The Heart of Business
"The Heart of Business" podcast, hosted by Mo Fathelbab, is an authentic and insightful exploration of the human side of leadership and professional growth. Through candid conversations with accomplished business leaders, thought leaders, and peer group facilitators, Mo will delve deep into the personal journeys, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped their careers. Mo Fathelbab's skillful and empathetic approach creates a safe space for guests to share their truths and vulnerabilities, revealing the emotional and often unseen dimensions of success in the corporate world. Each episode offers listeners a chance to glean practical wisdom, heartfelt advice, and a profound understanding of the intricate interplay between leadership, authenticity, and personal growth.
The "Heart of Business" is the official podcast of International Facilitators Organization, LLC and hosted by IFO's founder and CEO, Mo Fathelbab. To learn more, please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com.
The Heart of Business
The Power of Forums and Entrepreneurship with Ahad Ghadimi
Ahad Ghadimi, the mastermind behind Forums at Work, joins us to share his remarkable journey from Toronto's vibrant entrepreneurial scene to the international stage. Listen as Ahad recounts growing up in a family-owned restaurant and cafe chain, where his entrepreneurial spirit was sparked early on. From selling pastries in school to crafting DOS programs, each venture was a stepping stone to a bigger vision.
As we explore how organizational culture can be a game-changer, Ahad shares his transformative experiences from being a young entrepreneur and the effect of forum throughout his life. Discover how he helped craft an environment that encouraged employees to unleash their inner entrepreneurs, emphasizing psychological safety and ownership over traditional financial incentives. We also discuss the power of forums and peer groups in personal growth. Join us for an inspiring conversation where business acumen, emotional connections, and a shared vision pave the way for success.
Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.
Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast sponsored by International Facilitators Organization. I'm your host, mo Fatalbab. Today, our guest is Ahad Gadimi, founder of Forums at Work and serial entrepreneur. Ahad, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm so glad to be here with you, mo.
Speaker 1:Great to have you with us. Where do we find you today?
Speaker 2:Today I'm in Toronto, canada, where I grew up.
Speaker 1:Oh, love Toronto, Wonderful, so I would imagine you got your entrepreneurial roots somewhere in Toronto.
Speaker 2:Where did it all begin? What got you inspired to do anything entrepreneurial and when was it? That's right. So I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. Both my parents are entrepreneurs entrepreneurs. They had a and they still have a successful restaurant and cafe chain here, and so my entrepreneurial education started at the dining table, in the car rides, in the restaurants on weekends and after school that's. You know, that was sort of the MBA, before I actually went to business school.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. And did they have you working alongside them as you were growing up?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yes, I'm the eldest, and so it was, yeah, I guess, just natural that you know, especially when you know we were new to Canada at the time and so I was just always at the restaurant and you know you're watching your parents work and so you get behind the counter, you start cleaning tables and handing out receipts. You know when you're five, six years old, and then also I think to like osmosis, right, because you're always just listening to discussions and to problems and to problem solving, and so it was just a very immersive childhood experience of sort of thinking like an entrepreneur yeah, love it.
Speaker 1:So what was your first or next venture after that?
Speaker 2:um, oh gosh, uh, I think that the first thing that I can it's funny, I've the first thing I could think of is back when they're like um, so we used to use dos, you know, and you need to think of this for dos and there's like the big floppy disk. I remember creating um, uh, a program and and selling it. So that was sort of the first thing, and then I guess it must have been like 10 or 11, um, oh my god, or even before that. Actually I'm just you going back into the mental archives. Yeah, at the end of the day, my parents would bring home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you have cafes and pastry shops, you have the food at the end of the day, and so I'd ask them to bring stuff home, like the cinnamon buns and the chocolate croissants, and I'd go to school the next day and I'd sell them. So that was probably the most profitable business I ever had because I had no cost of goods and so I got 100% pure profit selling pastries to kids at school. I love it, yeah, and it was just like a whole bunch of just wacky things. I remember there was one where these sort of personal alarm systems where you pull the thing and it makes an alarm sound in case you get sort of attacked or mugged, and so I remember doing a presentation on that in the condo that I lived in. I think I must have been 12, 13 years old, so yeah, I guess there's always just been this natural propensity to find things that people wanted and and just to fill that gap.
Speaker 1:Love it. And so then, where did you go to college and what did you study?
Speaker 2:So I went to the university of Western Ontario. There's a great business school there called the Richard Ivey school of business, and it's so the Ivey business school is the second biggest case producer, so after Harvard. So it's a case study school and we, so you know, so you prepare three cases, you go to class and you sort of battle it out and discuss it with your classmates. And actually during that time I started a business magazine, the. It was like making business interesting, provocative, engaging for business school students and young professionals. And so it gave me the opportunity, you know, during business school, you know, and an undergrad, to go and meet Jim Balsillie, who was the co-founder of Research in Motion, blackberry back then.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. So I'd skip class and go and meet him. Or Scudamore, the 1-800-GOT-JUNK guy, or Michael Bragman, who was, like our own Howard Schultz, the big second cup founder here in Canada. And so it was just this magazine that allowed, it was just really an outlet for me to be able to go and meet really brilliant people and and ask them unconventional questions. That just sort of gave, brought more of an interesting or an alternative perspective, a more colorful perspective, I guess, to business.
Speaker 1:Love it and were you one of these brainiac good students or one of these entrepreneur dropouts, Because you know, we see all flavors of entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I was. I managed to stay in school, but I was a lot more interested in getting out there and doing things. That was really so school was hard for me. You know, I think I was an unlikely student.
Speaker 1:Me too. Me too. That's why I asked that question. Yeah, absolutely, it was hard for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was hard because I was surrounded by, you know, the brilliant students who you know would get 90s and say it was fun and easy. You know, that was just not my experience. It took a tremendous amount of effort to just keep up and sort of be in that pack. So I can yeah, I can completely empathize with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thank you. So then, after college, did you get a job or did you go say I'm going to start a business?
Speaker 2:It's a bit of a crazy story, but I met a family in Toronto towards the end of my business school program. They sort of pioneered the villa rental industry, so they were like the analog Airbnb, you know, and they were so fascinated by the magazine and the stuff that I was doing. And you know, long story short, the husband and I became really good friends and he was married to a former Miss France and so we ended up creating a high fashion swimsuit company. They were living in Costa Rica, so we launched a high fashion swimsuit company called Vida Sol, out of Costa Rica.
Speaker 2:So I came up with this concept of creating, uh, putting most of sort of the designs of the swimsuit on the inside of the bikini. So it's like, you know, it's like your own personal little secret. So it's just completely unique concept at the time and very different long before the years of social media. Um, we got featured and all the big fashion magazines, including Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and so we became. It was just one of those scenarios where we're just a bit of an overnight success. It just kind of blew up very quickly and, yes, we had a really great product and just a very unique story, and so that took me from Costa Rica and then I moved to France to help sort of grow the business in the European market.
Speaker 1:What a great story, Amazing. So did you end up? Is that business still exists? Did you sell it? What was the exit? Yep. And you don't have to tell us numbers, I'm just what's the story now?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, yeah. So I stayed with the business for a few years, ended up. So the whole idea was I was going to sort of start this for the. It was going to be like sort of the Miss Frances business. That was sort of the whole idea that he was going to sort of we're going to kind of get this going and she was going to run this business. So I sold my shares to the family and ended up, um, I ended up moving to paris, um and uh and getting a job with dan and yogurts and in waters and uh, it was just kind of an unlikely. I got hooked up there with a former uh, with, like with an alumni from my business school and uh, it's a very sort of different track but definitely a life-changing moment because, uh, you know, dan and uh, especially at the time, I mean, you know they're yeah, this is like 2006. All they talked about was was culture, and nobody spoke about culture back then nobody is that something to do with yogurt culture or corporate culture?
Speaker 2:That was the whole thing right, exactly Like a probiotic culture. Maybe that's why there are such front runners on it. This is a company even from the 70s. They just thought a lot about the company's impact in society. And, which is interesting, because in french the the word for company. In french it says society, society society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for them it was like the uh, uh, uh, uh, like the role of a company in society. So there were such front runners of this concept of um, inclusion, uh, acceptance, diversity, uh, people first, like these are the stuff that we really spoke about, uh, which today is, I guess, far more mainstream. But it was not the case back then in my role. So I landed in this role of training manager, and so I was a global training manager for Dan, and so I worked with you know, there are 110 countries and so I worked all over the world with them, and what they had figured out was how to create a Dan and culture.
Speaker 2:So, whether you went to Egypt, I went to Cairo or Sao Paulo or the Czech Republic or Milan, when you were in the four walls of Dan, and it was, you were in the Dan and universe, and people spoke the same way, engage the same way, treat each other same way, show up to meetings prepared in a certain way, and so it was just this incredible education of that you can really hone and craft your own culture in an organization. You can. You can curate it, you can design it, you can be very deliberate about it, versus saying oh well, this is Italy, and in Italy that's like the pervading culture, yeah, yeah, and I could throw out stereotypes here. But in Italy people are like this, or in Brazil they're like this, or in Germany they're like this and it's like no, no, dan and four walls were like this, and that is consistent all over the world.
Speaker 1:How cool is that? Love it. So after Dannon, what happened next?
Speaker 2:So you know, I think it's just that, perhaps that entrepreneurial DNA you know I love being at Dannon clearly I'm still sort of an ambassador for the company, yeah but that entrepreneurial itch was really really strong and I wanted to really pursue it and just to get back at creating and so I left Danin and continued on the same thread of sort of taking what I'd learned, sort of this piece of culture and change management, you know, within organizations.
Speaker 2:I got really lucky again and landed with a really renowned turnaround artist, a guy named George Michel, who was doing a turnaround at Boston Market and at the time Boston Market had just come out of, I believe, their second bankruptcy.
Speaker 2:He was like two or three. He was like the third CEO in a year and a half and what was really incredible with George is that he's a strong believer in culture and creating a certain mentality and and focusing on a culture change. And so we were just a really great match and I got to support him and the organization to go from this culture of just surviving and just trying to like not collapse to like thriving and um and so all those things that I learned at then and you know I was able to sort of apply it there and in doing so, um and a lot of that sort of involved creating environments of safety where people can share ideas and, you know, create a culture of non-judgment psychological safety. These are huge elements that I sort of took away from my time at Dan and what I noticed that is ahead of its time.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you that's very much ahead of its time.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, ahead of its time. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, um it and that's even just clear for me thinking back to it, because before it was just like the, the world that I lived in, and what's fascinating is is look I, I was just like per se. My story sort of portrays. I was just not a corporate person, and so for me to land in this place, feel so included, be able to create, contribute so much and still feel so it's not often that people feel so passionate about companies they worked for and and continue waving that flag, all these, like there's something about it that that causes that, um, affinity. You know all the all these years later, and so, um, yes, I very much credit Dan, and for that education I call it my, you know my, my master's degree in, in in culture, and I guess after it was sort of working on my PhD, on, on, on on culture.
Speaker 2:And so at Boston market you know I had to there was this one moment, I'll never forget it, where what I just started seeing was that people, the employees, were starting to think and act like owners. They were like they were starting to become entrepreneurial also. So they had taken personal ownership, and it's not because they had shares or there was an elaborate incentive scheme. They felt emotionally connected to what we were doing. So, whereas before, like before I arrived, they had laid off a third of the staff. And so when you do, when you lay off a third of the staff, that means everybody to the right of you is no longer there, right? So that puts everybody on edge, and so you just don't want to be next on the chopping block, and so that's.
Speaker 2:That was that culture of surviving. Let's just, let me just not rock the boat. And and so creating this culture of um safety that we can try, because what we needed to do is be innovative, try new things, make mistakes, scared to do that in that environment, but that's what you need. So there's, there's a it's a weird dilemma, but by doing that, it just created this like incredible buy-in from from people where they were just like all in um, and I just watched with my own eyes that, that, that, that, that, that that shift from people being so um shell-shocked to just leaning so into this process and this, this concept of employee ownership and creating a culture of ownership. That was sort of my first very experiential introduction to it.
Speaker 1:So we're talking George Nadev, the founder of Boston Chicken and the biggest IPO at the time, if I recall correctly right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the IPO was in.
Speaker 2:I believe it was in the 90eties, and so this was like this was, I think some some years later. So they had, they were like a high flyer and then sort of got too big and then it crashed Exactly. And so when George Michelle came in and took over, it was really about trying to. It was like, you know, trying to save this crashing airplane and writing it. And so after that, you know, I was like, wow, this is so powerful.
Speaker 2:And around this time I became aware of this phenomenon of retiring business owners, all these business owners that were sort of hitting retirement age, retiring business owners, all these business owners that were sort of hitting retirement age. And so I started looking for companies that I could take over from retiring business owners and help transition to an employee ownership structure, because there is far more sellers than buyers and maybe a lot of people listening don't know this, but 80 percent of businesses that get put up for sale don't get sold. You know it's it's quite hard for small businesses, small, medium-sized, especially on the smaller side businesses to get sold, talking like 10 to 50 employees, um, and so so. So I started looking for these businesses that I could take over and transition to employee ownership.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. And so when did you start Forums at Work?
Speaker 2:It was after I had done this a few times. So now I transitioned from consultant to CEO. You know, one of my thoughts was seeing the impact I'm having as a consultant. But but often the the roadblocks or the hurdles to truly transforming a company is the owner and is the senior leadership as a CEOo. And the irony is is often especially when I was a consultant doing this you know the ceo or the owner would hire you to behave and they'd have a long list of um complaints and grievances about the leadership team, the employees and you know and in, and I guess when I was earlier in my career I I'd hear this okay, so my goal is to change them. And then I realized, wait a second, like the issues stem from the top. You know, I mean it's obvious now to me, but it wasn't back then and then. So I found that I was.
Speaker 2:That was like a big part of my learning, learning and I thought, okay, if I can, I wonder if I can. Just, if I was in that role, in that CEO role, could I drive change faster? If I was, if I was spending not all my time trying to like change the CEO, can I, can I? How do we drive change faster, and so that's when I was able to get some opportunities to lead companies, either in transition, or one of them was also a bankrupt company, a manufacturing facility, and it was around this time that I joined YPO also and became aware of this forum concept, this concept that you can get a group of people together and, by simply yet powerfully creating a very intentional structure, that, okay, when we get together, we're going to finish and start on time. We're not going to share anything outside of this meeting. We're going to push to be more honest than we typically are. We're going to talk about our feelings, the good and the bad and the ugly, and we're going to push to be more honest than we typically are. We're going to talk about our feelings uh, the good and the bad and the ugly, and we're going to take turns. Everyone's going to have the exact same amount of time to talk. We're going to be very structured about that, and experiencing that was a just massively transformative for my, for me, you know, I just thought, like I experienced how much more open, connected, supported, supported, I felt, and then, particularly given my background in training, my sort of knee-jerk reaction was well, how do you bring this into a company, and so I started doing that.
Speaker 2:I started bringing it, taking a company of a few hundred people that I was leading and breaking them down into little tribes, little groups that would meet regularly, um, and while in like a ypo forum, it's very sort of focused on yourself. You're talking about your personal business, your, your career, your family, your personal stuff. It's really centered on you. This was was really more about learning groups, so getting groups that would learn together, discuss together. It was still about them sharing about themselves, but it wasn't about them bearing their souls to one another. It's just helping each other get to know each other better, and every time they meet we'd have different discussions.
Speaker 2:Discussions know, discussions could be, could be around things like you know, how we can communicate better together, how we can support each other better or how we can make product improvements better, you know, find efficiencies better. But it was always in this sort of structure of everybody's equal, same amount of time to talk and with a very focused theme. And so, having done that at my companies and just seeing how dramatically successful it was, it just changed the way people interacted with one another, how people felt more connected to each other and therefore the company company, um after after, uh, so I had two exits in the same year. I was like, okay, like I just realized that I was just a lot more passionate and excited about that, the people seeing people change, seeing people grow, and how that contributed to like how that had an outsized impact on the company, then the actual product itself, and so I thought, you know, I'm just going to focus on creating a tool where this can be more widely accessible, and so that's how it forms at work.
Speaker 1:I love that and I want to get into that, because we have a very big shared mission. But before we get to our very big shared mission, you said your forum had a meaningful impact on you. Can you give us an example of one way? Or, if you can? I know it's all confidential, but it's about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, I'll speak about it for myself. Look, I remember my first forum meeting. Uh, I remember first hearing about this concept about a forum and, um, I feel silly almost now, like sharing my, like, my, my reaction. But my question was, like, all right, so should I just come back to complain about like, what like is that? Is that what this is really about? I just, I just never had this model.
Speaker 2:You know my I, I never had this idea of talking about what's your challenges, um, talking about how you felt about them. For me, I, I couldn't distinguish between that and complaining, and you know it's largely raised that you just put your head down and get to it and just get it done and and have like a can-do attitude and and what I realized is that they're not mutually exclusive. You know it's like you can't get help if you don't share where your challenges are. There's parts of ourselves that are in a complete blind spot and in having people that sort of know you and you share about yourself with regularly helps you identify those blind spots, and a part of that is sharing about yourself more and letting people know more about you. So I'd say for me, I mean, there's been so many junctures where form has been really powerful. But I'd say it's just like understanding more about A. It's just actually developing this muscle of being more comfortable to share and more open to share.
Speaker 1:That in itself is just a big blind spot, you know yeah, it takes, uh, it takes courage, which you have in spades, right yeah, it's, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think courage is like a muscle that you just keep building and you build it by um, taking that risk. You know, I think that's what it is of, of sharing and um, and they're ultimately their emotional risks, which sometimes, you know, sort of have feel like they have the, the, the most at stake, um. But I think that's why I just became so passionate about it, because I just saw the impact that it had on me and also the impact that it had um on Absolutely so, ahad.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about our shared vision, mission and our belief of what this can do to be transformative in this world. Let's do it. Let's do it. So you know, I'm public about this. It's on our website and I say you know, I think that we need to have every human being in a forum or a peer group, whatever you want to call it. And, to be more realistic, I think a billion people made more sense to me as a number that's achievable, and I think when you and I first met, you're like oh my God, mo, I've had the same vision. Is that right or was it slightly different?
Speaker 2:It's spot on, and so I don't think I even told you this, but I was, I was, I left like I think it was a GLC, a GLC conference, the.
Speaker 1:Global Leadership Conference, where they train the chapter officers for YPO, which is Young Presidents Organization for those that haven't heard previous episodes and to be a member you have to be under 50, joined by 45, and have at least 15 million in sales and 50 employees, and those numbers can be higher in some chapters that are more exclusive, but that's basically the minimum. So, just so everybody knows what organization you are referring to and you joined, so please continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And so I jumped into a cab with another member. We're both going to the airport. We got to talking and I shared that that's what I'm, that my vision, that you know what do you do. And I talked about the billion and he says well, I know someone else who wants, who wants to put a billion people in forums. And that's when he told me about you. And that's when I read oh my god, who was it?
Speaker 1:um, I don't recall his name okay, you'll have to let me know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, amazing um, I believe he was from washington, but I don't remember his name right now, um, but it was just. You know, we were like there was no calves. He, he got into one, he goes hey, if you're going to the airport, we can ride together. And but it was just I was thinking about this before we got on today how we just got connected. And so there's, we're united by a number, absolutely, and by a vision.
Speaker 2:And when I hear you, when I hear you talk about your views, I, I just feel I can't look away. Like, you know, I've, I've, you know, this past year, we put hundreds of people in peer learning forums in Africa, in West Africa, people in manufacturing, tech, insurance, retail, and and it's, it's just, it's consistently the same thing how their confidence grows, how their sense of self grows, how their family lives change, how their people around them tell them that they're like different and they just seem more confident and better, and how they then and then how they feel everybody should have this. And so I just think it's so, when you see that and we've just, in the last year, you know, have launched that in Turkey, in Manila, you know, we've done it in South America, across the United States, when you see just how universal it is across industries, across cultures, from senior leadership right down to factory floor. You know steel welders in Mexicali or El Centro, california.
Speaker 2:You know right down the border of Mexico and California who have been in these sort of workplace peer learning forums and and then and I've spoken to them I say so what's this like? And they're like, you know, like I, just I feel a lot more connected to the people I work with. I like being here, I, I, I'm growing, I'm learning, and you see that excitement that you and I both share, and so you realize that, yeah, it's like what. There's a reason why you and I feel so strongly about this. There's a very concrete, tangible reason.
Speaker 1:It's really a crime that the world does not know about this. You know, I my first book in 2008, forum the Secret Advantage of Successful Leaders. Why did I title it the Secret Advantage? Because in my world in 2008, it was just CEOs, and it was many CEOs around the world. Right At that point, I'd already worked with CEOs in YPO and EO in over 30 countries, and yet it's still a secret. And today I think the secret's starting to come out.
Speaker 1:So that's our job, my friend. We got to let people know that their lives will be better in every measurable way, and in some very immeasurable ways, right as a result of belonging to a forum that works, following this model that we've known and loved for so long. And it's really the model that makes it work, I think, because we're not taught to not give advice as we're growing up, we're not taught not to be so judgmental with a facial expression or with here's what I think you should do with your life. We're not taught to be vulnerable. We're, in fact, taught to be invulnerable, to protect ourselves and to not show our emotions and big boys don't cry. And so to have this incredible outlet gives us so much space to learn, to grow and to get things off our chests.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. I mean, it's so refreshing to hear you say this and describe it, because you say it with such similar words and similar passion that I feel. And to hear you say it and someone with just the breadth of experience that you have and the impact that you've made is, is so reaffirming. I think it's like one of those things where you're right. It is you said it's a crime and you said it's a secret, and I agree with all those things I think about and I know in my bones that one day there will be justice and everybody will have an opportunity to join a peer group and there will be.
Speaker 2:It will no longer be a secret and it'll be so widely known and I think it'll be one of those things that people will be like well, how did people survive without this? I mean, when they did it, it just kind of just suffered, you know, in isolation, and it's like that makes no sense. It's like, yeah, well, it did it, you know. And so I just know that's going to happen and we'll look back on, you know, conversations like this and think and just sort of see the before and after. And so I'm I'm just so thrilled to have met you, because you, you know, if you think about it in by definition, it's important to like come together to create this for everybody, and you can't do this alone, you know. Come together to create this for everybody. You can't do this alone, you know, if you bring a billion people together to create sort of a different operating model with which people communicate, because now I'm incapable of giving advice, right, unless he asks for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even then I struggle. So, ahad, let me ask you this so we get a billion people in forums through whatever mechanism they need, whatever mechanism that works for them virtual, in-person, whatever but we've got a billion people that are living by this culture, are living by this ethos that we so hold dearly. And I'll remember the days when we started forums at Google. We started 12 groups for underrepresented minorities, and what was very clear early on is they loved these groups and evaluations were incredibly high and they said we love the culture of these peer groups. How can we make that the culture of Google itself? Of course, we didn't reach enough people to have that impact, but when you insist that every member of the company gets to participate, that changes things, doesn't it? I think you have a story about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'll share an example. Actually another tech company, so one of our clients. They've been running these peer learning forums within their company for years now and now, and it became just like what you described with Google. It was voluntary first and then it kept growing and then it became no, this is who we are, and now they call their groups Heartbeat, so this is their heartbeat. I love that.
Speaker 2:Now they call their groups um heartbeat, so this is their heartbeat, and they have a I love that and they have heartbeat t-shirts and it's just this is part of their heartbeat and uh and it's, and what happened was was someone had joined the company and I guess they had fallen through the cracks, but they weren't put into one of these groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they started having friction with some, but they weren't put into one of these groups. And they started having friction with some salesperson, with some of the operational people. And that happens, right, sales and operation Sales sometimes calls operation the anti-sales department, and so they're having this friction and eventually this salesperson storms into the CEO's office and is complaining and is frustrated. And he was just listening to her this is a great YPO and a great advocate of forums and forums in the workplace and he said wait a second, are you in a heartbeat group? She's like no, no, they were supposed to put me in one like a month ago and they just still haven't. He's like that's what's going on.
Speaker 2:She just was not, had not become part of her group, so she was not communicating the way everybody.
Speaker 2:Uh, she was part, like there was like two cultures, was the people who were part of this were communicating, listening, understanding one another, had, were, were, because they meet weekly in the in these groups. So so when you do that, you're building a muscle, a communication muscle, way of being together and she was just not part of that. So she had not, she was still kind of doing it her own or like so she's still like an outsider actually, yeah, and so it really showed that the sort of difference in disparity when you become part of this and you're regularly meeting, building relationships, practicing this style and form of communication, and then when you're not. So that's why it's so important, because what happens is the people that are in it, always consistently, they love it, they, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're engaged, they, they change, they transform the way that they listen and communicate. And then when you, when you have people who aren't, then you have sort of haves and have nots and then you start having two very different types of cultures.
Speaker 1:Love that. I love that. Ahad, what an amazing, amazing story you've had and what an amazing impact we are going to have. I cannot wait to figure out ways for us to join forces to really make a difference. I want to end with one last question One person that's had the most impact on your life, one person that's had the most impact?
Speaker 2:on your life. I would say my, my mother has had sort of this impact on my life and and I think it's because she's just always been a safe place for me to go and talk to I mean, she's you know, I think I could. I've really never truly been alone because I've just always had her to go and talk to and and and be myself with. So she offered me that space and that opportunity and continues to do so. So, yeah, I feel super lucky.
Speaker 1:My spine is tingling. My friend, my mother, is my biggest cheerleader, always has been, no matter what. So right there with you. Love to our mothers.
Speaker 2:Yes, love to our mothers and yeah, we're really lucky to have that and to have our mothers around and to still be able to benefit from that type of really unique love.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it. We'll end it there. Thank you so much, ahad. You can follow the Heart of Business podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, podcast reviews have a real impact on our visibility, so if you like today's episode, please give us a review. Finally, you can listen to all our episodes at our website, internationalfacilitatorscom. Thank you for listening and have a great day.
