S4:E115🎙️ LIVE with Bobby “Raehan” Umar (Multi Tracks Audio)

Hi, I'm John Maxwell. When the top companies in the world are looking for trainers, speakers, and coaches, there's one name that stands above the rest, and that's Maxwell Leadership. Our certified team members have gotten proven results for companies all over the globe, and our reputation, I'm proud to say, is second to none. Some of our members have risen to the top of their profession, including the one you're going to meet today. I proudly introduce you to my friend Bob Fabien Zinga.

Welcome to the Leadership Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ, where we help you lead with purpose and succeed with impact. If you're ready to grow into the kind of leader others want to follow, this podcast is for you. If you're determined to elevate your success and leave a lasting legacy, this podcast is for you. As my mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, reminds us, everything rises and falls on leadership. Our goal is simple: to inspire you, challenge you, and equip you with insights that can transform the trajectory of your leadership journey. Welcome aboard to another episode of the Leadership and Success Podcast with Coach BZ.

Being on stage in front of 500 to 1,000 people live That is the best thing, is the most energizing thing. It's where I'm in my elements, where I feel the best. So I think that's my favorite thing in the world. You know, if I could just do that versus everything else, I would do it. But for the most part, they say, you know, write a book, Bobby, put together a program, coach people.

Okay, sure.

But if I could just go on stage and do that, I love that part.

That's such a talent because many, many people say that they really don't like public speaking because they get so nervous and they think of it It's something worse than death, being in front of so many people. So what's, what's your secret? What would you advise as you are a former— gosh, 5 TEDx talks that you have delivered. What would you say are the secrets to presenting well?

Well, I think the first thing is to realize that don't be a speaker, be a teacher, right? So don't try to be the next Tony Robbins or Barack Obama.

Try to be just someone who's going to teach and deliver a message.

That's the first thing. Number 2, it's you have to know your audience. So cater to what they need, what they want, how they want to perceive you and how they want to learn.

Because every audience is different.

So you need to make sure that— so when I speak to CEOs, or when I talk to entrepreneurs, there's different stories, different tactics. When I speak to young children, which is one of the most scariest things you can do, for me, I once had to speak to grade 6, 7, 8. So these are like 12 to 13, 11 to 13-year-olds. And so, you know, I was terrified, but you know, like, I had to change, change how I spoke to them and cater to that audience.

And then number 3, you have to find your own style and energy.

Every single person has their own style, whether you're extrovert, introvert, analytical, you know, top-of-mind thinking, whatever it is, find your style and energy. And if you know it, if you know what that is, then you can leverage it to be a really effective speaker, no matter what your personality.

All right everyone, uh, this is Coach Bizzy, and, uh, thank you so much for joining us again today.

Uh, very, very, uh, grateful that you are here with us.

So this is the second time today.

This morning we really had the pleasure, uh, to speak with John Kiff, one of our national security expert strategists.

And today I have another guest for you. So before we get started and I introduce the guest, uh, let me go back to, uh, our custom, which is, uh, to practice our moment of gratitude. Every time we meet, we want to make sure that we can just take a moment to be grateful for something every single day that we meet. So if you would close your eyes, put yourself in your happy place, maybe take a deep breath and think about one thing that you are grateful for right now. And I think for me, like I said this morning, I am really grateful for the people who came ahead of me, right?

Those who have come before us, those who served before we did. The people who joined the military and served this country in uniform, and those who didn't serve in uniform but worked toward the improvement of the national security of the United States for more peace in the world, make this world a better place. We really stand on their shoulder, and they are trailblazers, and we kind of follow the path. And now that I've served in the Navy for 21 years now, eventually I'm going to be retiring soon, and I want to make sure I pass that on to the next generation of information warfare officers, military leaders, or high-tech leaders. So that's really what I am grateful for, the people who've been trailblazers and have made it possible for somebody like me to serve in that capacity as well.

So let us know what you are grateful for today.

Type it in the comments.

And also let us know where you are joining us from, what city, what state within the US.

And since we now have a global podcast, if you are from another country, let us know which country you are joining us from. And most importantly, if you have a question for my guest, go ahead and type it in the comments and we're going to make sure to answer your questions live.

So let me see if I can introduce our guest properly. Today we are going to be talking to Bobby Uma. He's a speaker, coach, and social media advocate who champions authentic connection and heart-based leadership. Inc.

Magazine named him one of the top 100 leadership speakers alongside such noteworthy giants like Richard Branson, Brené Brown, and John Maxwell, who is my primary mentor, Dr. Maxwell. I call him Papa John.

With over 500,000 social media followers, he uses his influence to help lost, stuck, and unfulfilled leaders find more joy and fulfillment. And he's a 5-time TEDx speaker, has been named the 4th best leadership influencer according to Quaid and the top 7 networking guru to follow, the 2nd best business coach to follow on Twitter. And for some of the people who follow me, I know you let me know that you wanted to become a TEDx speaker as well.

And I think Bobby Eumer might just be the coach you need in order to make that a reality.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you would please help me welcome from Canada, Coach Bobby Umer.

Hey there, good afternoon.

I guess it— you guys must be on the Eastern clock, right?

So yeah, it's like 9:40 where you are.

Okay, yeah. So thank you so much for being here and being one of our master teachers today. We have so much to learn from you. But before I get started, I believe Canada and the US are the only two countries with Thanksgiving holiday, but I think in Canada it's in October, right?

Like 10 or 12.

That's right, that's right. It's usually the second Monday of October.

Okay, here it's gonna be this, uh, first, first day, uh, November 27th. But anyway, it is the season of, of thanks, so, uh, everybody is grateful. Uh, may I first ask, what are you grateful for this evening?

I'm grateful for my kids as they are getting into their late teens and they're heading to you know, the next stage of life, which is amazing to watch them evolve into, you know, because they're really my story and legacy that I care about the most.

Yes.

Wow, that is so wonderful. Yeah, we have two daughters ourselves.

First one graduated from college last year. Thank God for that. And the second one is in 12th grade. So she's going to be graduating high school soon.

Right.

She's going to college as well.

But wonderful. And is there something about you, Bobby, that most people may not know?

Um, I think, I think a lot of people don't know that I used to be a big musical theater performer.

Um, because what's funny is the kids, you know, when the kids came, I focused on them and I basically took a break, uh, in 2007. My son was born 2008, and I for 17 years didn't really do much shows. I actually just focused on the kids, and they're very big musical theater kids.

And what's funny that what people don't know now is that actually I just, I got into my, my first show in 17 years, and I'm performing in a couple of months. So that's pretty, uh, it's kind of scary, but it's also, uh, it's gonna be— it's gonna surprise people when they see, wow, I didn't know Bobby did this.

Wow, that is, that is pretty cool. Do I guess you know which, which role you're gonna be playing?

Yeah, I'm playing, uh, actually one of my dream roles.

Uh, his name is Tom Collins in Rent.

Wow.

And, uh, I've always wanted that role, and I, I got it, and I was like, this is great, let's roll with it.

And so it's a very new frontier after 17 years of not doing any singing or performing. So yeah, it's fun.

Wow, that is really amazing. Congratulations. So today you are, let's say, one of the top 100 leaders, 5x TEDx speaker, which is pretty amazing.

Can you kind of walk us through briefly how you got to become Bobby Umar, the leader, marketer, and social media expert and TEDx speaker? What was your journey like?

Yeah, so I'll try to keep it as short as possible. But generally speaking, I first started out my career in engineering.

I was working at Bombardier designing planes, structure, structure design. While I was there, though, I was kind of bored, because I spent most of my time in front of a computer, not talking to anybody. So while there, I started a musical theater company, started producing, directing musicals, grew that organization. It was nonprofit, but I grew it to about 150 people over 4 years.

And that was kind of the two things I was doing.

But I realized I kind of had a love for people, marketing, promotion, things like that. So I really wanted to get into entertainment. So I decided to leave Bombardier after 4 years and I went to do my MBA in marketing. And I thought, okay, you know, if I do marketing, I can switch over to doing like TV and movies, kind of what I really want to do.

After I, after I graduated and everything went really well for me in my MBA school, uh, but I, I didn't have very many connections in TV and film.

Most of my connections were in theater. And so I decided the next best thing was brand marketing. So I started working for Kraft and Fried Lever, the Dove campaign for real beauty.

I started, you know, doing brand marketing, did that for several years and then started still dabbling a little bit of performing arts.

I did some Second City training. I also started performing with a sketch comedy troupe.

And then eventually, you know, that didn't work out for me. And I was like, you know what? I also dabbled in teaching.

I taught at various programs, summer programs, and as a part-time instructor for various things.

And then eventually I was like, you know, I'm not sure what I want to do with my life.

And it wasn't really working out for me. So I decided to focus on my personal brand and discover kind of who I was. And what I found from my journey was they said Bobby likes people, he likes to nurture, he likes to persuade, influence, he likes diversity. And so from that journey, I decided to become a motivational speaker. So I went out there and I started pushing myself out there.

And I was a big networker at the time. When I started speaking, I became known for, first of all, being a networking guy. How to be a master networker. So I wrote a book about that, which was a bestseller book.

And then later on, I started talking about personal branding, so I became known as a personal brand guy. So I developed a whole program on how to craft your personal brand, understand what it is.

And then, um, then I found social media, you know.

I saw that there was a great opportunity on social media, and I remember meeting some people saying, you know, you should invest in it. I said, okay, great, let me do this. And I remember, uh, on the day of my first TEDx talk that I got I decided to launch a social media strategy on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, those types of platforms.

And the first one that took off for me was Twitter. About, about 6 months into it, 6 months after my first TEDx talk, I basically got a speaking gig right off of Twitter. Someone said, hey, we love what you talk about. We love you talk about leadership connection. And I was like, oh, okay. And they're like, can you come in and do a leadership session for us?

I'm like, Absolutely.

And, and now I am all in on social media. At that time I had 5,000 followers on Twitter.

I was like, this is great.

So I just, I decided to invest in all of them.

And so, you know, now this, since then, you know, half a million on Twitter, uh, 55,000 on LinkedIn. I'm a LinkedIn Top Voice with the blue badge, got the blue badge on Twitter as well. I also got 43,000 Instagram.

So I built that up and I started going all different platforms. Wow. And then of course, then, and of course while I was doing this, you know, 5 TEDx talks happened. I also got invited to 4 of the TEDx talks, which I said no to for various reasons. And then I started traveling around the world, got an agent, I started traveling. I started— and most of what I talked about was, uh, personal branding, leadership, thought leadership, digital strategy, digital thought leadership, culture, community connection, all this kind of stuff. And, um, yeah, I mean, it was a great ride. 20, 20 years, 4 continents, 1,000 keynotes, workshops. It was really amazing.

And then the pandemic hit and then it's like, okay, now what do I do?

Because I was mostly into events or speaking because I started DYPB, which is basically, it was doing, we was doing conferences on personal branding. And so that kind of fell apart too. So what do I do? I started getting into coaching and people are like, okay, what can I coach people on?

So I started focusing on storytelling, vulnerable storytelling.

I focused on LinkedIn particularly because people knew I was quite prolific on LinkedIn.. And I just kind of started thinking about storytelling and thought leadership was the thing I like to talk about.

Mm-hmm.

And then about 2 years after the pandemic started, a friend said, hey Bob, you know, why don't we, you know, used to run a speaker mastermind program before the pandemic.

I used to teach people how to become paid speakers.

She's like, why don't you do that again? But add the TEDx thing.

And I said, oh, okay, sure.

And so, wow. I launched a TEDx program, TEDx speaking program a couple years in 2022. And I developed a 17-page curriculum. And what happened was people were like, hey Bobby, I just did what you said, I landed 3 paid speaking gigs, or I did what you said, I landed a TEDx Talk. So wow, I started, I started adding that to my coaching. So, 'cause most people wanted my coaching for like personal branding or career transition or building a business or digital thought leadership on LinkedIn or whatever. And I realized that TEDx was a fantastic vehicle to integrate building your authority, building your brand, building your business, building your speaking, whatever you wanted to do, speaking and TEDx just worked so well together.

So I started developing a program, and so I designed a program, uh, 2 years ago where I would guarantee my process and the way I did it would land you a TEDx talk.

And I've been doing that ever since, along with the speaking, along with running my TLB Club membership community, along with still doing LinkedIn Local, uh, event meetups every 3, 4 months. So I still do that stuff, but for the most part I'm a speaker and I'm a TEDx coach.

That's the two main things that I do.

That is really, really fascinating. And I believe this is your book, right?

How to Network in Italian.

Yeah, it's so long ago, but yeah, I think I wrote that like 15 years ago. Yes, that is the one.

Ah, so what is the message from this book that is still relevant today?

Well, I think at the end of the day, when it comes to, you know, building relationships and networking, is that you have to have the right mindset, You have to have the right tactics and you have to have the right plan.

And if you have all three of those things, that's how people become master networkers. They work on the mindset, they have advanced tactics, and they have a plan when they go in to leverage the networking for their business or their brand.

Wow, that is quite powerful.

Thank you so much for, uh, sharing that.

So, uh, you have built global platform around authenticity and art-based leadership.

What was the defining moment when you realized vulnerability needed to be at the center of your work?

Great question. So I was doing an event with a couple other of my fellow TEDx speakers and we ran this event and there was 4 of us and we were all 4, we were friends, but we were all very passionate speakers and we're running this like this 2-day conference.

And I remember somebody asked a question about how they were having a really difficult time or difficult day or they were going through a dark day. And I remember on stage I said, you know what, I have dark days too. And I shared a story about when I finished university in college and I was, and I was like sitting there the whole day doing nothing. And I felt, I felt like I wasted my day. I felt I was just watching TV. I felt I was addicted. I felt I had no plans or hope or anything like that. And it was a really, it was really hard thing for me. And I explained that. And as soon as I did that, 2 or 3 other people stood up and said, I can't believe you, this big speaker on stage, are saying something that you have dark days too.

I'm like, yes, we all have dark days. We all have terrible days where we feel horrible about ourselves, and it's okay, it's human. And as soon as I did that, several people put their hands up, ask questions, and then the other speakers on stage started sharing their stuff too. Because when you're a speaker, you're like, you're on, hey, you know, like, you're not, you're not like, oh, you know, like We don't usually do that, but all of them, all four of us plus the audience, started sharing really, really vulnerable, powerful stuff. And I was like, this is amazing. And, uh, that was the epiphany.

And then when I was asked to do my first TEDx Talk, I decided to talk about how vulnerability is part of connection.

Wow, that is really, really, really powerful.

And I think especially for men, right, we really learn to be more in touch with our emotion and be vulnerable. I think there is a lot to say about, about that.

So you often talk about helping lost leaders.

When in your life did you personally feel lost, and how did that season shape your mission today?

Uh, all the time. I mean, so, you know, my, my journey is one where I was a jack of all trades, master of none. I kept trying different things. So the first time I tried was engineering. It didn't fit, you know, and then I got let go. Then I tried teaching. It didn't really fit, so I left that. Then I tried brand marketing. Didn't fit for me. And I eventually left that.

And so I, although through that time, I always kind of felt lost.

I didn't know what I wanted to do. I then tried to get into entertainment, film and television. Again, that didn't work. And so I was trying to, you know, so throughout the entire journey, I always felt kind of lost. And I, or I felt stuck, or I felt unfulfilled in my work or what I was doing.

And so that became a big part of my mission.

And so now my why statement has become that, which is essentially There are a lot of stuck, unfulfilled leaders everywhere I go, because wherever I go, I meet people who feel lost in their career, stuck in their jobs, or unfulfilled in their work. And so I've been there. And through personal branding, I found clarity, through focus, through community, through all the things I've been doing, I've been able to get to a better place. So I teach people that you can do the same thing. Don't settle and try to figure out what makes sense for you, what aligns with your values. Find purpose and focus in your life.. And if you actually have that focus and purpose and it's aligned with who you are, it's amazing what you can do. And so that, that became a big, uh, running, uh, thing for me in terms of helping people find their purpose.

So, because typically the, the general thing I tell people is that, look, if we can help—

the journey I take people on is from personal brand to thought leadership brand. Because if we get clarity, focus, and direction with your personal brand and figure that out, then we start moving towards building that thought leadership brand where you have authority.

Expertise.

And people want to hire you for the various things that you are an expert on, whether it's speaking, coaching, consulting, or something else. So that, to me, is part of the journey, starting from feeling lost to then feeling super fulfilled.

That, that is quite powerful.

And also, with your background, you, you mentioned earlier you've got an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship, I believe, from McGill University, right?

So You do teach personal brand like you just say. So you teach that personal brand is a promise.

What are the essential components of a strong personal brand and where do most leaders start wrong in your opinion?

Yeah, I think that the personal brand piece is the promise.

What do you promise to deliver to people so that they can always get that from you? So, you know, for me, when I promise heart, I promise humor, I promise accessibility. I promise— one of my well-known brands is responsiveness. When people email me or message me on LinkedIn or text me, I respond very quickly.

They're like, "Oh, okay, there's Bob. He'll respond right away." So I'm usually pretty good at that. And so that's part of my brand, that promise that people can expect from me. For me, that's a big part of it.

Now, I think that in terms of, you know, and why is that important?

Well, if you know what your brand is, because your brand is basically is, is created by the people around you and how they perceive you.

What—

how do they emotionally experience you? If they emotionally experience you to be fun, great, that's fun. If the emotional experience you to be negative, well then that's negative. It's important to understand what that is. And I think what a lot of people do wrong is they, they think they can own their brand without actually understanding how other people perceive them.

But really it's, it's a—

it's—

you have to understand that stuff and you have to be willing to learn and listen to what people have to say about you, get their feedback.. So you get a truly better understanding of what your brand is and how it works.

Most people, what they do incorrectly is they don't dive into understand their brand.

They try to craft their brand on their own based on whatever limited knowledge they have without even talking to the right people, their audience, their network, the people that they know, their friends, their family to really get a true understanding what that is. Because once you understand what that is and you commit to that deep dive exploration,, then you have a much better chance of developing and building a much stronger aligned personal brand.

That is really wonderful.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

Now, for the people who follow me, a lot of the aspiring leaders on this podcast, sometimes they kind of struggle with self-promotion, especially in the industry. How do you help leaders become visible without feeling inauthentic or salesy?

Well, I think one of the best ways to be able to, I guess, sell who you are is you, you have a framework or mindset of service, right? So if I'm trying to serve people, and I'm leveraging my expertise, my experience to help serve, I don't feel so bad saying I'm trying to serve this, who I'm trying to teach is what I'm trying to help people learn. I think that works really, really well. The second thing that comes into play is that You know, I listen to my audience, listen to my customers.

So whenever I do a keynote, people say, "Hey Bobby, that was a great speech." I say, "Great, thank you so much. What exactly was like, what's your feedback?

Like what'd you think?

What'd you like? What can I improve upon?" I'm constantly learning, getting feedback because, and I'll give you a little story, which was, you know, for many years I'd always say on stage, Bobby, he's dynamic, he's enthusiastic, he tells good stories. I'd always say that.. But one thing I never said was that I'm funny. Like, I never, I never, I never put that out there. But event— but what happened was after 5, 10 years, the feedback kept coming in. Bobby, that was hilarious. You're so funny. Oh, that was hilarious.

That—

I love the jokes.

You're so funny.

Yeah. And after a while I was like, okay, you know what?

I think I could probably say that I'm funny. Why?

Because it's validated by my audience.

So my, my, my trick for you guys is that if you get feedback from your clients, from your audience, and they tell you this thing over and over and over again, You can probably own that. If they say you're fun, you're accessible, you're emotional, you're vulnerable, you're funny, then you know what? You can own that. So I found that to be very helpful for me to owning that and trying it out. And I think the third thing you do is you test things out, test out messaging, test out communication, get feedback, do some polls, see what people think. If things aren't going the way that you think they are, then you evolve and change. You know, like you have to, You have to be listening to your audience in terms of what's going on because your audience will evolve as you do. And so constantly listening and getting feedback will allow you to evolve your brand. Because my brand has shifted over the years to different things.

Like the TEDx thing is something that I wasn't really focused on.

I certainly talked about being a 5-time TEDx speaker, but I never focused on the TEDx coaching piece.

And now that's something that I shifted to.

I used to be part of, I used to do a lot of networking stuff.

Now I don't do that as much. Now I'm focused more on my membership community.

So, you know, I'm evolving my brand too because I keep listening.

Yes.

Well, that is, that is really powerful.

And I like how you, you know, receive feedback through all of your experiences and then make adjustment as, uh, needed.

Uh, another thing that you say is people don't remember polished, right?

They remember real. How can leaders practice authenticity but without oversharing?

Well, there's a couple things about that.

I mean, authenticity comes from a genuine intent, like genuine intent, for the most part, right? So I have a genuine intent to serve, to help, to be, you know, to be, to share my stories, to, you know, help people to build connections. So that genuine intention is the first part of authenticity. The second part of authenticity is honesty. Right? So you basically tell people the honest truth about what happened, how it felt.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to— so when it comes to sharing stuff, something, you know, you basically have to tell people what exactly are, you know, what is the honest thing that you said or did or happened or you feel, and then what is the emotion behind that? What is the what?

What is the so what?

And so that honesty goes a long way to being authentic, because if you're not honest, people can tell when you're dishonest, right? That's the people who are inauthentic are dishonest.

The people who are inauthentic are not being real in the moment. The people who are, you know, inauthentic are the ones that are just trying to sell, sell, sell, as opposed to serve, serve, serve.

And so I think that to me is an important piece of that.

And so if you're willing to be, uh, you know, have genuine intent to help or serve, and if you are being honest about who you are, that's great.

Now when it comes to, you know, what— oversharing—

I mean, my feeling on that is that, look, you have to take responsibility for whatever you share, right?

But the thing, the thing I caution people on is personal versus private, right?

So there are things that are personal to you, there's things that are private.

So for example, if I'm going through a divorce, uh, I would say, I personally, I would say, you know what, I'm going through a divorce, it's really hard on me, I'm hoping to get through it.

Privately, I could say something bad about my spouse, which is not the right thing to do.

That's, that to me, that's not authentic.

That's also the—

that, that's private information, personal information. And in terms of the personal information, you have to be as personal as you want to be.

Like, I talk about very personal, vulnerable topics like body image, weight loss, my diabetes, and my entrepreneurship journey, my parenting journey, all the fails I've had in my life.

But some people don't want to do that. They, they're, they're very, very apprehensive. So, you know, start small. Talk about that one time in high school where you screwed up on a test, or talk about that one time, or talk about gratitude. Talk about a mentor you knew back when you were in university or college that meant a lot to you. Gratitude is a great personal touch. If you want to talk about vulnerability, you can talk about a time that you struggled when you were younger. That's a very easy thing to talk about. Maybe your first job, you know, that you had where maybe you spilled the glasses, or maybe you showed up late for work. I mean, these are just very easy things to talk about versus the, the very deeper vulnerable stuff that I talk about. But The more you practice it, the easier it gets.

Thank you so much.

That is so insightful.

And for the people listening right now, when you coach, what's the fastest way for a leader to gain clarity on their one message or core idea?

The fast way to clarity on their one idea.

Hmm.

Well, It's a good question. I, I would say that to me, my favorite thing in the whole world is to find your why statement.

I find that if you know what your why statement is, it adds so much clarity to what problem you solve, the people you serve, and it fires you up. So I think to me, I've always found that the why statement has been my favorite thing to really get that clarity.

I mean, personal branding certainly gives you clarity.

So personal branding, that includes your why, your mission, your vision, your values, all those types of things. But if I had to pick one thing, once I found my why statement, it pretty much directed me on what I wanted to do, and who I want to do it for, and how I want to do it. And so for me, that was a really big— that was a really big thing.

Quite powerful. Thank you.

Thank you so much, man.

So many wonderful nuggets. So talking about your TEDx coaching.

Yeah.

From all of your own talk and all of the other people you've coached, you've been able to have successful TEDx launches.

What makes a story TEDx-worthy? What separates an interesting story from a transformational one?

Yeah, I think, you know, the first thing I'll say is that, you know, anyone can be a TEDx speaker.

I mean, there are, you know, I've done 5 TEDx talks and I've also declined 4 other TEDx talks.

But I know people, I know 10-year-olds have done TED Talks.

I know 18-year-olds have done 4 TEDx talks.

So that's the first thing.

Anyone can do a TEDx Talk.

Why in the world would anybody decline a TEDx Talk opportunity?

No, no, but people don't even pursue it because they don't think they deserve it. They don't think they can do it. So my point is anyone can do one. It's just a question of how you do it. So what you do is, you know, in your life you have multiple stories. Now the key is, you know, what is the lesson of that story and how do we make it sound unique? So I can take any story that you might have or I might have.

Like, let's say, for example, The time when I was a kid and I got hit by a car. I was riding my bicycle. I was 7 years old, get hit by a car. You know, my sister was mad at me and all that kind of stuff.

But, you know, is there a lesson there that I can turn into something that's quite an epiphany? And if I can, then that can easily become a TEDx talk. I mean, a lot of TEDx talks out there are about personal resilience. So you talk about a struggle.

So, you know, the time I dealt with binge eating or the time I dealt with my body image.

That to me would easily be a TEDx story because you have to get to the heart of what was the story, what was the emotion of what you went through, and then what is the key lesson or aha moment or epiphany you got from that, which can be helpful to someone in the audience. Because even if you help just one person feel inspired, feel willing to take action, that can become a TEDx talk.

Wow, that is really, Really awesome.

And earlier you said with your coaching practice, you start with developing, uh, the brand and then, uh, thought leadership. Uh, so you've helped thousands grow their digital voice. Uh, what does thought leadership really mean, especially on social media?

Well, I like, I like to use a quote, quote for personal branding, which is, you know, personal branding is what they say when you're not in the room.

Thought leadership branding is what they say before you enter the room when you're in the room and after you've left the room. And that's because as a thought leader, you are known, right?

You have followers, you have influence, you have subject matter expertise.

And when we think about the biggest thought leaders out there, they typically have 3 main criteria. Number 1, they have either— they have connections, friends, a broad range of connections, deep connections, followers.

That's what we call influence. Now, you can be an influencer but not a thought leader.

And we know many of those on Instagram.

The second piece is subject matter expertise.

You're creating ideas, you're crafting innovative ideas, you're writing books, you're writing songs, you're crafting things. That's called subject matter expertise.

Now, many subject matter experts out there may not have very much influence, but when you combine those two, that's where it becomes pretty big. Then the third piece is really knowing your brand voice.

You spend time with storytelling, active listening, communication skills, work on speaking.

You're doing videos, you're speaking on panels.. And by building your brand voice, that's typically what thought leaders do, right?

So they basically have influence, they have subject matter expertise, and they have built a brand voice.

And when you have that, you basically have credibility, authority, and influence.

Well, that is quite powerful. Later, we're gonna talk a little bit more about your TEDx coaching.

I know a lot of people listening right now are going to be quite interested. But can you kind of walk us through just at the high level, don't give out all of the secrets, but Can you walk us through kind of like the framework you use for helping someone land their first TEDx Talk?

Well, I think that I can frame exactly how I help people by talking about the biggest challenges people have. The first challenge, which you already talked about, which is mindset.

Do I deserve one?

So I'm not spending too much time on that because I'm looking for people who are accomplished speakers, have great experience, and they want to do it.

So, but that's the first barrier that people have. After that, the biggest challenges are they can't figure out what idea or story or topic or title to come up with. So I help them figure that out because to me, the number one thing that'll help you get a TEDx Talk is having the right idea, topic, and title.

The other part that people don't know is they don't know where to start, who to talk to, how to find TEDx events.

So I show them how to actually build a list of TEDx events you can start pitching to. Yes.

And then find that because there's, you know, the, the, the websites doesn't have as much information as you'd like.

So you have to find other ways to research it. So I teach people advanced strategies there.

Then the, uh, then the, the, the fourth challenge is, uh, I applied to TEDx Talk but I don't seem to get in.

Why?

Because they don't know how, and they don't get feedback from the TEDx organizers. So why the challenge is they don't know how to optimize their application.

So I teach people exactly how to put together the right pitch so that the organizer will want to meet you and they'll want to put you in their next round, or they'll definitely want to get you on stage right away. And that's, that's the fourth challenge.

And then the fifth challenge. So first one was mindset. Second one, a second one was come up with the right idea.

Third one was finding the different tax events organizers. The fourth one was, uh, optimize your application, make it— make sure you pitch properly.

The fifth one, this is also a really hard one, which is what we call accountability and focus. Because I mean, look, it takes work.

Yes.

If, like I used to say about personal branding, are you willing to invest $100 of your time for 500,000 hours of fulfillment, joy, legacy, alignment, and impact? That's personal branding. For TEDx Talks, what I would say is that, look, if you can invest 40 to 50 hours of your time over a 3 to 9 month period, TEDx is amazing because it takes just 40 to 50 hours of time over a 3 to 9 month period for the maximum amplification of your brand, your authority, and your thought leadership. So that's why to me it's a fantastic investment to do that for yourself.

I couldn't agree more. Now you mentioned Diversity earlier.

So I know you are a proud South Asian leader, Ife Aver, and you mentioned your children and advocate for diversity.

What cultural leadership lessons have shaped you most?

Well, I think one of the things that has been helpful for me, and this is kind of what I talked about in my fourth TEDx Talk, which is the more diverse our experiences are, the more likely and diverse our mind and our mindset is. So you see a lot of people who lack diversity because they've only known that one group of people they've hung out with. But as soon as they leave their country or they travel somewhere or immerse themselves in another culture, they become more open to experiences.

So I think for me, like, the thing that helped me the most to become more diverse and inclusive was experiencing all the different things.

I grew up in a small town and I was pretty naive and innocent back then, but as soon as I went to a big city for my university college experience, I started to see other people and how they lived and what they saw. And I ate my first bagel and I was like, wow, bagel, this is cool.

I just started learning different things about different types of foods.

And so I think that to me, the biggest aspect to building diversity is diversity of experience. Go out there and have as many diverse experiences as you have.

You can try, try new things.

The more you do that, the more you're going to learn from it, the more you have stories to tell, and it's actually going to enrich your, your soul and expand your heart. So for me, that is the main thing to do.

That is, that is so wonderful.

I know when you join the US military, you're definitely going to travel a lot. I was kind of shocked when I first came to the US, where especially in the Deep South, the majority of people I saw, they said they were born there and they're going to die there. They've never gone more than 100 miles from the place they were born. And that is so sad, especially with the US passport. I imagine in Canada it's the same thing. You pretty much have a passport to the entire world. No country is going to deny you entry. But it's really wonderful what you learn when you travel and meet different people. And that's fantastic.

So you are also known for heart-based leadership.

What does that look like in practice, especially in organizations rooted in hierarchy, like in the military where I served for 21 years now, or in technology like in Silicon Valley? How do we practice heart-based leadership?

Well, I think it's generally based on values that are rooted in love for the most part.

I mean, love, love being a value by itself.

But, you know, there's different things like kindness, compassion, empathy. Those are all heart-based values. So when you are working with a team, you're working with a leader, or even when you're talking to your customers, that heart and that those values of heart have to be there. And it kind of relates to the DEI question that you had before, which is diversity comes from like, one of the best tips for being diverse is also one of the best tips to being a heart leader, which is empathy.

Because you—

empathy for me is like, if you look at diversity and inclusion, or if you look at leadership and empathy, empathetic leadership, no matter what comes up, whether you're dealing with someone from a completely different culture, religion, pastime, or whatever it is that you are, and let's say they're struggling, or if you're a leader and you're working with employees or teams or organizations that are struggling, empathy is the number one thing for me.

Because for me, you have to ask three questions.

Number one, can I understand what this person or this group is feeling?

Number two, can I understand why they're feeling that way?

And then number three, and this is the hardest one for folks, how can I support those feelings?

Hmm.

So what that means is from a diversity standpoint, if someone who's nothing like you and a completely different person, the lifestyle, religion, whatever it might be, but they're struggling, can I understand what they're feeling, why they're feeling that way, and can I support those feelings?

And then, and actually it should be, how can I support those feelings? And then same with leadership.

If someone's struggling and I don't really understand where they're coming from or why they're, I have to empathize by saying, Can I understand them, why they feel that way, and how do I support them?

That to me is the fundamental of heart leadership. And that heart leadership helps organizations. It helps with diverse inclusion. It even helps in relationships with your partner. Because at the end of the day, you have to be able to understand and listen and be compassionate and then support that person. Because if you can't support, that's where things go wrong. All the conflict you see in DEI or in politics or in business or in relationships, is because the person, because they can't understand or empathize, they cannot support. Some people can empathize, but they can't support. You have to be able to do both. And if you can do that, that's where everyone will be able to thrive.

Wow, that is really a masterclass in emotional intelligence. I think this is worth the price of admission right there. Thank you so much for sharing that.

So last question I'm going to ask in this first segment before we move over to the second segment, where I mainly focus on leadership is how do we— actually, first, a quote from Oprah Winfrey.

She's interviewed thousands and thousands of people on her show, from president of countries, kings, and all the way to just the common guy.

But she said something that touched me. She said even when she speaks to people who are really incredible, people like Barack Obama or Nelson Mandela, she's talked to them, At the end of the show, all of them, they come back and they say, "How did I do? Was I okay?" So everybody wants like a sense of validation, no matter who they are, no matter how much money they have, no matter how popular they are.

It's almost like this essential human need.

So I guess my question for you is, how do we build workplaces where people feel seen, they feel heard, they feel safe, and they feel valued?

Well, part of it starts from the culture.

I mean, building a culture, particularly from leadership, that it trickles down.

If the leader makes himself accessible, is willing to express vulnerability, to show they're human, and create spaces where people can share their ideas and thoughts without a fear of being rejected or a fear of failure, then that to me is an important piece. The second thing is creating strong communication channels with the team members so they feel open to talking about the things they need to without being prejudged. And then ultimately, having a safe space for those who don't feel comfortable comfortable talking in public? Is there someone they can talk to, whether it's your boss, or it's a peer, or maybe someone in HR?

Having those supports is gonna go a long way, because a lot of people feel uncomfortable with that.

If you can do those 3 things, you're gonna, you're gonna put your organization in a much better place.

Wow, that is really, really powerful.

So let me ask, what do you think is the greatest lesson you have ever learned? Lesson in life, in leadership, in general?

The greatest lesson I've ever learned.

Wow.

You know, it's funny, I think about this a lot because, you know, my son is about to graduate university— high school and go to university. And same— and, you know, years ago, I wrote this article called The Edge of the Bed Advice, which is basically imagine the last day that your child is going to be in your home, and about to leave and go off on their own for the first time.

What would you tell them?

What would you tell them?

And, you know, what advice would—

obviously, you— there's so many things you want to say, but you can't tell them everything, right? Because they gotta get some sleep before they head out to college the next day.

And so I think that, uh, you know, there's a— and there's a bunch of things that come to my mind, right? Uh, but I'll start with one thing, which is one of the things I tell my kids every day before they go to school, even when they're little.

I would say have a good day, I love you, learn lots, make people feel good. And the reason I say that is because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how smart you are— and my kids are pretty smart— doesn't matter how creative, talented you are— my kids are pretty creative, talented— doesn't matter how fast you are, how strong you are, at the end of the day, if you treat people like crap, that's what's going to follow you. If you make them feel heard empowered, supported, loved, held, whatever it might be. That to me is a thing that makes a big difference. So if you're going to get out there in the world, that's the number one thing that you can do for yourself.

And so for me, that, that's the message I have, uh, for most people that I would say.

And then I think the other one I'm going to say is from my father.

My dad, when I was growing up, would always say, there is no tomorrow. Because, you know, he'd say, you know, uh, he's like, go, go, go, uh, go mow the lawn. Oh Dad, I'll do it tomorrow. And my dad would say, there is no tomorrow. And now, and now I know what he means. My dad's now 81 years old, but I know it's gonna be 82 in a couple weeks. I know what that means, and it means two things to me. Number one, live in the present. Do, do something now versus waiting. Don't wait, don't wait till tomorrow. Do it right away if you can. And the second piece of there's no tomorrow is being in the moment, being present in the now. If something's happening, be there be in the present, make sure you make the most of it. Every interaction you're with, like right now while I'm talking to you and talking to the audience, my kids are back there, my wife's over there somewhere. There's all the stuff going on, it's chaos in my house, but I'm focused on this thing right now because I'm in this moment. So I live in that moment, uh, and, uh, to me that's what there's no tomorrow means. It means two things: make sure you do things right away, but also when you're in the moment, live in the present.

That is really, really powerful.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Now, you've been quite successful with your TEDx Talk, your program coaching, and all of that. What do you think is the secret for your success?

The secret for my success? Geez. Well, I think one is to always keep striving to be better, to listen, to learn, to get feedback, to keep evolving. I think too many of us get stuck in a certain way and we don't change. You have to, you know, adapt or die. So you have to keep evolving. So I'm always—

I've always been very big on feedback. I say, hey, tell me what you thought, what feedback is there. So always get feedback, always evolve, always be learning.

I think that's incredibly important.

And then the second thing I'll say is focus. Uh, find the right focus for what you want to do, uh, and go and focused on that, on that task and doing it, because a lot of people, we're doing, we're doing too many things.

So if you find that one thing that you want to do, when I first started speaking, I was like, all I want to do is speaking. Okay, great. Then I focused on coaching.

Then I focused on LinkedIn, or I focused on Twitter, I focused on various things. So now I'm currently focused on TEDx coaching.

So that's a big part of what I'm doing. And so I have, I don't have like 20 projects, I have at most 2 or 3 main things that I'm doing. I'm primarily—

right, like right now for me, I'm—

I, I speak, I do text coaching, and I run my membership community. That's the 3 things that I'm doing.

There's nothing else. And, and anything that comes your way to distract you, you have to learn to say no. Because to me, saying no to new opportunities is saying yes to your current priorities and focus. If you know what that is, then everything else shouldn't really matter so much.

Wow, that is powerful.

Thank you, thank you. What do you think is the greatest leadership advice you have ever received?

The greatest leadership advice, man.

Um, I don't want to cop out on the, the why thing, but I love Simon Sinek's Start with the Why.

I love Brené Brown's Vulnerability First. Uh, those are two things that really go— you, man, you're fast at this. It gets my attention.

So those two things really get my attention a lot.

Um, so I think Probably those are two I would aspire to for sure.

And then I'm gonna throw in a third one, which is you gotta find the funny. Like, if we can't laugh at ourselves, or we can't laugh at situations, like, some people are just way too serious, man.

Like, find the funny, find the humor. And I think that's also really important too.

That is powerful.

And based on our discussion earlier, I think another book you probably would recommend too is The Fearless Organization about psychological safety.

Nice.

My adopted mentor, Amy C. Edmondson from Harvard. She's really the one who breaks down how to build the culture, an environment where people feel safe to make mistakes and to learn, right? And really outperform those who are too afraid to fail, that there's no innovation, and just do the bare minimum to to keep things going and they don't actually grow by leap and bound. So powerful.

Wow.

Okay. So let me ask you this. What are you learning right now?

I know leaders are learners. What are you learning these days?

Great question.

Obviously, I've done a lot of learning in the last year and a half to 2 years on AI tools and techniques that I'm using in my work and my business to try to make life easier. So I think that's been a big thing that I've put a lot of energy into learning. The other thing I'm learning is about Substack. That's kind of my new place where I'm putting energy into putting newsletters out there and content and building, I'm building on that platform. And then the third thing I'm learning again is to, uh, is, is learning how to sing again. I think that doing this musical, I, I, you know, I'm, my voice, I used to be a much better singer back in the day and now I'm, I, I can't do certain things, so I have to train myself back to where I, at least to get back to where I was.

So those are three different things that I'm learning right now.

Well, that is really something.

Uh, let me ask you one question, because you mentioned Substack, and earlier we mentioned Twitter, and of course you are, uh, very powerful on, on LinkedIn as well.

For someone who's getting started, that's one question I, I get a lot.

Does it make sense to be spread thin across all of the social media like TikTok, YouTube, and everything else, or should you just focus on one and only one for, for a while until you kind of close that, and then once you feel good about it, start jumping into some of the other media like Substack or Twitter?

Well, I mean, part of it, yeah, so I think part of it depends on, uh, who's your, who's your target audience and where you're going, where you're going with this. So, you know, what are your skill sets? So for example, if you're good at video, like let's say you're a natural on video camera, right, then so then places like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn video can be good for you. If you're a better writer, then you can focus on Substack and Threads and Twitter and write blog posts or whatever that might be.

But my general, my general rule is, and the other thing I think about is how much time do you have, right?

For your social media strategy, right? So depending on what your objective is, you have to figure out what your strategy's going to be.

But generally speaking, I would say is you pick a primary and you pick a couple of secondaries.

Right? So what's the primary place in which you create content and what are the secondary places you're going to repurpose that content? Uh, the reason why you do wanna have a multi-platform strategy is because you never know who you're gonna reach.

I mean, when I launched, I launched across multiple strata, multiple platforms.

I, I, I chose 3 and then Twitter took off before anything else and I didn't expect that.

Yes. But when it did, I kind of rolled with it, right? And then when LinkedIn started to do well, I started rolling with that one. So for me personally, right now, my primary is LinkedIn.

And then my secondary are the, are places like Instagram and TikTok and Twitter.

But, you know, I would say start with 3— 1 primary, 2 secondaries.

And then once you get better at it, you can expand to what I'm doing, which is like, you know, I'm, I'm putting stuff on 7 different platforms.

But a lot of it's repurposed, right? Because I know how to cut and paste and copy and using AI tools to get myself— you know, people often say, Bobby, how are you everything everywhere all at once?

Well, Part of it's automation, part of it's technology, part of it's AI, part of it's knowing what to do, part of it's how I manage my time properly. But repurposing is a big part of it for sure.

Powerful. Powerful. Again, this is another golden nugget for people listening, worth the price of admission. Wow. Thank you so much for being one of our master teachers today. So let me ask you this.

One of my commanding officers gave me this coin. One side it says success, the other side it says failure. Right? Success and failure, two sides of the very same coin. We know about all of your successes.

What about failure?

How has failure shaped your life?

Well, I think failure in many different parts of my life have always been the biggest learning I've ever had. I, I, I would say that, uh, now, now for some people, failure doesn't always end up teaching because they get so rocked by it or they can't shake it that it becomes something that becomes bitter. But I think for me, sure, I have things that I regret or things that I did that were dumb moves. But I think that at the end of the day, being grounded, being able to laugh at myself, and what can I learn and extract from that failure has gone a long way.

So I apply that to everything.

I apply that to entrepreneurship. I apply that to parenting. I apply that to my business. I apply that to speaking.

I've had moments of every single one of these things where I've done some pretty boneheaded things. And then what did I learn from that?

And now I'm going back, I can laugh about it, I can tell a story.

But I think for me, being able to do that goes a long way.

Wow, that is powerful.

Is there one fear?

What is one of the greatest fears you were able to overcome and kind of what you learned from that experience?

One of the greatest fears I've overcome? Wow. That's a good question.

I would probably say one of the biggest fears that I've overcome pretty well, probably due to entrepreneurship, is uncertainty. I remember when the pandemic happened and my entire speaking and event business collapsed within 4 weeks. Every single thing got canceled and I was going to make zero money. And my wife was freaking out, but I was pretty calm. I was like, well, there's got to be some. And she said, well, why?

I said, well, first off, everyone's going through this. And number 2, I've already been an entrepreneur for 15 years and I've been through the ups and downs where I've made nothing in a couple of months.

So I was used to uncertainty, and so I was pretty good at that. And so even now when I've had moments where— and I've had moments where there was some uncertainty with various things where, oh, you know what, what I'm trying is not working, I haven't made any money in a couple of months.

Okay, let me shift and do something else. So I think for me, having uncertainty thrust upon me multiple times and having ways to adapt and deal with it and have that mindset has certainly— is certainly something now that I'm quite comfortable with. And if it happens now, I'm not too worried about it because I know that I have support systems, I have community, uh, I will—

this too shall pass. I've built a lot of—

I've built a lot of very good grounding mindset frameworks for me so that I'm not too— I'm not too flushed about it.

Wow.

I guess a resilient mindset really, really makes a difference. I guess some people great. But it's—

wow, thank you. Thanks so much for sharing that.

So, who are some of your mentors or thought leaders, people you know that we should know?

Well, I think I've already mentioned—

I already mentioned Brené Brown, Simon Sinek. I'm a big fan of people like Gary Vaynerchuk. I think I love his whole aspect of kindness and things like that. Yeah, I'm inspired by leaders like Malala Yousafzai, who, you know, Resilience, you know, which she was shot at, and now focus on educating young, young girls.

These are, these are people that, to me, the people who do some really powerful things in the world when they don't have to, I, I just find that to be amazing.

So there's the, there's the famous, you know, um, thought leaders out there we know, but then there's the ones who actually out there just serving. I think that to me is incredibly inspiring. People who do a lot of advocacy stuff for things that I I have not done as much. I mean, I like to be an advocate for things, but not as much as some people are. And so I find that to be incredibly inspiring, the people who do that. Wow.

Powerful. And if you could choose 3 people to have dinner with, they could be alive, dead, or even mythical figures, who would you choose and why?

Alive or dead, huh? Okay. Hmm. That's fascinating. Okay. Well, I think it'd be cool to have, uh, I'd love to meet up, uh, let's go with, um, uh, Nelson Mandela. I think he's a big hero of mine. I'd love to meet him. Uh, the other one would be another one that, another hero of mine is, uh, Terry Fox. Terry Fox, he's a Canadian who died of cancer but raised money for it and started a whole movement. I thought that was really amazing.

Um, and, uh, I would love to meet, uh, Michelle Obama.

I think she's awesome too.

There's 3. Fantastic. Thank you for that. And I guess you already mentioned, I always like to know what you are reading or what you have read that our audience should read as well. So first, there is your book.

I want everybody to get a copy. I guess I should ask you, when are you going to publish your next bestselling book?

Uh, I don't know. It's interesting. Books are, are a fascinating thing. I'd rather do a, I'd rather do a 6th TEDx talk. Um, but you know, I mean, someday that once I have more free time and I'm sitting on a rocking chair, maybe I'll do a book.

Okay, so everybody definitely needs to get this book.

What is the take-home message for How to Network Anytime, Anywhere with Anyone?

Well, like I said, work on your mindset, have a plan, learn the tactics and strategies. If you do that, then you'll be in a much better spot.

But you see, it says Book 1 right there.

That means it's going to be a Book 2 and a Book 3, right?

Yeah, that's fine. It is interesting. So we originally, we originally planned a Book 1 for live events, and Book 2 was going to be about, um, online, and Book 3 was going to be about in-person coffee meetings.

So the one-on-one. But we never actually ended up going, going that route.

By the way, speaking of books, I do want to mention a book right now that I think is incredibly important that's been starting to transform my life.

It's called The One Thing.

Oh yes, I've read that one.

Amazing, amazing book.

Because when I talked earlier about focus, I think that's something that people, people struggle with.

Focus, uh, you know, focusing on that one thing that's going to drive 80% of your revenue in your life and your, your fulfillment legacy. That's incredibly important.

Yes, and that book is actually pretty easy to read. I believe it's by Gary Keller, right?

And yes, there you go.

Yeah, yeah, one wonderful book.

I, I highly, highly encourage that. Is there any other book you would mention? I know you mentioned, uh, Start With Why, Simon Sinek, which is actually, by the way, one of the most, uh, recommended books on this podcast.

I think at least 15 people have recommended this book.

To be honest, like, uh, I'll be honest, I'm not much of a book reader, but what I will say, the books that inspire me the most honestly are biographies. Like, if I, if I read a book about Harriet Tubman or read a book about Mandela, I read a book about Gandhi, and knowing their story and how they live their life and led with values of love and heart and compassion. That's the stuff to me is like the best teachers versus like, you know, here's my 5-step model for blah blah blah.

I, I would—

to me, reading biographies is the best thing to, to, to learn from.

Powerful, powerful. Me too.

And this is the book you talked about, The One Thing.

There you go. Yeah.

Powerful, uh, bestseller, and it's— it really gets to the core of focus, right? That's one thing you mentioned earlier.

Okay, very good. Okay, so is there a song, a book, or a movie that would be your life's theme or anthem?

Uh, wow, life's theme.

Well, I mean, uh, one of my favorite movies—

I love musicals, as I mentioned before. One of my favorite movie musicals is The Greatest Show. And, uh, I, I think that, uh, and the, the, the big theme of the movie, This Is the Greatest Show, yes, at the end of the movie it went back to him and his kids. So even though there's all this amazing stuff going on around me, TEDx speaking, TLB Club, all the things I'm doing, and that's a great show, but the greatest show is watching my kids grow and leave. So for me, This Is the Greatest Show is a great song from from that movie.

Wow, thank you, thanks so much. That is wonderful.

What I'm gonna do, I'm gonna find a clip of that movie and then I'm gonna put it on LinkedIn and tease people to watch the full podcast.

That's really great, thank you.

Okay, oh sorry, we are already out of time. Can you give me 5 more minutes before we land this plane?

Sure.

Okay, thank you. We almost at the end.

Okay, let me ask you this.

If you had one and only one day to live, What would you have liked your final contribution to be?

Wow.

That's a hard one to answer.

I mean, you know, my contribution, I really have to go back to my family. I mean, my family is everything to me. And so like, I mean, business is great. And I'm happy to serve people. But if I could serve, um, if I could, if I could help my mom, right? Like, to me, that would be the biggest thing I could ever do. Like, you know, she, she struggles sometimes with her health, and so if there's something I could do to help her with that, or, or buy her a house, these are the— like, anything I can do to serve my mom at this point, who has basically bestowed the greatest gift upon me at my birth and raised me Uh, no, no, no, no, I already talked about my dad so it's fine but you know my mom is the one that if there's something to do— To me that would be, you know, I think about my mom, I think about my children and so if there's anything I can do to spend an entire day with them to make them feel fulfilled, to feel heard, to feel loved and to know that they're such an important part of my past and my present and my future, uh, that's what I'd want to express with all my heart.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. That's really, really deep. Like, my mother, unfortunately, passed away during the pandemic. I still miss her every single day. I think I would never get over it. But I guess she's really the first woman who really truly loved me. But just the love that a woman has for a child, it's indescribable. It's incomprehensible. Like, in Africa, Central Africa, where I am originally from, there is a saying, I think, There's a reason why most children are very much attached to their mother more than their father, because they say, you know, when you were born, you came out of her womb, so we know for sure you are our child. But the father, maybe he's your dad, maybe he's not, we don't know for sure.

But this one, we know 100% sure this is your mother.

So that's why there is such a strong—

well, the thing, the thing about my mom is like, you know, the thing about moms is that, uh, she's the only person I know in my entire life that's always going to love me no matter what. I mean, I have a good relationship with her.

But no matter how much I screw up or I cause her stress, that, that, like, there's no one like that in the world. I mean, I think, like, you're like, my kids love me, but they're gonna go off and live their own life. If I'm a jerk, they won't— if I'm a jerk, they'll, they'll leave me. If I'm a jerk, my wife will leave me. But if I'm a jerk, my mom will still love me no matter what.

So true. So true.

That's amazing.

Well, that's a great tribute to all of the women out there.

And, uh, it's, it's It's really wonderful to have parents and people who really love you for who you are, not just what you can bring or what you can do.

Thank you so much for sharing that. So let me ask you this one.

If you had a magic wand and you could solve any problem in the world, when you wake up tomorrow morning, what is one problem you would like to solve?

To me, if I could solve one problem, it would really be the inequity of money. If everybody didn't have to worry about money and could live their own fulfilled lives without having all these battles of different things in the world, I think that is the— to me, the greed of money is the biggest driver of discontent about disparity. About, you know, peace versus war, the planet, everything.

So to me, if we could—

if I could make whatever I want, I would solve the inequity of the money thing. Everyone has enough and can do whatever they want and pursue their own dreams, their own happiness, without having to worry about all these different things. I think the world would be— the world and the planet would be in a much better place.

Absolutely. So we are getting towards the end of the show.

That's where I ask Thank you so much for making yourself available to my audience. How can we add value back to you?

Well, I mean, you know, for the most part, you can always follow me on my social platforms, whether it's, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. You can go to my website, rayalland.com, to kind of see, you know, what's out there and see the different services that I have. So you can either hire me to speak, you can hire me to do text coaching, Um, and that's another, that's another place to go. And then finally, uh, if you are interested in becoming part of my— getting a TED Talk, be part of my membership community, you can join Top Thought Leader Brand Club or TLB Club and see what that's all about and, and what you get.

Fantastic. And, uh, on, on your—

I don't know why it's taking a long time to show LinkedIn. That usually shows up right away.

Yeah.

So like, like you said earlier, you, you have a, uh Top Voice Blue Badge. Why, why do you think, uh, you were able to get it? Do you have any idea how you were selected?

I have no idea. I mean, you know, like, I, I've consistently put content on LinkedIn.

I've shared a lot of stuff ever since 2017. I've been sharing content regularly. Um, when I got it, it was a very delightful surprise. Uh, it was very nice. But, you know, like, I, I invest a lot of time and energy and content into LinkedIn more than any other platform. There is, so, you know, thousands of videos, hundreds of live streams, thousands more pieces of content. So, you know, I think if you're consistent, if you're on and if you have a clear brand and you're delivering value and serving others, eventually people will start to notice. And I think the LinkedIn people noticed, and that's kind of why I was bestowed this award, and I'm grateful for it.

Yeah, that's, that is really, really powerful.

It's definitely worth it.

Okay, so we are getting towards the end now. Before I ask you this last question, Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven't asked yet?

Is there a question you should have asked me? I mean, you can ask me lots of questions, but, uh, you know, I— is there a question you've asked me?

Um, any question you wanted to answer that I didn't ask?

Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, you could ask me, uh, I like, I like the, this, the, uh, the secret talent.

How about that? Like, do I have a secret talent that I kind of mentioned singing, but do I have any other secret talent or special skills?

Please, any secret talent or special skills?

Okay. I'm really good at board games. Wow.

So if we were to play a board game, Settlers of Catan, or we play Ticket to Ride, or we played cards, we play poker, hearts, bridge, whatever, you'd find that I'm quite a competitive player and I'm very good at chess, checkers too, like all those different games.

Yeah, I'm very competitive, but I've also found creative ways to win those games.

So I love board games.

Does that include Scrabble also?

Scrabble? Absolutely. Same thing. If it's a board game, I will probably be very competitive no matter what.

Wow, that is wonderful to know. Okay, this here I think is probably one of the most important questions on the podcast today. If you could go back and give a piece of advice to your 17-year-old self, right, standing at the edge of this incredible career you've had in marketing, entrepreneurship, direct stock coaching, and all of that, what would you say to 17-year-old Bobby?

Well, I think that at the time I had the gift of connection and networking. But I wasn't—

it wasn't really honed or harnessed in the right way. And I probably would have said, you know, if you, if you take the time to truly understand what your definition of success is, yes, versus following a path of success defined by other people, you might find a much better path for yourself. Because, you know, I went on different paths before I really settled in on the— my, my true path and purpose in my 30s.

Yes.

And so I probably would say, like, you know, figure out that stuff versus, versus doing what your dad says or doing what corporations say or doing what society says. Define what success means to you and define a path of purpose for yourself that is aligned with who you are. Because I didn't do that. I kind of just did what people told me to do, or I did what I thought I was good at, as opposed to what I really, really wanted, what was aligned with me. And so for me, I would have given myself that advice.

That is Powerful. Define your own success.

Thank you. Okay, we are coming to the very end now.

We're going to end with a lightning round, so it's going to be rapid fire. Don't take too long to think.

One word that defines great leadership.

One word.

Empathy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's wonderful.

Okay, morning routine or practice that keeps you grounded.

Playing chess on my Duolingo.

Fantastic.

Duolingo, which language are you learning?

Well, they have a chess version now, so I play chess. I am learning French, but I do play chess every day.

Wow, très bien. Vous parlez très bien français?

Pas très bien, mais mes enfants étudient dans l'école francophone.

Oh, très bien.

So they're fluent in French, and I am like Level 4 on Duolingo.

That happened to be my native language. Tomorrow I'm going to be interviewing somebody from—

I can tell—

from Switzerland, so she speaks French, English, and German, I think.

Okay, uh, what is a book or a quote that changed your life or inspired you?

Sure, one of my favorite quotes is, "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." Too many people wait, but you have to build your chances, build your opportunity, build your success.

Don't wait.

So I love that quote.

That quote is actually by a famous TV person named Milton Berle.

That is powerful.

Well, I love, I love that. It reminds me of what I think Shirley Chisholm said, right?

Uh, don't wait to be invited to the table, something like that, to bring your own folding chair. So yeah, things happen. That's, that's a great mindset.

Okay, uh, who inspired you the most today?

Who inspired me the most today? Uh, I'm gonna give a shout out to, uh, Melanie, Melanie Mitchell-Wexler.

Uh, she is my collaborator on the TLB Club. We were on a call today and, uh, someone asked a question and I, I thought I did an okay job asking questions, but what she said was fantastic.

I was like, man, she's just so good at strategic no-nonsense, um, ideas.

And so she inspires me on a regular basis. Today was a good day.

Shout out to Melanie.

I hope she is watching this.

Thank you. Okay, so, uh, what did you want to be when you were a kid?

When I was a kid, I first want to be a hockey player, and then I want to be an astronaut.

Wow.

Okay, you haven't done any of those two things.

Did you play hockey in high school?

I played ball hockey as a kid growing up, uh, but I never played ice hockey because I couldn't escape.

Wow.

Okay, I guess we can always dream.

3 adjectives describing you as a child.

Um, uh, rebellious, uh, fun.

One more.

And, uh, adventurous.

Okay, as an adult.

As an adult, um, uh, huggable. Accessible and empathetic.

Very good.

Okay, this is the very last question and we are done. What is one word that represents our shared experience on this podcast today?

One word?

Let's say, uh, encyclopedic.

Wow. And I am almost always very, very grateful.

Thanks so much for taking the time. So we went over by about 10, 10 minutes, but you really have a lot to teach us. Thank you for really being one of our master teachers today. Bobby Umar, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Wow, everyone, what a time we've had.

So that was Coach Bobby Umar, and If you want a TEDx Talk, I think you definitely need to engage him. He is a global voice of heart-based leadership and really a master at leading with heart, as you have heard. So again, some of the books he has mentioned, I think everybody should read one. Start with Why by Simon Sinek. We talked about The One Thing and also Dare to Lead. And I I read the book by my mentor Amy Edmondson about Fearless Organization because of psychological safety. But of course, make sure to pick up a copy of his book on Amazon. It's available everywhere. Books are available.

How to Network Anytime, Anywhere, with Anyone. Okay. This is a reminder that I'm going to be back tomorrow morning, 6:00 AM California time.

We're going to be talking with Coach Astrid Meyer. She's a Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach like me.

She's a founder and executive coach out in Switzerland.

We're gonna be talking about leading with values.

And then, a great gift for all of my listeners on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, we are going to have the one and only on Thanksgiving Eve, the legendary General David H.

Petraeus, US Army retired. He's a legendary strategist, a 4-star soldier, scholar, New York Times bestselling author, and I think a superb strategist. We're gonna be talking about leading at the highest level. So you don't want to miss it. Thanks again for being with us today. And until tomorrow, this is Coach BZ. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day. Bye for now.

Thank you for tuning in to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If today's episode added value to your leadership journey, be sure to subscribe, share, and join us again for more wisdom nuggets on how to lead better and achieve greater success. Remember, leadership is the most critical skill of our time. The world will always need leaders to inspire others, drive innovation, and execute meaningful strategy. So why not count yourself among the bold leaders shaping the 21st century? Until next time, stay inspired, stay committed, and keep leading with excellence.