The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:12 - 00:00:35:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Change. It's something we all experience every day. And as leaders, it is part and parcel of our role. After all, if everything was perfect and no change was needed, would we even need leaders? Okay, back to reality. What if you had a revolutionary approach to change? And what if that that approach stood on the head and turned some things around?

00:00:35:11 - 00:01:07:21
Kevin Eikenberry
From what you believe about change today? But those changes actually made it work better. If you're intrigued, you're in the right place. So don't go anywhere. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are here to help leaders like you make a bigger difference, grow personally and professionally, and change the world for the better. If you are listening to this podcast, you could be live for future episodes on your favorite social platform.

00:01:07:23 - 00:01:39:05
Kevin Eikenberry
If you get, you can get all the information about when they're happening and how you can be a part of the live streams by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Just two of the platforms where these start. And you can do that by going to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to get all of the inside scoop. If you like what you are hearing today and want to help in developing your leaders in your organization, let's talk.

00:01:39:06 - 00:02:01:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Reach out to us at info at Kevin eichenberg.com. We'll schedule time to learn more about your needs and share how and discover how we might be able to help. With that, let me bring in my guest. The housekeeping is complete and my guest is now here with me. His name is Mohamed Anwar. And let me introduce him officially.

00:02:01:11 - 00:02:27:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Or more completely, I suppose I should say. And then we'll get started. He is the president and CEO of both Software and Culture Plus and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of love as a Business Strategy Resilience, Belonging and Success. Our conversation today is about his newest book, Love as a Change Strategy. And we're going to talk about that today innovation, growth and transformation.

00:02:27:08 - 00:02:57:03
Kevin Eikenberry
At just 20 years old, while pursuing his B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in mathematics at the University of Houston, he launched software with his family. What began in 2003 as a small web development company for local merchants has since grown into a global, excuse me, grown into a global people first consulting firm specializing in digital transformation, culture, communication and AI integration without sacrificing humanity.

00:02:57:05 - 00:03:01:21
Kevin Eikenberry
That's a good place to start. Mohammed and Mohammed, welcome to the show. Glad you're here.

00:03:01:23 - 00:03:04:21
Mohammad Anwar
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Kevin. I'm excited to be here.

00:03:04:23 - 00:03:20:15
Kevin Eikenberry
It is my pleasure. You know, when I. When I said at the beginning and what I say at the beginning of every episode, this show is about helping, leaders make a bigger, positive difference in the world. That's what this book is about, in my opinion.

00:03:20:15 - 00:03:20:22
Mohammad Anwar
Yes.

00:03:21:03 - 00:03:35:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'm super excited for us to have this conversation. The book, again, is titled love as a Change Strategy. And so I want to start here. Tell me what the big idea of the book is, because we're going to make that the focal point of our conversation.

00:03:35:10 - 00:04:04:05
Mohammad Anwar
So yeah, what's the big idea? So the big idea is that, you know, number one, there's rapid change happening around us, and it's only going to get more rapid in terms our model change. Us as humans and humanity have to be faced, especially when it comes to the workplace. And, we know for a fact that a lot of the change initiatives that get deployed don't achieve the results they anticipate.

00:04:04:07 - 00:04:12:11
Mohammad Anwar
You know, 78% of the change initiatives fail to achieve the outcomes we started for. So the big idea is how can we get a.

00:04:12:11 - 00:04:14:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Very good report card, by the way?

00:04:14:15 - 00:04:37:02
Mohammad Anwar
Okay. Yes. It's not a very good report card. Absolutely. So the big idea is how can we create more change effectiveness or get humans to adapt to change radically to help achieve the outcomes we desire at a high rate of success versus where it is today? And we believe that love is a catalyst to help change stick.

00:04:37:04 - 00:04:39:08
Mohammad Anwar
That's the big idea.

00:04:39:10 - 00:04:58:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay, there are people who are listening. Yes, there may be people who've already tuned out, which we can't help, but the people that are listening are asking the question, wait a minute, love. Yeah. So let's start here. Since you've now put that word, that four letter word in the title of two books.

00:04:58:18 - 00:04:59:11
Mohammad Anwar
Yes.

00:04:59:13 - 00:05:03:05
Kevin Eikenberry
In this context. What do you mean by that? Let's start there.

00:05:03:07 - 00:05:24:16
Mohammad Anwar
Yes. So in the context of work or business or change strategy, work, we're not talking number one. I'll clear it up. Clear the air. We're not talking about the romantic romcom type kind of love. Your high best friend is your soulmate or you know, we're walking down the prairie with no running water. But everybody's so happy. That's not the kind of love we're talking about.

00:05:24:18 - 00:06:16:10
Mohammad Anwar
We're talking about simply putting people at the center of all our business decisions and change strategy. It's starting with people where people are able to have the necessary honest conversations and not, you know, put things under the rug where we're able to have tough love conversations and have honest conversations and get through conflict so that we can come out on the other side with transformed relationships where we're able to lead people to embracing change, not testing it, where we're able to help people appreciate that when there is safety for us to be creative and lead change from a place of psychological safety versus fear that is what we're talking about.

00:06:16:12 - 00:06:43:11
Mohammad Anwar
And so what we realize is that a lot of the change initiatives today, with some of the frameworks that are available and organizations prescribed to, be prescribed to creating a manufactured burning platform, which is essentially a fear born approach to led people to come along and follow the change and, well, I think there's a time and place for that type of change.

00:06:43:13 - 00:07:06:02
Mohammad Anwar
Love allows us to create safety for people, to keep, wanting or desiring change without going to your place of fear where, you know, the amygdala part of the brain gets activated and all they think about is flight, fight or freeze. Here we're seeing let's do it in a psychological safe manner where the executive function of the brain is still active.

00:07:06:02 - 00:07:33:15
Mohammad Anwar
So they're actively receiving the change and willing to adapt, to grow with it, to embrace it, to, you know, create the outcomes you desire with the changes we're trying to institute and love, creates an environment which we describe as a culture of love that allows us to create cultures of change, readiness that people of the organization are more willing to embrace change versus resist it.

00:07:33:17 - 00:07:38:03
Mohammad Anwar
So that's what we mean when we talk about love as a change strategy.

00:07:38:05 - 00:07:59:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So one of the things when I was reading the book, when I got to you, you told the story most people have heard of, of the burning platform. Most people don't. Actually, I have found most people don't actually know the source story. But you tell the source story. And I smiled when you, you know, you sort of just said it, that this is almost like the anti burning platform approach.

00:07:59:23 - 00:08:30:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And I smile because that very much aligns with the way we talk about it and how I can say, like, yeah, you can get people to want to leave the current state, but if all they're doing is jumping off, they may not be jumping where you want them to go. So there's lots of challenges there. And that's just an example, everybody of how, I think this conversation and this, approach sort of stands some of your conventional knowledge or visual wisdom on its head a little bit.

00:08:30:02 - 00:09:03:14
Kevin Eikenberry
How did you come to the conclusion, that that love is the change strategy? Love is the business strategy, as you've described it. How how did you all as an organization and but actually, before you answer that, yeah, I say to everybody in the, this watching or listening that this book is interesting in its makeup because there are lots of books, that are business parables and there are lots of books that are stories story based.

00:09:03:16 - 00:09:26:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And there are lots of books that are sort of research based or whatever. This is a book that is an interesting mix of the two. There are parables, but they're based on real life stories in your organization. Right. And so I think as you as you read the book, you will you will have the answer to the question that I'm asking you, but anyone who's listening hasn't read it yet.

00:09:26:19 - 00:09:38:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So, like, how did you come, Mohammed, you and the team come to determine that love as you described it here is the change strategy we should be employing.

00:09:38:07 - 00:10:00:08
Mohammad Anwar
Yes. So it it began almost ten years ago. I was, you know, I'd had my company for almost 13 years by that time, and I started it when I was 20 years old, and I had a lot of success, running the company. And, you know, my ten years of running the company, I believe that at the pinnacle of success, I had over 300 employees.

00:10:00:08 - 00:10:28:07
Mohammad Anwar
And I was, driving my fancy cars, flying planes across Texas. And, you know, I believed I was living the American dream, especially because I'm an immigrant to this country. But in 2015, 2016, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. We were hemorrhaging cash, losing employees left and right. Clients are firing us. And, in a deep moment of introspection, I realized, that this is actually all my fault.

00:10:28:09 - 00:10:52:23
Mohammad Anwar
I was incredibly selfish, I was greedy, I had become power drunk, and I was the one who was almost, you know, taking my company to near destruction because of my selfish attitude and behaviors. And it wasn't until I, I, I realized that this is my fault, that I started to look at myself as the reason for why the company was almost near destruction.

00:10:53:01 - 00:11:11:05
Mohammad Anwar
But at the same time, I happened to go to a football game for my alma mater at University Houston. And this is the 2015 season when they were having a remarkable season. So I got tickets to go to this game right in the midst of I had to go to layoffs. I didn't know if I could keep the doors of safety open, even in my locker.

00:11:11:07 - 00:11:30:19
Mohammad Anwar
I show up to this game just willing to forget about all of my life challenges and just go have a good time. And, we were nine and two at the time. This could have been our 10th game, 10th victory, and we went into the fourth quarter over the 20 point deficit, playing with a third string quarterback. And this stadium started to empty out.

00:11:30:21 - 00:11:49:10
Mohammad Anwar
ESPN Game Tracker had us at 0.1% chance to win that night, and I debated to leave the stadium because even I was disappointed. But something inside of me told me, stay back. Be there till the end. Support your team. And I'm glad I did because I ended up witnessing one of the best comebacks in Cougar football history. We ended up winning that night and went on to beat that.

00:11:49:10 - 00:12:12:20
Mohammad Anwar
I know, and at that point in time I. I was so inspired, rejuvenated almost, that I started to see soft play through the eyes of the Houston Cougar football team. And I envisioned our own fourth quarter financial comeback, and I was going to go back and not give up. I was going to fight. So Monday rolled in, went into the office, logged on to Facebook Live at about 11 a.m. to see then rookie head coach Tom Herman speak to the press.

00:12:12:22 - 00:12:35:01
Mohammad Anwar
It was very inspired by how he had taken this mediocre team in his first year head coaching position, and made them an undefeated team, and in the press conference, a reporter asked him, hey, what would you attribute to the resiliency in the comeback victory Saturday night? It's what kind of like he said that changed the course of my life and soft play.

00:12:35:02 - 00:12:55:07
Mohammad Anwar
He said it was love and he began to expand and say, it's not the love, you dog love. You broke out of love, but it's the genuine love for the players. Love each other where you hold the other heart in the hand, kind of love. And it's the kind of love where the players are going to feel not to fight for themselves, but fight for their teammates next to you.

00:12:55:09 - 00:13:28:10
Mohammad Anwar
And that's how you build championship level teams, and that's how you win games like Saturday night. So as he said, all of this like my mind business exploding because that was not at all what I was expecting. But from that moment I realized I did not love my team, I did not care for my team, and I committed to go on a journey where I would learn to love my team, change my behaviors, and create an environment where people were empowered to learn, grow, make mistakes, forgive one another, thereby creating an environment of resilience, belonging and success.

00:13:28:12 - 00:13:51:07
Mohammad Anwar
And that's kind of what gave birth to love is a strategy because three years into the journey, our company went from barely surviving to thriving. And from there on within, in this, environment where we realized that love can be a business strategy and love can be a team strategy. Love can be a strategy. Love it as a strategy is what our whole philosophy is.

00:13:51:07 - 00:14:11:13
Mohammad Anwar
And we have a framework. And we've been, you know, developing it further. And the recent book With Love Is a Change Strategy is the book that we instituted, given the environment that we're going through, what we're experiencing, where we needed to go to rapid change in our own business. And we're still going to change right now.

00:14:11:15 - 00:14:52:05
Mohammad Anwar
I has created a lot of, turmoil in terms of technology and the workplace and the environment, and we're having to use our framework of love as a change strategy to help even adapt to AI and empower organizations, and leading this AI transformation effort with a human centered approach that we call it humane first. And so for so that's kind of the genesis really is, from football, arguably the most masculine sport on the planet is where I learned love, and I decided to borrow it into the business, into my business, and experiment with it, lead with it.

00:14:52:05 - 00:15:01:21
Mohammad Anwar
I'm still on that journey, and we continue to evolve, and we're seeing, no matter what the situation, love can be a strategy to achieve higher success.

00:15:01:23 - 00:15:19:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So in the book you talk about six principles and we're not going to have time to go into all of them. We'll do it. We'll do that in a second. But, one of the things that you talk about and it's it's it's a short section in the book, but it really is an underpinning for a lot of what you've talked about.

00:15:19:07 - 00:15:36:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think will help. People see where, where we're headed. There's this short section where you say Maslow's hierarchy, which most of us learn sometime in school. You say Maslow's hierarchy is B.S..

00:15:36:07 - 00:15:37:04
Mohammad Anwar
Yes.

00:15:37:06 - 00:15:46:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So? So tell us why. And then hopefully you can help hook that together with where we've been and where we're headed.

00:15:46:02 - 00:16:18:03
Mohammad Anwar
Yeah. So the Maslow's hierarchy of needs is, something that a lot of different, you know, people have really studied and prescribed to and understanding the human's ability to reach self-actualization. And it starts in physiological needs. Right. And then safety and then love and belonging. And then it gets all the way to self-actualization, the pyramid. And what we see is that, he's got it wrong, and even he knew it technically.

00:16:18:03 - 00:16:42:16
Mohammad Anwar
But the reality is that love and belonging should be the foundation. Because for us as humans, a baby, when the baby is born, they can't be going and getting their own physiological needs met. They can go find food and start eating and find safety on their own. They rely on the mother, the parents, the family, the community, the society.

00:16:42:16 - 00:17:08:11
Mohammad Anwar
And even today, when we have newborns, like, there's no way without hospitals, without our community, without the parents, without the families, the school systems, the daycares, like all of these societal beings coming together to put food on our table, to have grocery stores be stocked with food, that we can achieve physiological safety. So in a physiological need and safety, we need love and belonging.

00:17:08:12 - 00:17:22:12
Mohammad Anwar
So love and belonging needs to be the first layer before we can achieve physiological needs met and before we can achieve safety. So that's the order that you think he got it wrong. Because loving belonging is the foundation.

00:17:22:14 - 00:17:42:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So in your six principles the first three are really about that, belonging about that. The relational component, if you will. So I'm just going to say those first three and I'm gonna let you talk about sort of again, we know we don't have time to talk about everything. So like of the first three where would you go?

00:17:42:01 - 00:18:04:05
Kevin Eikenberry
The first three are, embrace discomfort, prioritize relationships and practice empathetic curiosity. So what would let's do it this way. Which of those, as you talk about it with others, do they mis understand or misinterpret it? Like we all know what those words are, right?

00:18:04:08 - 00:18:05:17
Mohammad Anwar
Yeah.

00:18:05:19 - 00:18:12:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Where do you need to set us straight about those three things? Or help us be clearer about those three things?

00:18:12:20 - 00:18:39:18
Mohammad Anwar
So first of all, you know, I'd start off it just quickly saying that, you know, we prescribe to principles versus process because process is brittle today. A lot of change programs or change management systems are all based on process. And the problem with process is that as long as the change is not changed, the process will work, but also processes are put into place to be efficient, maybe not necessarily effective.

00:18:39:20 - 00:19:15:02
Mohammad Anwar
And so we don't believe that processes can be a good structural element to guide people to change. So instead we prescribe to what we call principles because principles are founded on behavior. And our anchor between behavior and process are like the middle ground, where it gives you enough of guide guardrails for us to operate, even in times of uncertainty, with still knowing where we're heading, but giving us enough freedom to be able to, operate, make decisions and behave in ways in times of uncertainty.

00:19:15:03 - 00:19:52:09
Mohammad Anwar
So we came up with these six principles of change that can guide any organization and its people through change to lead, change and embrace change and adapt to change. So the first three principles that you talked about with, embrace discomfort, prioritize relationship and practice empathetic curiosity are three principles when put in, put together and applied together. It allows us to really understand what are the beliefs and experiences that us humans hold on to or have built our behaviors from, that are coming in the way of embracing or adopting change?

00:19:52:11 - 00:20:11:14
Mohammad Anwar
Why is it that us, as humans are resisting change, are not willing to adapt to change? You know, a lot of the times you hear today's frameworks are like, explain the why of the change and people will come along. Well, I think that does not work either, because it's not that people are too naive or dumb to understand why organizations have to make a change decision.

00:20:11:16 - 00:20:33:00
Mohammad Anwar
They understand it, but they still resist it. And that's because beneath the surface, which is not visible to us, people have beliefs and experiences because they're like, last time our company had all this change, change. It was a horrible experience. So why should I believe this change is going to be any better? Right. And those beliefs are what are really coming into.

00:20:33:00 - 00:20:56:22
Mohammad Anwar
We are resisting, not understanding the why. So what we see is if you use these principles and you get to diagnose what are the beliefs and experiences that people may have, are holding on to, that is making them resist the change. Once you uncover those beliefs and experiences by practicing these principles, which is let me prioritize my relationship so you can actually trust me.

00:20:57:00 - 00:21:14:17
Mohammad Anwar
Let me go ahead and embrace the discomfort and have the conversation where I suspend my judgment and I practice curiosity from a place of empathy. And that's uncomfortable for us to do as leaders, because we got to learn to shut up and listen. So we have to shut up and listen to what the other people are saying without judgment.

00:21:14:19 - 00:21:45:17
Mohammad Anwar
That's extremely hard. So we have to embrace discomfort, do that. So I can really appreciate why. Why is this team member not wanting to get on this change? Why are they resisting to this change? So once you diagnose and uncover, oh, it's because of this experience is because they have this belief. Then use the next three principles which are experiment to influence and be effective to change experiences that would then change their beliefs.

00:21:45:19 - 00:22:09:09
Mohammad Anwar
So create experiences that would change their beliefs so that they're more willing to adapt. So the first three principles are meant to help diagnose what are the beliefs and experiences, why people are resisting. And the next two principles are guardrails to help you create a safe environment with love, to experiment and build influence, and and be effective versus just being efficient with that.

00:22:09:09 - 00:22:27:22
Mohammad Anwar
Check the box. And that way you're able to change people's beliefs so they come along with you on the journey to embrace the change. So that's how those, in a nutshell, these six principles guide leaders to lead change, but also individuals to embrace change.

00:22:28:00 - 00:22:54:19
Kevin Eikenberry
So it was it was curious to me, as I started to read the book, that you didn't just say practice curiosity, but practice empathetic curiosity. And you've sort of pointed us in that way in this, in the sort of high level description, but say more about why the word empathetic is in there. So not just being curious, being, but being empathetically curious, if you will.

00:22:55:01 - 00:22:59:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Why is that? Why is it purposely included?

00:22:59:03 - 00:23:26:05
Mohammad Anwar
Yeah. Because, you know, as, as leaders, sometimes we can ask questions from a place of curiosity to, to kind of defeat a person's argument or to try to poke holes. And we wanted to use the word empathy because we're trying to say, don't ask questions from a place of curiosity as to what you would do or you would want to do in the person's position, but rather, what is the person that you're practicing?

00:23:26:05 - 00:23:44:06
Mohammad Anwar
Curiosity? What is it really that they're feeling and going through? And it's about them. It's not about you. It's not about what would I do if I was them? It's more about what is it about them that I need to try and understand. So it's changing that because a lot of times leaders mistake empathy for, well, what would I do if I was in their shoes?

00:23:44:06 - 00:24:08:15
Mohammad Anwar
No, that's not empathy. That's just you projecting what you would do if you were them. We're talking about empathy, where you're really shutting down your cells to just listen, to understand emotionally. What are they feeling? Why are they feeling the way they're feeling and what are what is it that is driving that feeling? And so it requires us to practice real empathy.

00:24:08:17 - 00:24:13:19
Mohammad Anwar
And that's why we wanted to see empathetic curiosity and not just curiosity.

00:24:13:21 - 00:24:34:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So someone's listening. Yeah. And they're thinking, oh, that sounds great. But but I have two buts. But number one is. But I don't have time to do all this. Like, I've had a real job to do. Number one. And number two is I didn't go to school to be a psychologist. So like, how do you respond to those two concerns.

00:24:34:14 - 00:24:35:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:24:35:09 - 00:25:00:14
Mohammad Anwar
So first of all, we have a saying that busyness is the new comfort for leaders today. Right? So our number one principle is embrace discomfort, which means leading change is uncomfortable. So if your comfort is I'm too busy, so I can't do this. Well, I'd argue that that's just your comfort, your excuse to not do the hard work.

00:25:00:16 - 00:25:17:11
Mohammad Anwar
So as leaders, we have to do the hard work. And that means busyness is it can't be an excuse. You know, if you look at even in our personal lives like, hey, you know, you have health issues, should you be going to the gym or I don't have time, where am I going to go to the gym? It's all an excuse.

00:25:17:11 - 00:25:40:06
Mohammad Anwar
It's our comfort to not do the uncomfortable things. Number one, that's the response to that. Leaders can't say they don't have time. You're a leader because you're meant to solve problems and challenges, and you need to know how to deal with the availability of time and prioritizing where the hard work needs to happen. Second, when you say, I'm not a psychologist, why should I practice this?

00:25:40:11 - 00:26:02:00
Mohammad Anwar
I'm not asking anybody to be psychology. We're just asking you to be a human. In practice, emotional intelligence. That's what empathy is. It's not a therapy. It is emotional intelligence. Being able to appreciate and read what the room is, what your people are going and feeling to is what makes you an effective leader, to be able to lead from that capacity.

00:26:02:00 - 00:26:14:19
Mohammad Anwar
That's all we're talking about. We're not asking you to to go to counseling sessions. So that's the difference for all you asking you to be human and practice emotional intelligence, which is essentially empathy.

00:26:14:21 - 00:26:41:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So, you work you and your organization to work with other organizations on these ideas. Which of the principles is the one that you. Either get the most pushback on or, people have the most trouble with, even if they're not resisting the idea, they're having trouble implementing. Which one would you say?

00:26:41:04 - 00:27:13:14
Mohammad Anwar
I would say embrace discomfort, by far is the hardest principle for that. I've experienced with, even for myself, but also for other leaders. Because human, by human nature, we are creatures of comfort. We like comfort, we don't like discomfort. But the beautiful thing about discomfort, when it is productive, it leads to growth and transformation. And by that, I have to give an analogy of the cows versus the buffaloes.

00:27:13:15 - 00:27:41:10
Mohammad Anwar
So when a herd of cows are approached by a storm, they run away from the storm and the storm follows them. And so they end up staying in the storm longer before the storm passes over them. Where is the herd of buffaloes? They actually run into the storm, and they're out out of the storm a lot faster. So similarly, us as humans, when we resist discomfort or run away from discomfort, we're not going to grow and transform.

00:27:41:12 - 00:28:02:19
Mohammad Anwar
We're avoiding it. Whereas when discomfort is approached, you're really leaning into it is what leads to the most growth. And if you look back, like if I was to talk to my old self like 23 years ago or 25 years ago when I was just 18 years old, and I'd say, hey, you know, this is what I'm doing today.

00:28:03:01 - 00:28:20:01
Mohammad Anwar
I wrote a book, I wrote two books on love and leading a whole company. I go around the world talking about how love is a strategy. My 18 year old version would be like, what? What are you talking about? Talking about love. What's wrong with you? Like I never expected that's what you'd grow into.

00:28:20:03 - 00:28:23:23
Kevin Eikenberry
A consumer computer science and mathematics.

00:28:24:01 - 00:28:42:08
Mohammad Anwar
Exactly. Yeah. Like what the. Why would you write a book of love? What is this got to do with the degree we're studying? Right? Like, so really, what happens is most of the time, us humans don't appreciate the discomfort that led us to the growth. But a lot of the times it is discomfort that has led us to the path of success.

00:28:42:10 - 00:29:02:23
Mohammad Anwar
So all of us, if you look back, some of the hardest times we go through our life has been the best transformational experience that made us who we are. And so when we retrospectively look at it, we point out to all the uncomfortable times that we went through that was change for transformational for us. But when we look forward, we don't want to embrace discomfort.

00:29:03:04 - 00:29:32:05
Mohammad Anwar
Well, we have historical evidence that almost all of us grew by nature of discomfort and hard work. Then why is it that when we're looking forward facing, we resist the idea of discomfort or, you know, hard times? So this principle is the hardest because change by nature creates discomfort, because it creates uncertainty. And so people avoid it. And what we see is like he if you embrace the discomfort there is growth on the other side.

00:29:32:06 - 00:29:48:19
Mohammad Anwar
Now of course, all of it is up to tolerable. Tolerable levels are tolerable. If that's a word, you know what I mean? Like how much you can tolerate also determines how discomfort you can date. But once it's in productive limits, it leads to growth. So lean into it.

00:29:48:21 - 00:30:21:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Which is why everybody the last chapter is entitled choose your hard. So I have got to ask you a couple other things before we wrap up. And I'm going to really shift gears here. I just want to say one of the thing before I do that, so as you all were listening today, I said at the beginning that this is a different kind of book because it intersperses like, personal organizational stories, not a parable, real life thing with the real people's names and all that.

00:30:22:01 - 00:30:42:07
Kevin Eikenberry
In and the messiness of it. And with these principles as a way to illustrate the principles. And I think that Mohamed is has described, has followed that, approach in this conversation. So if you've enjoyed the approach of this conversation, I'm confident you're going to love the book. We'll talk a little bit more about where you get your book and all that in a second.

00:30:42:10 - 00:30:51:21
Kevin Eikenberry
But two other questions before we wrap up. First, what do you do for fun?

00:30:51:23 - 00:31:10:04
Mohammad Anwar
I love fitness, so I like working out. And, I do my mixed martial arts every Friday I spar, and, Yeah. And I watch a lot of college sports. I love college sports over professional leagues.

00:31:10:05 - 00:31:43:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You and I are going to have a short conversation about this after the show's over. About that? We will do that in a minute. Everybody 500. Let's see. 500 and. 24 episodes. First guest ever to say I spar MMA. You say, so when you're not traveling the world, leading your team, being a dad, sparring and MMA, watching college sports, what are you reading?

00:31:43:23 - 00:32:06:08
Mohammad Anwar
Yes. So I this morning I read wisdom. Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday. I've been almost through the book, but I. I swap between multiple books, and the other book that I'm reading in parallel is, The Empire of. I is the second book that I'm reading. So those are the two books that I'm reading simultaneously currently.

00:32:06:10 - 00:32:09:05
Kevin Eikenberry
But I didn't. Which Ryan holiday book did you say?

00:32:09:06 - 00:32:10:19
Mohammad Anwar
Wisdom takes work.

00:32:10:21 - 00:32:34:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Thank you. Yes, that sounds like it matches with what we were just talking about. Everybody. All right, we'll have those as well as love as a change to change strategy in the show notes for you. And, so before we go, Muhammad, where can we learn more? Where do you want to point people if they want to learn more about your team, your work, the books?

00:32:34:14 - 00:32:36:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Where do you want to point people?

00:32:36:07 - 00:33:07:18
Mohammad Anwar
Yeah, I would say, if you want to learn about our organization where we help, companies go to a people first transformation approach, it would be soft. Wacom and soft ui.com. And if you'd like to, purchase or books or learn more about love as a strategy, you've got to love as a strategy.com. And if you are interested to lead change with love, we have built an AI first product named after my son called motion.

00:33:07:20 - 00:33:27:00
Mohammad Anwar
Motion Dot app. It's a change partner, the Humane Way, and helps leaders lead change with love. It becomes your partner in building your change strategy and managing change, with love. So if you want to go to that, that is Mozzie n Dot app. Motion Dot app.

00:33:27:02 - 00:33:50:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Awesome. So now, before we say goodbye to Muhammad and to all of you, I'm done asking him questions. I have one question for you. Is the question I ask every single episode, and it is for you as a participant, as a learner, as a listener. And that is now what what action will you take as a result of this?

00:33:50:19 - 00:34:08:15
Kevin Eikenberry
While it's usually true on these, conversations that that there may be things you've heard that are hard to hear or that you sort of know are right, but you're not sure what to do with. I'm confident that that's true today. And so it's one thing to say, hey, I got a new insight. I thought that was interesting.

00:34:08:17 - 00:34:28:18
Kevin Eikenberry
He's really smart. I hope I was entertained, and I hope all that's true. And what I hope more than that. And I'm confident Mohammed would say the same, is that, what are you going to do? What action you're going to take? What are you going to do to embrace the discomfort? What are you going to do to move forward?

00:34:28:19 - 00:34:50:22
Kevin Eikenberry
What what did you hear or learn today that you could do something with tomorrow or yet this afternoon, to make, your work as a leader be more effective? That's that's the biggest challenge here. So the biggest opportunity here is that you take action on what you learned. I hope that you do that. Mohammed, thank you so much for being here.

00:34:50:22 - 00:34:56:06
Kevin Eikenberry
I've been looking forward to our conversation, and I'm glad we had the chance to do it now.

00:34:56:07 - 00:34:59:01
Mohammad Anwar
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Kevin.

00:34:59:03 - 00:35:13:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And so, everybody, that concludes this week's episode. But, you know, we'll be back next week, right? So if this is your first time, you didn't know that. But now you do. And if you've been here before and you sort of randomly find us once in a while, we'll make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

00:35:13:03 - 00:35:21:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And if this is your first time, make sure you do subscribe so you can be back with us next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.