His board tested rule for staying calm with Imran Hussain

Imran Hussain sits on 4 company boards. He's watched founders make million-dollar calls in the middle of a crisis, calls that looked fine in the room and fell apart 2 years later. And the thing that separates the leaders who hold it together from the ones who don't isn't experience, believe it or not. It isn't even confidence. It's whether they can create one small gap between what's happening and what they do next. Today, we're breaking down what that gap actually looks like and how to build it before you need it. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge, the show that gets underneath the noise and shows you what's really driving your decisions when the pressure is on. I'm Claire Hayek, neuroleadership expert, TEDx speaker, and founder of Mind Soul Purpose Team Building. Before we get into it, if you're not already following the show, this is your reminder. It's the single biggest thing that determines whether this conversation reaches the next leader who actually needs it. So please do hit that follow button. And if you want more of this, Between episodes, I'm also writing every week on Substack. You can find me there at The Claire Hayek. All right. Well, in this episode, you're going to learn the exact skill boardroom veterans use to stop bad decisions before they happen. You'll hear how one leader rebuilt his career from the ground up during the hardest year of his life. And you'll walk away with a simple way to catch yourself before pressure makes the decision for you.

I love it.

Actually, my guest today is Imran Hussain. He's a fractional CFO, a non-executive director sitting on 4 boards, and an entrepreneur who spent his career inside the rooms where high-stakes decisions get made. Series A through C companies, crisis points, board disputes, all of it. He's also one of the 60+ leaders whose voice appears in my book, The Leadership Skill Nobody Taught You, which is out now. Look for the link in the description. Imran, how are you?

Thank you, Claire. That was a wonderful introduction. Thank you very much.

Well, you're welcome. And thanks for joining me. Wonderful story. And I really want to highlight it today. So much experience. I think you're going to bring a lot of insight to our listeners. Now, you've sat on high-performing boards and underperforming ones.

Yeah, that's right.

You've told me that. And I love that because it's very transparent, very authentic. And so tell us something. So when pressure hits during a meeting in a boardroom, whatever's happening in a situation, what's the first thing you've actually noticed that changes?

The biggest thing changes when a crisis hits. Everybody seems to be focused on the crisis. And there's this element of, let's deal with this crisis right now and just make sure everything's thrown at the crisis and nothing else gets considered. That tunnel vision, it kind of gives you less of a perspective. You tend to have this perception that this is the only thing that we need to deal with at this moment. But once you get that perspective, you zoom out and you look at the the issue at hand, you come to the conclusion that there are other options that we can target this crisis with.

Right.

And that often gets overlooked. Getting that perspective gets often overlooked. People are in panic mode at this point, and people are very quick to make decisions rather than standing back, thinking, observing, and then making a strategic decision. So the biggest thing is the speed at which the decisions get made and also Kind of a tunnel vision, right? Tunnel vision is the biggest thing that I think kind of comes out of a crisis board.

Right. If you think about it, tunnel vision is biology. You know, under real pressure, your brain is going to make sure that your focus narrows on one thing, right? Your brain has one job. It wants to keep you alive right now. So, it locks in on the most urgent thing in front of you and filters everything else out. It's actually fascinating how that works, including the bigger picture you actually need to make a good call or a good decision. So, it's pretty interesting because it's not a failure, I guess, of judgment. It's just simply a survival pattern that's doing exactly what it's built to do.

It's programmed.

But there's a but. I mean, I would say, and there's a skill you can develop, right, that brings you back into that, out of that narrowing into the big picture. So, the reaction might be, you could be stuck with it a long time. But the idea is to be able to snap out of it quicker because imagine you're just making your decisions and thinking just from that narrow tunnel vision. You're missing a lot of— I mean, you have so many blind spots at that point.

Exactly. Yeah. Like you said, there's a technique to it. I've practiced over many years, a simple technique of zooming out of my immediate surroundings. And I practice this on a daily basis, zooming out of my immediate surroundings, looking at myself from a third-person point of view. That gives me a perspective. And also looking down the line at what the future could hold and looking at scenarios, running through scenarios, what the future can hold. with different decisions and just zooming out and looking at it from a third-person point of view. And that's one of the biggest things I think perspective gives you, that third-person point of view, which nobody else in the board has. You're all involved in the heat of the moment and having that perspective and zooming out is very important.

I love the word zoom out. I love it because I always talk about zooming out. And it literally, you know, I think we understand each other on that. Because I literally feel like I'm zooming out.

Yeah.

I'm, you know, just a camera. And I'm zooming out on myself. I'm watching myself, my behavior, how I'm showing up, what I'm saying, my words. Sometimes, you know, it feels like you just want to catch your words. Like, it's like, can we just rewind? And, you know, when you're going too fast, right? You're just like, we're trying to Slow it down. And I find that when you zoom out, it gives you, like you said, that perspective. And already it gives you that self-awareness. So you're already slowing down everything out, even if it probably doesn't happen instantly.

Yeah.

You're in the process of bringing it back to your strategic brain as opposed to staying in that narrow focus. And literally, when we say zoom out, narrow focus, tunnel vision, zoom in.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly, you zoomed in and you zoomed out. You can't balance that. The Stoics had a really good technique, which was exactly this, was zooming out and looking at it from a third person's point of view. This was, this was all about maybe about 2,000 years ago. So this technique isn't new. It's very old and ancient.

Right.

The ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans knew this technique many years ago. So it's a quality test.

So this is the first time I hear about this. So tell me about this. What are you referring to?

Stoicism. In terms of Stoicism, it's an ancient philosophy.

Oh, okay. Sorry, I missed that.

Okay. Stoicism. Yeah. So basically it was— it came— oh, God, I don't know. It's 2,000 years ago. I don't know the exact year. It started with Socrates and eventually developed into a whole way of living. And one of the techniques they use is that zooming out technique. going out of your body and looking at a third-person point of view. And, um, I use that a lot. You can practice this daily. You can practice it in your day-to-day life. You don't have to wait for a boardroom crisis for it to— so for you to take on that practice, it's a very good technique, which I practice almost daily.

Absolutely. And, you know, I find that sometimes we feel that it's a chore, you know, like, yeah, I need to zoom out or I need to kind of look at everything around me in the room and making sure that I'm studying the situation. But like you said, it's something we can apply literally every minute of the day if we choose to. And this is when you practice it. And so you have that kind of quick reflex.

Yeah, exactly.

Because you've done it so often. Now it's not a big deal. You kind of like, yeah, I'm going to zoom out because that's what I do.

Yeah, it becomes like a habit, almost like a habit.

Exactly. Yeah, you're wiring a new habit.

You run, you have it. Like, you've probably studied more neuroplasticity than I have, but it creates those neural pathways. The more you do it, the more it becomes ingrained into your mind. And the automatic, for example, when you're driving, you automatically don't know where you've driven from to, and you don't know the journey. That's autopilot. And this kind of tough stuff, when you do it consistently over a long period of time, becomes autopilot. You don't even realize it. So the best time to start, I always say, is now. Just start today.

Yeah. Self-awareness, self-awareness. Let's check, where am I? What am I doing? What's happening? Right. You mentioned the word speed. I don't want to forget that. I don't, I don't, I don't want us to skip that one. You also mentioned, so we talked about tunnel vision, zooming out, and you mentioned speed. So tell me a little bit about that. Walk me through it. What have you seen? How does speed hurt people? How does it hurt decisions?

When a board is in crisis mode, the speed of information coming to the board is almost— it comes almost daily. And that could be problematic because, again, you don't have that perspective of zooming it out because you're so involved with the day-to-day involved with the business, which as a non-executive director, you don't want to be that. You don't want to be the executive team. You want to be a non-executive director.

Right.

You want to be able to slow things down, think things through, and not make rash decisions. And sometimes when the speed of information is coming to you daily or weekly, it's difficult to do that. And again, that means you slowing down, And taking your time and analyzing, not only just analyzing information that's presented by the board, by the executive team, but also analyzing the information that's available elsewhere and bringing that information from external sources into the board. You don't want to get too involved with the day-to-day information processing and just forget the third-party information that you need.

And how do you, how do you get people to not speed up? What's the trick? What have you seen or have you applied?

Me personally, I tend to always read something once, put it away, then look at other research, give it a day or two, look at other research, and then go back to it a second time with a new perspective. I tend not to view things once and make a decision based on just that. I'll look at other sources. And it's a matter of just putting it away, give it the night, think about it overnight, or if it's a slightly longer period of time, think about it over a week, research, do other, look at other information, then come back, read that information again, see if you've got any perspective on that. And usually there's some sort of difference there, that there's something that is different to compare to what it was before. And you could pick up on that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And, you know, we've heard that a version of this before, where when somebody says, if you do want to move on quickly on something or react, write it down on a piece of paper or in an email, just don't, don't hit send. And kind of just, it takes that, you know, urgency of acting out of the picture. You just, you just kind of tricked your brain into doing that and giving it that certainty and safety.

Yeah.

It's like, OK, we did it. Really, but we didn't in a way. And then you can really focus on what's important. And again, like you said, if you have time to take a day. And sometimes, neuroscientifically speaking, if you just take a 60-second pause, that's usually enough.

Yeah.

That's usually enough to take a— just, you don't need to take a long, long pause. Just take that 60 seconds and zooming out. Taking a deep breath, just try to kind of get your— the blood flowing back from your amygdala, from your survival brain into your prefrontal cortex, then, you know, you most likely will be making a better, calmer decision than just reacting. We can still kind of be going fast, but within the speed, we don't have to go a gazillion miles an hour. Maybe we can go at, I don't know, 50 miles an hour. I'm just kind of throwing numbers out here. But yeah.

And I think, I think the amygdala, the mammalian brain is quite powerful. And to counteract that, you need that time, you need that time out to actually get your executive function, your neocortex working on the problem rather than the emotion element to it.

Yeah. And I'm glad we're having this conversation more and more about just understanding our brain a bit more. You don't have to be a neuroscientist or anything. It's just biology. You know, we That's not how our muscles work, right?

We should all study this. We should all look into this because it's a fascinating area. Me as an accountant and as a non-executive director, I, I, I know this kind of stuff and I think it's been valuable for me to know this kind of stuff. And it should be valuable for everybody in the workplace or not in the workplace to know this stuff.

Yeah. I mean, your, your brain is pretty much running the show. Don't you want to know how it's running it? And if it's something that is working for you. Or sabotaging you. I was interested in that about 4 or 5 years ago when I dove into neuroscience because I couldn't understand my brain. I just couldn't understand. I kind of questioned decisions I've made. And, you know, it brought me where I am today and there's no regrets. But I wasn't sure it was, you know, my behavior or— I felt like I was advancing and I was motivated and, you know, learning and growing. But to the detriment of something. And until I dove into neuroscience, understanding how I'm making my decisions, then I was able to see, wow, I can still grow and my career advance and be motivated and ambitious, et cetera. But it doesn't have to be to the detriment of anything because now I know I can run my own brain as opposed to my brain defaulting to whatever Pressure pattern, it defaulted to keep me alive. That's not really helping me right now. So that's, that's what we're talking about, right? I mean, you know, we're not talking about right or wrong. We're just, we're talking about, do you want to be around that pressure? Do you want to be in control on what you do with that? And I think that's the main, main thing in pressure-proof leadership. But quick note here, our listeners and people watching us, Again, before we keep going, if you're finding value in this conversation, hit follow, and you can find me on Substack at The Claire Hayek. Now let's keep moving. This is flying by, and I really want to get in a couple more questions to you. I want to shift to your own story, your own personal story, if we can. I know you shared this with me, and you shared a Pretty high-pressure moment. And tell me about it. It was around 2020.

Yeah, it was, uh, so 2020, I was working for a prop tech company. It's a full-time position. I was— it was the middle of the pandemic, uh, I believe it was about July in— during the pandemic, and the pandemic was in full swing. We were in lockdown, we were tucked away in our house. People were on the trains, people were arguing about masks and the news was relentless about COVID and people dying and this and that. So I was really fed up at this point. I had enough of my entire life. I had enough of work. I had enough of where I was in life. And eventually I quit my job in the middle of the pandemic. I had nothing to go to. I had a part-time fractional CFO business, which I wasn't making much money. So I now found myself in a situation where I was now, I had a little bit of cash tucked away, but not enough to survive for a very long time. So I had to do something. The pressure was on me at this point in time. And as with all accountants, when the pressure's on them, you do something silly. Oh, I'm only joking. So what I did do was I—

Tell us more. Yeah.

I decided to go upstairs on the day I was On the day I resigned, I went upstairs, I sat in my bed and I was looking at a blog page and an improv class popped up. So I decided to sign up for that improv class. Up until this point, I never, never in a million years thought I was creative. I wasn't funny, so I couldn't think on my feet. This is a story I used to tell myself.

Hmm.

And, uh, it wasn't until I started improv that I really— so this was something that steps out of my comfort zone as an accountant, as a traditional accountant. It was something different and I wanted to challenge myself. And as I got more involved with it, I realized I was, I was quite creative. I was flexible on my feet. I was a little bit funny. Um, so it was, it was a good experience and that led on to doing things like clowning classes. creative writing, acting, uh, loads of creative endeavors which I never thought in a million years. If you went back 3 or 4 years, I would never have thought in a million years I'd be writing articles and stories and I'd be doing improv clowning, acting, and all this creative type stuff. And I realized I was pretty good at it. And what, what this whole process taught me was that it looked— it taught me to look inside myself and look at who I am as a person. And I identify as a person, the type of person I want to be rather than the type of person I was just thrown into. So I had to redefine my identity and who I was and how I conduct myself in the work world. Now, I don't necessarily work for people on a full-time basis. I do fractional work, non-executive direct work. But one thing I do Continually take away, take into these roles is my creative ability, my ability to be creative, my ability to think outside the box and to not be the standard type of person that is a 9-to-5 type of guy. So it helped me to be more flexible and more entrepreneurial in my journey and a lot more creative. So that's—

Creativity is such an important part of leadership. And I think it's We don't leverage that enough. And, you know, we just kind of want to stay on safe grounds. But I think what you did is you really dove into something different, out of your comfort zone. And that probably built way more confidence in this at that stage, if I'm not— I mean, I don't want to presume, but I'm assuming.

Yeah, it led to a lot more confidence, especially Yeah, I mean, it's a lot.

It's to be able to step out and do something you've never done before. Clowning, improv, that's a lot. It's not something you have naturally.

Yeah, exactly.

That's a big step.

In terms of confidence, I'll say important things about confidence. There's a portrayal of confidence, it's actually feeling confident. And traditionally, I used to portray confidence, but I never felt confident. You know, I've changed my identity. Now I feel confident in myself and at ease with myself, which is a different ballgame.

And that's such an important thing to say, I think. I mean, you know, people that perform confidence, we all learn to perform confidence. And, you know, in my book, I talk about calm authority. calm under fire. We all perform calm in a situation when we're not feeling it at all. And I think you said it. You couldn't have— I couldn't have said it better that it's really when you feel it. And when you walk in those shoes and you feel the confidence, you're not pretending.

Yeah.

You're literally being confidence. This is who you're being, who you're showing up as. And same thing goes for anything as a leader. It really starts on the inside because usually we show more the outside, but if it's on the inside, you don't even have to show anything. It radiates.

Yeah, exactly.

People feel it. It's pretty powerful.

Some of the time, like you said, feeling calm and actually being, feeling calm and actually portraying calm, it takes practice sometimes. Sometimes you have to look in at yourself and decide, what do I want to identify as? Do I want to identify as a calm person? How do I feel calm inside rather than worrying about what other people think? How do I become that calm? And you go on a self-exploration and eventually you'll find that calmness and you'll find that confidence. You find the leadership skills.

And it's that detachment, that feeling of, you're in it, you feel that you're under pressure, you feel the walls kind of caving in, you feel there's chaos, there's noise. But you're still able to make that space and walk right through it one little step at a time with calm. So, we're not talking about meditating for a day and then you're literally in the chaos, in the pressure. But you're still able to function in a calm way as opposed to performing calm, yet you're still being dragged into the whole chaos, right?

Exactly.

It's a pretty interesting feeling. And I mean, I think all leaders at a certain extent, when you learn that, when you feel that, when you practice that, then you know what you've been missing before. Sometimes, we're not aware that we are in the chaos and we feel we're not. But we are right into it because we can't see it. We're just so involved. And it's a brilliant thing. It's honestly such a great feeling when you get there. But Going back to the zooming out, that really helps, that perspective, right? Quickly here, if you want to know, anybody listening here, that you want to know what your own default pattern looks like under pressure, whether you go fast, we talked about speed, tunnel vision, you know, you maybe you go quiet, or you become more controlling. I built actually a quick assessment for that. It's called the Pressure Archetype Assessment. And you can find it at clairehayek.com/pressure-archetype. It's just such an eye-opener. If you just do it, it takes about 10 minutes. It might really help you zoom out. So, the idea here is not to judge. It's just to observe. So, when you zoom out, you're not judging and going like this, right? You're just observing the scene. Just think about it as you're in a movie and just watching a scene. So, that's going to be important. If you do do the assessment, make sure you do not criticize, self-criticize. All right, so it's time for the rapid fire. Imran, are you ready?

I'm ready. Go for it.

All right, the first question is, I'm going to need one word from you. I don't make it easier, that easy. Okay, sorry. So here's the question. What's the first thing you feel when pressure hits?

Fear.

Sorry?

Fear.

Fear. Okay, here's the second one. You can elaborate a bit more. What's one tool you use to reset in under a minute? For instance, if you're feeling fear.

So my first instinct is always fear, but I always take a leaf out of the acting playbook. As soon as the camera starts rolling, it's action time. So you automatically put that fear to the back of the mind. You don't have any choice but to act and to go into the scene and do your best and throw the best at it. So usually I'll put fear to the side once it's action time.

Love that. I love the whole analogy. I mean, you're bringing that experience because literally you'd have taken, in case people are listening at this point, you might want to rewind and hear Imran's story about taking on acting, improv, clowning, and how that actually helped him. So I love that analogy as well as just what we take from skills like this that we don't think about, right? When you do stuff, you know, you develop a skill that has nothing to do with your profession. Sometimes you think, oh, we're just doing it for fun. But you might get a lot of help just by doing that. It's not out of your comfort zone and diving into a whole creative side of your brain that you've never really explored. And you might be surprised. There you go. So my book, you all know, is out now. It's called The Leadership Skill Nobody Taught You: Calm Under Fire in the Age of Disruption. You can scan the code for more info about the book or check the link in the description. And if this episode helped you, hit follow. And you can find me as well on Substack as well as LinkedIn. Imran, it was such a pleasure having you. Thank you so much for joining. And any last words for our listeners?

You can follow me on LinkedIn. My handle is @ihussain247. across any social media, that's my handle. And my website is www.imranhussein.com. So thank you very much, Claire. I really appreciate the conversation. It was a really good top chat that we had, and I hope to do it again sometime.

Yes, me too. And remember everyone, actually Imran is in the book, and his insight was really highlighted in the last— one of the last sections of the book But voices from the research. Your insights were so relevant to this subject, and I really appreciate you saying yes to come on the show. Again, you've heard him. You can follow Imran on LinkedIn, and you can also maybe drop him a little note or email going through his website. We will leave both links in the description. Everyone, thanks again for joining. Lead boldly, stay human, and let every Challenge, sharpen your edge. See you all.