'll probably have another conversation on that topic alone, but what's happening is that 75 to 80% of your employees are bringing their own AI tools to work. You, as a leader, have not given them rules of engagement. Do you see the problem there? That's a risk. That's a major risk, right? That's a cybersecurity risk. That's a brand risk, privacy risk. There are at least 10 risks that I can list which are involved because of that dynamic.

Speaker 1: 50:22

So my call to action to leaders is that world is not waiting. Tech is not waiting and your employees aren't waiting for you to make decisions. You got to move. It's been since November 2022, it's been almost two years now in a couple of months. Two years since AI and LLMs became a household name and living room conversations. It's not anything new anymore for the general public Not to say that AI was invented in 2022, to say that it became a part of the general conversations. It's been two years. The honeymoon period is over. It's time to grow and do something about it.

Speaker 1: 51:03

That's the idea that came to mind, but I stopped. I'll just say what you were thinking it's time to make babies. Honeymoon is over. Yes, absolutely Little.

Speaker 2: 51:14

AIs right.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Yeah, babies. And then you can say talk to experts who do it all the time. There are people who specialize in it, and the same thing I would say to our lawmakers. As I mentioned in the beginning, there's a new regulation that's being debated right now in California. I think it's going to limit the evolution of tech, as the bill in EU did, by putting limitations and guardrails in place for fears of the future that don't even exist yet.

Speaker 1: 51:46

But there are risks that are real today. Today's real risk is that I can create a video of you and make it say whatever I want it to say. I just saw a video of Trump dancing with Kamala Harris. I'm saying dancing, but there was a whole lot more in that which is very inappropriate to mention, even Right. So those are the current risks. South Korea made a rule recently. There was a whole lot more in that which is very inappropriate to mention, even Right. So those are the current risks. South Korea made a rule recently.

Speaker 1: 52:11

They said you cannot create AI characters of political leaders within 90 days before an election, so that's more applicable in real time the challenges that we're currently dealing by saying that AI is going to make an atomic bomb. No, there are materials needed, there's method needed and the methods are known since the 60s. But if the methods have been around, you can search on the internet how to make an atom bomb. But you can't make it because you don't have access to materials. They are tightly controlled. So that's not a real threat. But we are making laws against that threat, which is not even control. So that's not a real threat. But we are making laws against that threat, which is not even that likely. So the same message to our leaders, both in the business world and in our lawmaking world, that please take actions to address issues and for use cases that are present and real and tangible right now. So that would be my message.

Speaker 2: 53:03

That's a great message. I'm going to emphasize that message because I think it's very important indeed. Don't upload documents to AI without thinking about it For instance.

Speaker 2: 53:14

It's one thing that I've seen done really recently and did not go well, but thank you for that message. Asani, absolutely so. If people want to reach out to you or look into a lot more, I will put a link to your book in the show notes in any case, so people can go there and buy it from Amazon or whatever system that you connect to. How can people connect with you or how can they search?

Speaker 1: 53:38

LinkedIn is the best way to reach me. I'm quite active on LinkedIn. I share updates and my views on what's going on in the industry. If you don't mind sharing the link to my profile? Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 53:52

Yeah, okay, great. Sani, I want to thank you again for taking the time to coming on the show. I know you've got flexibility, but you've got a crazy busy schedule, so I am very grateful and I think a lot of our listeners are going to be very much inspired with the things that you said on the AI side and all that beautiful stuff and on the leadership side. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 54:15

I really enjoyed our conversation.

Speaker 2: 54:18

Likewise, absolutely and to the listeners. Thank you very much again for listening and remember to jump from your head to your heart and feel the listeners. Thank you very much again for listening and remember to jump from your head to your heart and feel the beat within. Have a great one everybody bye-bye, so that's a wrap. Thank you so much, sonny. So do we need to leave? I just got one more question, of course if you're still up to it, I would.

Speaker 2: 54:39

I will. I love asking people how they experience the podcast, and if you're willing to just give a few words on that, that would be great.

Speaker 1: 54:47

No, the podcast. You have a very friendly, comforting persona, right. So the conversation flows. I don't have to feel like it's not uptight, it's not stuffy, if that makes sense. So it just felt hanging out with a friend, a conversation back and forth, that was good.

Speaker 1: 55:08

Your questions are long form questions, for which I rarely ever use notepad when someone is talking. Reason being I want to be able to focus at you and not at the paper, right. So look at the expressions, look at the gestures and listen to the words and understand what you're saying. But because your questions are long form, I had to take points, sort of make a list of things that I need to address in response. So maybe when you talk to your future guests, maybe you can tell them to have pen and paper in front of them and to help with that. So that's that. I liked that you let me speak as long as I kept speaking so that way I don't have to give very cookie cutter bullet point questions. It's like a longer conversation and this will also allow with the post-production, creating clips and whatnot. It will help there as well. So, overall, really good experience and I'm going to go on the on that website, podmatch, and we met on Podmatch right. Yes, yes,