Overcoming Adversity, Following Dreams, Purpose & Grit with Former NFL Star Mohamed Massaquoi

Hello, longevity friends.

Claudia von Boeselager here, and welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, where I invite pioneers and thought leaders in all things longevity and lifestyle to give us the strategies, tools, and practices to live better and help us reach our true potential. Today's guest is Mohamed Massouqua, former NFL star and thought leader on organizational change and team culture. In the spring of 2017, Mohamed's life changed following a near-death ATV accident that resulted in the amputation of his left hand. The accident sparked the creation of his company Vessel, which partners with organizations, leaders, and teams to thrive by improving team culture, diversity and inclusion, and evolution. Before the accident, Muhammad worked in finance at Morgan Stanley and as a professional athlete in the NFL. Muhammad was a 2009 second-round pick for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL draft and played professionally for 5 seasons. While at the University of Georgia, Muhammad was named the 2008 overall team captain, selected as a first-team All-Southeastern Conference and Academic All-SEC member.. He is a member of the 2018 UGA 14 Under 40 class. Mohammed is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School after completing the Program for Leadership Development, which functions as their alternative Executive MBA. In this episode, we COVID positive disposition and an optimistic outlook, Mohammed's personal journey to the NFL and beyond, and how a life-changing accident can be a silver lining. We cover grit purpose, performance, leadership, and much more. Before we begin, please hit subscribe to the podcast to get your weekly dose of longevity and lifestyle inspiration. I would love to also hear from you, so please leave a comment and let me know what you think, or reach out to me on Instagram @longevityandlifestyle. Please enjoy. So welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, Mohamed. It's such a pleasure to have you on today. And we had the pleasure of meeting originally thanks to a mutual incredible friend of ours, Rachel. And then she connected us when you kindly donated your time to speak as part of the Thomas Foundation to underprivileged children to inspire them to dream big. So thank you again for doing that.

Thank you for having me. Rachel's amazing.

As you are. Thank you, Muhammad. As you are. Muhammad, I'd love to start with a question on what your secret is to your wonderful positive disposition and optimistic outlook. Where did this stem from, and is this something that you actively cultivate?

I think it's just an appreciation of life. Uh, I always lead when I tell people I'm Liberian, and so my parents came over to escape a civil war. And just leaving your home country because it's war-torn, essentially, and being able to get out alive, and just being born in America I don't think people understand just some of like the privileges that comes with that, having functional safety, of having opportunity. And so for me, I feel like I've just been blessed with the sacrifices that other people have made. And so I really don't have anything to complain about, you know, whether it's high or low. Life could be a whole lot interesting. And I think you see that around the world with people going through different challenges that they would wish just to be in a place that has some type of structure and some type of calm. And so since I have that, it's almost irresponsible of me to go complain or not enjoy every day. And, you know, I live here in the South in Atlanta, and so we get sunshine, we get decent weather. Only thing we get is traffic, which doesn't keep me as positive as needed, but outside of that, all good.

I love that. And is it something that you cultivate regularly, or do you do like a daily gratitude practice, or, you know, how do you connect with that? You know, say you're in traffic and you're feeling a bit stressed, like, how do you come back to being in that positive space?

I have things— I have music, hobbies. I'm big on being close to good energy. And so I'm not the type of guy that I don't want to be around a lot of bad news. I don't want to be around a lot of negative people, a lot of pessimistic people. And so the things that bring me joy, I try to stay close to it. And it doesn't even have to be anything big like going to a fancy restaurant or traveling. It could be as simple as going to get a workout or watching Netflix, eating pizza. You know?

Pizza?

Well, how much do you know better than that? We all have our— not every week, but, you know, it's sliding in there once in a while. I had a friend sum it up, which it was, you know, you gotta find your thin place, and it's that slice between heaven and earth. Like, whatever that thin slice of bliss is, you gotta always try to stay close to that. And so whenever I feel myself tilting off, I find those little things that I consider my thin places, whether it's music or good friends, energy. Just trying to be around that.

It's so wise, and I think it's such an important point as well, because it's so easy to slip into kind of that negativity and to be so cautious of negative energy around you, right? So people complaining all the time, or, you know, of course you can always find the hair in the soup, right? But it's actually taking a step back and realizing there's so many things to be grateful for. You know, we were joking before we hit record about the weather, right? But okay, it rains now, but the sun will come out tomorrow. So focusing on I love it.

Exactly. And sometimes people have their own hair in the soup and they want to blame other people.

I love that. Yes, exactly. They don't even realize it's their own hair in the soup.

Their own hair. You know, the second part of that, in having family that came— when my parents came, it would have been right when they were going to college to America, leaving Liberia. And so coming to America where, you know, you need college degrees and you kind of come up and you're in a different culture trying to find stability here was, was a lot different as well, just from a job standpoint, an occupation standpoint. And so that meant we grew up in probably lower socioeconomic areas, and that came with its own set of challenges. And so just coming through that and understanding just where we were, and then also having an opportunity just to zoom out and seeing other things in the world, I think it kind of shaped me to say, okay, Where would my parents have been if they would have got a fair shot? And so where could I be now that they're making all these sacrifices to give me a fair shot? And I think that just fueled me from both academic and athletic standpoint to say, how do I tap into whatever I've been given in this life to make the most of it? And so I think that has always fueled me, just the opportunities that are in front of me. I think people use the word potential loosely. And potential is like one of these things that hopefully you're closing the gap on versus just having as this like lingering thing that you hope to achieve. So you got to be very intentional about what you do and the choices that you make. And by no means have I made all the right choices. And I think now I look back and say, I probably would have did that differently, I probably would have did that differently. And so being able to just learn, have the self-awareness to learn about the things that were high, the things that were low, the things that were sideways. How do I not repeat the bad things, and how do I double down on the good things and have the discipline to follow through on it?

I love that. And it'd be interesting to know, like, how much did your parents and your childhood talk about what they experienced? It must have been, I mean, incredible trauma to leave a civil war, to pick up and leave, not only go to a different country but a different continent, you know, different language. Well, I think you have English as the native Liberia as well, right?

Yeah, they speak English in Liberia, but you know, there's different words. Like, you might use Lyft, we may use elevator, or you may use like whatever the terms are. So catching up to some of those things, but still, you know, you're out of home. Yeah, they talked about it loosely, but what they did do was they watched documentaries, and so I would see those documentaries growing up and you'd see a kid that was 5, you know, holding an assault rifle. You'd see tanks driving through, you see buildings getting blown up. And so it's this unfiltered document. You got to think this is back in the early '90s, late '80s, unfiltered, you know, description of what's going on. They were just watching it, just trying to figure out, you know, what was going on because that's actually their home. And so I always had that image in my head. I still have that image in my head of seeing those things. And as I matured, you start connecting the dots. And now, 20, 30 years later, we start to have conversations around like, okay, tell me what it was like growing up, you know, now that we're so far removed from it.

And how do you think that they shaped you? Is that— do you think that helped to cultivate that gratitude practice, that being grateful for the opportunities you have, having seen what would have been the alternative had your parents not left Liberia?

I think two parts. Like, I easily could have been one of those kids, and so I, I understand that a lot more now. I think some of the caution that is displayed because of, you know, fear for your life and like trying to come over here and figure out how to make sense of it is both good and bad because there's certain things I'm overly cautious on, and then there's certain things that it's almost like the extreme end of it. Like, okay, they're super cautious in this area, and I'm gonna go super far left, right on this area depending on which direction it is. And so I definitely see how it has changed probably my outlook on life. And then being in America, you grow up in divided cultures to where my home life and the network of my family and friends through my parents, they're all African in some capacity. But then out in the world, in school, it's all American. And so you have these two very different experiences and you're kind of like fusing them together to become your own. So there's a lot of things that I kind of— I don't have the purest version of either side because it's kind of like my own interpretation of what it means to sit in the middle.

And I'm interested in, particularly because, I mean, I'm, you know, born in New York, half German, half Irish, lived in 9 different countries, so I clearly don't know where I'm from, and a complete mix-up. But do you think you're the same person in both worlds, or do you think that you adjust and adapt depending on your environment?

I think I'm the same person in both worlds, but I know how to adapt. In both. And so the foundation of who I am is the same. I present that across the board evenly. Now, you know, when it comes to certain foods, certain music, you know, I might lean depending on where I'm at, certain like cultural things. But then also, you know, everybody knows I'm Liberian, and so they know that there's certain nuances of how I'm going to view things that are probably more rooted in that capacity. And so it's just kind of— I wouldn't even know how to change it if I wanted to.

No, but it makes you you, right? It's all about embracing it. That makes you special, unique, right? Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And this may fall into a later date, and I'm not sure if I told you this story before, but we were in Paris for our anniversary in 2018, and we're there, and I'm tracking what's going on in 2018. The World Cup is coming and Bastille Day is coming. And so our anniversary is the 12th, and Bastille Day was like the 14th, and the World Cup was like the 15th or something like that. And so I'm like, oh my God, this is gonna be electric. And so we're there, find out that I got some other friends that played in the NFL who— they're also there. They have friends flying in town. So we're like, man, France is going to be in the World Cup, we're all going to watch the game together, these Americans. Like we're going to have the best time. They can't plan it no better. And so as you can imagine, France, while they're in the World Cup, coming off there, but still they're not trying to cater to Americans. And so trying to find a place to watch the game, everywhere is booked out. And we come to this African restaurant. And I'm like, oh, these are my people. Like, these, like, they're going to take care of us. And so we walk in looking super American. You know, we have our French gear on, you know, just to support, be dressed the part. They know we're American though. They put us in the very back of the restaurant. Like, we can't see the TV. There's poles and everything. And so my wife looks at me, and she's like, I thought these were your people. And I was like, that's bullshit. So I take out my phone and show him my DNA. And literally 100% of my DNA comes from West Africa, from Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone. And so I show the guy, and he's speaking French. And I'm like, look, bro. Like, look. Like, we're the same thing. It takes us from the back of the restaurant and we have like the best seat in the house.

No way.

Yeah, just because we found that bridge. And so I, I think that's the part. Like if I see somebody that I think comes from Africa or comes from a different place, I'll lean into that to listen. Like, you know, tell me your story. We all have stories. Like, where are you from? You know, like where are your families from? And you start to unearth a lot of pure connection. And if you're in a foreign territory, It can get you from looking at a wall to looking at the big screen.

To watching the game and probably having a lot more fun in the process. Did you get to try some exotic drinks while you were there?

Homebrew? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the other part of it. They brought a menu that was in French. And so none of us speak French. And so I had to call one of my buddies who was actually Parisian living in Atlanta. And I was like, bro, translate this menu for us. He was like, man, I'm not translating this whole menu. Like, tell me what type of food you want. So I was like, give us a fish option. Give us a chicken. Give us a beef option. And he was like, all right, these are the things. Stop bothering me. I'm watching, uh, yeah, I'm watching a match. And so it turned out to be something that would have been a horrible experience where we would have had to go back to our rooms to the best experience of just finding that connection that, hey, you know, in this moment right here, we're both African cheering on France.

Well done, you, for thinking of that as well for the non-English speaking waiter, right? Being like, look, look at my DNA.

Yeah, there's always a solution.

I love it. I know my mother always taught me that too. When you were young, Mohamed, what did you dream of becoming?

In a weird way, just better. Like, we— and that's the weird thing. Like, you have loose things that you want to be. Like, I wanted to be an architect. I wanted to be, you know, an athlete. But you don't actually see these things. If you see an architect walking around, they don't have like, hey, I'm an architect on their shirt. And typically, you don't see, you know, athletes, celebrities walking around. And so it almost seemed very distant. And this is before social media and all that stuff. And so, and then growing up in my neighborhood, we never saw like true professional people. Everybody had like laborious jobs. And so it was just, I want to create options and options for opportunity. And then it'll sort itself out once I get a better picture of the world. But I think the thing was I didn't think I couldn't be something. And so the world seemed like an open canvas. There was never where it's like, man, I'm not a good fit for that. I'm not a good fit for this. There was always an opportunity I can be that, you know. We were always taught that nobody's above you, nobody's below you. You have an opportunity to become depending on what you bring to the situation. And so I didn't know, but I knew I could be something, you know.

You didn't know how, but you knew what, right?

I knew it was going to be something meaningful, or at least I was going to strive to become something meaningful. I didn't know how I was going to shake out when I was like, okay, I'm gonna put in enough time, enough work, enough effort, and it's going to be something. I don't want to do something that's like mediocre or doesn't have any impact.

Where do you think that came from? Was that your— both your parents that you just had that innately, and— or did they make a conscious decision, you know, this is what we're going to teach our kids?

I think it comes from knowing yourself. It comes from knowing your background as well. If everybody looks like— we have different skill sets. Not that my skill sets are better or worse, yours are better or worse. Everybody's different. But the skill sets that we do have, we can do it at the highest level. And so that's something that I was always taught. And so not wanting to be like someone else and not thinking that I have to compare myself, it's like, if I just be myself, I think I could do this at a really high level. And as you start to move through life, you start to— everybody does it. You're looking and you're seeing like, oh, this person does this well, you do this well. But then once you start to get to know the person, you realize that they're just normal. Either they put extra work in or they're leaning into their gifts, or they went and studied and developed. There's different things that they do unless they come from like a super privileged background or something. They've been given stuff, but most people don't fall in that category. They're working for it. And so once you almost reverse engineer somebody else's playbook or you follow along with somebody and you're both trying to rise together, it keeps you motivated to continue the journey.

Such wise words, Mohammed. And I think so many people spend most of their life not realizing that, and, you know, just sort of have this awakening before death, realizes that that's actually the way to see things and to realize that, you know, everyone brings something to the table. And it's discovering that, which I love, because I think everyone has such an interesting story if you open that up as well. So when was it that your passion developed for football? So for our international listeners, American football. We were talking about the World Cup before, and When did you decide your goal or your end goal was to be part of the NFL?

So both my parents were athletes, and so I can't really take credit for, you know, athleticism. That was gifted to me. They— my mom ran track, dad played soccer, and they were pretty good athletes. And so I don't even know if my mom knew what American football was. I don't even know if she knew the difference between American football and football as it's known globally. But she put me in, and I started to like it, and I started to get a little bit better at it. And football honestly was the second favorite sport. Basketball was the favorite sport. And I had a friend who, our 9th grade year, right when we're starting to come into our own athletically, he came back from the summer at 6'5", and I was still, you know, 6'0", 6'1"-ish. And I was like, eh, I think, you know, I'm gonna focus on football full-time. Because everybody's super tall. But yeah, I think it's one of those things that once you start, you see a new level. It's really hard when you're trying to say, okay, I want to become the CEO, I want to become the NFL player, I want to become the whatever else ambitious goal that you have. But if you go and say, okay, I'm gonna do my very best year at high school and hopefully I get a scholarship, and if I get a scholarship, that kind of unlocks the key to the next opportunity. And then you get to the next opportunity, like, okay, I'm here in college now, I'm at a great program. If I do what I need to do here, that'll unlock the next opportunity. And so you're as intentional as you can be in the moment that you are, because if you look too far ahead, you start to lose focus. You're not actually putting the work in, but you're just closing the gap as you go through these different levels of life. And then you look up and you're just like, oh wow, like, actually I'm here now, you know. And then I think it's very important once you get to the thing that you shift focus to the next thing in terms of what you may be working towards, so you don't say, okay, I've ended the race, I have nothing else to accomplish.

And I really like that because it makes me think of like a staircase, right? So you, you know, the one step at a time. But how much is just focusing on the next goal versus having an end goal in mind and then taking it step by step? I mean, did you have that vision, you know, I want to get to the NFL, but I know that these are my next steps? Or was it just, you know, I'm going to college, this is what I want to do?

That's a really good question. So in football, yes, it was broadly— and I love being an athlete. And so this is something that I really want to do. But the percentages are, you know, 0.001%. Yeah, I think there's only— there's less than 1,700 people that play in the NFL. Globally. And so those odds, when you're in a country of 300+ million people and everybody's very talented, you know that that's the thing that you want to go to, but the numbers don't shake out. But that is the part of me, you know, that's probably different to my parents to where it's like, eh, I like those odds anyway. I don't care. I'm gonna go for it. But then like once you get out into something that's not as structured, like the world I'm in now, consulting, like you don't actually know. And so as you do, you learn and you start to get more focused. Or it's like, hey, I love helping people solve problems. Oh, what type of problems? I like the change management aspect of it. Well, how are you going to do that? Well, I like it through culture, I like it through diversity, I like it focusing on transformation. And it's not until you actually do the work that you can then almost like a sculptor, you get block of marble and then you're chipping away. And then at the end you have something that looks meaningful. And if it's a clear path, I think it makes more sense to narrow in on that angle. But if it's kind of broad and abstract, that's where that checkpoint, that stepping stone makes more sense because you're trying to figure out how to put this picture together because it's somewhat incomplete at the start.

That makes sense. And during your NFL career, and we talked about this separately as well in Cleveland, and how much did mindset and, you know, once you actually got to kind of where you wanted to go, you know, how did you manage that? How did you set the goals? How did that differ from getting to the NFL and actually then being in the NFL? And, you know, when you experienced maybe some more challenging moments, how did you overcome those?

And this is something I've actually had to look back on and understand. And so the NFL team that I went to, Cleveland Browns, we were a transitioning organization. And so new head coach, new ownership, lots of turnover in terms of who was on the roster. And so it was very challenging and probably like the first time where it was like the game was really frustrating and not knowing how to navigate that. And I think that's why like the mental health piece is super important to people because you, even though you've shown to be able to perform at a high level and be resilient, that doesn't necessarily mean that you know how to tap into that all the time or that you should tap into that all the time by yourself. And we're not the only ones going through what we go through. And so had I known a little bit more, I probably would have reached out to more people. I think sometimes we harbor things internally And we're not always checking in and say, hey, you know, this is how I feel right here. How do I get through this situation? And sometimes that's not even within your own organization. You know, it may be somebody on a different team or in a different sport or in a different industry that may be going through something similar. So I think what that experience taught me was in those moments where it's really thick, where it's really heavy, where, you know, it's not necessarily going the way that you want it to, zoom out. So that you can take inventory of what is actually going on, you know, what piece of your hair is in the soup and not just try to figure out if it's external, but sometimes it's internal with how you approach the situation. Like I said, we have all the answers that we want. And so somebody else has probably been through that. Somebody else could probably tell you, hey, focus your energy in here, or maybe this may be helpful over here to help you move through that situation. And maybe the situation doesn't change around you. But the way that you adapt to the situation may change.

Such wise words, Mohammed. Clearly did some excellent reflecting on those times as well. And then throughout your career and then deciding to change, was that— where did that come from and that desire? And then going on to when you had the accident, can you talk a bit about that and how that life-changing accident really, you know, set you up for this new life that you're leading now?

Yes, so I'll give you a long answer. So I studied psychology while I was at Georgia. It's just people have just always been fascinating to me. And part of that has been sitting in between cultures. I've always just been fascinated by people's stories. And so love being in big cities and just people watching. And so when I got to the NFL, I kept getting concussions, just injuries, injuries, injuries. And so it comes a point in time where your body doesn't perform the same. And so I played 5 years and then was done at 28, I want to say. Until you have your whole life to live. And so instead of doubling back down into the thing I actually showed interest in, which was psychology and human performance— that's one of the reasons I love sports, because you get a chance to perform. It's very objective. You win, you lose. These are your stats. Like, this was the output. And so that idea of performance and people and all the mechanisms that go into it was fascinating. Me. But what I did is you get these outside pressures. It's like, oh, you'd be really good in finance because you're this, or you'd be really good in this industry. And instead of listening to your own internal compass, you start listening to outside where like people are pushing you those, those safe regions. And so went and was in the finance world for a little bit and didn't really enjoy it because I would always see things through the psychology, the human performance, versus just like what the market's doing. And so I got in this crazy life-changing accident in 2017. And it's one of those things where I'm going through surgeries, I'm completely detached from work because I'm in and out of surgeries, I'm recovering. And in that time, I was like, okay, I don't really love this industry. This is the industry that I want to be in. But now I'm super far removed from it. I haven't been in college, like, looking at psychology. Went and played. I've been doing this job for, you know, the last however long. Now I got to go figure out how to get back into the world that I actually want to be in. I don't even know what that means. I don't want to be a clinical psychologist and having people on the couch, but I want to figure out how to really do it at a performance organizational level. And so in not knowing that, I went back to school. That's, that's where I actually met Rachel, went to Harvard. And then after that, understanding the business landscape, getting my master's in organizational psychology. And over time, like, you start to figure out, okay, I might need this if I'm working in the business realm now. I may need this if I want to, you know, truly understand what's going on from a psychology piece. Hey, I'm gonna need this. And that's what I mean by over time you're starting to fill in the blanks because you don't have this clear picture as to what you want to become. It's just as you learn more, either develop more or you move in a different direction, or you continue to get affirmation that you're moving in the right direction.

And do you spend a lot of time, or like, how do you do these periods of reflection? How do you know what's the next step? How does that process look like for you?

So I actually reformat most things through a sports lens. And so there's in-seasons, there's off-seasons, and even in-seasons there's moments to where we call them bye weeks, or there's, you know, breaks. Every sport in America has You know, you have your all-star break in the NBA and the NHL and the MLB to where they're gonna get a week and a half, 2 weeks in the middle of the season to where they can recharge their bodies, they can refresh. In the NFL, we call it bye weeks. But then even after the season, you have this long extended period of time. And what that allows you to do theoretically is have proper time to develop, have proper time to train, and have proper time to take inventory of where you are. And so I try to mimic that into where I have moments where I'm taking, you know, short breaks, like a bye week, and then I'll have, you know, longer form, you know, 2-week break, sabbatical, whatever, to where it's kind of like my off-season. And that gives me a chance to just zoom out, out of the weeds, to say, okay, what is actually going on in the world around me? What opportunities are being left on the table? Where am I as a person? And then, so once I dive back in, I can go on the sprint again. Because you don't want to be kind of teetering along and just busy. I'd rather when I'm engaged, I'm fully engaged, I'm fully high performance. And then when it's time to throttle down, throttle down to recharge with the intention of re-engaging and functioning at a high level again.

I love that. And I love that concept of how you have it as like a bye week, right? And what does that look like specifically? I mean, do you lock yourself in a room for a week and go through things? You have a certain framework or formula or strategy that you use for that time?

So there's like, if I were to open my calendar right now, there's usually probably like 4 mini breaks throughout the year and then a big break around like the holidays, Christmas, you know, where you get your— from before Christmas, like the first full week of the new year. And so you get a 2-week break there just built in. And then sometime in the summer, I'm gonna take a little break, you know, like a week-long break. And so you got things to look forward to. So let's say if I'm tired right now, but I know on Friday I have 3, 4-day weekend or whatever the case may be, I then know like, okay, I can sprint up into that because I'm going to shut it down, you know? And so in the back of your mind, it gives you these, these true finish lines, these true like mini stops that you can go to. And sometimes it may just be rest. Sometimes it may be junk just to kind of declutter my mind. Sometimes it's strategic planning. Sometimes it is travel. Sometimes it's meeting with people I haven't had a chance to catch up with. It's just, there's no hard item on the calendar that is forcing me not to be able to zoom out and recharge.

And I mean, different people have different strategies. The Queen of England likes to go for walks, right? When she's discussing with ministers and things as well. And I think it's just getting out of that. Especially in front of a screen, which is such a creativity killer, and, you know, different situations when I guess the wiring of the brain just reconnects in different solutions and you think much more creatively as well. So I like that concept. I think I'm going to definitely implement that as well. Mohammed, I'd love to talk about purpose and your view and experience with being on purpose. Why do you think it's important? And would you say that you found your purpose in life?

Yes, I think it's important. We're all uniquely ourself, and we all have things that we— when in our quiet moments— that pulls us, that charges us up. And when we're not operating in those areas, there's a clear tension, and we know it. Sometimes other people know it if they're close enough to us. And so when you're operating outside of that it always feels like something's missing. And you can have different purposes throughout whatever phase of life you are. When I was an athlete, it never actually felt like work. It felt like, man, I get to go out and run around for a living with people I love and adore in a sport that I love. And the work that I do now, it doesn't feel like I am doing work. You know, being a father doesn't feel like work. It's like these things, they just feel like just these joyous moments. Now it takes effort and things like that, so I don't want people to think that like your purpose is just something that is just always blissful joy all the time. Yeah, it gets crazy, but you wouldn't trade it for anything else. And so when we only have a finite amount of time on this earth wasting it doing something else kind of is kind of wasting your time on this earth. And so I think it's really important for people to find— and everybody has different purposes. If you see that there's an opportunity to contribute with your purpose and you're not doing it, you're almost cheating other people, and you're cheating yourself ultimately, but you're cheating the impact that you can have on somebody else to hopefully better their life, whether it's being a great cook, whether it's being a neurosurgeon, whether it's being a musician. Or has been an architect, whatever it is, you're cheating the earthly experience that we all have until we're no longer here again.

Beautifully said and such wise words, Mohammed, as well. Yeah, you are missing out on your opportunity to serve, right? And inevitably, from, you know, this is a topic I find really interesting and I've been reading about it and learning about it more. You're never going to be really happy if you're off center. So I think it's, you know, that hero's journey, right? I don't know if you've come across from Joseph Campbell, right? But it's finding that purpose. It's going on that mission, finding that purpose, and then being in service of others, giving back as well, which really resonates. For someone who is perhaps still on that journey trying to find their purpose, a bit frustrated maybe where they are, or maybe not, but are there any particular tools or strategies that you recommend to help people uncover their purpose?

I'll give a two-part answer to that. I was at a neighbor's house and we were watching college football. He went to Ohio State, I went to Georgia.. And we're sitting there, Ohio State's playing somebody, but there's Georgia people over there. There's all these people. And so this kid comes up to me, he's about to graduate college. And he's like, you know, I really want to go work at this particular bank. And I was like, why? And he was like, man, I just want to go work at this bank. And I was like, what do you, what do you love about it? He was like, man, I love this particular bank. You know, can you tell me about finance industry? Cause he knew I was coming from the finance industry. And I was like, like, help me understand what you're actually trying to accomplish there. And it's like, I just love it. And so we get tied to like these brands, you know, I want to go work for XYZ company, I want to go work for this company, and we have no idea what that experience is. We have no idea what it is versus stepping back and saying, man, I love being around people, I love helping people, I love the way people function. And then staying close to the things that you already identified as something that you're interested in and that you love. And then going to find the answers from there. Because it's always tough when you see somebody that's like, I love food. And then they go work doing something else. And they spend all their time making brilliant recipes and doing all these things. Or they love sports. And that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be top shelf or athlete. But those industries are so big, they're so broad, that once you are centered in the thing that you actually enjoy, you can go figure it out. And it may not even be for compensation. It could be volunteering. It could be teaching. It could be, you know, working with kids. It could be anything at-risk youth. And so if you can't do your purpose in a professional setting, definitely do your purpose in a hobby setting, in a more recreational setting, so that, you know, you can serve that need that's always going to be burning within you. And that's where I think it's almost like you're just closing the gap as you learn more about what that thing is. Then you shift all your energy to being in that space. Because if I've identified that, hey, I want to be in psychology, you know, change management, and I'm spending time over here, I'm not going to pick up the relevant insights. But if I am spending time over here, how can I filter everything through the lens of the psychology performance? And so we may be somewhere and I'll pick up on an insight that translates directly back to the work that I'm doing because I'm seeing the world through the thing I identified. Not the thing that somebody else is identifying for me.

And you have that passion within you as well for it, right?

Yeah, and the passion's already in there. Yeah.

Let's talk about Vessel, your company you founded. And Vessel is, for those interested, is V-E-S-S-O-L. Was founded on what you call disruption, particularly over the last years with COVID We've all experienced disruption in our lives. People have lost their jobs, changed careers, lost loved ones, and rethought their entire lives, I think. What do you see as the opportunity when disruption comes our way, and is there a particular strategy or framework that you use to maneuver and make the most out of periods of disruption?

I think it's how are you preparing for it. And so we know that, you know, if you've lived any amount of time, we've seen once-in-a-lifetime crisis is probably 10 times now, you know. And so these, these things are becoming more frequently. And so how are you preparing for it? I started to think about this when I had my surgery. I ended up having 12 surgeries, and the doctor said the only reason I was willing to do it is because of the shape that you came in here with prior to the accident. And so my body was already conditioned to be able to go through those type of like traumatic things and overcome and all that stuff. And so you said if you weren't in that physical shape, and so it's the same thing when you're about to approach disruption. Hopefully there's been enough pre-work to where your foundation is technically sound so that when something does throw you off course, you can stay there. Like you're not just going to get blown away. And so a lot of my work is getting the foundation right, just preparing people, and then actually identifying what's next is another big thing. Because if my accident happens and I don't have nothing to look forward to, I'm just going to sit there and dwell on the thing that's bad. But if I have something that's clearly pushing me, I'm going to start spending more time focusing on that thing. And this thing is just going to continuously decrease in terms of impact. And so with organizations, you're like, okay, if you're right here and this thing is very problematic to you, one's going to rise. Either the problem is going to continue to become big or the problem is going to decrease and we can figure out what's next, what the solution is. Um, and I find that to be through culture, like how are people working together. If your team isn't working together, people are on different pages, people aren't aligned, people don't like, you know, to continue to push themselves and evolve, it's gonna be really hard to move forward. But then that diversity piece, if just like Paris, if I don't tap into the fact that I'm African, if I don't tap into the fact that these people probably have a solution over here, so how do I trust them? Like, you're not going to be able to unearth these random solutions that may occur. The fact that you come from the diverse background that you come from, and not just looking at you as how you present as white female, or looking at a person as how they present, Black, you know, Asian, LGBT, whatever the case may be, outside of those surface level things, there's no way to really pull up like those moments of bliss and those moments of genius for Hmm. And then being able to weave those things together to say, we can take a piece from over there, we can take a piece from over there, and then we have this new novel idea that seems super innovative. It's not really innovative, it's just combining different skill sets in ways that people haven't been able to do before. And so that's where a lot of my work comes through with disruption, to say, let's not let disruption, you know, crumble us. Let's figure out how to harness this thing. And it gives us a clear thing that now we can all bond together for and then go do something else that's really cool and amazing.

Phenomenal. That's a huge challenge, right? Because people come with preconceptions and grudges and, oh, well, he said this or she said that. How do you overcome that as coming in externally as well? How do you manage to bridge that gap between everyone is against each other to collaboration and actually being open and getting into that creative camaraderie space?

Honestly, people have never been taught to not function any other way. Because if we're going through a challenge, we're taught to self-protect, self-persevere. And we're going to do that with the people that we identify with. And so if it's— that's my friend and they're in something, or we just merged two companies together, hey, our culture has to stick together because these new people are trying to do this. And so naturally that's what's going to happen. And so when you are stripping all that back and you're saying, okay, it's not about better or worse, but I use that all the time, it's just different. And so if I know that you have a piece of the puzzle that I don't have, it doesn't matter like how I feel about you. It's if we're actually trying to move this way and we need this piece of the puzzle, We're going to use it if we're intelligent people. And then over time, you're going to start to realize that, oh my God, this person isn't threatening. We actually want the same thing. And so it's just really changing the way people view things, because if you go at it and it's like, okay, this is the best of this company, this is the best of the company, this person is this, this person like this demographic is better or worse than this demographic. It's like, no, let's strip all that back. If we're here to do a job at a high level, what are the pieces that we need to do at a high level? And naturally, since none of us have all the talents that we need, we have to look outside of ourselves. You're going to find those things in different places, across different demographics, across different ages, across different people, genders, sexes, religions, all those things. And so you can bring those things together in a very non-threatening way once you understand the backbone of why people feel the way that they feel.

I think it's so beautiful how you're able to integrate the psychology to before, but now with basically found the perfect ingredients and mix for what you're doing right now, right? And all the different life experiences. You wrote an incredible article on leaders who weather the storm and those who survive such crises. And I really love this quote, which I'll read out. The crisis will end. The crisis always ends. When it does, leaders who weathered the storm with their people have a shared experience that cannot be replicated. Storms refine groups and leave them full of pride, resilience, courage, and grit. Can you talk about the backstory or stories that gave rise to this quote? And what were your key learnings and advice for weathering storms?

I mean, history is a great teacher. You know, COVID eventually is going to become something different. Every pandemic, epidemic, we figured out how to come out the other side of it. Every financial crisis, we figured out how to come out on the other side of it. Wars, like if you look back generations, thousands and thousands of years, like things are— they may be long, but they're eventually going to end. And so people that have that shared experience to where it's like we've bonded through these things, you know, you see it in sports all the time. If you've gone through these really hard challenges, you find lifelong friends. And it's not because you've just had these highs. A lot of times it's these adverse moments that you can actually see how people are functioning, how people are going to respond, and you build trust. And I've seen it countless times in life. Like, the people that were there with me when my accident happened, they were friends, not new friends. I've known these people 10 years, and we came from, you know, bleeding together, crying together, you know, all these different things. And so you have the utmost trust for them. 2, 3 months ago, I was over at a buddy's house, a guy that I've known a decade or and his son comes downstairs, and his son wants to go swimming. It's like 7 o'clock at night, and he's like, we'll do it tomorrow. And the kid's 3, 4 years old— 4. And I'm like, man, he knows how to swim? And he's like, yeah, man, he loves being in the water. And I'm like, I don't know how to swim. He's like, you got a daughter, how do you not know how to swim? He's like, come over here tomorrow, I'm gonna teach you how to swim. I'm like, you're not even a swim instructor, how you gonna teach me how to swim? And he's like, man, come over here. I'm not going to let you die. First point, I'm not going to let you die. And so I come over the next day, and I'm like just scared. His kid, I mean, is jumping in the 8 feet, going down. There's a little floaty thing that he's like— he's going to the bottom of the pool. He's a fish. And he's like, are you going to let the 4-year-old like outdo you or whatever? And the 4-year-old's like, come on, jump in the pool. Come on, jump in the pool. And I'm like, damn. And so I jump in the pool, think I'm about to die. He pushes the floaty until we do that. To the point that I can swim. And then by the end of it, I'm like diving in and I'm going to get the thing at the bottom of it. And he looks at me and he was like, now you know how to swim. Like, and now he says, now you know how to save yourself. And so those two things, one, I'm not gonna let you die, but I care so much about you that I'm gonna teach you how to save yourself. And so that's what happens with these leaders in these crazy times. Like, the leader is gonna tell you, like, I'm not gonna let you fail in this moment. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I'm going to make sure you get out of it. And not only am I going to make sure you get out of it, when we do get out of it, you're going to know how to save yourself, and you're going to know how to go save other people. And I think that's what these crises show us when we're able to weather the storm. When you trust somebody so much with your life, with your talents, with your family's life, like all the things that surround you, that you know for sure that they're not going to let you down. But in addition to that, they're going to set you up in a way that you can go do whatever you want to do independent of whatever else is going on.

Amazing. Some rapid-fire questions for you, Mohamed. Do you have any particular morning routine to start your day as a success?

Remembering to brush my teeth. It's like you get up and you go grab your daughter, and then you like check emails, and you're just like, all right, let me start the day. Nah. Uh, I think it is when the weather is good. I walk the dog, walk my daughter two separate times because, you know, take the dog on a quick walk, they don't work well together. You know, I'm for sure gonna lose one of them. But that gives me just like the clarity to start the day. It gives me a chance to— before like you go and you have to deal with everything that's going on in the world, you get this moment of peace. And so you're starting at calm before it ramps up, before starting like ramped up and then just going wherever that takes you. Yeah, so morning walks would be the thing.

And is there anything particular that you do during these walks, anything you try to focus on, think about, any visualizations for the day? Or do you just try to be in the present moment in nature?

I try to be in the present moment. Because I get inspired by things. Like, once again, I'm filtering things through the things that interest me. And so I may see a bird do something that translates to a workshop. And it's just, you know, I may see something on a house. I may see someone else walking in the outfit that they have on, or I may overhear something. So that may trigger something for me that translates to something else. And so I really have no preset agenda. It's really like, how can I take all these inputs unfiltered, like unattached to a screen or some type of technology so that it makes sense to create something beautiful later?

Fantastic. Thinking of the word successful, Muhammad, who is the first person that comes to mind and why?

Who's the first person that comes to mind when I think of successful? Wow, that's a really good question. Anyone making progress on something that they care about, because it's not easy to identify the thing that you're interested in and go after it, because with that It comes with people telling you, no, you should do it this way. It comes with, you know, the pressures of, you know, pursuing this thing that other people may not understand. And so just that first step, I think, is a success, and the continuing to learn and develop around it to improve, to prove yourself right. Not even like, I've chosen to go on this path because it meant something to me. And so I'm going to continue to do what I need to do to make sure I can stay on this path. And so I think when you do that, you're successful, and not in terms of how much money you make or how many followers or what notoriety, but just that internal understanding that I'm making myself proud is successful to me.

I really like that.

Yeah, the unknown opportunities excite me more than the future makes me nervous. I had a friend who— he said it loosely, like we were out to lunch and he was starting his business. And if you know his backstory, you know, like, he's in real estate, so he went through the crash and he had to like truly rebuild himself up. And he did it in a meaningful way, if you see what this thing is. Shaken out to be. And so I was just like, are you nervous? Like, how do you feel, you know, this time around? He was like, the unknown opportunities excite me more than the future makes me nervous. And so if you look at life like that, these unknown things that you're just going to find, these moments that you're going to get this spark, or you're going to get this win, or you're going to get the whatever you're looking for, they should be more than the things that you are nervous about that may not actually occur anyway, or that you'll be able to overcome when they happen.

I love that because it's almost twofold. It's, you know, everyone experiences fear no matter what, like it's a human innate sense, right? And it's what you do with it, it's if you push through it. So it has that in that as well, but also the fact that you have the choice to feel uncertain and anxious about the future, but you also have the choice to focus on the opportunity and shift your focus. So which I think is one of the key elements as well. So it's what you choose to do every day. So such wisdom in that quote. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, I stole it from him.

I'll have to reference him. What are some of the learnings or insights that your clients you work with find the most valuable?

That they have the solutions internally. It's just figuring out how to pull them out and how to get the most out of everybody there. And so I think sometimes people are their only view is doing this, their only view is doing that, their only view is doing this, and you've never like actually zoomed back and say, okay, like what are they actually good at doing? There was a company where I was with the CEO and he was talking about a digital strategy that he wanted to roll out and he couldn't function with his iPhone. And so he called his assistant, and 20-something-year-old, and assistant would just do the iPhone and gives it back to him, and I'm just laughing. And he's like, the damn iPhone. And like, you don't see what just happened, did you? And he's like, no. I'm like, you have this person that is just really being used as an assistant when in actuality they should probably be involved in a digital strategy. Now they can't take it from point A to point Z, but they understand the user experience, they understand the demographic that you're trying to market to. Now let's say you have 30, 40, 50 of these people that are out of position. And you have people like yourself that understand an element of this digital strategy, but you don't understand all of it. How can you bring these two worlds together? And he kind of like slumped back in his chair. He's like, oh my God, like, come back over here. And so they start to talk and it's like, where'd you know all this from? They're like, well, I've always known it. You know, it's just hidden insights and information. And so it's kind of my job to be able to show that you actually have more of this than you think in different departments. How do we then bring these things out so that the thing that you're trying to figure out, you can solve for? And it may look different than when you started, but it's the comfort and the flexibility to say, hmm, this is pulling me away from where I think I should go, but I trust this person and their abilities to take me to where I actually want to go.

Let's change gears a bit and talk about leadership. You have said that self-awareness is not enough to make a good leader. A leader must add value through action. Can you talk a bit about what you mean by this and what actions can we all take to become better leaders, especially for some of the audience perhaps that are not yet in that leadership position?

For me, it's the leader's job. Like, let's even— like, what is leadership? Like, if you're leading, you're influencing the behavior of someone else to do something that you're not doing. And so if you're trying to influence someone else's behavior to do something that you're not doing, That part of it's important. So it's not the leader's job to do, it's the leader's job to facilitate how that gets done. And hopefully they're empowering people and giving them the right resources to do something. I look at leadership as how do you put the people that you're leading in positions to accomplish the things that you all want to accomplish? Because if it's just self-serving to the leader, that's not fair to the people, and that's probably going to create other problems. Down the line. But if it's like, hey, I know Claudia is able to do this, I know Rachel is able to do this, I know Jim is able to do this, I know Brendan's able to do this, I know Mike, I know, you know, like, whoever you name, they're able to do this. How can I make sure that I don't create any additional failure points for them? And not only that, how can I give them what they need so that they can actually go do the job that they've been proven to do at a high level? And if they can't do that Can I train them and develop them, or can I bring in the right support systems to help them do that? And so I look at leadership— if everyone that you're leading, you should be able to help them add value in some meaningful capacity, and also in the way that you've promised them that they could add value. Because most people, when they're being led, they're being led with the hopes of something better. And so hopefully you're not leading them somewhere different. And so that's kind of my twist on it.

I like that. Let's talk about COVID and not such a big fan of the term work-life balance, but let's say a balanced lifestyle, especially coming out of the pandemic or going through the pandemic and all the disruption. I mean, obviously in some countries the pandemic is still raging, unfortunately, but there's been such an overlap between, you know, working from home. Family life, and, you know, some people really facing things like burnout, right, because of it. How do you recommend people keep a healthy, balanced lifestyle in face of something like this and avoid burnout?

I mean, it's tough. I can give you two answers. I can give you like a real answer and, you know, a hopeful answer. And I mean, the hopeful answer is that you You set hard deadlines. And so probably not sending an email before, you know, 8:30, 9 AM, unless it's urgent. And I'm not sending an email after hours, just because I may see it, I may even write it. But hopefully that communicates to someone else that, hey, you know, I'm just not going to be— like, if you send me an email Saturday night, I'm probably not even going to touch it until Monday, unless you're like in a super urgent industry where things are time sensitive. And a lot of people aren't setting hard deadlines to where if you have a family, making sure that you go eat with your family if you're working from home, if you're doing certain things to say, I'm not doing certain things after this. And so in theory, that sounds great, but in reality, people have real challenges and they're not always able to control certain things because of who's leading them, who they're being managed by. And at that point, I think you just have to communicate to people that, hey, you know, I'm doing a great job, but I'm starting to get burnt out. And hopefully that person has enough respect for you to give you a little bit of time or space. And in addition to that, hopefully you can communicate that to your teammates so that when you're at capacity, hopefully somebody can take a little bit of your load and then you reciprocate that generosity after you've been able to fill your tank when somebody else is kind of depleting theirs. But there's no clean, clear-cut answer here because people have been pushed to capacity and everyone's trying to figure it out. And so I think the communication piece is where you are in that particular moment and controlling the things that you can control to create some hard deadlines. Hard stops in your schedule.

I think that's really helpful as well. And this is also one area that I find really important. I've been working on the last year is kind of the power of, or the art of, saying no gracefully, right? And, you know, moving away from— and I guess it's also valuing, you know, time to think, time for yourself, time to reflect versus just action, doing. You know, I'm an enthusiastic person. There's a great invitation. I'm like, this could be fun, etc. But just reassessing. And I think that's, for me, one of the kind of gifts out of COVID is that recalibration of refocusing on, you know, what is really important and is this really what I want to be spending my time on. It's the only limiting factor that every single human being on planet Earth has, right? And, you know, then I like your point with setting hard deadlines around what is okay, what is not okay. Yes, there's always going to be exceptions, but they should be exceptions and not the rules. So I think that's really smart. Performance. Let's talk about performance, Mohammed. As a former professional athlete who's reached top of your game to now helping major companies like Microsoft, CAA, NBCUniversal improve their work culture and performance, you're obviously a master of optimizing performance. And so what would be your advice? You talked about team culture, but how to best improve performance? Does it come down to the team? Does it come down to the individual in itself? Or is there a mix of factors that help people up their game and master their performance?

I mean, at the onset, it starts with selection. Hopefully you're bringing in individuals that just aren't looking for any job. They're looking actually for this particular job. And so hopefully you have those individuals, and if not, you start to hire those individuals so that Maybe they round out, you know, some of that enthusiasm for the work itself. And then it's what are you trying to perform at? I don't always think people know what their job means, how it contributes, how it fits into a larger picture, if they selected into whatever that larger picture is. And so creating that alignment, that unified alignment, this is what we're trying to accomplish. If you look at Manchester or any soccer team or any football team, Any fan can tell you who they're playing. Any fan can tell you what the ultimate title that they're trying to win. Any fan can tell you like what is going on in that particular season, wins, losses. It's very clear. It's very objective. It's very transparent. In organizations, it doesn't always happen like that. Like, what is the highest priority right now internally? You know, what are we actually trying to accomplish? What's the significance of this particular client right here? What's the significance of this work process right here? And so when people are working in that ambiguity, they're just kind of coming to work. And so really creating that alignment and that clarity as to what we're trying to perform at, and then you can hold people to a standard to say, okay, this is the thing that we set out to do. And what you typically find is people have either sustained high performance, and so they have a clear bar, or they flash high performance. And so if you get a person that has flash brilliance, Then it's your job to figure out, okay, why can't we sustain that brilliance? Are you disengaged here? Are you not actually interested in the work? Are there resources that you don't have? Are there some type of politics that you don't have? And so you can get to underlying cause to hopefully help that person get more closer to the thing that they flashed at. I don't think brilliance is a one-off. I think it's, you know, if you do it in one time, you have the opportunity to replicate it. It's just, you may not know how to put those pieces together. And so how do we figure out how to put those pieces together so that a person that's shown the ability to flash becomes more consistent behavior and output?

Yeah, I have a few rapid-fire questions for you again before we finish. Muhammad, can you tell me what your most exciting purchase was in the last 6 to 12 months? I love specifics— brands, models, where you can find it.

Oh, I would say Remarkable. It's a tablet. It's a writing tablet. I go through so many notebooks because I'm always taking notes. What happens is you lose the notebook, or you got to go figure out which notebook it's in, or one book's over here, over there. And so this— actually, it's over here. Hold on. It's one of these things right here, the Remarkable tablet.

So it's light and easy to bring around with you, and it's called the Remarkable tablet?

Yeah, the Remarkable 2, actually. And I don't It might be like a Swedish-Finnish company or something like that. It's an international company. Yeah, it's a startup, but it's phenomenal. If I write cleanly enough, it transcribes the text writing into— it takes the writing in the text, and so you just upload it onto it, and so you never lose anything. And so Remarkable is—

ah, definitely going to take note because this would actually solve a problem I have, because I like to type up the notes because it's neat and tidy, it's searchable, but I know that the power of the pen, right, in terms of actually letting thought processes go through when you actually physically write. So it's kind of killing two birds with one stone with that. Remarkable. Okay. Yeah, great. Yeah. Which book have you most gifted, Mohammed? What's your favorite book to gift?

Gosh, I couldn't even answer that cleanly because I typically, if I read a book and it's good, I'm probably sending it out. And depending on what the book is, is different. And so Creative Genius by Linda Hill, I sent to a lot of entrepreneurs. I'm a big Jonah Berger, Malcolm Gladwell fan. And so Jonah Berger just released a book on, gosh, what was it? How to convince people. And I can't remember the book. And I put that out for like people that are having to do sales and negotiations. I'll send that out to friends. I'm reading so many things right now. It's like hard to keep up.

You read several books at the same time like me?

No, I'm only on a book at a time, but I probably try to get through a book monthly, every 3 weeks to a month. And so that just kind of gives me a chance to zoom out. And now I've gotten big on the podcast as well, and so I can listen to a good podcast. I'll send that out as well. Yeah, um, so that's— I'm big on the Pushkin Industries. Malcolm Gladwell founded that one. He's probably my favorite author right now just because he, he's great, the ability to transform, like, okay, this is how everybody saw it, but let's look at it this way, which, you know, I think is brilliance and a gift of its own.

Yeah, and I guess that's what you do as well, right? You try to extract people in a team to think about things in a different perspective, right?

Yeah, I try to.

Hopefully I—

You and Malcolm. Hopefully I'll continue to learn how he figures that out.

Muhammad, what is your exciting vision for the future? What excites you most about if we can create a— not a perfect world, but an exciting world to come? What would it look like?

You know, I think we all have things that interest us. I think we all have things that we can do at a high level, and I also think that we all have problems that we can solve. And so if we just do what we're capable of doing, whenever we have a little bit more to do something in other spheres, we do that as well. And so just the giving back of humanity, I think we're going to continue to see that when we have to see it. Just because we're at a very fragile time, whether it be global warming or whether it be income inequality or whether it be certain things that people are having to deal with on a day-to-day in their life. I think the more that we can just lean in and help each other, I think that's going to continue to happen because these problems that are impacting us and news travels so fast. Hopefully, we let that continue to be something that helps us. And hopefully we don't get— become desensitized to it, to where it's like, oh, these things are too big, you know. But if we continue just to lean in and be human and love each other, we have an opportunity to really make the world a better place. I know that's cliché to say, but hopefully we get to the point because we're kind of like this critical inflection point to where We either have to figure it out or we, you know, we're going under, go away.

It's over as well. Yeah, I think we share a mission in that way, a little bit different areas, but yeah, exactly. How do you help people, I guess, to be the best that they can be, right? Through health, through living well, having energy, high performance, and then also in the workplace as well. So exciting times ahead, I would say. To close up, Mohamed, for my listeners interested in learning more about change and disruption and optimizing their performance to prevent burnout, are there any particular online resources or books that you'd recommend they start with?

They all function differently. You know what I do sometimes? I'll find somebody that I really like that's trustworthy or a source that's trustworthy, whether it be, you know, Google Talks or Stanford. They have their series of talks at TED Talks or David Rubenstein, like someone that's a trusted figure in whatever domain that they're in. And I would just let them lead me on this rabbit hole of discovery. And then sometimes on the side, you pick up on things. Likewise with podcasts, where especially if something's within a podcast network, you can go when you understand that those things are trusted. And I normally play it on 2x And if you are picking up insight from it, take notes along the way. And if you think that one episode or one series of things is a dud, move on and find the next one. And so when you can have these deep dives in these particular areas from these trusted sources, you start to find out. And honestly, listening to other people's stories, you'll start to see that Whoever you admire, they have something that has happened, some trial that they've had to overcome, and you can glean insights from it. Just because we— no story is better or worse than the other, you know, where I may have had something happen, you've had something happen, the other person has something, the person working at your local coffee shop has had something. And so if you just kind of start to tune into these other stories and then continue to learn from these trusted sources And you're filtering it through what you particularly need and not just looking at it abstractly, but you're like, hey, this is why I'm coming here. And so once a person drops this nugget, that's the nugget that I took from it. You may take a different nugget from it because we're filtering it differently. And so it's just continuing to search for what you're looking for through the lens that you need to find it.

Such wise words. Muhammad, where can people learn more about what you're up to, be it social media, your websites? And I'll link to all of this in the show notes.

You know, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn. I'm pretty accessible on there. It's Muhammad Massaquoi. You'll find me or you'll find my dad. My dad knows how to get in contact with me, so he'll forward it over to me. Then my website is thevesol.com, T-H-E-V-E-S-S-O-L.com. And I'm on social media. All my handles are Iron @massacroiron. I need to post a little bit more, so hopefully when they come out, I'll be more active by the time they get there.

Amazing. And do you have a final ask or recommendation or any parting message for my audience, Muhammad?

I think just the understanding of like how fragile life is. I don't know if people truly understand, like, we're not here for that long. And so you can look at that two ways, is that we have to make an impact while we're here, or the impact that we make— like, people are so caught up in what they're doing that people aren't paying as much attention to you as you think. And so the thing that may be holding you back from doing things because you're worried about pressures, like, don't worry about all that. Like, those things aren't going to last. Like, whatever you think, like, those things aren't going to last that long. But on the other side of it, because we're not going to last that long, we got to get involved now. You know, if you think you're waiting for 5, 10, 15 years, like, we just don't have that much time. And so get involved now because we don't have that much time. And then get involved now because the things that you think are going to be lingering effects, they won't be anyway.

Such wise words. Thank you so much, Muhammad. This has been a huge pleasure to have you on today.

Thank you for your time. Oh, anytime, anytime. Keep up the amazing work.

You too. Hey everyone, it's Claudia here. Before you take off, I hope you enjoyed the episode and learned as much as I did. If so, please hit subscribe so you don't miss out on our next episodes. I would also love to hear what you thought, be it your favorite part, quote, or other feedback from the episode. So please leave a written review on Apple podcasts or on social media. And if you think this episode will help someone in your own life, share it with them. Together we can change our own lives and the lives around us for the better. Until next week, goodbye, farewell, and choose to live well.