The Real You
1:1 Long-Form Interviews with Interesting People Doing Amazing Things
In-depth discussion of people's journeys to tap into their full potential and find ways to be the truest version of themselves.
The Real You
EP 35: The Mindset Shift: How Beliefs Shape Our Potential with Tarik Ali
Join Tarik Ali and me for a conversation on:
1️⃣ Mindset Shaping Success – Success isn’t just about talent, it’s about self-perception, resilience, and overcoming internal barriers.
2️⃣ The Power of Rest & Reflection – Stepping back from constant hustle is essential for growth, clarity, and emotional well-being.
3️⃣ Shifting Beliefs to Unlock Potential – Our beliefs shape our reality, and challenging them can open new career and personal growth opportunities.
4️⃣ Navigating Mental Health in Leadership – The post-pandemic shift has made vulnerability and mental well-being more crucial than ever for leaders.
Tarik's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alitarik/
Tarik's Website: https://www.tarikali.com/
David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-young-mba-indy/
David's Website: https://davidjyoung.me/
Welcome to the Real you Podcast. This is episode number 35. I'm David Young, your host. I'm a LinkedIn content and business coach. I work with coaches with less than 3,000 followers to sign more clients, using content and LinkedIn strategically. I launched this podcast almost a year ago March of 2024, to spotlight interesting people doing amazing things, and today I'm joined by Tarek Ali, an executive coach for founders and senior leaders who are looking to finally overcome the pressures, limits and fears, keeping them from a calm, confident and resilient mind. He's also an avid golfer and we could probably spend the whole time just talking about that, but we won't bore you to death with the golf. Maybe we'll do a second episode where we talk nothing but golf, but in this episode we will dive into his journey, his current relationship with LinkedIn and what he sees in so many of the leaders that he gets to coach. So, tarek, thanks for coming on. Man so good to be here.
Speaker 2:Can you trace back how we met?
Speaker 1:So I think we met through Edea Cookley right.
Speaker 2:I threw Edea so a year ago, when I had no idea what I was doing on LinkedIn and I just show up and scroll and hope that something good happened, I kept seeing comments from this guy named David. I'm like, oh, this guy sounds super interesting. I remember feeling so nervous when I first reached out to you because I was like, oh, this guy's an influencer. I'm going to ping David and do you think he'll accept my connection request. And you were, of course, so nice and gracious. So the fact that we're sitting here after even working together for a few months and a lot can happen in a year so I'm pumped to be here and we will do the golf podcast as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds good. We might just. We'll just start. We'll start a golf podcast maybe. But no, I appreciate you saying that I'm not I haven't made it to influencer status yet but yeah, I do comment quite a bit. So I have seen I've had people say like I see you a lot, you're all over the place. I feel like it was like August, september, something like that. So, yeah, six or so months, yeah, so I love your story. I wish I had your I don't know maturity and emotional resilience at your age. I did not have that when I was your age, so you're way ahead of the game. But yeah, no, I appreciate going on. So, yeah, we'll talk golf later. Yeah, I started playing golf when I was 13. I played a lot up until about probably 23, 24. And then after that it became less and less. But yeah, I love golf and I could talk a lot about it, but we won't start with that. Yeah, so talk a little bit about what you do and then we'll kind of go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am an executive coach to founders and senior leaders. I feel like we hear this term executive coach a lot and it's becoming kind of a buzzword and there's a billion of them on LinkedIn, every corner you turn. But you know, I've always been so fascinated by internal growth, Like ever since I was in university. I really very self-aware and very introspective and when you think about coaching and you think about just it's helping people remove the inner barriers that are keeping them from being their best selves and I always try to minimize the jargon I use when I explain it. And sometimes I feel like until you've been through a coaching session it's hard to really explain it.
Speaker 2:But I have always been amazed at you know, it doesn't matter if you are a student or a CEO or anything in between. We are all human and yes, these founders and leaders have to put on a certain face and always be okay. But you just be amazed at the pressures and fears and limiting beliefs that they're feeling. If I took what they felt and I took what students felt and everything in between the Venn diagram and the overlap is unreal. So I help people one-on-one work through that and it fires me up and if you're not careful, I'll keep talking for an hour without letting you jump in, about this. I'm addicted to it, I love it and, yeah, I'm going to stop because otherwise we're going to take over the whole show.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. I mean I think it shows in how you come across, like just in talking to you, and your content, like I said, there's a level of emotional maturity that I don't think is common for people your age. So it makes sense that, like, inner growth and personal development is something that you took to like at a pretty young age. Inner growth and personal development is something that you took to like at a pretty young age, right? So I think that shows what do you think is the biggest barrier or the biggest area of growth for the people?
Speaker 2:that you come across. I don't think I've ever put it this way. I think it's. You know, there's a bunch of posts I've written about individual things and, as I'm sitting here and we're in camera, I would summarize it as how people see themselves. I think it's how people see themselves and we are so quick to put ceilings on our capabilities or have a fixed mindset where we feel like, hey, david, like I've done this in my career, I've built up these skills, I've learned these 15 things. Therefore, this is my cap. This is my cap as a person in the world. Therefore, I'm not going to exceed this cap and I think if we're not careful to question the BS nature, I try not to swear on your podcast the BS, you can say whatever you want the BS in these assumptions.
Speaker 2:If we're not careful enough to question that and get past that, we just stay stuck under this artificial ceiling, and so that ceiling could be quite low, it could be quite high. You know like different people have different perspectives on that, but we get in our own way and I think it's such a common thread I'm seeing right now from people across different, different walks of life. It's unreal.
Speaker 1:No, I love that a day and I actually have talked about this. I wish I had she had like a saying about it that I don't remember, but I wish I did. But the way we talked about it was, it's similar to how you. What you're talking about is I wish, we wish that we could see ourselves as others see us, right, like I think we were talking about like photos, like I don't know about you, but like I rarely like photos of myself, like I don't. I look at a photo and I'm like you start, you start looking at all the negatives, this and that, right. But then someone else was like, oh, it looks great. Like it looked great in that photo. And you're like, oh, really, like I look terrible, right, and I think a lot of people suffer that like.
Speaker 1:And others like hearing your own voice. Like a lot of people don't listen to, like, listen to the podcast bags. Like, oh, my voice doesn't sound good or whatever. And I think we were just for five minutes. You could just like step outside yourself and like, look at a picture as someone who doesn't really know you looks at it, or hear your voice the way I showed you Like well, how cool would that be Right. But we have we're so critical, we have this inner critic that's like oh, it's like all the time trying to tear us down and it's like, but we're trying to grow, but then it's like this voice that's like I don't really want you to. It's a very strange dynamic.
Speaker 2:It is and it's such a universally shared experience. Like you're telling me this, I'm nodding. Yes, I felt that right. And the more I do this, the more folks I meet and that I'm fortunate enough to help, the more I'm like, oh, this is just happening to 95 plus percent of people and if it's not happening to someone right now, it's either happened in the past, like we all have these periods and moments in our life where it's like I are coming up against that ceiling again, or we're coming up against that narrative that's keeping us from going after that next promotion or investing in in the business we want to build, or feeling like we're not good enough, like it's happening everywhere and I I'm not the biggest, so I'm not really on Instagram, I'm not a big Facebook person X, don't even get me started on X right now.
Speaker 2:But LinkedIn I love this place and the thing is, and we can talk about why I love it compared to before. But this conversation we're having about these limiting beliefs and these pressures, I think a few years ago in society it would be looked at as kind of a weak or soft conversation. Like, hey, just get over it. You know, if you're good enough, you're going to make it, If not like sink or swim, and I think there's been a bit of a realization like God, everyone's kind of feeling this Like let's just talk about it, and I think if I were to summarize my like intent on LinkedIn in one sentence, I'm trying to talk about the stuff that people don't like talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think post COVID has really helped that. I think, like therapy, like people seeing therapists became much more open. Like a lot of people I mean, I've been seeing a therapist off and on for over a decade and now I can talk about it and I don't think anybody even bats an eye, like they're just like okay, but like seven or eight years ago you talk about it and then it's kind of what you're talking about Like oh, it's kind of weak or you need help or whatever. So I but. But covid really changed that because people were forced, they just absolutely were. They were physically forced to live with themselves in a way they never had and never wanted to. And I think it just it opened up, like just all these things, that that people were like I don't. I now I need help, like I don't this isn't that great.
Speaker 1:So I do think yeah yeah, I agree because I think it was needed. I think a lot of people needed the help and then covid forced them to. You know, start taking steps. Yeah, I mean linkedin. I again, I'm like you.
Speaker 1:I don't have other social media. I don't have instagram. I mean I have a facebook account. I haven't logged in in five years, so maybe I don't have an account. I do have a twitter account or an x account. I'm rarely ever on there. It's mostly sports people that that I follow. So it's a very, very small percentage. But LinkedIn is totally different and I'm on it all the time and I've used it to grow my business and all this. All these things have happened because I really tapped into the platform. But I find it, compared to what I hear about with the other platforms, is the level of support on LinkedIn is so different? Right, like. Yeah, there's still trolls and still negative comments, but not nearly to the level of like, say, a Facebook and you can talk about personal struggles, coaching, therapy, whatever, and for the most part, in my experience, people are like pretty cool with it.
Speaker 2:I'm curious your perspective on how recent that is, because up until eight, nine months ago, I was logging into LinkedIn once a month to just like, almost on accident, like my finger would slip, I'd hit the golf app and it'd slip and go to LinkedIn. I have no interest being there and all I'd see is just the hubris. Hey, excited to announce I got promoted. Excited to announce I'm leaving this company. Excited to announce, hey, gpa, you know 4.0.
Speaker 2:And I was like what is happening here? And I don't know when the shift happened, but and maybe it's just who I'm associating with on the platform. But there is this group of authentic, genuine, open people who are talking about everything that you're calling out here and I can't help but wonder does it have something to do with the fact that you have to sign in with your real name? We can see your employer, and so you have to? There's some decorum, right, that has to be maintained on the platform, and maybe that means people are faking it a bit, but to me at least, it keeps it from becoming the wild west of X and I can be okay with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's 100% part of it. I mean, obviously you can create fake accounts and mask a lot of that stuff, but I don't think people are taking the time to do that. So it definitely is more real people that obviously are some bots, but for the most part not. And so, yes, like if you're going to say negative things, you're gonna be critical of people, you're gonna try to bring them down. Like people can screenshot that and then share that in a post and then like that's you and that reflects poorly on you and your employer. So that's 100%. That's funny. You mentioned that about your feed.
Speaker 1:I used to be the same way. I would go. I would probably go several months, up to several months without logging in to LinkedIn, and I've only had the account for about seven years and it was mostly because my feed was the same way. Like the only thing I saw were promotions either internal promotions or they got a new job right, and then most of the time, I was not happy in my work and so I would just see all these like I'm leaving for this better opportunity and I'd be like fuck off, I don't want to see that, this better opportunity, and I'd be like fuck off, I don't want to see that and so I wouldn't log in.
Speaker 1:But, to your point, the way the algorithm works is if you start engaging on the platform, it will show you who you're engaging with. So if you move to whether it's influencers or just creatives that you like and no matter what they're talking about, then that's what you're going to see more of. So your job updates and your promotion updates will quickly go away if you're spending time with people who aren't talking about that, and then that will obviously continue. So you can control and curate your own feed if you want to, depending on how you spend your time. But yeah, I'm seeing more. I mean, I've been on the platform pretty consistently for about a little over a year and a half.
Speaker 1:I see a pretty wide variety of content. I would say some of it's good. I'd say a lot of. But that's probably the same way in life. Like if you looked at like sales reps right, like you have great sales reps, you have terrible sales reps. Most of them are somewhere in between. That's kind of how I see content. But the variety of topics that I see and maybe it's just the people that I follow and engage with is pretty. I think it's pretty varied. I mean there's a lot about what you're talking about, like the executive coaching in general, a lot of burnout, a lot of leadership, health and wellness. But there are people talking about like personal struggles, whether it's kids or career or you know whatever. But it seems to be a place where people for the most part come across, can come across like pretty authentically and share part of their story. That might not be super comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's uh. To me it's a beautiful thing and the platform is what you make it, I think, for me. I I try to do my best to try to figure out, you know, what's authentic from what I'm seeing and what feels like it's cause. Now there's this whole thing of like, oh hey, if you can be vulnerable, it's going to get you more, more engagements, and I think, in the ever since we last spoke, I think for me there is now one.
Speaker 2:There's one thing I'm thinking about before I hit post, and it's no longer hey, what reactions will this get? Or what the comments might be, or what time is it, or, you know, did I put the comma in the right place? Could this help one person? I'm like, if I write this, could it help even one person? And if so, I'm going to send it and there's a chance it's going to do really well. There's a chance it's going to not do well, but, man, if I can get one person to see this and their day gets 1% better and this message is in line with my core values, I can go to bed at night.
Speaker 2:I actually think, david, that's something that's helped me go from being frankly terrified to post on LinkedIn eight, nine months ago to posting once a week, and God, it would take me like four or five hours to write one post. Back then I would overthink it so much. To now, like three times a week, I'm just going up there and saying, okay, can I stand by this? Is it aligned to my values and is there a chance that this could help one person? And if it hits that, I'm like go and I don't really look back.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. I think that does come from confidence and posting, and the more you like anything else, the more you do it, the more comfortable you become. But I feel you. It used to take me a long time to write content because I would overthink it and then you start to realize one post doesn't really matter that much, so I should just put it out and then I'm going to post again in a couple of days. I mean it starts to build.
Speaker 1:I like the idea of the. Can it help one person? I think another thing people can ask themselves before they post this, or it would benefit them to think this is like what's the point of the post? I read posts sometimes and I'm like what am I supposed to do with this? Like it's information, but what's the point? Like you didn't bring it home or you didn't tie it to anything, or it's just like out there. So I think people could definitely benefit from that same line of thinking. Can I help someone? Can someone take action from this? Can someone learn this? Is this entertaining? Is it interesting? There's a little bit more to it. And obviously AI plays a big role, because I think a lot of people are just using AI and copy and pasting and you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm starting to try to get a radar for that. I'm trying to. I'm trying to get a radar for. Does this feel ai related? One of my favorite trends right now is when people make posts about how you can tell something's written by ai and some of the stuff is wild, like if you see an m dash or if you see certain words and I I think that's hilarious, yeah, but uh, yeah the m dash has gotten a bad rap because that's like the, that's like the telltale sign.
Speaker 1:But then some people are like I've been using M-Dash just for 10 years. The AI didn't even exist then. How?
Speaker 2:do you make an M-Dash? I don't even have that button on my keyboard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's supposed to be like control alt dash or control shift dash, but it never works. I've tried it, I can't create it. I can't create it organically. So I looked at that wrong or my keyboard doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Way to sort that one out. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, getting back to the big struggle, like the way we see ourselves, inner struggle, limiting beliefs how do you begin? You're working with someone. How do you begin to start to break that down and shift that?
Speaker 2:Well, it doesn't happen overnight, that's for sure, right, and it only works if there's an openness to even exploring it. So coaching can't be forced, because you know I can't. I can't force you, david, to look at the thing that you think might be capping your ceiling in your mind. So we got to start there. The first piece is just being aware that there might just be something like the ceiling that you're articulating right Of. Like you know, I'm going to make this up, tarek, I can only hit a certain number of followers, or, hey, I've only been on LinkedIn for so long, or my writing is only so good, or I've only been working for however many years. Therefore, I'm never going to get to this level.
Speaker 2:Whatever that is, we have to start by just acknowledging that. Is there a chance that that might not be true? Is there a chance that we can get some awareness on this being something that our brains have made up? That awareness oftentimes is enough for people to do what we talked about earlier, where it's like take that, step outside the picture frame and see yourself as someone else might see, right. A lot of this is about bringing objectivity to these narratives in our mind that we think are facts, but they're really. They're based on emotions and our experiences and how we think about ourselves. Once you get that awareness, we're trying to find the root. And I'm not talking about, like, the therapeutic root, right, like in therapy, it would be about, hey, like, where did this come from in the past? Like, what led to this moment where you're feeling this ceiling? Let's get clarity by looking backwards. That's like the therapy approach I'm trying to understand.
Speaker 2:Like, what is the core, root, limiting belief here? Is it that you feel like you're not good enough? Is it that you feel like you are an imposter? Is it that you feel like you're not good under pressure? Or that you don't have the skill or the talent? Or because you've been in industry X, you can only stay in industry X. Or because you've only made a million ARR in your startup, you're not going to be able to make it to 10 million because John got to 10 million and he got better grades in school. So I can't like, whatever that is like.
Speaker 2:I want to get super clear on that and oftentimes, david, once we get there, it's a matter of iteration and understanding. Hey, like, let's poke holes in this. What's actually true about that belief? Like, let's take a step outside this. You know this track that your brain is used to going down.
Speaker 2:Now let's look at this from a different perspective, and I think the cool thing about coaching is it feels really weird when you do it for the first time. A lot of folks don't have this space in their life where they could sit and talk for 85% of the time without any fear of judgment. Right, and you can do that in therapy, but there's traditionally a more empowering, future-focused vibe in a coaching session, where we're not really assuming that there's anything wrong with you that we need to fix. We just got to find the root of what's capping you and start chipping away at it, right, so to me, I mean, I told a guy on on Friday he actually you know, he decided not to renew coaching with me and I'm smiling when I say this because I just wrote about this today decided not to renew because after six months he's like I haven't felt this good in years.
Speaker 2:And, quite frankly, I don't need you anymore and he's like I feel bad, I'm dude, you feel great. This is the best scenario. I can't wipe the smile off my face Like this is what it's all about, right? So for me, I told this person. I said I wish I could have recorded. I wish I could have recorded our first session and you could see right now the look in your eye and how your shoulders are sitting and the tenseness in your voice and the uncertainty on your face. And I wish you could see that for a sec, because I've seen it incrementally, week over a week, when we sit down, and it made my week. So that's the process we take and, like I said, if you don't catch me, I'm going to keep going, so I'll stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I appreciate that, not to bring a day up again. If she listens to this, she's going to be like God. You guys talked about me a lot, but because you guys know each other and-.
Speaker 2:This is sponsored by Edea, yeah.
Speaker 1:It is. I'm trying to get her to come on she's she's stuck, she's ducking me so far. She's a coach too, so she's also pertinent. One of the things she has said to me and talking about what you said in terms of like you know, whether it's growing your business, or you know, follower count or whatever, that cap that you're putting yourself, the cap that you're putting on yourself, one of the things I know she has said to me is like, is that belief, belief serving you? So, like, if someone is like, oh well, john got to 10 million ARR faster than I did, it's like, well, that might be true, but like, does that belief serve you?
Speaker 1:And I think, if you start asking that question, it's like well, not really and not in a good way, right, and I think that's what you're talking about, with like poking holes, like in the like you can think whatever you want, but it's not. Most of it's not true. Most of it's you're just lying to yourself, right? So I think it's finding ways to start to tear that down to where you're like all right, I think that, but it's really not true. There's nothing really keeping me from getting to 10 million arr, right, like I've already made a million. Most people will never do that. So then what steps can I take and how can I start to move past it? I think it's those. It's not like you said, it's not going to happen overnight, so you're not just going to like flip a switch, but you start to, you start to poke holes in the theory or the thought and then you start to take, you start to hit those, those holes, and start to plug those. And then you know you start to short things up over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because there's something about that question that I actually avoid asking sometimes around, like, is that belief serving you? And I think it depends on who you're working with, because I've had some founders basically say, tarek, like if there's truth here that I'm not currently set up to hit 10 million a year, then we got to find what that truth is and then I need to build a plan to get better whether it's myself as a leader, or how the company is structured or our product market fit and we got to be able to set up for that 10 million. And so sometimes I actually avoid asking that question of is that belief serving you? Because it can evoke this reaction of, well, yeah, maybe it's not serving me, but maybe that's the truth I need to face right now. So it's interesting like when to bring that one in.
Speaker 2:I think it's a great question, depending on the situation, and that's a great example of how you know this isn't just about, hey, if you're feeling low or you're feeling not confident, let's sit down and talk and let's say whatever we need to say for you to feel better, or let's say whatever we need to say for you to get over it.
Speaker 2:It's not about that right. There's genuinely going to be circumstances and I've seen this in the past couple months where it's like, no, we actually found something, there's a root here. There's something about this company that is not set up properly. But for them, getting that clarity on, we took this super ambiguous feeling of Tariq I'm not feeling like we can hit that next level and we found the root and it was an intangible thing in their leadership and some dynamic, and we found that route and now we can attack it and there's a customized plan and if I was allowed to tell you the name of the company, you'd look at them now and say, oh, wow, like that's great. So that belief serving you one is an interest. I just wanted to jump on that one because I think that's an interesting one, because there might be a perception sometimes at coaching and therapy just bringing the truth, even if that's a truth that sometimes they don't want to hear themselves say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point and you kind of got started with this. If I remember correctly, didn't you see a coaching session at one of your? Good memory yeah you saw someone and then it lit something inside of you. Talk about that. That's an interesting backstory. My origin story of why.
Speaker 2:I light up so much about this. Two things happened. So the first thing that happened was, even before that this is like five, six years ago I was strongly considering getting an MBA or moving to a different company and so I applied. I got a couple interviews and then, final round, I didn't get the job and I was pretty down on myself. I was pretty upset. So that week I met with three different people. The first two were mentors. The third person I thought was like a mentor, but he ended up being a coach. I didn't know he was a coach.
Speaker 2:First two conversations we sit down for 30 minutes on Zoom. I say, hey, this is what happened and here's how I'm feeling. And they like jumped in and it's 27 minutes of Tariq yeah, that jumped in. And it's 27 minutes of Tariq yeah, that happened to me five, 10 years ago. Here's what I think you should do. Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Hey, let me tell you my story. And time runs out and I'm feeling like, okay, great, I've got some notes to take.
Speaker 2:Third guy I almost wanted to cancel with him because I was like I've seen this movie twice already. I've been in these calls room being told what to do and in that 45 minutes he talked for probably six minutes out of 45 minutes. I got to talk. I got to uncover, like what was it specifically that was bothering me? And it actually had nothing to do with the company. It had nothing to do with actually wanting to leave. There was something about my day-to-day and the role I was in that it wasn't making me happy. And I got more out of that 45 minutes than I had in any of the mentoring sessions, any of the late night Googling that week, any of the talking to my partner. Like that 45 minutes did it for me. So that was experience number one.
Speaker 2:A couple of years later, by fluke at Accenture I was able to sit in on a coaching session between one of our leaders and this exec coach. It was during COVID, so there was 40 of us on Zoom off camera and on mute and on mute and in again 45 minutes. Like this lady's, able to get this leader to just open up in front of others about how she feels about herself, her leadership, where her concerns are about the company and what she thinks she needs to change about herself as a leader to improve her team. And I'm like what did this lady just do this is like magic. What is happening here? I've never seen this before, so those two experiences really planted a seed in my brain and I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think it's just a really good fit for me, how I'm wired and what I enjoy in life to help people in this way. Yeah, no, I love that. I mean the best coaches right, are the question askers and they're the reflection. They're the mirror, right, they're the reflection back to you because for the most part, we have the answers inside of us. Whether we want to admit that or not. It's a different story, but it's probably in there somewhere and the right coach or therapist or whatever, like they kind of help you unlock that right, Like they get you.
Speaker 1:If you can say it yourself, you'll believe it a lot more than just like the people on the call that are just telling you oh well, this is what I did or this is what you should do, it's all fine, it might, it might be some good advice and you might do it and it might help. But that's somebody else's opinion, those are other people's thoughts. It'll never carry the same weight, whereas if you come up with it like on your own, you're like, yeah, like that makes, yeah, that makes sense totally.
Speaker 2:If you had told me that, even a couple of years ago, I think I would have said, david, like how, how does this work? Like what do you mean? It's inside us. And in the past year, like I've I've had my own coach. Like I, I have things I'm working on right, things that have held me back, things that have have kept me from feeling comfortable, whether it's about posting on LinkedIn or coaching founders that are older than me or have more money than I do. Like, yeah, those are things that I had to work through with my coach so that I could be a better coach for the people I worked with.
Speaker 2:And now I now I really get it right. And for the past couple of years when I've been the recipient of it, I'm like, no, no, like this. There was no article, there was no chat, gpt prompt, there was no book that was going to do that. You combine it all together, but nothing was going to actually help me get inside my own brain and figure out there is so much BS in the story that had kept me from leveling up a couple years ago.
Speaker 1:I love that. That reminds me of I was walking the dog a couple years ago, a neighbor who I see walk his dog and I've gotten to know him a little bit. Super nice guy, he's always in a good mood, and one day I came across him and he was pretty down, especially for how he normally is, and so in talking to him he was in sales and he had lost, recently lost. He'd put a bid in and worked pretty hard on this presentation, and then he ended up going to a competitor that he didn't care for, and so he was really upset about it. And so I just I just started asking him questions. I was like, well, like you know what? What was the proposal? And like like, what did the client say? And all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And so it turned out and again this was just me asking him like five questions it turned out that that competitor had just completely low balled the bid, like they just did it to get the job right. They were taking a loss, and so at one point I asked him I was like, all right. I was like, so could you have matched their price? And he was like, oh no, like we never would have matched their price. And I was like well, then you were never going to get the job, like there's nothing for you to be upset about.
Speaker 1:And he was like you're right, yeah. Like yeah, we never would have done that, okay, yeah. And then like like instantly, like sure, but he couldn't see that because he was so he was only focused on the fact that they didn't get it. And then literally just asking him a few questions about, like how long did you put the proposal together? Like how close were you on price, like all these things. And then when he finally Because he's like oh, the woman got back to me, it was like you know, we went with the lowest price, which was X, and then it was just simply being like over, you literally couldn't have got, you could not have won that bid. Like there's no fault, like zero, no, so it's but he couldn't see it like.
Speaker 1:He was like for two days he'd been ruminating on it because he was so upset because he like couldn't see the forage for the trees right. And I think that's the point where you just get people just through series of questions.
Speaker 2:That's a basic example, but through a series of questions where you get them to be like, yeah, like the way the world is set up right now, no one's got the time to sit and pause for a sec, like when he's ruminating for two days. I don't know, I don't know the situation, but when he's ruminating for two days, we're surrounded by these distractions and he's thinking about it. He's got work, he's got his phone, he's got everything. Like the way we're set up, it's always on and there's just no time to sit and actually reflect. And there's times where, like you know, some folks I work with they come in. They're like Tariq, this is the first hour I've had all week.
Speaker 2:It's a Friday at 10 am. This is the first hour I've had all week where I feel like I can actually sit and think and unpack, like what do I need to do in the next six months for this company to get to the next level? Like we haven't had the time. And I don't know. I'm the kind of guy, david, that like if you gave me the chance to this would be hard because I don't think there'd be LinkedIn on a flip phone. But if you gave me a chance to like toss this thing off a cliff and just go back to my Motorola from 06, I would do it. I would so do it, and we need more. We just need more time.
Speaker 1:We need more like human connection. We need more. I don't know, I'm not trying to preach here, I just I, I don't know. Things are just a bit too frantic right now. Everything is, you know, kind of instant access and Netflix and downloads, and Uber Eats and same day Amazon deliveries, and like we have all this stuff right, that we don't have to wait for anything anymore and it's all. It's kind of everything. Pretty much everything you want you can pretty much instantly get without leaving your house. For the most part, right. And so I do think we get spoiled where when something like this, which is like your mindset and personal development, like you said, takes a while, and then we want that to happen like instantly. We want to download the app, we want to Google it, we want to watch a couple of YouTube motivational videos and be like all right, problem solved, right. But it doesn't work that way, and so there is definitely this kind of.
Speaker 1:I read a lot of books at the same time, so they all run together, but one of them recently talked about putting, if you have to put it in your calendar, do it, but literally taking setting like two or three 15 to 30 minute blocks every day in your schedule to do nothing. They're like you. Just you turn everything off and like, hear me, I would just like sit in my office, like just sit and do nothing, or go take a walk or whatever. But it's just 15 to 30 minutes, no distractions, no phones, no screens, just literally to allow your brain just to like settle just a little bit. But for the most part, like I don't think a lot of us do that because, like, there's always something to work on, there's always something to check, you're always working on a project or or whatever you have an idea you're trying to flesh out, and then that, just like you said, you can go the whole week and then it's Friday morning and you're like, oh yeah, I haven't paused in six days.
Speaker 2:And like. Is that the life we're building?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that I mean?
Speaker 2:what's going to stop that if we don't stop it ourselves? Right? I mean like there's not going to be any fewer distractions next week or the week after. I think it takes a lot of discipline to do that, but you're so right, it's so important because we just got to take back some control here, right, of where we're putting our time and our energy. And like energy is tangible, right, it might feel like energy is just like, you know, like in the ether, but it's tangible. It has an effect on us and how we show up for ourselves and our friends and our family and our teams, and these small things add up for sure. I'm with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's funny. My therapist has told me for a while she's like you need more in-person interaction with people you aren't related to, because you don't get a lot of that. And I think as adults, especially the older, you get, it's hard, right, you don't? It's just difficult to carve out that time, like you have a partner or you have kids or neighbors or whatever. But she was like you need like intentional, on purpose, adult conversation with people you don't really know could be friends, could just be acquaintances, could be linkedin connections doesn't really matter, but you need that, like we need that as humans, as adults, right, and but it's difficult. Like it's like well, I was like where do I find these people? Like are they just hanging out? Is there a place, is there a group of us? It's not easy to find as you get older, right, where do you find them?
Speaker 2:That's why you're going to come to Toronto in June and we'll play golf. Yes, that'll be our in-person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean honestly it is. That's one of the reasons why I do trips like that, because, a it just gets me out of my office, out of my house and off screens, but B I get in person, sometimes one-on-one, sometimes in a group conversation with people that I don't normally get to see. That I know a little bit, mostly through this, and it's different, right, like you said, it's different. Energy, the energy transfer is different, the conversation is different and it's just. It's so energizing, Like when I came to Toronto last year. It was only for two and a half days. I met five people. I was so tired from that. It was so positively energizing that I was drained for like three days, right, because I don't experience it very often, so I'm not like in shape to do it. So now that I'm saying that out loud, I should probably like work out. Since that's going to be five days I'm going to have to like yeah, we'll get you on a prep plan for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but no, but seriously, like I'm doing that, I'm going to a conference in Dallas in September which is more organized than just going to a city and meeting people. But same principle, right, like you're getting out there, you're meeting people in person, networking, talking ideas, just not on a screen, and I think that's lost a little bit. And where do you? Is that something you talk to the people? Because obviously the people you're talking to are suffering from that. Is that something you try to build into them? Where, like, if you can, like, try to design these micro breaks on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it comes up mostly when you have these founders that are feeling almost guilty for shutting it down at night. So the whole like hustle culture and you have to work 17 and a half hours a day to ever succeed in life is something that a lot of people actually like, really feel, and there was a time in my life where I felt that, where I felt that too. But when we're talking about you know, that excessive self pressure or feeling guilty for shutting it down, there's often a conversation we have around rest and I'll ask, like, what is your perspective on rest? And sometimes rest is like a bad word, it's like, oh, rest is for the weak, rest is for you know, it's quitting. And there's often conversations we're having where it's a reframe on that word.
Speaker 2:And there's a story that I love from the two British Olympic rowing team and they I think for decades had never won anything and they changed one thing in their prep and they won gold in 2000. Don't quote me on the year, it might not have been 2000. One change they made they said every single thing we do in our prep. We're going to ask one question Is this activity going to help the boat go faster. So it's our training plan, or it's what we're eating, or it's the film we're watching or when we're resting, like is this thing going to help the boat go faster? And the main takeaway I got from that story like, yes, obviously, be focused on your goal and do your thing. That's part one, but part two for me, I was like there are times when the best thing I can do for myself and my boat to go faster is to shut it down and not just like put the stuff away but be thinking about it for three hours between eight and 11, but actually find a way to shut this down, because I'm going to come back better. And if you and I sat down three, four years ago, I think I would have said, but David, for those three, four hours, there's someone else out there who's working. There's always there's, that's always going to be there.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day, like, what I can control is showing up every day at the best capacity that I can, and if we're not shutting it down and we're not managing those boundaries, we're going to burn out. And I've yo burnout captain right here. I've burned out six, seven times over a period of three years, between like 2018 and 2021. And I finally got like every single time kind of making light of it. But I finally I finally started to understand, like that, when I analyze like the root of each burnout, everyone was like kind of each burnout had a different kind of core route, but a lot of it had to do with like pressures I had on myself for how much I was working or how much I was getting done. And and and so has a real toll. And, yes, there might be someone that is working from 8 to 11 pm and maybe by you not working, you might fall behind by 0.1%, but in the long run it's got to be sustainable, like the working model you have has to be sustainable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's the book's called Peak Performance. I read it several years ago, but one of the lines I remember from that book is stress plus rest equals growth. Like you can't really grow if you're not resting, because you're either just either mentally burnt out or you physically get injured. Like if you use weight training, for example right, you're not lifting weights like 24 seven, right, your muscles need time to absorb the workout, rest and then grow, and then you do that over time. It's the same principle to almost anything.
Speaker 2:This might sound. It might sound cliche. It's an exact example. But I actually had a moment right there on the couch in November when I wrote out for two, three pages. I was like if I was training for a marathon, I would not be running every hour of every day and it sounds like so obvious, like I've heard that analogy before, I've heard someone say it to me before, but something in that moment I was like if I actually treated this as a marathon, I need great performance for four or five hours a day max. We have to optimize for the peak right and if I'm burning myself out outside that it's just gonna mess with tomorrow's prep and something about that day. David, I could show you the page in the journal like something about that entry really shifted something in. I'm kind of my own coach in a lot of situations and that was one of them where I had to really dig in and figure out, like yo, what is keeping me from being okay with resting and we figured it out that night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't even run every day for marathon prep. Oh, that's a thing. Yeah, honestly, you don't. There's no reason. I mean there's no reason to. I mean there's strength training, there's eating, there's stretching, there's all these other things you're doing, but I would say the smaller percentage of the time is actually running until you get closer to the race.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, and that applies kind no matter what you're doing, right, even if I look at my current example of building the business, right, like I can't work all the time, I can't be on LinkedIn all the time, like A, it's not good for me, but B, it doesn't help, like there's only so much time that moves the needle and then the rest of it's diminishing returns. Right, you're just, you're not doing anything. But, like you said, the hustle culture and the working harder and like all that kind of stuff that does creep in. And sometimes I'll feel guilty. If I go downstairs to just take a break or a power nap or look at ESPN, I'm like I could, like I could be sending a few more DMS or I could be working on my email sequence, like well, true, but like that can wait, like I don't need to do that right now.
Speaker 2:What if ESPN was like the best thing for your business in that moment? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah it's so common.
Speaker 2:It's so common to feel that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, speaking of ESPN, we'll use that as a good segue into golf. Segue into golf.
Speaker 2:I tried earlier with the June thing, and then we went back into more coaching stuff, which is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I am coming to Toronto in June. We are going to try to get together, uh, and play golf, but you're, you're a more, you're a, you're better than I am. I was good a long time ago these days not so much, but you've played st andrews and you've been to the masters, so automatically you're like pedestal is significantly higher than mine, since I've done neither of those. Uh, I have played black wolf run.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that counts yeah, that's huge yeah, but anyway, my mom's second husband she was dating him at the time. He was a golf pro at like, the local course where we lived and so I it took me a long time because I played more traditional sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, and then I kept playing basketball. I dropped soccer and baseball. I was looking for another sport, and then he was around and had been for a while and so I was like I don't try golf. I didn't have the talent for golf that I had for the other sports I was okay at it, but I was never great.
Speaker 1:Um, I played with guys who were quite good. They played division one. I just didn't have their. I was never going to be that good like, no matter how much I practiced like, I just didn't have the baseline golf talent so I couldn't play at that level, but at one time I could play fairly well. These days I hit some good shots. I hit some really bad shots and a lot of the rest of them are just like could have been better sounds like you enjoy it, by the way, but I only play these days.
Speaker 1:I'm playing like like this last past season I played one regular 18 hole round and I played one outing, so like not much, and I've been doing that for like 10 years.
Speaker 2:So there's just so much rust, you know, on my game but but I do enjoy it.
Speaker 1:My kids are getting a little bit older. One of them seems kind of interested, other really doesn't. They will play more as they get older. The biggest thing for me is time. It's so time-consuming I don't have six hours for an 18-hole round.
Speaker 2:Very often that's such a big barrier to entry for the game. I think they're trying to work on stuff with that, but it takes so long for people to adapt. Courses can't really adapt like a nine hole. They can do a nine hole route, but there's this whole like 12 hole movement too. I don't know. I mean, david, I haven't had a memory in my life where I wasn't at that age playing golf Like I've got.
Speaker 2:I put up a picture. Last week my mom sent me this picture of me at age two and a half, like putting at home into the indents of a rug and we made those indents because my grandma would rotate the couch so you'd end up with a hole in the rug and I'm putting and my sisters who's one is like crawling behind me. It's just been part of my DNA, my entire life. And um, to me it's not about getting to the best courses or it's not about you know, I'm not the best player. I mean, I think I can make way around, of course, but I'm not the best player.
Speaker 2:But there is something about the soul of this game. I don't know if it's about just being out in nature or walking outside or being disconnected, like my phone's in my bag when I'm playing. There's something about that feeling of okay, I'm going to stand behind a shot. I'm looking at a situation, I am assessing what's in front of me. I've got this ideal picture of what I think I am hoping can happen here and you know, eight times out of 10, it's not going to go that way. But the one time it I actually pull it off and I looked at my friend and I'm like I didn't know I could do that.
Speaker 2:There is something about that moment that I I don't know what it is, but I love it so much and I actually you know a lot of people love playing golf when they're with their friends. I love playing when I'm alone. Me, you put me on a golf course. My mom used to drop me off after school and just drop me off at the golf course and, like I would go out and play alone for four or five hours, she'd come back at 8 pm. This was down in Florida and that was my childhood man. That's. My dream was being out there alone.
Speaker 1:I love it so much.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. That's part of the reason why I haven't played a lot as I've gotten older is because I haven't lived in cities where my friends are. I've kind of moved around and I don't overly love going to a public course and pairing up with a group because I always feel like I'm invading. They're typically friends right, there's three of them and then now here I am and now I'm this like odd person out. I don't know the inside jokes and you know it's like all that kind of stuff. So I typically have shied away from doing it.
Speaker 1:I did like playing by myself, like when I started to play, which I would do sometimes. But yeah, it's, it's a very mental sport. It's certainly a lot of takeaways you can apply to life because you have the good players right Thinking your way around a course, thinking your way around shots, not just doing it, hoping for the best. Like understanding, taking into account, you know, wind and ball position and uphill, downhill and side hill, and like extra club or hit one club a little easier Do I hit a shorter club a little harder? And there's all these different types of shots that you can hit right that most people aren't like aware of, with bump and runs and chips and flaps and it's like there's a lot. Like if you haven't played golf, I think most people don't understand the complexity of the game and like how much there truly is to be really good at it, like how much you really have to know to like be good to be good at it it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is complex and and I'm I'm happy that I grew up with it because I know nothing else now but it's also, like you said, the mental side. I've learned so much about myself based on how I respond to situations that happen on the course, like, if you look at my demeanor on the course is going to match my demeanor in life. And there's been times like in the past, when I was a kid I'd get upset at myself if I hit a bad shot. Well, there's a link there to me putting too much pressure on myself and, like you bet, I'd find that outside golf too right.
Speaker 2:And it's amazing how, when I look at my own journey and my own inner growth and who I am now and who I was and who I strive to continue to be I mean the benefits I see from what I'm working on in myself day to day I see that on the course too, I'm bouncing back better. Bogies aren't really affecting me. I can think one shot at a time, I can be more present and the more I play David like, the more that's important to me versus my score. I used to really care about my score, I used to really care about my handicap. And now I'm just like you know what, like how lucky are we to just be outside?
Speaker 1:right now like how lucky are we? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I did the same thing back when I was, when I thought I was good and I could break 80 and I would shoot 84, not just be mad for two days. And it was like I look back on that now. Nobody cared. It was like what difference if I shot 78? What difference would that have made? None, nobody cared.
Speaker 2:Nobody cared, I wasn't on.
Speaker 1:TV. I wasn't playing for anything. I was just out there with my grandfather, a couple of friends or whatever. It was supposed to be fun, like you said, enjoying the outdoors. And instead I'm like, oh, I missed that four-footer on 15 because I suck. And then you're just like two days You're like how do I miss that putt? And you go to the putting green, make it like 40 times in a row and you're like, see, I suck and it was like why did I do that? I spent so much energy. Who cares?
Speaker 1:A lot of people go through life and they never come out of that habit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I weighs iron shot and be like oh, my god if I bogey the first two holes, I'm like I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go home. Why am I here? This is I'm not gonna break 80 today, I'm gonna go home. I used, I used, to think that way. Right, no recovery. Actually, the first time I broke 80 after 15 years. So I did it once in 10th grade, like on the last day of school. I was in such a good mood I went and played alone and and uh, and broke 80. But I hadn't done it for like 15 years after and and I was at.
Speaker 2:So golf folks, you might you can skip the next minute of this because it might not make any sense. But David, I was like two over through 16. I panicked, I panicked, I went double, triple to shoot 78 and you're just like limping into the clubhouse. But I was so happy at the end. But there's a parallel there, because that limping to that finish line was I broke new and I broke through a ceiling that mentally I was good enough to break 80 for those 12 years. But there was something mental in my game where I was keeping myself from getting to that level. Nothing really changed between me not breaking 80 and me breaking 80. But I broke new ground and it was so scary Three, four times later, once I hit that, you're less nervous, right and and it's just this. There's this metaphor here about like breaking new ground and hitting a new level and you know, looking at your past self and comparing to that versus others, it's dude. We could go on forever.
Speaker 1:We could honestly go on forever here I yeah, I'll tell one more story, as you were telling that story. I should write this as a post because you can. People can use this, uh, in life. So, my best ever round. I should even par 71 um for 18 holes, which I'd never I'd. I'd never even gotten really close to that, maybe. I was like three or four over previous best score.
Speaker 1:So the weird part about that round, though and you're talking about like being two over after two is I started that round, like so many rounds before, I was three over after six. I had done nothing spectacular, I was just playing like how I normally would play, which was probably going to be nine to 11 over. I was going to shoot 81 or 82, which would have been normal, and then on the seventh hole, it was a par three over like a ravine, so it was kind of tee to green. It wasn't a super hard hole, but you did have to hit it fairly straight. There was a lot of trouble. I was like 185 and I hit a five iron that like never left the flag. This is one of the best iron shots I've ever hit. It hit the flag and then bounced like 20 feet away right. So I was as I got up there and realized what happened. I initially was pissed because I was like, oh, I really got punished for hitting the flag. It would have been much closer if it had not right.
Speaker 1:But there was something about the way I hit that shot, like it was like a switch flip. I ended up making that putt for birdie and then played the last 11 holes two under. I never made another bogey and so sometimes it only takes just like one, like one thing, one moment, one shot, one, whatever, one dm, one coaching session. Like it doesn't always take like this mountain of stuff, like it can just be like one thing which I just got, this like burst of confidence making the putt helped, but like the shot that I hit was so pure that I was like, oh, like maybe something is different. And then I just hit. I didn't even hit great shots the rest of the round, but I just hit really good shots like the rest of the day. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that and we think we have to have this like it has to be this like incredible amount of like productivity. It's like actually sometimes just one thing can flip everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll bring everyone else back in the conversation now that the non-golf folks will bring it back to real life. Right, like that's exactly it. I mean, I think when you sometimes it's really scary to think about where am I now, where do I want to be? And it feels like it could be miles away, or it feels like it's beyond the ceiling. And the number of times, david, just like you said, one small shift, one small realization of like, hey, this is actually coming from that. So if we isolate that and we just like poke at it for even 15 minutes, the skies open up. It's still a journey to get to the end state, but that light opens up at the end.
Speaker 2:I sat down with someone two weeks ago and she was saying tarik, I really want to pivot out of this industry. She's like a senior vp. She's like, but I've been, I've been here for 15 years in this industry. So whatever I pivot to, it's going to have to be in the same place because, like, my value is you, you know, because of my connections and because of this industry. So I have to stay here. And I was like is that true? And she's like, oh, it might not be true. I've never thought about that and those three words is that true? And I wrote about this like 15 of her then giving me all the evidence why she actually would be able to make an impact in five other industries that she cares about. And that's what it took. Right Now, is she in that new industry yet? No, but is she on her way? She is right and it's one conversation away from unlocking. That thing is what really fires me up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true. I mean you see posts on that where you're like, I see it where you're like one DM away, one sales call away, one whatever away, which seems a little cliche and I think a lot of people probably read that and are like that's not true.
Speaker 1:But in some cases, I think it is. I think you're closer than you think. You're closer than you give yourself credit for. You're capable of more than you give yourself credit for and you never know what's going to unlock with again. Whatever coaching session call insert what applies to you there. Coaching session call you know, insert what applies to you there. Like we, there's, there's, there's that graphic where it's like the guy's digging for a diamond and he's, he's dug, like this, tons of dirt right and he's like you know two feet away and he quits and it's like, yeah, we always.
Speaker 1:there's like you want to quit when you're like the closest to the breakthrough because you just you're like, ah, I put so much time and effort into it and it's never going to happen, and it's like you're probably a lot closer than you realize.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a really good point. And when I think back to there were two really big David mental barriers I had to get over in 2024 for myself with my coach, and those were two big barriers but I could trace back the moment I felt like I moved past both of them into one conversation and one segment of one conversation. Like I can tell you right now like the 10 minute sliver in the two conversations with my coach where I was like that is when it changed. And so will there be reps where you feel like you got no results. Yeah, probably, but there's also a shift there, right, like are we showing up every day for the results or is this about the process? Is the goal the outcome or is the goal the action? Right, and yeah, there's something there that I think helps navigate day to day, especially in this space where things are kind of unpredictable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Well, this was about the quickest hour I've had on the podcast in a while Awesome, same. We could certainly go for much longer, but we'll wrap it up here, or get close to wrapping it up. So I truly appreciate coming on and your insight, any final thoughts, parting thoughts or words of wisdom you want to leave people with, and then if you want to learn more about you, what you do, then how would they go about doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. It'll be the only social media that I'm really on and my landing page. Everything's over there. It's super cool that we did this because I've been reflecting over the past hour on just our journey you know of. It started with we just talked about one DM. Like that was me waking up saying, okay, this guy, I see him every day on LinkedIn, I'm going to DM him and, before you know it, we're talking and we start working together.
Speaker 2:You've had such a big impact on me and my journey on LinkedIn. I mean even just getting comfortable and understanding how this place worked and understanding how to write and the thinking that has to go into the stuff we're putting out there. So you've made a huge impact on me and, yeah, I'm really big on reflection, as you can probably tell from the past 57 and a half minutes of this, and if you've made it this far, we love you. Thank you. But I will say I appreciate you a lot and I think it's super cool that we had this space between the last time we spoke and doing this, because I'm just reflecting on this journey and it makes me excited about where we're going to be a year from now right, like if, if, if all this could have been done in the past seven, eight months, like what's going to happen in the next year. So I'm fired up and this was easily the best part of my week. So I super appreciate you and I super appreciate you having me on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very kind of you to say. I appreciate those words and happy. Whatever small impact I had, I'm happy to provide that you have a very bright future. You're a smart guy. Like I said, you're way ahead of where most people at your stage of life are. Whatever you want to do, there's certainly no limits that you should impose on yourself. Like you make it happen. Appreciate you coming on. Tarek Ali it's T-A-R-I-K-A-L-I. You can search him up on LinkedIn. I'll put his information in the show notes. We appreciate you listening and really appreciate you coming on and sharing your insight. Thank you, you got it, ben Cheers.