The Art of Compassionate Leadership, with Nabeela Ixtabalan

Nabila, a massive welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor for me to be here.

That's special. We have to thank our friend, our mutual friend, Chester Elton for connecting us.

Yes. He's a gift. And anyone he says that I should talk to, I talk to. So I just listen to what Chester says.

I love it. Now, Nabila, what you're doing is amazing. And as the chief people officer at Walmart Canada, you are responsible for the leadership, the well being, the direction of. I think it's around 100,000 staff members or associates, is that right?

Correct.

That's huge. So let's not start there. Let's start with your journey. Because I think it's great for anyone listening there to just hear about your journey in terms of getting there. Maybe some of the speed bumps of getting to that position where you're now really leading and influencing other people around you. So where did your journey, professional journey, begin?

Yeah, sure. I love telling this story. So I am the quintessential pull yourselves up from the bootstraps. First generation immigrant of Lebanese.

Immigrants from the Lebanon to the US and so I like to actually introduce myself as American by birth, Canadian by choice, but I'm honestly just a bit of a nomad. I lived in a lot of different places. I started in the retail sector as a barista, making $6.50 an hour to pay my way through university. What I realized was I was really good at working. For whatever reason I was good at work. I had this natural inclination when it came to leadership and management. At 18, I was leading a $1.2 million business, leading my own Starbucks coffee cafe in one of the major thoroughfares in Houston, Texas. And so I decided just to really prioritize work. And I went to school at night. And this is very common in the States. Lots of people have to pay their way through university. University is very expensive. And I didn't see any reason why I couldn't work full time and go to school at night, which is really like holding two full time jobs. And I basically just trained myself to have this really crazy threshold for work.

And then, you know, as you're. As I was growing throughout my career, I took on more responsibility, kept going to school at night. Took me six years to graduate from university. When I graduated from university, I was seven months pregnant with my first child. So, you know, here we go, going on from two full time jobs to another two full time jobs, being a mom and being a professional. And you know, and that was basically the this side cycle I created for myself. Just work my way through everything, right? Hard work and dedication and putting your head down and kind of struggle through. And that was really, it worked really well for me until I had my second child.

And I got hit with postpartum depression unexpectedly. And it was this like out of body experience where I was actually really good at work. I had high functioning, I was high functioning at work, but at home I was just, I was a mess. I couldn't even hold my child like when I got home. And it was just like this really weird out of body experience. But again, I kind of trained myself to put my head down and just keep working. So no one at work knew. You couldn't tell I was struggling. And then I had my first anxiety attack on the highway of a Houston highway, which if you've ever been anyone's ever, any of your listeners ever been to Houston, Houston and Texas highways are like creating anxiety in and of themselves. So, um, but I had my first. And again, I just, you know, put my head down and in silence kept my, kept working. And it took me a long time, almost, you know, I would say eight years to rebalance my life and figure out, you know, how to take care of myself while.

I continued my, my career professionally. And I, I tell this story because when you look at my LinkedIn, James, everyone was like, wow, you're so wildly successful and you've accomplished a lot and you're, you're. I was a chief human resource officer at a very young age, early 30s, and I 39. I'll share my age and CPO. It's still young to be in this role. I got where I am really quickly.

But there is also a side effect to the speed at which I try to do things. And that's what I like to talk about now is that.

It'S just to create an awareness and to not pretend that there hasn't been a consequence to, to some of the achievement I've, I've achieved. Because there has been.

That's amazing. And you're right, you know, when I actually get it up and for those who are watching the video, like, you know, your LinkedIn is incredible. It's amazing what you've done, who you are, who you lead, your achievements. But you're right, like what we don't see on there is the collateral, the emotions, the ups and downs, the trials, the tribulations. So was there a point where you were like, wow, is this all worth it? Like, I'm feeling Overwhelmed?

Yeah.

I mean, there's lots of points when I was feeling overwhelmed. As I said, I think I didn't know it at the time, but the success that I had worked so hard for and that I was very proud of was making me sick. And I didn't realize that until I got hit with anxiety after I had postpartum. And I literally couldn't function during certain aspects of my life. And it took medical intervention, it took treatment for many years, and it took a lot of reflection. And it really came down to setting boundaries and knowing myself well enough to know when my stress is.

Leading into a dangerous place.

But I think that the real breakthrough, honestly, James, was when I joined Walmart Canada little less than two years ago, because I had lived through all of this in silence up until two years ago. So I never would have imagined talking about some of these things at work, nevertheless, publicly. But I was on a flight from Copenhagen to Toronto, relocating from the Nordics back to Toronto to join Walmart Canada. And I was trying to reflect on. I was reflecting on what I wanted to be known for and how I wanted to introduce myself to the 100,000 associates at Walmart Canada. And two words just kept emerging in my mind, which is stop pretending. Stop pretending. Stop pretending. And honestly, I haven't had an anxiety attack in over two years. And I credit that a large degree to the fact that I'm not hiding it anymore and that I, you know, I've stopped pretending, which is a huge relief because one of the big challenges with the stigma around mental health is you don't want to seem incapable. You don't want to seem like you can't handle things. And when you stop spending energy and hiding, you can take better care of yourself. And that's been a huge breakthrough for me.

That's amazing. I want to salute you. I hope people that are listening right now, the one person that listened to this right now, that hits home. And if you're a leader, or if you're not a leader with a title, but you're leading others and you're influencing, you're running a family, you know, if you want to stop pretending, where does that start? What's a micro step to go, you know what? Today, right now, I'm just going to stop pretending.

I would just say when someone asks you, how are you? Answer that question honestly, Because I think we all. It's different culture to culture. Some people, you just say, how are you? Almost like a greeting, like, hey, how are you? It's not actually a question. People expect an honest answer to.

I think if we ask someone how they are, we need to be interested in the real answer. And if you get asked how you are, you need to care enough about yourself to answer it honestly. And I'll give you a great example. One of the things that we've done at Walmart Canada is to spend the first few minutes of every meeting asking, just doing a personal check in and asking, how are you really? And.

Midway through the pandemic, I was checking in with one of my managers and I asked that question and the individual said this was a lockdown, had just happened in Canada. We've had a lot of lockdowns all over the world. And the individual said, quote, I rather put myself in a self induced coma than go through another lockdown, end quote. And I was like, okay, that's a really honest answer.

And I think Winnie did take a timeout and then to have a conversation about how are you really doing and how are you coping? So it's I think just that simple act of asking with true curiosity and compassion and answering honestly, I think can change so much.

That's incredible. And I'm going to ask you that question right now, Nabila. How are you really?

Thank you for asking. I'm doing well right now. I wrote an article though at the beginning of the new year where I was like I was not doing okay. All the plans that I had for the holidays fell through. Nothing we had hoped to do, we did. And then we kind of capped it off with the whole family getting Covid and I came into the new year thinking, oh my gosh.

And my word is bewilderment. At the moment I'm doing well, family's healthy, and we've kind of gotten over that hump. But my word is that I'm kind of reflecting on is just bewilderment because you can't plan anything anymore, plan not to plan and just be just really working on being okay with that. It is what it is, accepting what is. And I would say the other part I'm working on is just trying to.

Live on the verge of a smile. Just trying to find those moments that you can just smile and be grateful for even when everything else goes wrong. But it's an everyday work in progress.

That's beautiful. That's really amazing. And so for those people listening, you know, when you ask someone how are you, be prepared for an honest answer. But also when someone asks you actually be honest and I'm guilty sometimes and somebody will say hi, yeah, great, awesome, amazing, epic. Euphoric, like, actually, no, it's been stressful. Morning. It's been full on. I nearly had a car crash. You know, all these different things that we tend to. To glide over as leaders as someone, whether you're leading as a dad or a mom, and you're the leader of your family, and you want your kids to see this perfect life and that you can handle all this stress. But I guess, how do we let our guard down as a leader? No matter what level we're leading at, how can we do that and know that it's okay? Because often I remember back in Ireland being told, you know, if you're leading or if you're a manager, you just suck it up. Like, suck it up and put a smile on your face. Everyone needs to see that it's okay and that you can handle it. How do we, in this day and age, how do we change that stigma and that mindset?

Yeah, I think there's. I'm still trying to figure out the answer to that question, James. But I think I do believe there is a balance in being able to do it, because I see that as leaders, we have two roles. We need to lead compassionately, and you can't lead compassionately if you're disingenuous. I think to be compassionate, you have to be authentic. And that goes back to my message of as leaders. Let's stop pretending that mental health anxiety burnout doesn't affect us because it's completely false. In Canada, 46% of adults struggle with some version of anxiety. That's half the population. I guarantee you. CEOs and CEOs and all levels of leadership are in that. And if it's not them directly, it's their child or their partner or their parent. So mental health is a pandemic that's gonna long outlast Covid. It has serious consequences. And we need to stop pretending that doesn't exist. That's first and fore. And I think destigmatizing. The conversation starts at the top. If people don't see leaders at high levels of the organization having this conversation, they will not have the psychological safety to do so themselves. That's important. And I would say we have a responsibility as parents and as leaders to give people hope. Right? So it's. How do we also help people see this is a long and painful tunnel. Covid has been. Right. But there is light at the end of it. Right. And show people that path to hope and have hope yourself, because I think that's what people need is from their Leaders is that belief that things will get better. And it will. And I think we need that ourselves. Right. We also need to believe it will get better. So I tell myself as an individual, while I also take that responsibility as a leader, to leverage the power of vulnerability, to be compassionate, and to give people hope.

Stunning. I love that. And if we shine a light on what's happening at Walmart Canada and how you guys are as leaders, leading from the top, what are the things that you guys are implementing or the conversations you're having, or the maybe strategies that you have, or apps that are working to help your 100,000 team, your family, helping them to traverse the pandemic, to traverse postpartums, to traverse the anxiety. What are the things that Walmart Canada does right now?

Yeah, I'd love to talk about that. So first and foremost, I want to say that establishing a culture of well being is not a program, it's not an app, it's not an individual digital tool, and doesn't live with any one individual. But our journey actually started six months into the pandemic. When Walmart's an essential service. We're making sure that Canadians have access to the things that they need. But we started with just taking a pause six months in the pandemic. Everyone was fatigued, personally, professionally, and we asked ourselves, how are we doing as an organization?

And the answer was that the pace at which we were operating was not sustainable. Right. And we needed to think differently about how to. About organizational resilience. We heard a lot about resilience throughout the pandemic. Everyone was talking about resilience, Right. So when we asked ourselves the question, well, what do we believe to be true about resilience? We came out with three beliefs. And I think this is a really important starting point for every organization, big and small. What do you believe to be true? What we said at Walmart Canada is number one, we believe organizational resilience, the kind of resilience we all need. Every company needs to weather the, the VUCA world. Political uncertainty, systemic racism and bias that exists in society, climate change, and kind of all the uncertainty that's happening from an environmental perspective. That kind of resilience starts with one thing, and it's individual resilience.

Full stop. So if we want an organization that is resilient, we need to increase the resilience of each and every one of our associates across the organization. That was the first belief. The, the second belief was that well being is a catalyst for growth, that we have to stop this idea of that it's either or.

So it's not that well being is actually a catalyst for growth. And we know this, I think more and more now, the business case behind wellbeing, which is if people are healthier, they're more productive, if they're happier and healthier, they're more engaged. And we know the cost of disengagement, you know, that's been studied over and over again. And the last belief was that it's not. I got asked this question, James, and I reflect on it often, which is, is the workplace ground zero for well being? And I don't think it is, because I have two tweens and I had suggested to one of them that maybe they talk to a therapist. And they were like, absolutely not. The stigma around talking to a therapist starts at a very young age, before people even enter the workplace. So it really changed the conversation. We need to do work individually, we need to do work within organizations around well being. But we also need to change the narrative in society at large and schools and educate young people and have ethnically and culturally appropriate and free access to resources. So it is both an individual endeavor, an organizational endeavor, and a societal endeavor. So we started with that and then we really thought completely differently about our programs, our offering around education.

And support for mental health and other types of forms of well being. And I'll give you one great example. One of the things that we heard was that, okay, I can ask my associate how they're doing, but I feel really uncomfortable when they tell me, say an associate says, I'm suffering with anxiety or I'm thinking about self harm, what do I do? We really have focused a lot on educating our leaders and managers. And one of the commitments we made was to train 1,000 leaders to be mental health first aid certified. Just like we expect our leaders to be certified in first aid, we also need them to be mental health first aid certified. And the response to that has been absolutely overwhelming. So we'll have over 2000 leaders mental health first aid certified across the business by the end of this year. And we're also on a journey to, through a vault to achieve a voluntary certification for psychological health and safety as a workplace. So lots of amazing things that are underway at Walmart Canada.

That is inspirational. Mental health first aid, like, incredible. I need to look into that here in New Zealand and Australia to see if that's the people facilitating and leading that, because to me, that's incredible that you guys are doing that.

There's actually, it's something I'm very proud that Canada has. Canada was the first country to establish a voluntary certification for psychological health and safety in the workplace. Part of that is a mental health first aid training and certification. You can access it from anywhere in the world. It's available online. I hope it spreads all over the world because it's a great resource and benefit for everybody.

It's phenomenal. Thank you for sharing that. Incredible. And in terms of the future of work, so pandemic has changed a lot of how we approach life, how we interact with others. Our own space has changed. So what do you see as Chief People Officer, what does the future of work look like? Fast forward 5, 10, 20 years.

Yes, I will say that again. I will be bold enough to say that I think well being and individual resilience, organizational resilience is the principal precursor to the future of anything. And I would say, whether that be climate change and the work that organizations and societies do around regeneration or diversity, equity, inclusion. And I'll give you a great example. It's hard to care about plastics in the ocean or melting.

Ice caps. If you're at the verge of burnout and anxiety, you're in a fireflight mode. So if we have a society and a workforce that is constantly at the verge of burnout, it's going to be nearly impossible to drive engagement.

And equity or inclusion or regeneration or all the other things I think so many great companies are striving for. I think that's an important part of that, our belief about the future. Then another really big part of it is around responsible skilling. Jobs are changing at an ever increasing pace. And so how do we work with our associates to help them prepare for the future of whatever those jobs will be? And that's something that we're really passionate about. We're working with a lot of partners across Canada to figure that out. How do we change the model of development for the future? I think we've gone a little too far in the direction of self directed learning. I think we saw that through the pandemic too. Everyone sitting in front of a screen self directing themselves.

Can be difficult. And so we need to complement the democratization of learning, which has been amazing through the Internet and through accessing all this information, with making sure that learning is actually embedded through interaction, through experiences and through social socialization. So one of the things we're really focused on is building mentor squads and, you know, communities of practice and just spaces for people to interact with each other and share what they're learning and their experiences. So that's a huge Focus for us and I think really also opportunity for everyone. We know systemic barriers exist. Fact I would also go as far to say, and to all the people, practitioners out there, people processes are probably some of the worst that have those barriers unconsciously or consciously. So how do we finally hold ourselves accountable to all, auditing ourselves and making sure that those barriers are removed from our processes so that as we create opportunity, we create opportunity for everyone.

Beautiful. You're absolutely right. And that is global. No matter who I talk to, from what country, what background, that is a global pandemic in and of itself.

So for you personally, as a leader, how do you remove that bias? Whether it's gender, age, education.

Ethnicity, whatever it might be, how do you try to approach things and keep things with a super open mind and everyone getting an opportunity?

Yes, I think it's again, first and foremost starts with education. And we have to be careful not to demonize bias and just like we have to be careful not to demonize stress because we had this learning through our movement around well being. As we started to hear feedback around. Well, I thought the wellbeing movement meant that we weren't going to be overstressed at work. No, we can't remove all stress from our work. And stress is actually a natural response and in many ways is very helpful. It's long term accumulated stress that is dangerous. And bias, we all know it's normal. That's just a function of our brains and we cannot remove it. But we can have mental models that helps hold ourselves accountable. Just like we have mental models to know when we're at the verge of burnout or we know the signs of stress. It is first and foremost, I think, learning and teaching the organization to reframe beliefs that are not relevant or not true.

A lot of our focus is on these leadership models and really this belief that leadership is in the mind. And if we have these mental frameworks and we can educate ourselves about these models, we're better equipped. So lots of education around that. And I would say for myself personally.

It'S a constant challenge because also as a visible minority myself and as a female, lots of things that are happening in the world are traumatic. And it's hard to separate yourself personally from those situations and not start to experience, you know, the effects of bias. And, you know, I'll share. I think one of the big things that make a difference is being in a culture of people who ask you with compassion and authenticity, are you okay? So there was a horrific hate, hate crime in the summer where three generations of one Muslim family were killed intentionally. Muslim family were killed in Canada. And it was. It was like a very traumatic experience because that could have been me, that could have been my daughter, that could have been any visible Muslim walking down the street. And I think we have to realize ourselves how those events affect us personally, and we have to realize how those affect. Those events affect other groups that are working with us and then make sure that we're just. We're not brushing over it. The horrific attack in New Zealand, in the Muslim community. I was in Sweden when that happened, and I just. I mean, I was like in a fog for 40 hours after that. I think a lot of Muslim community around the world were. I think it's not to underestimate, I guess to summarize, it's not to underestimate how these events affect you and how deeply rooted bias can be.

I would say that the remedy for that is education and compassion.

That's beautiful, Nabile. I'm sorry to hear that happened in Canada. I remember when it happened in New Zealand, it was about three to five minute at most drive away from where I was at the time and here in Christchurch. And I remember we were at the private school and all of a sudden all of our alarms went off and we went into full lockdown and we weren't too sure what happened. And as things unfolded, we began to appreciate what happened and just the gravity of it. For me, as an immigrant to New Zealand, I had no idea, I was so naive, had no idea that these. This would exist in a beautiful, peaceful country like this. And it really highlighted to me that I need to open my eyes, I need to be asking more questions, I need to be more thoughtful. And, you know, I had a student at the school, beautiful young girl, and her father was actually a surgeon and a Muslim surgeon here in Christchurch. And he had to deal with it all up front. And it was horrific. So I struggled for weeks just dealing with it, trying to figure it out. And it has changed me, and I think it's changed the whole community and raised our awareness around being compassionate and understanding that there's a place for everyone and everyone's beliefs. And it's a conversation that needs to happen. And I actually think it's a conversation that certainly for me, and I'm sure others have struggled to talk about and ask questions around. For me, coming from Northern Ireland, we had our own fair share of division and sectarianism, and certainly it was, let's not talk about it. Let's just move on, let's Pretend it's not there. And so it's something I'm working on myself, is asking questions and are you okay? And to me, that's a work in progress. And I guess for every great leader, asking people those important questions and being compassionate about their beliefs is a key part of the future of work.

Absolutely. And that's actually just having the conversation, as you said, James, makes such a big difference. So after the murder of George Floyd here in Canada at Walmart Canada, we started a courageous conversation series. And we titled it Courageous Conversations. And it was about finally having these discussions that so many people were nervous about having or not sure how to have. And we have this series on a regular basis, and they're attended by hundreds and hundreds of our leaders, 6, 700 of our leaders every single session. And we started doing live streaming them on LinkedIn, because we also thought, you know what? We're not the only ones at Walmart Canada need to have this conversation. The whole business community needs to have this conversation. And there's been a lot of really traumatic situations that have unfolded in every country, unfortunately. And we need to have those conversations because we can't. The world where I think in the past we thought that people would leave these things at home, and we know for a fact now that there's no bifurcation. People are not leaving these things at home, and nor should they. These things affect who they are as people and their identity. And we need to make space for the conversation.

And you mentioned earlier about being a minority. And so for someone who, for the large part of my life, for most of my life where I've been, I've been part of the majority, what would your advice be to someone like me? And be like, hey, James, this is how you step into our shoes. This is how you can think through our mindset. Just for a moment, like, what would your advice be to me or a question be for me, just to help me become more compassionate. Be more empathic.

Yeah. Number one, I would say do your work.

In the sense that educate yourself. It is the responsibility of every individual on this planet to educate themselves. Find a culture of faith that you know nothing about and learn about it. And I think, learn from. Do your own work. And then I think if you can find communities of others who are open to sharing their own learnings, then that would be great to do that as well. And then I think when you know you have a responsibility to act. And I have a. There was a store manager who was from the rural areas of Alberta in Canada, and he Joined one of the courageous conversations we had around the residential school system in Canada, which is a horrific system that existed for many years. And one of the challenges that we gave everyone at the end of that session is focus on your square meter. If you look down and you think about the influence that you can have in your family, in your network of friends and the people that you interact with every single day, make a difference there and then challenge each one of those individuals to make a difference themselves and let that ripple effect of belonging take hold. He was that after he came to a courageous conversation we were having about residential schools and the horrifying impacts that's had on the indigenous community in Canada, he then went to a family barbecue and there was conversation that was happening in that family barbecue that was inappropriate and racist. And he stepped in because he felt more educated, he had a better understanding of the history, its impact, and he stepped in and he educated his family that was at that barbecue. And that was something he wouldn't have had the confidence to do otherwise or maybe would have shied away from doing. To me, James, that is exactly what we're trying to do, is help one person at a time, one conversation at a time, slowly, I think, make that type of a difference because that is all worth it.

That makes it all worth it to me. What is beautiful about that is literally it's so achievable because each one of us can have a conversation with another person. And my whole filter of my world is to transform humanity one leader at a time. And to transform a leader and help them find that transformation, it's through conversation. And so by you having those courageous conversations with your associates at Walmart Canada, that then has a massive ripple effect into the millions of people. And you should be so proud of what you're achieving there.

Yeah, I mean, thank you for that. But I get too much recognition. This is really the work of many, many people. And I think it really comes down to there was something under the surface at Walmart Canada that was just there and ready to just be poked at. Whether it's our movement around well being or it's whether creating a culture of care and compassionate leadership, or whether it's creating a movement around anti racism and incoming, an anti racist organization. It was there. I think what's really exciting is that when we at Walmart Canada, we're 100,000 when we can demonstrate and we're learning and we're making mistakes and we don't have this figured out by any means, but when we can demonstrate that we can create this ripple effect that you described. As a retailer with a predominantly frontline focused organization across 400 stores of a country of our size, anyone can do it, no excuses. So I think that's really.

The ambition, is to use our size and scale to change the conversation and to help address these things on a systemic level, but also on an individual.

I love it. I love it. And just thinking about where you are right now, that journey to getting there, I always think about anything we achieve, we never do it by ourselves. We've always got people who have supported us. It's always a team effort. So along your journey, who have been some of those instrumental people, whether it's a role model, an inspiration, someone you look up to that's helped you do that with your career and your life.

Oh, there's been so many.

Because I've had the chance to work with some of the most, I think, inspiring and recognized brands in the world. So Starbucks, Ikea and now Walmart. One person in particular that I'd love to call out is Stacy Brown Philpott. She was previously the CEO of an organization called TaskRabbit out of San Francisco. So gig economy platform. One of the few, if not only black female CEOs in Silicon Valley. And she came from the a very difficult part of Detroit, again, worked her way up into this position of CEO in Silicon Valley, broke through all of the noise.

She's someone that I'd look up to every single day. She's had many battles, some very trying ones. And at the end of the day, she approaches her work with a sense of humility, compassion, and.

A feeling of obligation to give back to others in a way that is truly inspiring. And I think that for me is also what drives me when I think about my journey of well being as an example, one of the things that really motivated me to speak is that I know there's a lot of other people out there suffering in silence, thinking, I can't be successful in the corporate world and have anxiety like, who does that? I can't be successful in the corporate world and struggle with postpartum depression. And once I shared my story, so many others came through and said, I've been struggling. This is my story. There's one specific example that I have the permission to share and it's an associate of ours. His name is Michael Gill and he's been a very successful.

Leader within our business. And at the same time he was diagnosed with a pretty severe form of epilepsy. He, I think, trained in the same model We've all been trained. And he just decided he suffered through the. The diagnosis and the symptoms in silence until again, he had heard me share my journey and then decided to have the courage to share his. And he's inspired so many others. So I think we need to demonstrate as leaders that you can both achieve success professionally and holistically take care of yourself. We need to create a corporate culture and environments and a world where that's possible. And that's what I'm hoping to do.

I love it. Such an amazing cause and a vision. And I see that you've went through international coaching federation, so you're an executive coach. I also see that you're in the amazing Marshall Goldsmith's top 100 coaches. Like, it's. It's incredible. So I'd like to ask you, what do you see or how do you see coaching playing an important role for executives and for leaders?

I think there was an article, I can't remember the source, but coaching is taking over in terms of significance, above and beyond leadership, just general leadership development. Because I think what people are craving is that true, neutral.

Genuinely curious person who can help them realize their own potential and doesn't have any agenda besides just truly sharing space with them. Right. And I think we're gonna. People are gonna need that more and more and more and more as the world gets more complex, as things get more confusing and bewildering. It's my word, the world is bewildering. I mean, I just had a team meeting and we took some time out, my entire team around 270, so associates and the people in corporate affairs team. And we took time out just to pause and reflect. Like, we need that pause. We need that time to reflect and to have another person who can be a mirror for us, who can help us see things that we ourselves can't see, untangle our thoughts, hold space with us in genuine curiosity, with neutrality. Oh, my gosh, what a gift. I mean, that's what coaches do, right? So I think the demand for that is only going to increase. And. And the power of coaching is something that is just really. It gives me. It fills my cup, James, as I know probably does yours and all the other coaches out there really fills my cup. And I know it can move, move so many things for people.

I love it. And I guess because of the way the world is moving, we're talking about the future of work, AI Robotics, and all these different things that come into it. Coaching and communicating with staff, empowering humans, showing empathy. Do you ever think that it will be possible that the coaching sphere, the human element in a corporate culture, do you think that could ever be replaced by AI and robotics? So I would go and see a robot to have my coaching session as opposed to with a real human.

I mean, the pandemic has taught me anything. It's never say, never. Did I think the world would be shut down because of a flu like virus. No.

But you know, so I don't personally believe that will be in our, that's going to be in our future. I think we will always be people led and technology enabled where if we're just programmed that way as human beings, like we're programmed as human beings to need social connection, to need compassion. And even if I think about the metaverse and everything that's coming out in, you know, virtual reality and the world of the metaverse, it's still going to require that connection with a human being. I think even more so, James, because we also know that.

The more connected we've gotten, the more we've also seen increases in anxiety and mental health and other forms of.

Other factors that have resulted as a result. And so we need to counterbalance that with human connection.

I love it. And just before we wrap up, I've got a couple of last questions for you. And when we talk about connection, I mean we are hyper connected in different ways, largely digitally in this day and age. So we've got all these connections and I feel like they're a mile wide and they're like an inch deep. So for those who want to have like really deep connections, you know, an inch wide and a mile deep, what would your advice be? To develop deep human connection?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that deep human connection only happens over time and through shared experiences. In my, my personal experience, I don't know if this is, this is correct. You know, from a behavioral science perspective, in my personal experience, that happens over time and that happens through shared experiences. And I think you can have that to a degree online, virtually. But that connective tissue.

My mind only really solidifies when you interact in some form or fashion in person.

I think it has to be a combination of both the virtual interaction and the in person interaction. And my advice to individuals looking for that is because I think the age of one on one mentoring and kind of looking for that mentor, I don't know that that's going to be scalable for the number of people that need even coaching. I find it's hard to scale my coaching to the number of requests that, that I get or People that I think I can help. So it's how do you, I think how do you try to do that at scale? And one of my big kind of explorations now is building a tribe of people around you that are really kind of your squad or.

Your kind of network of four or five that you can build those really deep connections with and protect your time with them so that you can have that connective tissue with shared experiences and lived experience experiences. And so, you know, I try to figure out who those individuals are and try to deepen them through shared experiences and when safe to do so and we can all do so more freely, I think in person connection.

That's beautiful. I love that. And I've got one last question and this, this question is I want you to think about your kids and you've only got one last piece of advice you can give them and they come to you and say, hey mum, how can we lead a life of purpose? What would your answer be to that?

I think actually my 12 year old answered that question. So her 15 year old brother asked her, what do you want to be when you grow up? And she gave the perfect answer. She said, I want to be happy. I don't want to be any one thing. And I think that is ultimately the goal. My advice would be don't put your identity so don't tie your identity so closely to what you do. And we've all heard the quote like we're human beings, not human doings. And I think we need to decouple our identity from what we do for a living and define success more holistically. So at the end we're just more whole, healthier, happier people.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I want to wish you and the mission that you're on nothing but the best for the future. And I'm going to keep a close eye on how it all unfolds for you.

Oh, James, I am signing you up because I know you are also on a similar mission. So I see ourselves as partners in this and I want to thank you for having me and just I think broadcasting, amplifying this conversation. Really appreciate it.

I'm on board 100% of the way.

Awesome.

Thanks Nabila.

Thank you.

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