Leading Success Without a Map: Rashid Toefy's wild journey from apartheid to government leader, entrepreneur, and CEO before earning a PhD at 50.

In 1985, a 13-year-old boy watched his father sell the family house, move them into a caravan, and start training to cycle around the world — at a time when South Africa was closed off from most of the planet. The trip never happened. But something about that audacity never left him. That boy is Rashid Toefy. By the time he sat down with Angela for this episode of Change Wired, he'd already lived what feels like several lifetimes: gap years in London and Washington, DC (where he watched Nelso...

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your partner in change, in personal and collective transformation and growth, and just someone who is passionate, obsessed with the journey of our life and figuring out how to grow, improve, become our best and look more of our potential one day at a time. So together, we can create the most extraordinary world around us, the most positive impact and live our best lives. And today's guest, who's

• 0:52Speaker 00

  joining me on the podcast, could not be a better representation of what we stand for on this podcast. Guys, imagine this, it's 1985, South Africa is closed off from most of the world, and a father tells his family, they're selling the house, buying bicycles and cycling around the globe. They move into a tent, they start training. The whole route is mapped out. The trip never actually happens, but the spirit behind it never leaves the 13-year-old boy who lived it. That boy grew up riding trains where he and his friends had to split up into different carriages because of the color of their skin, because

• 1:33Speaker 00

  that was the law. He grew up to meet Nelson Mandela as a student leader, and he grew up to become CEO of the Cape Town International Convention Centre at just 37 years old. An entrepreneur opened an African division for a Geneva-based global company, a government leader now responsible for job creation across an entire regional economy. And at 50, he's still pretty much just at the beginning. Newly minted PhD after spending three years interviewing 16 women and 16 men around the world to answer one question: how do leaders

• 2:15Speaker 00

  make decisions when everything is on fire, changing and shifting? That's Rashid Toefy, and today, he is joining me on Change Wired Podcast. This conversation, in this conversation Rashid talks about running toward uncertainty without a map, moving his family to Amsterdam for six months that turned into a career spanning 30 countries, driving into Morocco with two small kids and zero hotel bookings, trusting a stranger down a dark alley in Marrakech at night. Rashid goes into places most guests skip, the tough moments, the challenging moments, the moments of transformation that we don't

• 3:00Speaker 00

  always like to look back on. Growing up under apartheid, business crisis when 9/11 hit, while he had 100 South African students stranded in America, honest admission about him seeing therapists, still working through many personal challenges that, as any human, Rashid faces every single day. In this conversation, Rashid talks about why he believes a career can never really be planned, only recognized in hindsight, and how Rashid makes decisions what to say yes and no to. The difference between blind risk-taking and sense-making,

• 3:44Speaker 00

  trusting your gut without ignoring the facts in front of you. The one question Rashid's first coach used to ask him every single setback, and how it wired, how Rashid processes adversity and challenges and setbacks. How three philosophies from three different cultures, Japan's kaizen, China's guangxi, and South Africans' ubuntu, combine in the way Rashid lives today. Why Rashid believes refusing to settle for mediocrity isn't about ego, it's about what we all owe to the world and people around us. So get comfortable to

• 4:27Speaker 00

  enjoy this conversation about yes, leadership, and most importantly, about what it takes to keep saying yes to the next unknown corner of your journey, refusing to settle for mediocrity in our messy, humbling, human life. Here is my conversation with Rashid Toefy. Rashid Toefy, welcome to Change Wired Podcast. I'm super excited to have you on my show, and I've known you for a while, and you are one of the nicest, kindest, smartest, dedicated, hard-working people I know, just I know, period. And yeah, I was very excited to have

• 5:12Speaker 00

  you on the show to talk about your journey, your career path, your life path, and to learn what it takes to create this kind of journey and the person that you've become. So thank you so much.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's a pleasure. I'm excited. I've loved, since the day that I first met you, I think I saw we had a sort of kinship, there was something similar in thinking. I liked the way your mind works. And yeah, it's been a pleasure working with you over the last few years, just seeing you in action. And so it's nice to have a conversation about leadership with you. Thank you.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Rashid. Let's start with your journey, your life, your career journey. Could you paint maybe a map for our listeners, where you are today, where it started, and maybe a few pins along the journey on this map, right, exactly, of things or things that happened to you, or just, you know, something that is important to your journey, to understand you as a person, as a leader?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I mean, it's been quite a varied journey. I mean, I think that's something we discussed before, and but there's been some consistent things about it. I mean, I think the one consistent thing is that from a very young age, I was thrust into a leadership role. So I, because of various circumstances, I became the, you know, the, I worked in places that I was, because somebody left or the managing director left, I was cast into a leadership role in my twenties. And so leadership was consistent. The second thing is I've always, it's always had some sort of international travel exploration theme, and that tells you a little bit about me. While I've studied a lot in my life, the, that classic thing

• 7:00Speaker 01

  that people say you learn most from just one year overseas, for me is like a university degree, and I've spent several years working abroad, you know. So, I mean, my life started before I even left, you know, before I started university, I took two gap years. I spent a year, I don't think you know that Angela, but I spent a year in London, and I went to live in the States, in Washington, outside Washington DC, and I worked on like American summer camps. So I, right there in the 90s, when Nelson Mandela just came out of prison and our country was in the transition, I went, I saw with my own two eyes what the world looks like out there. And then my parents called me and said, hey, you're the smart guy in the family. No, no, you should come back and like, study a university degree.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  And then I came back and I started at university. And after that, I started out in the travel industry, the youth and student travel industry. And it was amazing, it was very adventure, it was all adventure, travel, exchange programs. So we used to bring and send people from different parts of the world. And then I got that unique opportunity to go and work in Amsterdam, which took, it was meant to be six months, and I had just got married. So my wife gave up the opportunity to have a really good job and said, let's just go, it's an adventure, it's 1996. And we headed off, and what started out as six months became a career in Amsterdam, where I became, as I said, by circumstance, the global marketing

• 8:27Speaker 01

  manager for an international organization. And I had then, it was surreal job of traveling to sort of a different country every month for three years. It was crazy. Yeah. And then after those three years, I came back and I worked for this travel organization for seven or eight years. And I knew I wanted to do more, right? And that's when I studied an MBA and thought, I want the bigger field of influence. And that's when I got the opportunity to work as the CEO of the Cape Town International Convention Centre. So, yeah, I don't know, should I just continue? I was like, keep telling you the trajectory.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  What did you study, by the way? When you were talking about studying and then going to Amsterdam, what took you there?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I studied, I studied economics, and I studied geographical and environmental science. So I kind of always wanted to be a town planner, or, you know, something like that. But I ended up getting into this travel world and really loved it, because I was, I mean, essentially, I was changing people's lives on one journey, one overseas trip at a time. And at the time, as I said, post-apartheid, I wanted to let people experience getting out of South Africa and just growing. But, so then I, when I did the MBA, it was at the business school, it gave me sort of a toolkit, but I needed after that, an organization where I could deploy these new weapons. It was like a, it was like a bow and arrow, ready to go.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And when I got the CEO job, I was 37 years old as the CEO of a big organization, and it was, I was young, and it was a big challenge, but I loved it because it also... It taught me, you know, the hospitality industry taught me something, both as a young person. I've had a work, I've been working since I was twelve, thirteen years old, always waiting or working in a shop or something, but hospitality and tourism and travel teaches you that, I mean, it's, it's about the experience, it's about making sure what matters is not just the profit or the bottom line. It's does that other person that you're serving have an amazing experience? I, I brought about this philosophy of what we call the experience economy.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And, and we really embedded that. And so people, if you ever go to the Cape Town International Convention Centre, I think you feel that it's a place that, that certainly doesn't look like it's a state-owned entity. It, it was running like a, like a private sector entity with a board. And, and I brought about that culture of just trying to, anything's possible. It was literally nothing's impossible. If somebody wants something, you just tell them, let's do it, you know?

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  And then that was, that was an incredible experience, yeah. And had some incredible different events and met crazy people, yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Now that you're telling me about that, I'm like, ah, that's, you know, when, when we met, I had this feeling that you are always looking for opportunities to help people to have the best experience they can have. Like in terms of communication or a meeting with you or doing something together. So that's where it's coming from. Now I understand.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  And you know, Angela, I'm a, I'm a reader, right? So I remember reading the book called Apple. It wasn't, it wasn't Steve Jobs's book. It was the Apple experience. It was how Apple introduced the experience economy. So you know, when you go into an Apple store, nobody's trying to sell you anything. They literally go, they let you play, first of all, with everything. They just let you play. And then they just stand around and see if you need help. Nobody comes up to you and goes, can I please help you? As if you, you feel like leaving the shop. And so I said, this is how I want people to come to CTICC and feel that experience. So we, I bought everybody, a hundred and fifty, two hundred people got a copy of the book. And we would, we would spend a day talking about the experience economy. And then, and then I would ask them, tell me in your area, whether you're the chef or the parking guy

• 12:18Speaker 01

  or the CFO, what are you going to do to make it an incredible experience, you know? And then after that, I had seven years, I always get a bit of a seven year itch. The first job was seven years, then that one. And then I, I was kind of hit a hundred, but to join a global association management conference, which sent, I mean, business, which was based in Geneva, but I opened the Africa division, MCI. And wow, it taught me a lot. I mean, I, I must say, being an entrepreneur was, was character building. It was, it was, it was rough. It was tough. Raising money, you, you, you, you realize that people respect you sometimes because of your position, because you CEO. And suddenly, when you leave that and you start your own business, you're just, it's just you, Rashid, and everything you can deliver.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  So it was, it was tough. I, I, I learnt a lot and I, and I, and, and I grew a lot in that period.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I have no doubt. I guess it's such a different experience from the perspective, as you said, like authority and being maybe a decision maker, being someone who people come to with different requests. And then being on the other side, so just be trying to build something and going to other people with different requests.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  It's humbling, you know, because when you, when you're CEO, you have a big team, you have an ex-girl team and, and, and any number of resources at your disposal and budgets. And then suddenly I had a team of five people and I had to do my, no P A, no executive assistant, just doing your own diary. And it, it teaches you how to hustle, right? And I think it taught me something that's not just, you know, I, I, I, I learnt that you, you need to be able to be entrepreneurial. But when I bring that entrepreneurial spirit, when I then joined government. So I got kind of called, I got a call from someone in government and said, hey, don't you want to apply for this job? And I, people often think, wow, Rashid went from private sector to government. Did I, did I settle? Did I leave the kind of adventure behind, you know?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  But I can tell you something, I finally reached the point where I realized, and I, my job right now is creating jobs in the Western Cape economy. So for me, are people employed? Is the economy growing? And it's an amazing feeling to, I went from helping a couple of hundred people, maybe a few thousand people at the CTICC to, to now helping millions of people. So I think it's the purpose, the, the greater purpose is what drives me and makes this experience in government so special. And I, and I tried to bring that same private sector entrepreneurial leadership and spirit to my job in government. So, so that's the, that's me. And as you know, we can talk a little bit later about me then,

• 14:54Speaker 01

  at, at fifty years old, deciding to embark on another round of studying, but let's, that might be coming up later.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  So, so it sounds like, well, the, the whole journey sounds like very aligned, coherent path that sort of felt right and felt aligned with your values, with your purpose, with your mission, and you just went for it. Whatever, you, you took your resources, your skills, your talents, and then put it to use where you were needed.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  But you know, it's not at all planned, right? So it's interesting, looking backwards, it looks like a coherent thread. But I can tell you, if you asked me at twenty-one years old, what do you want to do? I was quite confused. I was like, so for me, that your career, I don't think it can be planned right from the beginning. You have to see how the opportunities unfold. So it's always nice in retrospect to look back and it looks like a nice path.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  But actually, every opportunity came when I least expected it. Like right now, I don't know what's going to be, what I might be doing in five years' time. And I like that, that excitement. I, I don't know what I want to be doing in five years' time after this current role, for example, you know? And I think that's, so I don't have a such clear plan that, that, that, that nothing's going to get in the way or something might get in the way and I'll be disappointed, so.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, there are a couple of things here that are very interesting. Courage to pursue a path without knowing where it leads. Actually, very few people can do it, right, with such conviction and boldness and embracing. And were you always like that, like, you know, I'm embracing this path that unfolding, even though I don't know where it leads, but it feels right and I'm going to take it?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I can tell you, that spirit of adventure comes from my dad and mom. Like I, we, my dad had a crazy idea when I was thirteen years old, that we would sell everything and cycle around the world. Now, this was nineteen eighty-five, in a, in a time when South Africa was closed off. And we, we literally did that. My dad just sold his, the house, we, we moved into living in a tent, in a caravan. We bought bicycles and we started practicing. And for a year, we were practicing to do this crazy thing of cycling around the world, like we had the route planned. And, and I just, at the time, I thought, wow, this is just crazy, you know? And we, we, we still went to school and we did what we did.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  But I can tell you, from a young age, and then throughout my life, I've, I've been, I've been quite an adventurer and realizing that I like audacious goals and things that look like it's impossible, like bring it on for me. And so, so for various reasons, we didn't do that. There was a, some personal circumstances that meant we couldn't go. But I, you can see then, subsequent to that, I've travelled to over sixty countries around the world. Because I wanted to travel around the world, right? And I, and so I've continued to travel around the world. It didn't happen as one year on a bicycle, but I still have a passion for cycling, you know, that's my main kind of sport. And I have travelled around to every part of the world and I continue to do so.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And I'd always like to be, to stay travelling and exploring, so.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Can I also ask you a question about your internal conversation? So when you take on an adventure, whether that's travelling physically or career path or maybe a new policy, do you always have this confidence that's like, I'll figure out the way? Or is there a voice of doubt, of doubt, like how do you navigate it?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  I mean, for me, you know, I, I, I love road trips because I don't know where, I don't have for sure or know where to go. My, my wife and I went overseas to Morocco with two small children with no hotel bookings. We just hired a car, pointed the car in one direction and then said, when we get there, we'll figure out where to stay. So we, I, I didn't think I have any certainty that it's going to work out, but I have a trust that we're going to allow, allow it to unfold, as I said about my career. But for me, if you've got the fundamentals, if you have the toolkit, you have a car, you have, you've got some plans and you have the right sort of skills and tools with you, you can achieve anything.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  It's like skiing. I love skiing down a piece, down a new slope that I've never been on. I don't know what's happening down the next corner, but you know what to do, you know what you shouldn't do. And, and, and the adventure of that is that exhilaration, I think, is what is a thread in my life.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  Well, in terms of adventure and choosing to pursue different course of action on the ski slope or different path, again, at your work, how do you decide what to say yes to or what to say no to? A lot of people, these days especially, struggle with like, you know, there is so much uncertainty. We don't know how it's unfolding. How do you decide what to pursue, where to go, what decision to make, whether that's life or career? Like, what's your playbook for making those decisions and choices?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Playbook is an interesting word because I've just done my study, as you know, about crisis. And when, when, when there's crises, the playbook is out the window. You have to rely on intuition. You have to rely on a little bit of your gut. So it's a combination of your intuition about what feels right. But combined with a kind of contextual awareness of what's happening around you. And what, what, what I, what we, what I read about and what I've seen is, is what's called sense making. So you make sense of the data that you've got and you say, so it's not an, an uncalculated guess. You know, if, if I was going, you and I were doing a business adventure somewhere, we would know more or less where we want to go. What are the, what are the factors we need to take into account? It's not going uninformed.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  But then be open to the fact that when you get into the room and you feel the room, you might just change up what you say. You might change up your facilitation. So I love facilitating strategy sessions because, because you must literally have a blueprint, a little bit of a playbook, but with a lot of open flexibility to respond to the circumstances. So I think I've always responded to the environment and then moved from there. And you get, you will get scary moments when you're in Morocco and you, your kids are sleeping and it's dark and you, you now can't find a nice place to stay, right? That has happened, but mostly we found incredible places. In fact, that very night I was, the kids were in the car. I was running around the streets of Marrakech going, shucks, this, everything looks closed.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  And somebody said, just come with me, come with me. And we walked down, down, down these little alleyways and eventually he opens the door. And it was this incredible riad, which is this, these, these beautiful places. And it was unbooked. We, we got the whole place. It was probably one of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in and it was incredible. And it, it was kind of waiting for us to find it. But just before that, you could easily have just given up and said, shucks, this is a terrible idea. This is not working.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  So you never know when the next opportunity is going to land.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  You know, while you're speaking, it becomes obvious that you do listen to intuition a lot and you trust it quite a bit. Do you have any practices or something that helps you to be in tune with that? Because there is again, like so much noise around the world and.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, I think the practices are kind of being in touch with your emotions. I think you need to feel it in your body because, you know, you can think of, your brain helps you make certain decisions. Probably everybody thinks your brain is making all the decisions, but actually your gut and your body and your skin and your heart is actually making a lot of decisions. There's a lot of thinking and feeling that happens in your heart, in your stomach, in your body. And I think if you trust all those elements, that's what, for me, that's the practice is feel it a bit. Don't think it so much, just feel the moment, feel the room, feel that what somebody's saying or this, this opportunity and,

• 22:50Speaker 01

  and trust that and then verify it, as they'd say on the American visa forms, they trust and verify.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess, you know, don't.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Or verify these days.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Does that, don't, don't, don't just jump with everything you've got to something that feels right, but sort of maybe feel your way.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I don't think I've been, I don't think I've been that adventurous in my career. I mean, I think I had in a, in a thirty year career, only three years of it was an entrepreneur. The other parts were, were quite well thought through structured career moves that led to better opportunities and good salary. And so I, I'm not, you might think I'm very adventurous and just doing crazy things, but actually it's quite calculated. And it's, it's trusting your gut, as I said, but making sense of the situation before you jump.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Is it, you know, like this approach, let's, let's maybe touch on your latest accomplishment, PhD in studies and decisions in crisis. It feels like it's very much aligned with this philosophy or trying to maybe understand it better. Like, how do we make decisions in that uncertainty?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  This crisis situation, like, yeah. What, why did you decide to pursue it and what did you learn?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Well, people, people asked me, like, how did you do your PhD in three years? And it, it didn't look like it stressed you out. And I think it's because I did it in, on a subject that I felt was like a real calling. I, I've experienced a lot of crises in my life, in business, in having to deal with circumstantial crisis in the economy. And so at the time when I started doing the PhD, I had, I had developed a sense of understanding in real life of what bleeding in a crisis meant. And so I, what I did was I took that practice, I said to myself, I want to, I want to interview leaders around the world. And I interviewed eighteen women and eight, sixteen women and sixteen men.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  So I was quite deliberate because I, I, I got a sense that gender wasn't a really important factor in making decisions. And I'm glad I did that because it's become one of the major themes of my study. But, but I, I, I, I did a subject, I studied a subject that I believe I had some life experience, some lived experience of. And then I kind of verified that with, with evidence now. So I have transcripts of interviews where, where some of the things I believed I now verified with evidence and research. And some of the things was disproved. Some of the things were new and that was nice, obviously. But it, it's, yeah, it's been an exciting journey and I, I loved it. And I, I think I'm, I'll always be a continual learner.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it sounds like you've gone, you know, almost you've lived several lifetimes, it seems like in, in one. And you're, and you're, you're just getting started. You briefly touched upon having gone through a lot of challenges, whether that's, you know, business, work, life, et cetera. And although at, at first it felt like, well, it's just continuous adventure for you, right? And just one thing, one door opens up after another. And you mentioned those challenges. Can you maybe talk more towards like some of the challenges to, to some degree? And then what helped you to overcome that, to go through them and get to the other side?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  I think personally, you know, as a South African, I lived my, my youth in apartheid South Africa. A world of like discrimination because of your, because I was the wrong color skin. And, and, and it's, that sets you up. I mean, for me, I was like twenty four years old when, so my whole childhood was living through experiences like where I, you and me couldn't sit in a restaurant. It would be like illegal. I couldn't go to the beach that I wanted to with my friends. So I, my, my parents put us in a school that was multiracial. And we would literally catch the train and, and the, we'd, we'd have to choose, like the, some of us would have to sit in the white carriage and some would have to sit in the black carriage and, and the first and the third class.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  So you, you, I, I, I think you grew up in South Africa in those years with, with real adversity, with having to live with change. And, but then I lived through change, right? I, I was privileged enough to become like a student leader. I was involved in student politics. So I was a student representative council and I actually met Nelson Mandela as part of that. And, and a few other lovely people, but it, it, it was, it was seeing with my own two eyes that even the worst adversity we could get through because of people who struggled, people who endured. So, so I think that's the first sort of an OG primordial

• 27:33Speaker 01

  challenge and crisis, if you like. And then in my life, I think there's been other challenges in business, you know, whether it's, I, I was running a travel business, sending students to America to go on, on a J one visa and nine eleven hits, right? So I have a hundred South Africans in America, nine eleven hits. And, and you have to deal with the parents and the fact that the whole world changed at that point, right? And so, so it was, it was, those, I, I just thought about that now. I, I often think about the more recent crises in my life, but that was quite a big one. And then there's things like the water crisis in South Africa, the drought, COVID. So all those things actually happened before I started my PhD. And, and so I had those as real experiences.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And then on a more personal level, I'm not shy to say that I, I have a therapist and I've gone to, gone through a lot of personal challenges. And I'm consistently dealing with it and I live with certain challenges that I, that I try to tackle in my personal life. And, you know, so that's, so yeah, getting through it day by day.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Well, getting through it day by day, can we open up a little bit more about that? What I'm looking, what I'm looking for is habits of, of the mind or, you know, traits, conversation that you have inside of your head that allows you to, to get through that and to work through that and to get to a better place, to grow through that. Because, you know, they say like trauma can do two things to people. It can make you like less capable or it can make you grow. And I'm always like interested in the, what is it that allowed you to grow through experience? Not to give up, but instead rise above that through those experiences? What's your understanding or take on?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  I mean, I think I'm a very positive person. I somehow, and I, I joke about like my, my, my blood type is B positive.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  And maybe one day, one day I'll write a book about being positive, but I, my blood type is B positive. So it runs through my blood, but, but I, I runs through my body is B positive. But I, I can't believe how one can wake up and not be like thankful, look outside. And, and, and I've woken up in a caravan park, in a very, living in a, in a low income neighborhood, but always seen the joy in the world, whether it was a young child making little hats on the field outside our house, or you know, going on a, on a little family road trip, not to a very fancy hotel, but to a lovely campsite and just thinking, wow, this is like incredible. This is like we're in the wild and we have the ocean.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And so I think I've been somehow in me and maybe if I look back, it's, it's engendered by an adventurous family. But I've never let the adversity or the challenge like get me internalized that. So I, I have, I really truly believe that you, you decide if you can be happy that day. And of course there are challenges that can be, that can be very dis, that can, it can hit you. It can put, can absolutely take you down and I, everybody has those. I'm not saying everyone's challenges are not big, but I don't think enough people realize how big a role they have themselves to play in being positive, in saying, I'm gonna have a good day. I'm not, I'm gonna start out being nice and maybe smile to the security guard at my office

• 31:07Speaker 01

  before he smiles to me. So, so it's being the, the person who can do that. And then, I mean, yeah, I'm a, I'm a believing person. I think it's always nice when a crisis hits to know that there's a higher power and to say there's a higher power that, that even has determined that you should go through the crisis. I have a, I had a coach very, as a young person, Karina, you know her?

• 31:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Karina Anderson, and she was my first coach I've ever had. And she always would tell me, Rashid, what's the lesson in that? So I know you've just been through a personal crisis, but can you think, can you think what was the lesson? Why did you have to go through that? So trying to turn that adversity into a lesson also is a, is quite a trick. It's quite a tool and I think it can be learnt because you, you don't have to let it depress you and, and go down a certain route. You can decide that there's a lesson in any crisis and then learn from it and kind of keep pushing on, you know?

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Yes, such an, an important insight, I believe that about that you have a choice, whether you decide to see that silver lining, that lesson, or you don't. And as I always, you know, like to meditate on this idea, like what's most useful to you to see negative and then, you know, have a bad day because you see, you decide to see things negative or try to find a lesson and positive and silver lining, which ultimately makes you feel better, right? It's not even speaking about the, what impact then you create.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  The impact on others, yeah. Yeah, and, and I think there's, you know, having your, my internal compass. If you ask me, what's my mission in life? It's to kind of, it's to be, to, for, for the people who, who know me and who are around me, to, for me to get the best out of them. Now, that sounds like a mission, not for me, but for other people. But what that mission does is it drives me to be the best of the best, right? I want people who know me and who are friends with me and who are working with me or for me or my boss to feel that I am bringing the best out of them. I'm, I'm showing them they have the, like, unlimited potential. And, and that has driven me to, to realize I need to be that example.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  So, so yeah, I'm, I'd like anyone to know that you can be a kid who came from the hood, who, who, who didn't have a lot of money and ended up getting a PhD and, and, and getting the highest qualification you get. And this is someone who at university was more sporty and looking, you know, had girlfriends and had political career. I was doing politics and girlfriends and sport and hardly passing my university degree to then finally get a PhD, says it's possible, you know?

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  If you apply your mind to.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much, you know, for sharing your, already like your purpose, your mission, what you're trying to create in the world through people. Maybe as a couple of last question, I, I'd like you to open up the principles that I researched, I learned about, that you live by, the Kaizen and Ubuntu. And then what you just also mentioned, not settling for mediocrity. Like, can you tell me, how did you stumble upon those? Why did you decide to make it part of your life and, yeah, why it's important?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  I mean, Kaizen, I kind of stumbled, when I was doing my masters, my, my, my MBA, I, I did it on collaborative leadership. So interestingly, it was how do leaders make collaborative decisions? It wasn't about crisis, it was collaborative decision making. And I looked at all ancient philosophies. So I looked at Kaizen, the Chinese principle of Guanchi, you know? And then South Africa's Ubuntu and said, most cultures have something that drives them fundamentally. So Guanchi is important, you know, you can't do business in China without first making friends, without having a drink, having a meal. So you can't arrive there and decide to do the deal, you know?

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Whereas in another culture, in a European culture, this kind of, I think, therefore I am, you know, that Descartes sort of theory, they really wanna get to the business, you know? What's the deal? What's the cost? What's good, what's in it for me? What's in it for you? So I think that tells you, you have to be aware of your circumstances. And so, so the Kaizen, and then Ubuntu, of course, you know, it's, South Africa is almost, it's, you feel it here. It's, it's the energy in the place, you know, that, that.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  I am because we are.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  We are. And, and, but I, I like the combination of Kaizen, Kaizen is like continuous improvement, that Japanese continuous improvement. And for me, it's a realization that you need to have that Japanese principle of continuous improvement, but realizing that you also belong to a village and a community. So it's not just me, for me, it's me doing my best, but also because there are people, there's a community that matters, they also support me and they allow me to do my best. And by me doing my best, can, can you see the sort of circular argument? But I don't think I've actually ever written a paper or anything on Kaizen and Ubuntu, but they, they are two sides of a different theory, a different concept, but they're quite similar in some way. Or they, they're not similar, they kind of complement each other.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  I think if you can, if you can, if you can use them as complementary. And then the, the settling for mediocrity, I mean, I, I think it again comes from that passion to just want to be better. And I think there's many things, there were some not nice experiences. I, I was a, quite a, I played volleyball for like our, our province and our country as a young kid. So I made the South African junior spring ball volleyball team. I was the captain of that team. And before I did that, I, our school competed in a, in a, in a national schools championship. And I think the best lesson for me was not winning the first year. And it was the most painful experience. We, we, we felt we had done everything to win that tournament.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  We went to Johannesburg and we, and we got to the final and we, and they beat us, you know? And it was like, it really hit me, you know? There's not many volleyball tournaments that I lost after that. Because after that, we, the next year we came back and won and became the best school in the country. And I became like the captain of the national junior team. And then I went to university and for the four years that I was at university, UCT was the best university team. Now, it's not just because of me, but I know what it takes, how hard you have to work to win. And you've got to be the one out in the, you, you can tell us about this, be in the gym. But at the time when I was a young student, we would run hills, like the guy, our coach would sometimes say,

• 37:53Speaker 01

  we didn't touch a ball for an hour, all we did was fitness. And then at the end of the practice, he says, okay, now let's play. And then you're playing a game of volleyball with your legs having run up and down the steps for like an hour. Or he would say, let's go, we put chairs in a row, like big chairs.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And we have to jump over them.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  And then just when you think you're tired and you, your legs can't go, he says, take a break. And you think, ah, we're about to play some ball. And he says, okay, let's do it again, you know? And that's the difference when you get into that semifinal or that final, when both teams look like they're good enough, you just know what you are, you know what you've got. You've got stuff to go to, you know how it feels, you know how the pain feels of working.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I guess if I.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Sport just taught me that a bit, yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess if I heard you right, that drive to not settle for mediocrity, it doesn't come from this idea, or I'm gonna be the greatest. But it's more about how can I show up as my best self? So together we do our best at, I don't know, living this life, creating more positive impact, improving things and making the world the best it.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and just, and being, just doing the best you can. And, and, and I mean, I, just working hard and pushing through what you think is these self-imposed limits. I think we have these rules, you know, that Vishen Lakiani calls it, brules, bullshit rules, where you, you have these rules that make you think, oh, I'm tired now, I can't go anymore. I wanna sit down. But if you have a coach or you have like a volleyball coach or that says, let's go, we're running again, or we're playing again, we're not stopping until, until we're done. It pushes you beyond what, I think people have self-imposed limits for themselves.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Some people might be listening here today going, wow, you just, you're smart, you did a PhD, I can't do that. But that's because you're telling yourself, you can't do that, right? But if you tell yourself, I want to and I can, you really can.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  I think we can do a lot more than we think. I think our body has a self-limiting kind of tendency to protect you, but you can learn to push a little bit harder.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Well, the last question, if you don't mind, why do you believe it's important to do that? To push through those doubts, to push through those limiting beliefs and to still strive to be better? Why do you think it's fundamentally important to do?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Well, I I do think it moves the world forward, you know, I don't think this world is gonna be a better place for everybody if if people are not pushing to do better. So when I see people being entrepreneurs or starting a business with no money, I'm just like, wow, that's somebody who who didn't just settle, you know? And so every day I think to myself, in any way, my PhD may not have a big impact on on on people directly. It's for me that I did it, but someone might look at me and think, wow, Rashid can do a PhD. They don't have to do a PhD, they might just start a business with five hundred grand. And but it's it's it's, I think we we owe it to the world we're in to leave it in a better place than it was before we got here. And I think that's what I'd like to do. I'd like a legacy of some sort, I guess, to be that.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  I I touched this world a little bit and people will remember that it it was slightly improved by my being in it.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, as well, on this beautiful note, Rashid, I think we can finish this podcast. Is there anything that you would like to add to your message to? Put it out into the world to our listeners and beyond. Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

• 41:24Speaker 01

  I think interesting, I just tried to reflect on the thing that first when you. When you, when you showed me the little drawing that I told you I still have on my desk, but this idea of. Of the of the fact that it's your mind and your body and your soul and then you're like the systems. The systems that make that work, I think pulling that all together. This is where you and I see eye to eye on, you know, you can, you need to have all those bits together. And then you need to put some rigorous rigorous systems in place. You can't just assume that a big goal or a strong body or a or this, you know? It it's not one of the one or two other things, it's the. It's putting the structures and the mechanisms in place that.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  That make it work. And when you showed me that, I think before I started my PhD or I was in the middle of it, I really, it really struck me. And it still does, and I wanted to give you a shout out for that because because it inspires me when I see someone with such clarity of thought. And that's why I said it was nice to be on your podcast because. It's sharing a similar philosophy. So, thank you. Thank you for your, thanks for having me on your show.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, Rashid, for inspiring for with your life, with how you. Approach people, what you're trying to do in the world, like your spirit and how you live your purpose. Just thank you so much. Thank you so much also for being a guest on this podcast and. Your message is gonna be delivered to what the statistics say to one hundred twenty two countries in the world. So thank you so much for. Sharing it and yes, looking forward to learning from you more in the real world. And the last but not least, where should our listeners go to to learn more about it? Is there a social media profile, a website, or what's the best place?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  I I'm not on many socials except LinkedIn, so if somebody is interested, wants to reach out to me, you can. My my thesis, my PhD thesis, for example, isn't. Isn't published, but I think anyone who's who's interested in it can talk to me. I love, for me, I'm. I I continue to learn from people, so would love to engage with some people who are interested in my leadership philosophy or my my journey.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  Yes, and I highly encourage listeners to connect with Rashid. Again, one of the smartest, kindest, most inspirational people I know, so please do so. And Rashid, thank you, and till next time, keep inspiring.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. Cheers.