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Bae Lab Best Bits Part 3 - Partnerships, Pivots, and Scaling with Well-Being l Compilation Episode
Aamir Hussain
The Bae HQ

Full video of episode
Episode 179: Aamr Hussain from The BAE HQ shares The Bae HQ’s Q3 Update
This episode shows how successful partnerships involve leveraging collective strengths to achieve shared goals, with a focus on the diverse media landscape in Africa. It emphasises the importance of cultural sensitivity, localising content, selecting the right partners, and the challenges of entering Africa's markets. Understanding the audience, choosing partners wisely, and conducting thorough research are key factors for success.
Show Notes
00:00 - Intro
00:13 - Defining Partnerships in Media
00:44 - Entering the African Market: Key Considerations
01:47 - The Diverse Media Landscape of Africa
02:55 - Selecting the Right Country for Expansion
03:36 - The Importance of Localising Content
04:49 - Steps to Enter Africa's Media Market
06:31 - Building Trust and Relationships
07:51 - Common Mistakes in African Market Entry
09:00 - Navigating MVP Challenges and Solutions
10:57 - Dealing with MVP Failures and Mindset
11:26 - Overcoming Fear of Failure and Pivoting
11:49 - Importance of Data and Customer Feedback
12:56 - Identifying the Right Customer Base
13:09 - Persona Identification and Product Positioning
14:28 - Feedback from Initial Customer Base
14:44 - Customer Sentiment and Product Improvements
16:22 - Communicating with Investors and Teams
16:50 - Managing Investor Expectations and Product Growth
18:08 - Using Data to Optimise and Build Investor Confidence
19:06 - Shoutout to Partners and Startup Banking Support
19:55 - Challenges of Early-Stage Founders
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Amardeep Parmar: 0:05
So Farah, it's all about partnerships today, but sometimes people get confused about what partnerships actually means. Can you tell us what partnerships means in your world?
Farah Tahir: 0:13
My background is media. I've been working in media for 17 years and what partnerships really means is coming together to work collectively towards a common objective or goal. Um, with this I mean, I have got something to offer. The media company that I'm possibly working with has something to offer, so how can we both come together to leverage our strengths? So this is what I would define as partnerships coming together really, to you know, towards a common goal and an objective.
Amardeep Parmar:
So you've got a lot of experience with Africa as well, right, and that's an area you're specialised in.
Amardeep Parmar: 0:44
What's the facts that people who may be considering branching into the African market and creating partnerships there, what are the facts that they should consider that maybe they might not know about?
Farah Tahir: 0:54
You know, when people talk about Africa, they think it's a country, but they forget it's actually a continent with 1.4 billion people. Understanding the media landscape in Africa is very, very challenging and it's very diverse. You know we've got a wide range of culture, languages and different kind of media outlets right. So when you really need to take the time to research and understand the media landscape in specific, the regions that that you know people want to operate in, you know understanding the major players, who are the dominant platforms, you know whether it's television, radio, online print and the preferences of the local audiences. So these are kind of things that people have to understand and, of course, the cultural sensitivity of each of these. You know um platforms that I just talked about.
Farah Tahir: 1:47
Everybody consumes content in Africa in multiple different ways. You know internet access may not be readily available in rural areas, but it is in urban areas, so the way people consume content in the same country can be variable. You could have um people in urban areas that are connected to mobile internet or they watch content on the go, streaming mobile, whereas if you go to a bit of a rural area, people still listen to the radio and that is their main form of or medium of information. So understanding the different landscape, the different platforms, the nuances, the cultures, languages is really really important for people who are looking to actually go into Africa and do any business in Africa. It's not one size fit all. It's really tailoring your partnership or your product to the right audiences in the right part of Africa, to the right audiences in the right part of Africa. You've got the Anglophone Africa, you've got the Francophone Africa and we really do celebrate our culture and our differences and our languages, and people really need to understand that.
Amardeep Parmar: 2:55
So let's say somebody wants to enter Africa and they're trying to pick a country to start off with. How would they go about maybe selecting that? What are some of the facts they should consider between those different countries, and how can they localize their product to make sure that they're meeting the needs of the local audience?
Farah Tahir: 3:11
I mean. So I mean I would look at different key points when you consider, you know, the audience in Africa, like I said, we're a very diverse continent. You know it's very diverse in terms of culture and languages, and the TV audience varies from every country. Right, you could be in the same country, like I said, and you could have different audiences. Right Again, different mediums, different platforms.
Farah Tahir: 3:36
Localizing content is very important. One because languages there's multiple languages in Africa that people speak, you know.
Farah Tahir: 3:46
So, if you want to target your audience with the right content, you need to localize the language, and it means you could work with the local partner or local media platform in ensuring that you're localizing that content for the language and for the purpose and for that audience the language and for the purpose and for that audience. And that's how I see something that can be very beneficial to any company that's looking to do business in Africa or to penetrate the media product in Africa. You need to understand that languages play a very big part on that continent, because there's no point in you broadcasting a Spanish or an a Spanish or an Arabic channel in West Africa when the language that they speak there is, let's say, hausa, for example, which is I'll take Nigeria as an example which is one of the largest economies in West Africa. So you really need to understand who your audience are, so you can localize your content and working with local partners, empowering the local platforms and the local media partners to be able to then target exactly who your audiences are.
Amardeep Parmar: 4:49
So let's say I was going to expand into Africa. What were the first steps I should take? What should they be? So would it be trying to find local partners? How would you select the right local partners to work?
Farah Tahir: 4:59
Let me go back. When you're looking to do any business in Africa, I think the first question you need to ask yourself is from a from a media perspective, let's say is are you looking for reach, engaging wide audiences, or are you looking to generate revenue? And that's the question that's going to determine your partnership and how you're going to go about it in any part of Africa. So I'll give you an example if you're a media company that's primarily interested in a wider reach and reaching a diverse range of audiences within the sub-Saharan Africa region, then you would identify your partners accordingly. Multi-choice is a key player in Africa. They've got the widest reach across the continent. They're one of the oldest pay TV platforms. So then you negotiate and accordingly, get into an agreement based on what your preferences are and, of course, it has to be a mutually beneficial partnership. They can provide you the audience reach that you're looking for. Secondly, again, if you're looking to monetize that content that you're producing, including reaching the wide audiences, they also do offer that because they're a pay TV platform. So you negotiate your structure, your deal, accordingly. Where you're putting your content behind a paywall, you're one accessing their audience base and two, you're able to generate revenue from the subscription of your content. So these are some of the things that you need to look into in terms of what are your preferences, what are your objectives, how are you looking to enter into the Africa market and what is really your objective, and then structure your deal accordingly.
Farah Tahir: 6:31
There are databases available. There are events available where you can actually go out there and see who are the key players in the market. Some of the big attending events is really important and, again, like I keep saying, doing business in Africa is really different and challenging. It can be fun at the same time, but it all depends on that personal relationship that you build, and they love meeting people, because I guess when you put a person in, you know in front of a person, it's about building the trust and the relationship. So these are some of the things that I highly recommend when people want to go into business in Africa is make the physical appearance, because people want to know you, they want to trust you, they want to build that relationship with you, and it's a long term thing.
Farah Tahir: 7:18
So building that trust is equally important, not just building that partnership, and so these are some of the things that I would consider when doing business in Africa.
Amardeep Parmar:
So I guess a lot of people in today's world they want to try to make things remote and they might try to enter Africa in that space or just have zooms and they'd miss out on the advice you just said, right about how important it is to African people to build up in terms of their culture, to build that connection in person of their culture, to build that connection in person. What other mistakes do you see people make when they're trying to enter Africa as a new market? What do you see often people do wrong?
Farah Tahir: 7:51
I think, the lack of due diligence. People don't really conduct a thorough due diligence on potential partners, and so this is a significant mistake that people make and ignoring the cultural differences. You know, like I said in the beginning, Africa is a continent of diverse cultures, languages and business customs as well. So ignoring these, you know, differences can definitely lead to misunderstandings and, of course, miscommunication.
Farah Tahir: 8:18
So taking the time to understand and respecting culture is very, very crucial for a successful partnership in Africa
Amardeep Parmar:
So Cien, I think you picked a really interesting topic today because so many people start off and they never release their mvp because they're so worried about what about if it goes wrong, and through this episode, we can explain to people what they can do if that happens and hopefully makes it less scary for them and makes them able to continue ahead. So you've obviously must have seen this before from different people. What's kind of the experience you've had there? Like how's you give people a bit of hope here where their first product hasn't worked out, and you've seen people turn it around and then gone to do amazing things.
Cien Solon:
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Cien Solon: 9:00
I think they're, um, from the products, uh, that I've helped uh build, and think they're from the products that I've helped build and grow and even like the products that I've advised on. I think they're kind of two common themes that happen after an MVP is released. They've got an MVP and a founder or the team would feel stifled and they're not. They don't feel like releasing their MVP to either a close group of cohorts or just to kind of test who would adapt it, or two they've got an MVP and they might have done a soft launch but they're able to get from 0 to 10. So those are the two kind of like common themes that I've been seeing for the past several years. I've seen this in some of the products that I definitely have either worked on as the product lead or products that I've advised on.
Cien Solon : 9:59
So you've got a product, you've got an MVP, and some of the founders I've worked with feel stifled because they feel like they can't release their MVP because it's not good enough. And some products have been released, maybe done a soft launch, but it's not getting traction. So one example that I've seen is we had one product that I led on our beta and our wait list grew. However, as soon as we let users in, we weren't converting, and so what we did was we built on our understanding of how the product was performing. By optimizing our data infrastructure, we started understanding where customers were dropping off, what customers weren't doing, and with that understanding we were able to convert more customers meaningfully. Then we removed our wait list and that grew the customer base to millions of users.
Amardeep Parmar: 10:57
Right, and I guess one of the really hard challenges too is like, once the MVP has come out, if it doesn't work out how you expect it to, some people will just freeze right of like, oh, I knew people who didn't believe in them, like all of the haters were right. How do you get through that mindset to like say actually no, this isn't the end of it, we can now go and do something. Have you you any tips for people?
Amardeep Parmar: 11:26
in that stage now where this they haven't yet pivoted because they're too worried about what they're failing again.
Cien Solon.
Yeah, I know absolutely, and there are many reasons why a founder or a team, a product team, would feel that way. One you're running out of runway. You're like we've tried what we thought we could do and we're not getting any traction. Or two, you've done a bit of usability testing and you're using it yourself and you don't believe in your product. You're like I don't understand enough to be able to like confidently release it.
Cien Solon: 11:49
Now, when you're in that position, it's easy to just like keep going. Or like keep build more features. Let's build more features and see what we can do. What you really have to do is look at your data, understand what is happening from a data perspective, whether that's a quantitative data, you're seeing drop-offs in a particular step in your journey. Look at that, optimize one at a time and see if that will move the needle up. And two, talk to more customers. Get your product in front of customers and collect that data and use it to inform what to do next. What do you need to improve? So, yeah, I think a lot of founders panic. They build on top of their existing features and they get lost in the mix and end up spending their entire runway and still not getting any traction because they haven't understood where they're, where they're failing in their product so you mentioned that about talking to customers and obviously, ideally, a lot of people talk to customers before they release the MVP.
Amardeep Parmar: 12:56
Have you ever seen any examples or like tips you give people where maybe the first customer base they talked to wasn't the correct customer base, and how can you work that out? How can you work out? Ok, these are the people we should now be talking to after the initial MVP failed?
Cien Solon: 13:09
That's a really good question and, yes, sometimes it is the persona. So, for example, if you're a B2B business and I've seen this before where you have a product that one of the products that was in my portfolio previously had a really good solution for last mile delivery problems, now they've identified a persona, but they didn't necessarily hone in on how to talk to this persona. There are multiple personas and decision makers and influencers that they've identified, but they weren't able to understand how to address them by steving out, how they talk about their problems internally and then position their products in such a way that that persona would just get it. So sometimes it is about um, not identifying the right persona, but also it's about identifying how, or like defining how, to accurately, accurately talk to that persona so that your solution resonates with them and they just go aha, yes, I need that.
Amardeep Parmar:
Yeah, and with the mvp collecting feedback as well, do you think sometimes it's easier?
Amardeep Parmar: 14:28
So you had an example there before you mentioned where you let some people through your wait list and those initial customers. What was some of the feedback you're getting there like? What was something that will maybe clashing with what you thought beforehand`?
Cien Solon:
No, that's a great question.
Cien Solon : 14:44
So a lot of the feedback that we got from customers were calling us and saying so what I did was actually look at the, the sentiment that was collected by customer service, and also collecting like actual feedback by talking to actual customers. One thing that we found by looking at our kind of customer service portal was that a lot of people were complaining about the signup process, that they were being kicked out or they weren't being approved by the signup process. So we quickly understood that that was a problem. All right, we need to fix this.
Cien Solon: 15:20
And then we also got some sentiment from customers that we interviewed that they didn't understand how the product works. They didn't because it was such a new product in the market. Then when we released it, it was basically it basically wanted to revolutionize how buy now, pay later, works, and instead of like accessing the product at checkout, being able to split your payments at the checkout, you were able to just use a virtual card, like how any card like MasterCard or Visa works. So they didn't understand the product, and so we then implemented changes in the product where we made it clear how the product works. Um, and yeah, it was. That is the type of sentiment that you want to collect, like understanding the pain points of the customers and then solving that within the product and let your product do the work of like acquiring customers seamlessly, onboarding them and then converting them into transacting users.
Amardeep Parmar: 16:22
And the communication aspect too. So obviously, one part is talking to the customers. But let's say you've got investors, or the team as well. How do you manage that conversation where you've released your initial product, you've built up the hype within the team, within your investor space, and it hasn't quite worked how you expected it to? How do you keep them on board and those people to be like yes, this is the right place for me to continue working, or I've got the right horse in terms of investment? How do you manage those conversations and expectations there?
Cien Solon: 16:50
That is a really great question, and I see this problem way too often than is needed. So a lot of founders that I've worked with and I've interacted with, I see struggle with managing their investors' expectation. So investors, initially, you know, like the idea of the product, they're investing, and then they get more invested emotionally, that they want to also contribute to the product's growth and how it develops, and so we see a lot of founders adding features on top of features, wanting to improve the product, quote unquote by adding the features that were suggested by their investors. Now what this means is that you end up with a backlog of just ideas from investors and then some that may have been suggested by customers. So your product ends up being convoluted and you don't know exactly what will get more customers to complete their signup and convert and using your product. Now, by doing so, this means that you're not getting transactions and you won't be able to tell your investors that you're getting either revenue or on route to profitability.
Cien Solon: 18:08
What this means, then, is the investors will end up getting frustrated anyway, even if you've built the features that were their ideas in the first place were their ideas in the first place. So what you should do is, again, make sure that you're collecting the right data to understand how your product is performing, and use that data not only to inform your product backlog and what to prioritize when you build and optimize your product, but also to use that as a as a story. Use that as a kind of like your base for your narrative when you talk to investors. This is why we did this. It's because the data said this and this is why we need to prioritize this, because the data is saying that. So it's all about having the right data to optimize your product, but also to talk to your investors.
Amardeep Parmar: 19:06
We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true.
Amardeep Parmar: 19:43
So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking.com.
Mona Ahluwalia:
So I guess maybe we can start with opening on some of the common challenges, highlighting some of those that you've seen in early stage founders facing when it comes to tackling leadership and growth.
Hema Bakhshi: 19:55
Yeah, I think the way I would describe probably the biggest challenge. I think that the way I would describe probably the biggest challenge I think that entrepreneurs and especially early stage founders face is that I think we work in a world where busyness and the hustle and bust, developing a successful business and to be able to scale and grow your company requires things such as leadership skills and critical thinking and at times when we are under pressure, those are the things that are harder to be able to center on. So I think one of the biggest challenges is the environments that we create and what we normalize. So there is a constant pull between that pace and that need for speed, with being able to find the time and headspace to be able to ground and connect and be very clear on where you're trying to get to. So I think overarching that is one of the biggest challenges I see people face generally and that doesn't go away. That tends to stay with them throughout their journey. It just changes the culture and the environment they're in changes, but that, that, that need and that pressure, I think remains.
Hema Bakhshi: 21:05
I think early stage founders face a lot of challenges. Actually, when I think more deeply about it, you know it comes from having a brilliant idea or a product or a service and they are then having to take that idea and they're on a journey where they have limited resources, so resources don't come freely. Um, they're having to leverage a network and sometimes, especially depending on your idea, your network is still relatively young and you might need to build it or develop it. So being able to develop and build the right network is really key. Money is always an issue, so, especially before you've got to the stage of funding, having to be able to do all of this stuff with limited cash is really difficult.
Hema Bakhshi: 21:48
The idea where you know the whole journey is quite all-consuming, I think, and you also don't have a peer network. So the other thing I think is quite difficult. It's not like you don't have a peer network. It's more difficult to have the team around you. So I think what people can often feel is that they're building something. You feel like you're building it in isolation, in a black hole, and you don't have the same support systems that you typically have if you're inside a business or an organization, and I think all of those things create the perfect storm for to feel that pressure, to feel you know, to feel that pace and for that to have adverse effects.
Hema Bakhshi: 22:25
So I think the biggest challenge is being able to manage that really effectively whilst also creating the time and headspace which I think needs to be done really consciously.
Mona Ahluwalia.
For sure, and that leads me very nicely onto the first topic I really wanted to delve into with those um, where you've spoken quite a bit about personal mastery and priming your mind for success. So personal mastery isn't something that I like, a term that I'm super familiar with, so, like, what does that actually mean?
Hema Bakhshi: 22:52
So to me personal mastery. I think it's about two things. So the way I would describe it is about developing a really deep understanding of yourself. So, firstly, thinking about things like your beliefs, or being able to understand, you know, we are comprised of lots of things. You know, it's not just our technical skills, it's not just our ideas. There are so many things that are informed the way that we operate as people. So, to give you an example of that, it could be things such as your beliefs that you have. It could be some of the limiting beliefs that you have. We all have them. It could be to do with your values.
Hema Bakhshi: 23:32
Values are a really important thing. They are core elements that drive your behavior. It's almost like a north star compass that helps to dictate. Um, you don't even know what's happening half the time, but how you behave, what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, what sits well, what doesn't sit well, and a lot of the time, people don't extract or explore what those values are to them and can find themselves feeling a bit at odds with the situation but not understanding why. So it's things like your values, it's like your lived experiences. You know everyone's come. You know everyone comes with history, a world view, their own culture, their own background, and all of that creates a really interesting perspective on how you see a situation, how you see your, the world around you, how you tackle a challenge, how you frame a solution. It's all informed by some of these things that often people don't tend to look at.
Hema Bakhshi: 24:25
So, again, whether it's your biases, whether it's your needs, whether it's your I don't know your strengths and your skills.
Hema Bakhshi: 24:32
Um, there are a lot of the stuff that's underneath the surface, and once you start to explore them, they can provide really good insight into how you can excel at what you're doing and also knowing where your limitations are. So, for me, personal mastery is a about really having a deep understanding of yourself, a real, true connection to yourself, and there are ways that you could build that. And then the second part for me is also utilizing your brain to prime for success, because I think our mind is a really, really powerful thing. So there are ways that you can use techniques. Once you see that there are techniques that you can use to start to prime your mind for success, whether that be through visualization and activating, like what they call the reticular activating system, which helps you to start to spot opportunities, but how your mind works and how you capitalize your mind, if you know what I mean, is really important. But you can only do that truly when you understand yourself fully really interesting.
Mona Ahluwalia: 25:31
Let's dig into that, like unlocking your mind and capitalizing on your thing, like what are some of the essential mind chefs? Uh, minds, mindset shifts um and techniques that founders need to get comfortable with
Hema Bakhshi:
Yeah, so I think there are.
Hema Bakhshi: 25:46
When it comes to mindset shifts, there's a couple of things. So I think the one that I think is probably underpins everything is developing a real sense of self-awareness, um, and you can cultivate some of that through various tools. You know there's different ways you can do that. But having that self-awareness means that suddenly, suddenly, you can kind of think very differently. Um, you know one of the differentiators, they say, between a successful business and a founder that will be successful. It's not just the product, it's not the service, it's not necessarily the people, it's their ability to think strategically and their ability to lead. And underpinning some of that is how you respond to a situation. So cultivating that self-awareness, understanding your own emotions, understanding your own thoughts, understanding your own emotions, understanding your own thoughts, understanding your own behaviors and actually how those three are really deeply interconnected is really powerful when you can get to grips with that. And it's something that everyone can do and learn and practice. It's like a muscle the more that you do it, the more that you practice. But I think, in terms of mindset shift, is that really understanding that self-awareness is really really critical. And then, once you are developing that, there are lots of other things. So, thinking about sort of shifts that founded mindset shifts, I think it's, once you're disconnected from, you create a disconnect between your business and yourself and you're able to see your business objectively. You create a disconnect between your business and yourself and you'll be able to see your business objectively. It creates a very different relationship with how you strive for success for your organization. So I think you start to see things more objectively, so you start to be able to and maybe with help, be able to notice like, where are the gaps? So how do you start to plug the gaps in terms of your, your skill set and operationally, if you're growing a company, where are the gaps that you need to plug? Where are your strengths, where your weaknesses, where are your opportunities? Being able to critically assess that I think it's really important for success.
Hema Bakhshi: 27:48
I think, in terms of other mindset shifts, it's about creating the right structure, because I think when it's your idea initially, people are very wedded and I see that a lot. You're really wedded to your idea and often knowing when you can step back from the idea, when the idea needs to evolve, I think is such a big thing. But as that happens, how do you set up the right structures in place to to help your company develop. That's really really important. And I think another thing is having a really clear vision, a vision that is very, you know, informed, so you're you're knowing where you're trying to get to, why you're trying to do it, what does that mean for you, your team, what does that mean for your end customer and how is that going to evolve? What impact is it having? What value are you creating? So having that really clear is important because in a world where we are really busy running around trying to keep up, trying to keep pace, some of this stuff I think can get left behind, and yet it's critical to see how your company evolves. So that piece around clear vision is really important.
Hema Bakhshi: 28:52
And then also, I think, as your company changes, needs will change. So you will face the same kind of pressures, but they will be in different, they will manifest very differently at different stages of growth. So, very early on, to the point that you secure funding, to the point you want to sell, all of those environments are very different. You know, from who's involved to the pressures around you, to the resources you have or you don't have, how you need to influence, what you need to get your hands dirty with. So it's really interesting. So I think thinking about how do you recognize your needs, how do you structure them differently at different stages of growth, is key, and I think, looking at your business as a business, you know.
Hema Bakhshi: 29:36
So I think I struggled with this personally. Actually, when I first started working for myself, I just felt because it was just me, I didn't really feel I had a business, I just thought I was working, and I was working very differently and create a step back. Because I work with other people where we look at every angle of their business, from their commercial models to their pricing, to their marketing, and you turn that lens on yourself. Suddenly you start to expose areas that actually could do with a lot of help, and it's then, I think, when you can step back, you create such a fundamental shift in how you operate. I think so. On one hand, what I'm saying is there is something really powerful about being deeply connected, but also being able to be connected but detached at the same time when it comes to your own growing, your own company.
Mona Ahluwalia:
Yeah, really good advice on the self-awareness piece.
Mona Ahluwalia: 30:29
That's really interesting. How can founders like assess their current leadership strengths and areas of improvement? How would you suggest they can look inwards realistically?
Hema Bakhshi: 30:39
So I think there's a few things that founders can do to start to assess their own kind of leadership strength. So I think the first thing I would say is feedback is a really great way to do that. So, you know, it's not often well, it depends on who you are actually but asking for feedback in a really rounded way, in a very constructive way, can be powerful, because I think we all have blind spots and anyone around you will be able to give you a perspective that you just don't have, and I think that is not a point of weakness, it's a real strength to be able to give you a perspective that you just don't have, and I think that is not a point of weakness, that's a. It's a real strength to be able to ask for that so you get real rounded view and you can do that with customers, let alone peers, let alone prospective clients. Actually, getting that um 360 view just gives you more data to look at. How can you sort of like assess what you're doing and how you're doing it, and it's all data. I think that's the other thing. It's all just information points for you to be able to take in. So I think feedback is a really big thing.
Hema Bakhshi: 31:42
I think in terms of tools, there are lots of um, there are lots of sort of profiling tools that are out there and I would say some of them are really good and some of them are less good. You know, they're not as good, and I think what the differentiator needs to be if you're looking at using a profiling tool to get an insight into yourself and your own personality and your own skills and attributes, it's important that you use a tool that is backed scientifically, so based on certain models that are psychologically proven. So there's a couple of models like big five or Pexico, where they look at things like traits such as like extroversion, open-mindedness, that kind of thing, humility and honesty, depending on the model, and you can start to go through some of those tools and look at how you start to get a feel for what you are. You know where your strengths are, where your areas of growth could be, and also these tools sometimes give you a view that where some of those strengths are in play, they can also become maladaptive and actually can be counterproductive at times, especially under pressure. So there are tools that can be used. They're not the sort of I think there's. You need to take the things that are free on the internet with a pinch of salt, but they exist but also probably need interpretation. So it's worth like with somebody who's trained in being able to do that. So there are some tools that I would recommend. Like with somebody who's trained and being able to do that. So there are some tools that I would recommend.
Hema Bakhshi: 33:17
The other thing I would say in terms of getting a better idea of yourself is working with a qualified coach. So I think if you're working with a coach that is qualified and trained, they should be adept at being able to help you extract, you know, not just personality. They'll be able to look at your motivation. They'll be able to help you to explore your skill. Looking at your worldview, looking at your context, you're starting to identify those limiting beliefs which are really getting in the way. So working with a good coach, I think, can help you develop that self-awareness, help you develop that sort of like that dig deep into that personal growth journey, um, and I think it's super powerful to be able to do that um.
Hema Bakhshi: 33:57
And then I think the final thing is there's something about self-reflection. I think there's a lot of um research out there that shows using the power of journaling can give you some sort of insight around you know, like your own strengths and what's coming up for you, and using that effectively. So I think there are ways to do it. I don't think there's an easy answer because I think, as people, we're really complex. You know we're really complicated, we're not simple, we're off-rule. But there are things that you can do to start to get that information and then, once you have that information, you have a choice to look at what do you use, what do you let go of or what do you focus on thank you for watching.
Amardeep Parmar: 34:37
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