In this episode of the Bad Meetings podcast, host Erika McKellar welcomes Safwan Al Turk, a seasoned business leader who blends business strategy with healthy living. Safwan shares his experience working with global giants like Procter & Gamble, Samsung, and Nestle, and dives deep into one of his most memorable bad meeting moments. He reflects on cultural missteps in high-level corporate meetings and offers valuable insights on avoiding similar mistakes in your professional life. Safwan also talks about how mental fitness, self-awareness, and personal challenges such as mountaineering and silent retreats have shaped his leadership style.
Host: Erika McKellar, Host and Conflict Resolution Seeker
Guest: Safwan Al Turk, Business Leader and Wellness Advocate
In this episode, Safwan Al Turk discusses the cultural challenges he faced during high-level meetings in multinational companies and how his ego sometimes got in the way of productive engagement. Safwan shares how important it is to prepare for not only the content but also the cultural expectations in meetings, and how self-awareness is key to adjusting your approach.
Safwan also emphasizes the importance of mental fitness—how self-awareness, stress management, and resilience are critical for personal and professional success. He provides practical advice on how to improve mental fitness, drawing from his experiences as a mountaineer and wellness advocate. The conversation covers how mental and physical challenges outside of work can influence better decision-making and leadership in the boardroom.
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Key time stamps:
Introduction: 00:00
Safwan's Background and Story Setup: 02:13
Cultural Differences in High-Level Meetings: 04:38
Overconfidence and Ego in Meetings: 07:06
How to Prepare for Cultural Nuances in Meetings: 09:21
Mental Fitness and Self-Awareness: 13:51
Wellness and Business Strategy Intersection: 18:32
Mountaineering and Mental Fitness: 34:02
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Notable quotes
"It's really important when you work in a diverse environment to understand how meetings are usually conducted. Don’t just rely on your previous experiences." - Safwan Al Turk
"Self-awareness is a journey, not a destination. We evolve with age, environment, and experiences." - Safwan Al Turk
"Being able to own up to your mistakes in meetings can be more powerful than knowing the right answer." - Erika McKellar
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Tools and resources
Mental Fitness at work: Learn how to develop resilience and awareness to perform at your best.
Cultural Intelligence: Resources on how to navigate cultural differences in professional environments.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (00:01.58)
Welcome to Bad Meetings podcast, where we embrace the awkward, the weird and everything in between when it comes to professional and sometimes not so professional meetings. I'm Erika McKellar. I used to be a people pleasing conflict avoider, but that wasn't working. So I went all in. I even got a master's degree in conflict resolution. And I spent the next decade learning hands on how tough experiences can actually improve our work life. On this podcast, I chat with people who have gone through it.
We break down their bad meeting story, find the lessons and share tips on how to have better meetings. It's simple, but it's not easy. You may just learn something from someone else's mistake. Listen in and reach out if you have a bad meeting story to share. Thanks for listening. Today, I'm so excited to welcome Safwan Al Turk, a seasoned business leader on a mission to blend business strategy with healthy living to make a real impact in the wellness space.
sounds right up our alley. So I'm really excited to hear more about that. Safwan has driven growth for global giants like Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Nespresso, and Samsung. No small feat. And he's now channeling his expertise into building innovative solutions, elevating brands, and empowering healthy lifestyles. Great. I love combining business and wellness. I think it's so important these days.
But Safwan, and your achievements go way beyond the professional realm. You're someone who constantly pushes boundaries and I can resonate with that. Whether it's summiting one of the seven summits, need to hear more about that, or completing a 10 day silent retreat. I might be able to do that. I'm not sure though. And perhaps your biggest challenge, you said, is getting the green light from your partner and your family for these adventures.
I can definitely resonate with that. So welcome Safwan. We're going to, we're going to, I'm going to let you say hello and welcome you to our guests, to our listeners. And then I want you to jump right into your bad meeting story. Erika, thank you very much for having me. I'm really excited for this because when you reach out to me regarding this topic, I really reflected on it. And I realized that we all have these kinds of like interesting stories. And I'm sure a lot of people that
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (02:13.912)
they're starting their career or even they are basically still in the ladder. And I'm sure that they will learn a lot of like the people that they went through that journey without even falling into these traps. But anyway, it's always better also to learn by mistake, personal mistakes, because this is part of the growth. And yeah, I have really interesting, a couple of stories, but I think one of the things before we start, since you mentioned that I've been in Dubai for almost 16 years.
which is something I'm really proud of. I work with the big multinationals, you already mentioned them. However, also I work with like diverse cultural, basically from markets from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, to the whole North African markets. So that also pushed me to develop my, I would say, set of social skills. But however, we are not immune to mistakes. And this is where my story takes me to the
amazing experience I had with the company like Samsung where it's of course, we all know that this is South Korean and being a little bit on the management and the leadership position, you are always exposed to be meeting up with executives, with board members, even with the clients. And I had of course, lot of like occasions where I had to be the interface of the brands and interface of even my department, the smartphone business, where I had the opportunity to
conduct meetings, business reviews, in the presence of the local regional president, even in the regional markets. So yeah, I would kind dive into the story and I would really share it in a very kind of like interesting manner. And this is where I think with all the experience that you get working with the different type of colleagues, different cultures, that even if you are prepared, where the level of
confidence when you prepare to any meeting, it goes like to the roof and you are always like with this mindset that I'm gonna nail this meeting easily. However, when you are in the meeting itself, things might fall into cracks and this is where my personal mistake took place where I did not, I would say, consider the cultural relationship between the management and the leadership team.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (04:38.57)
And of course, when you are running through the presentation, you did not basically allow this kind of like engagement and discussion. And this is where I believe that with all the practices that you conduct any kind of a business review or like in big meetings in the presence of the leadership, sometimes you take this for granted, although you are experienced and you do not allow this kind of like open engagement. And unfortunately, this is one of the biggest mistakes that I reflected on.
after the meeting that I did not allow this engagement. I did not give this kind of a room for the leadership to pitch in to their conversation. Hmm. Okay, so definitely been there where you assume something about your audience, right? And you're so ready for it. You're ready to answer all these questions in this specific area. And you show up and either the vibe in the room is totally different or the questions that you get are totally different. And I think
I think we could have all been there. And if you could walk us through maybe some specific examples of the cultural differences that you encountered in this meeting with the executives and how that impacted the conversation, I think that would be really interesting. Yeah, it's really important to look into how some of the cultures work, especially when you attend these kind of meetings, that you can imagine that there is a preparation steps that you have to take into consideration. The seating of the management and the attendees.
should be in structured way. Of course, there is two different ways of presenting, either standing or even on your seat. So also we have to look into these elements based on the preference of the leaders or basically the board members, how they would like to conduct the meeting. And this is one of the things, again, I would refer because I was really good from a logistical point of view to make sure that the preparation of the meeting is set. However, when you are basically in the middle of the discussions,
This is where it becomes really interesting how to articulate the idea, give room to everyone to add their point of view. And this is basically, this is my personal story that I was, you know, there is a thin line between confidence and ego. And this is where I realized that, okay, I think I stepped to my ego because the engagement was not healthy. And I did not even allow myself to give the room for the leadership team to add into it.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (07:06.05)
I wouldn't say. so you jumped in there, you had your meeting prep. Let's say you went over it a hundred times at home. You were so ready to go and you just sort of barrel through it or strap on your oxygen mask and your crampons and you just go for it, right? Yeah, it's something that when you, again, it's like I speeded up through the whole conversation, of course, the business review, all the points. And I did not give this kind of leeway for discussions.
Thinking that this is the requirement and this is something that I really learned I did not really understand before the meeting What is the level of like kind of like the frequency or the pace of the meeting should be and what are the key points that we need to cover and again this is something that because of my Preparation that was on point but the way I led the meeting in front of of course the other team members that did not add value to the meeting
that I did not run it in the right way and I went through the conversation or the whole basically the pitch without even giving the room for discussion. And again, it's something that I did not consider from the cultural point of view how they look into it because I conducted this several times and it went smoothly in some cases, but this is something that I would really refer to it to really learn ahead of time part of the preparation. What's the type of conversation? What's the pace? What's the room of like
kind of opening the conversation between the team members and the attendees. And what specifically, if you were, let's say we're speaking to a listener who's having the same conundrum right now, they're prepping for an executive meeting or for a manager meeting, they're not quite sure what the cultural vibe in the room is gonna be. There's only so much you can assume in advance.
would you have done differently or what advice would you give someone who's about to go into a meeting like this to make sure that they're prepared to handle perhaps a different vibe than they were expecting? That's a good question, actually. It's really important when you work with a diverse kind of environment is to really try to understand or seek some of your colleagues or friends or even from the top management, like a mentor or someone with a leadership position.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (09:21.442)
Try to reach out and try to understand what are the ways usually these meetings are conducted. And not to take it as based on your previous experience and try to run the show the way you are used to. And this is something, this is the mistake that I, when I entered this environment, I was highly confident. I know my information and I have this kind of a body language, for example, that I can be articulating the idea, trying to pinpoint to the presentation.
But in reality, this is where I realized that this is not the way I should conduct it. So my point of advice that when you are entering a totally different environment, either a company or even a totally different company culture, it's really important to step away a little bit, try to understand these meetings, how usually they are conducted, and if you have an access to someone who can give you an advice on how the leadership would like to review, do you have a pre-read document?
you share an information with them before the meeting. This information really helps you to position yourself as a thought leader, as someone who knows his basically position and what is the value that they can bring to the table. And yeah, this is something that I took for granted and I learned the hard way. I understand that. And if you're somebody who
I can make this assumption about you, Safwan, that you're probably really comfortable getting in front of people and speaking about something you're passionate about. And I understand that and how that feels. So when this happens to you or when you realize that things aren't going the way that you want, it's sort of like, crap, what do I do now? What was that exact moment where you realized things were?
heading south and not going in the direction that you wanted. It's really weird feeling. You you reminded me with this. I would say trauma, but yeah, it was really bad. I had to pause for like almost 30 seconds just to catch my breath because I'm sure that was my heart rate went to the roof. But yeah, luckily also it's really important to, I was able to rely on the team members around me that at least to support me and they stepped in just to.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (11:32.846)
Try not to cover up, but just to add a little bit of an input based on the conversation that we were running. And that really helped me just to go back, control my breath. And it's really important, something also in the board meetings or in other meetings, try to increase the level of self-awareness and try to hold, not hold the breath, but try to control and focus in your breath. That will give you a little bit like, of course, like a couple of like seconds to settle down.
to refocus and to go back. And something that also in that experience specifically, I was really open about basically the mistake that I've done. And of course I shared my point of view that yes, I have done mistake in this one. If there is any point that we missed, I would love to cover it again and discuss it in details. And I would say this was accepted. Well, actually it was well received and the same time it really taught me that, okay,
how from now on, how to consider these ones we covered from preparation, taking the cultural aspects, what's the type of kind of like conversation, the tonality, even the language. Sometimes we assume that everyone speaks a certain kind of speed or like an English and articulated way. But sometimes in some cultures or some companies, they don't have this kind of kind of like speed to catch up what you're saying. So you need also to slow it down. And I received this several times upon.
you can slow down, I think your ideas will be articulated. This is why even now I'm trying to always be cautious, aware that my speed, how to turn it down based on the audience is really important, that you'll be able to deliver the message in the right way, to deliver in clarity, and without missing any point you need to deliver.
That's so smart. And I really like that you brought up about owning up to your mistakes and how your coworkers jumped in to sort of like help you get through that moment. That's what that's what good coworkers do. But the fact that you spoke up, there's a strength to doing that and saying, you know what, like, I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to that question. Let me get back to you. I think that that's that can be such a powerful thing to say even more powerful than knowing the right answer. Right. Because we're all human. And, you know,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (13:51.086)
It happens, right? We expect something and we prepare for something and it doesn't happen the way we want. And the only thing to do is to really own up to that. I think that's really solid that you learned that lesson. You also talked about self-awareness and I'd love to touch on that because I'm obsessed with self-awareness, probably to the point where, I don't know, people think it's weird. I love doing self-personality tests, things like that. Not that I take them as gold.
but I find them so insightful because things change. You change as you learn, as you grow, as you get older, as you have children, as you get married, your risk levels change. Perhaps not you and I, but we wish we could climb the mountain every day, but we also too have other responsibilities. But what tools or resources have you used to increase your self-awareness?
That's a really interesting area we can cover. Again, we learn by the mistakes more than an accessible knowledge. Of course, you can always read and understand what YouTube's fair or to listen to someone. But it's really important again that self-awareness is a journey and not a destination. And as you mentioned, that we evolve with age, with an environment, with the surroundings, with everything related to how this environmental impact.
you that this is where your self-awareness starts to evolve. But we are humans and we are always exposed to mistakes where in every occasion I say in the corporate and the personal life, my mountaineering journey and my silent retreat, it was all of them like a touch point on how to discover myself and of course how to be in the moment, try to not to be I say impacted by the surroundings.
How to also look into my stress levels where basically it's also a skill that I would say it's easy but self-awareness becoming Self-awareness becoming really key that Really to focus on Try to at least bring a little bit of like simple rituals like for example now I have a conversation with you Sometimes you are in the moment. You don't focus on the idea. You need to deliver just slow it down
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (16:10.99)
take it in breath and then try to articulate it in a better way. So yeah, so that's, do it together right now. That takes me back to the silent retreat, if you want to tap into, because it was, I would say it's a life changer or a wake up call, but it's, really was a good exposure. How this kind of like,
self-centered and how the everything that impact us consciously and subconsciously and this has a big influence how we look into things and again this experience was was a decision that for multiple reasons I want to have this kind of a detox but my experience it exposed me to the self-awareness and try to it's a simple act but it's really difficult because it's that simple and we are
Now, the modern society, would say, we are hyper-connected. We're all over the place. Our responsibility is becoming really interesting. And we are always connected with this and that. And this is where we missed this kind of self-connection and awareness. And again, it's something topic I'm not that expert, but I'm in the journey of exploring it. you and I both. I do spend a lot of time on mindfulness. I haven't yet done a silent retreat, but I've definitely done
some self-awareness retreats that have been life-changing. And I'd like to jump into this topic a little bit more because I think this relates to what you're doing now in the wellness space. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how your experiences with the big organizations that you've worked for sort of brought you to that space? That would be a great place to go next.
I was actually during my journey in East corporate, I was lucky enough to be always identified by the person who push the colleagues and the people surround even the management to take care of themselves, being active, try to pick up and remove the snacks and bring the fruits, take the stairs instead of the elevator. And I was a bit far away from the kind of like mental fitness, which is something that I'm really tapping into.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (18:32.502)
and not only the physical fitness. And of course, that starts with the self-awareness, the practices you do, how you kind of like work on your empathy with your colleagues, with your friends, and something that I was being lucky to be to join or to initiate some of the activities in the companies. And of course, that it led me to the point that after this whole journey that why I cannot take this
and try to scale it in a different way. And this is what led me to look into the copper journey, which is something that I'm really proud of and how I can really consider in creating something that has a bigger impact and have a mass impact on multiple verticals. Learning from my personal experience starts with the mindset, which is the mental fitness, the nutrition, something basic that we all fall under the trap of trying to maintain a good, healthy eating habits.
at the same time for the movement and being active, regardless what type of sport or activity you do, and the recovery that includes everything when it comes to the mobility, range of motion, and sleeping. So this has basically became, I say, my core pillars of focus. since I left in 2022, I started to really focus on how to...
bring this my experience when it to the business strategy and applying on the wellness regardless if it's like healthy consumer packaged goods, wellness solutions, bio-wearables, wearables and of course trying in the same time whoever basically is willing to take a simple advice from the basic stuff I do I'm more than happy to share and discuss. I don't want to be a coach, I'm not a life coach, I'm not the trainer, I'm not the person trainer.
But I would say I have experienced it the hard way. So this is something that I'm really proud of. Well, that's what this podcast is all about is learning from our mistakes and sharing those learnings so that others can grow without having to make these sometimes painful mistakes. You know, they're hard when you're going through them. And I think one thing that I hear a lot is like, you need to separate your emotions from business. But
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (20:47.682)
we're human beings and that's literally impossible. So being able to, like you said, reflect on how it is, you know, things impacted us, how we impacted others, and then working on making sure that we do it better next time is such a key lesson. And it sounds really simple, but it's not easy. not easy. When you are in the middle of it, it's not easy. And again, it's like reflecting on my last sprint with the multinational like Samsung. It was
Now I'm reflecting on it. I'm really happy that I went through this kind of different working culture or the whole environment was really intense because again, it's a competitive, the whole industry is competitive. The working culture is unique. again, referring to the meeting that I went through or the kind of engagements with the leadership or with the management that didn't go well or as per my expectations.
something that now I can reflect on and say, okay, these are the learnings. This is the approach that I need to take it when you jump into a total different environment, how you bring a little bit of positive influence and how you learn this kind of like communication skills, social skills, to be empathetic, to really understanding you cannot just push your agenda or the way you think, thinking that they will be receptive. And this is something that it slapped me on the face several times.
And now I can say, I'm, I'm, wouldn't say I'm happy, but yeah, it's like, it became like sometimes a joke and the learning in the same time.
I love that. love how open minded you are to those experiences and to sharing those experiences. You know, I personally have worked all over the globe as well. I worked for in the US for many years in Europe, and I also worked for three years in Morocco. So I've seen like a whole just gamut of differences, cultural differences. And it doesn't mean that you need to like study and change yourself for every culture that you work in. But it does mean that you need to sort of
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (22:48.672)
adapt and grow personally and like you said, mental fitness, which I'd like to hear a little bit more about, you know, adapt and strengthen your mental fitness to be able to get to to adapt quickly to change, read the room, have confidence, of course, be prepared, but go in also with flexibility and an open mind. So if you can talk a little bit more about mental fitness and people who are looking to increase their mental fitness, where would they begin?
The way I look into mental fitness and not separate a little bit into the mental health because something that we're not expert in that space personally, but the way I see it from a mental fitness is something I would start with the self-awareness. Try to understand a little bit about your personality and where you fit in in a certain environment. And of course this, it takes really good time. Try to reflect personally and seek the people around you, how they look into you and
in a certain environment. That's for me, it's a point number one. When comes to number two is about, I would say stress management, it's more related about being resilient and being adaptable in a certain situation, even through a tough time or a deadline you need to deliver. And what are the things that you can really depend on when it comes to certain practices? Call it like breathing techniques, call it kind of like going for a walk. This.
by itself, these kind of rituals that you believe that they can anchor you to be in the right mindset. This is what I call like to be resilient in the moment. And the third point is something that I've been trying to look into it recently, how to be unstressable and something that I've reading a lot recently and how to look into this kind of like micro stresses and the macro stresses. And of course we are in the corporate environment.
even if you are a startup, you are a solo printer or in any environment, how this kind of being aware about these small kind of micro stresses that can compound and adds up to collapse in any moment. And sometimes we got really angry from the traffic, from any kind of like being late for a certain meeting. And we think that this occasion that caused this kind of a panic, where in reality,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (25:08.258)
You have a compound of several things, for example, not preparing to the meeting, not being coordinating with the other team members and what's the scope of what's the agenda of the meeting. You end up reaching the meeting and all the mess took place without being prepared. This is where I see it like how to manage the stress and to become unstressful. These are three elements that I believe in the corporate environment can set you in a very good position.
to be a reference and to be a little bit like the guy who can manage everything under kind of a crisis situation. Unstressable. I love that. I don't know if I could ever achieve it, but it's something I would want to aspire to. so keep continuing on in that when I'm actually going to ask you for some personal help here right now. I'm working in Sweden, right? And we can talk about.
high context and low context culture. And if you know Erin Meyers, the culture map, it's pretty much a classic that came out in 2014. However, I don't know if it's really applicable anymore. I think that high context and low context doesn't really tell the whole story. I believe all cultures are high context. It's just being able to know what you're looking for. And so with that, in Swedish culture, there's a lot of sort of
unspoken, right? There's a lot of things, you know, everything is said very carefully. Everything is, you know, it's quite, it's quite open on the surface. But I think that there is a lot of things unsaid and it's not going to be obvious if you're sort of missing the mark, because people are going to say, you know, everything's fine. It's sort of like a bit, you know, keep conflict low. Let's just get through it and not pay attention to it and move on.
What advice would you give somebody who's in a culture like that where you're not really sure what the expectations are and you're not sure how to act in a situation where are you making the mark or you not? What would you what advice would you give me in that situation? Yeah, that's that's really interesting. Basically, would say see Dubai is really interesting place because it can give you
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (27:22.05)
kind of like a platform or a place where you can try to figure out how to step away from the corporate situation and try to interact with some different nationalities and just try to have like a friendly conversation and trying to understand a little bit that what are the things that limitation that you cannot cross the limit or something that you cannot cover it personally. And this will give you a little bit of room to understand how these kind of like tips, how you can apply it.
in the corporate culture. I think markets like the Scandinavians, where more or less they are on the horizontal level of management, where you can see some countries that are like more vertical. And again, I would say always refer to Dubai as the perfect example. But my advice to you is to step away from the corporate environment, try to reach out to the locals and try to have like
an open conversation to see how usually they handle personal topics, how they manage usually some sensitive topics. I think this will bond a little bit. You will be with less little bit of proximity to their working culture. And of course you can take it to the workplace. This is basically where I did it in some cases. Again, I'm referring to my experience with the South Korean, which is somehow they have really unique.
kind of a character and personality and culture itself. So I had the opportunity to ask one of the Korean colleagues, we went out for dinner, we went out for drinks, and we had like an open conversation. How they look into us, how they look into the Arabic culture, how they look to the British culture, how they look to the Indian culture. And I was able to understand a little bit how they look at the things, how they receive the information, and to what level they are open to opening a little bit of like.
going deep a little bit to the sensitive topics. So this is basically the way I experience it personally. Right, that's really, really good advice. So find someone you trust who will give you the real deal. Have an open conversation away from work and really try to understand what it is you're working with. And I think also too in this multinational world, mean, very few of us are working in a sort of a one, a geographical culture.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (29:43.726)
exclusively anymore. You know, there's a company culture that goes along with that as well. And I could probably guess that in the wellness space, there's a wellness culture, right? There are some companies or some groups of people, communities that are more open to that conversation about wellness, mental fitness, self-awareness than others are. Yes, exactly. Now, that's also a really important point.
When it comes to, for example, the mental health, is really important to take into consideration the sound cultures. It's like a taboo and usually they don't share it even on a family member level, which is quite annoying. I would say that we are trying to break the barrier to make sure that this conversation is open. And this is what I realized recently that the mental health is, unfortunately, is a little bit...
becoming like a common conversation that everyone taking a really negative leverage or advantage of, where I'd rather focus on the mental fitness, something as preventive and not trying to figure out how you can solve your, I would say, health issues. Where, yeah, it's really a sensitive topic related to the cultures and still navigating a really, I wouldn't say difficult road, but people become more and more
kind of aware about these things, vulnerability is becoming really important, especially for the leadership and try not to also misuse it for certain objectives. And yeah, it's not something that is fully explored, but I think there is a lot of progress compared to 10 years ago.
Well, thank you for being a trailblazer in that space because we need more of it. And I think everyone's aware of the conversations that are happening with experts like yourself and on LinkedIn about mental health and and mental fitness, which I actually I really like that because we think about, you know, physical fitness or, you know, before you get sick. Right. So don't wait until you're sick. You know, make sure you're taking care of your body, your mind and everything before you get there. And I think that's such a key point.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (31:50.83)
for our listeners to take home is, you know, get to know yourself. Work on your mental fitness, whatever tools work for you, mindfulness, know, physical exercise, all of that. It's all important. You need all of it. You can't just have one and not the other. It's going to be a band-aid if you don't approach all of them. Yeah, absolutely. You can always explore the thing that really can add to this. And again, I really focus on the mental fitness and we can refer to things that not
the experiences I went through in the meetings at the corporate just even stepping out of my comfort area has really gave me lot of like mental fitness is that trying to put myself in a really difficult situation every year. This is something that I brought back and really give me the fuel to manage my expectation and to improve my self awareness in the corporate environment. And of course,
that applies on the leaders, on the middle management and the employees. Also to step away, try to explore your physical limitation and your mental limitation in certain areas. Regardless if like a very like exclusion hike or like a mountain to climb or going for 10 days for a repeat. Regardless, it's everyone has his own catalog of activities at least to push yourself physically and mentally. And all the things that you will learn.
Definitely will not crush you. Maybe at the moment you feel that you're crushed, but believe it or not, after recovery, after post these activities, you realize this have been positive influence on you, on your loved ones, on your friends, and on your colleagues and the corporate environment. Taking care of yourself and making yourself stronger is going to benefit everybody else around you. I love that. So Saqour, let's end. It's a selfless act. Yeah, it is a selfless act.
I love that there's so many good points and quotes in here that I can't wait to adapt and use myself. So I'd love to end this conversation with something that I've been curious about since we started half an hour ago. Tell me which one of the summits that you have done has had the biggest impact on you and your life.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (34:02.766)
See, there are two summits that, of course, it was a really key milestone in my life. And again, we can always use these analogies of reaching the summit and all the stories that comes with it. So the Aconcagua, the one in the America, the highest in the America, is quite an amazing experience. And this is for a lot of reasons.
One, it was the turning point moving from corporates to become like kind of entrepreneurship journey. And two, the preparation and the logistics that took me tried to move myself from Dubai to Argentina post-COVID, where there are lot of limitations in the flight, and the journey that took me to the summit and the big incident that happens after we reached the summit. So these are the stories.
I have a nice story that, of course, I wrote about it on my personal website. But I'll quickly, as you know now, that it wasn't easy for me to take the call after I decided to leave the corporate just to have this kind of like a cutoff by doing something beyond my limitation. Although I had really climbed mountains, I went to Alpris in Russia, the second in Europe, which is the highest in Europe, actually. And I know these kind of like fundamentals. Going back to my...
experience on the physical training and the mental fitness that put me in the right kind of a mindset and physical readiness to conduct this one. Two, try to manage the flights between moving from Dubai either to Europe to the US then to Chile, Chile to Argentina. It took me 24 hours with all the logistics and the packages that I'm trying to reach to Argentina. The 18 days climbing Aconcagua was
beyond, I would say, one of the best experiences. Physically, it was really tough. The landscape was new to me. It's bit dry on the high altitude. But this is one of the, I would say, life experiences. And just one of the key points that I had spoken with a veteran climber, and this applies on all of us. He told me that, are you enjoying this climb? said,
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (36:24.302)
Of course, I'm enjoying it, but I'm really tired. told me that I'll give you two advice and he's a bit old. He's from Brazil. He told me two things. One, don't look into the summit. Just take it step by step because if you look at the summit, you might break your neck. And I said, that's amazing. And what's the second advice? He told me that whenever you go, try to carry a newspaper with you because when you do number two, you don't have to
carried by something. I said, okay, that's amazing advice that came hand in hand. These two tips, they can take it with you. the way, just go back to the preparation part. Just always be prepared by a new staff here because you don't have to worry about how to carry it. That's fair enough. But yeah, it's, I will leave you with this one regarding this mountain. It was an amazing
actually experienced that after we reached the summit, one of the climbers with us had a really bad kind of, I would say, a lung reaction to the altitude. And we spent an extra like six hours after the cutoff of being on the summit, trying to reach out to the third camp, which is for me. And again, my background really luckily helped me because I was in the Red Cross in Lebanon and it was really with the good.
kind of awareness again with my guide that we stayed with this guy trying to make him recover and we were not able even to bring the helicopter to pick him up where we had to drag them and it took us like more like almost seven hours to reach the camp three. But something that again, these kind of like milestones, it goes back to how my physical preparation and mental fitness.
pays off in these situations. And again, being unstressable, something really important because you can imagine all these steps and the journey and the ups and downs and how try to maintain this kind of a mindset and mental fitness along the way. But again, I can say proudly that this was an amazing achievement. And I can always say that I'm still in the journey. You never know what type of like new experience comes with the way, but I'm really confident that I will be facing it heads on.
Erika McKellar, Wellem AB (38:49.496)
Well said. We're always on the journey. That's a great story. And what I'll do is I'll pop the link to your blog if people want to hear more about it because I find that really interesting. thin air was one of my favorite books. couldn't put it down. I've never I read the book and I was watching the movie, which is the when I was going to Russia and I was why I'm even reading this book when I'm on the way to the summit.
It's my scariest book to read before you climb a mountain. Mental fitness, right? You're really stretching it all the way. I love it. So whether you're climbing a mountain or getting in front of executives, mental fitness is so important. Look into it. Look into some of the resources that we're going to put in the show notes. And Safwan, thank you so, much for being.
open for sharing your stories, for sharing your mistakes, which have led you to where you are today. I'm so grateful for that. So thanks so much for your time. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you everyone for listening. All right.