Faris Aranki – What are your 3 adjectives?

[00:00:08] Robert Hossary: Hello and welcome to 10 Lessons Learned where we talk to sages and gurus, leaders and luminaries from all around the world to dispense wisdom for career and life that’s wisdom for your career and your life.

[00:00:22] Robert Hossary: My name is Robert Hossary and I’m your host for this episode.

[00:00:26] Robert Hossary: Today’s guest is Faris Aranki from the United Kingdom. Faris is the CEO and founder of Shiageto Consulting. Have I got that right? Faris?

[00:00:39] Faris Aranki: You have, yes.

[00:00:40] Robert Hossary: Shiageto Consulting. Faris has got a great story. He’s got some great lessons, but rather than me.

[00:00:48] Robert Hossary: introducing Faris, I thought I’d try something different today and ask Faris to tell us more about himself.

[00:00:54] Robert Hossary: So Faris, tell us about you and tell us about Shiageto Consulting.

[00:00:59] Faris Aranki: Yeah, it’s a real pleasure Robert, and thank you for inviting me today. So, yeah, nobody knows somebody like themselves, so let me try and give you a little potted history, a little bit of explanation of who I am and what I do. So here I am in London, United Kingdom, and I run Shiageto Consulting that you said, which is a small consulting firm that focuses on strategy and emotional intelligence.

[00:01:20] we are here to make companies more effective and actually the Shiageto is the Japanese word for a sharpening stone. So we sharpen other people, other companies.

[00:01:29] Robert Hossary: Well, you answered one questions I was going to ask you, so thank you.

[00:01:32] Yeah, but I’ll tell you the story of why I came up with that name, if you like, a little bit later, Robert.

[00:01:36] I’ve been running this company for three years and it’s a real pleasure to do that. But the journey to get here is like any journey. It has twists and turns stumbles and picking back up. And it all started many years ago having, left university as a mathematician and economist.

[00:01:50] Faris Aranki: And I went on to become a secondary school, high school teacher, teaching those two subjects. I used it as a vehicle to teach around the world and live in different countries, different cultures. And I had a fantastic time, but after five years, I decided it was right to switch over into the business world, which was really where my passions lie.

[00:02:07] Faris Aranki: And, I ended up joining an energy company, so I know all about the world of gas, electricity, oil power, cuz I, spent a lot of time in their strategy team and I learned all about the industry. But my key takeaway is that I love strategy. I love solving complex problems. So, I moved over into strategy consult.

[00:02:25] Faris Aranki: Where I’d spent the next 12 years of my life working for Big Strat houses, solving a range of problems around the world, developing these ideas and what companies should do. But it was, at that point, during that journey, I realized there was a missing ingredient. And that was, you can be the smartest person in the room, you can have a great idea, but if you don’t take others with you on that journey, then it ain’t going to go diddly.

[00:02:45] These stretches are not going to be, successful. So, I became fascinated by that and pivoted my career to actually landing ideas with people getting companies and teams to buy into the same idea and work better together. And that’s what I do today.

[00:02:59] I hear you. I understand what you’re saying about strategy. I understand what you’re saying about, not going anywhere if you don’t bring people along on the journey. I can’t tell you how many organizations I have been with that, just didn’t do that. And they, some of them are not around anymore, but some of them are just limping along doing what they did before.

[00:03:21] Robert Hossary: But, your organization has got can I say a motto? Success equals IQ multiplied by EQ. Multiplied by FQ. Explain that to us, please.

[00:03:33] Faris Aranki: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And I think some of that’s a legacy of being a former math teacher that I needed an equation as my methodology, but actually, when I sat back and was thinking, you know, what does bring success from a strategic point of view?

[00:03:46] Faris Aranki: And for companies, obviously you need to know where you’re going. You need to have a clear vision, a clear goal of what, and not just at a company level. Each of us, we need to be, have life goals. But also, what am I trying to achieve in this, podcast? What am I trying to achieve when I write this email?

[00:03:59] And then you need to bring three elements you need to bring IQ. So the right level of ideas, creativity, you know, your sharpest thinking into the mix. And that’s what we talked about before, having great ideas. The second component you need is that ability to take others with you. The EQ, the emotional intelligence.

[00:04:13] Are you talking about it in the right way? Are you engaging people? Do you genuinely care for them? And then third component is this focus quotient. Now, the ability to focus and deliver what is important to you, right? So to dial down the distractions and really give it a your all. and, often see, particularly the EQ and the FQ, very limited in companies and sometimes in individuals.

[00:04:36] Faris Aranki: So, as a company, we go in and we help across each of those, or specifically one of those pillars depending on where our help is needed.

[00:04:42] Robert Hossary: FQ, focus quotient. this is a new terminology for me. I have not heard of the focus quotient is that a Faris original.

[00:04:53] Faris Aranki: It is a Faris original. it is trademarked.

[00:04:55] but that’s just to stop vultures. But yes, it also sounds a little bit rude as my brother often laughs at me when I say FQ at him. but, no, it is an invention. I think, you know, nicely summarizes for me when I was looking at that missing pillar.

[00:05:07] Robert Hossary: Oh yeah. I find it fascinating, because once you’ve explained it, once you explain it’s the focus quotient and how it fits in with the other two, it makes so much sense.

[00:05:17] Robert Hossary: Absolute perfect sense. Very interesting. Well, I’ll tell you what, let’s just jump into your 10 lessons and let’s see how much wisdom we can impart to you, the listener.

[00:05:28] Lesson 1.   Run towards the wrecking ball.

[00:05:28] Robert Hossary: So, let’s go with lesson number one. Lesson number one, run towards the wrecking ball.

[00:05:34] Faris Aranki: Yes.

[00:05:34] Robert Hossary: Not a lot of people want to do that Faris, but tell us what you mean by running towards the wrecking ball.

[00:05:41] Faris Aranki: Yeah. And I should just preface these 10 lessons with, I said, you and I were chatting before this, interview and I said, do you know what, I originally did this task and I thought, I’m not going to have 10 lessons. But then I came up with so many and then I had to rationalize them. So, you know, I came up probably about 35 and I got back I was 10 and I thought for the purpose of the narrative, I did them in chronological order.

[00:06:00] Faris Aranki: So, you know, bear with me listeners, these come from my life in an order, but obviously they’ve been reinforced throughout my life as well.

[00:06:06] Faris Aranki: So, run towards the wrecking ball Yeah. Is a fantastic but scary mantra. It is about living outside your comfort zone. you know, and this really was drilled into me early on, in my school days.

[00:06:17] Faris Aranki: You know, I was very fortunate to go to a nice school, a good school surrounded by other people who were, from nice families and doing well. and it’s was very easy to take for granted the high levels of attainment and what was expected from us. Almost to the point that I’d often call it like a factory line.

[00:06:33] Faris Aranki: We were just, you know, doing well on a factory line. And, in my naivety, I felt I was a bit, I was a bit bored, right? and I realized that, and I was challenged by my parents to, to try new things, to really challenge and not just do stuff for the sake of doing it. And, I found, where I, I counterintuitively where I enjoyed and where I got the most, sort of push was that when I stepped away from the treadmill and did things completely, that I wasn’t comfortable with, Which is so hard to do, but time and time again, be it, stupid stuff like doing a bungie of jump, taking a job that I, you know, not qualified for.

[00:07:08] just throwing myself head first in and, has really been, where I have got the greatest richness in my life. so, I didn’t use this terminology back then, but I came up with a mantra about running towards the wrecking ball actually. Many years later when, when I was working with a difficult boss actually, that I had picked, to be my boss, and she turned around to me and said, I’m a bit like your wrecking ball, aren’t I?

[00:07:29] Faris Aranki: And you, for some reason, you seem to run towards me. And I was like, that is exactly what I have done. but actually my career is better for it is even no matter how painful this individual conversations are. So, yeah, it’s a nice learning that I continue to gravitate back towards.

[00:07:44] Robert Hossary: That’s wonderful.

[00:07:45] it’s something that a lot of us don’t realize that we should be doing and those that do it, probably don’t use the metaphor that you have. I mean, I’ve heard run towards the fire. I’ve heard a lot of different metaphors, but they all mean the same thing as run towards a wrecking ball.

[00:08:02] challenge yourself, get outside your comfort zone, go for something different. the adage of. If you do what you’ve always done, you get what you’ve always got, is wrong because when I hear that, what I see in my mind is those old-fashioned freezers, you know, the fridge freezer, where the freezer would frost up, and then you would have to defrost the whole thing.

[00:08:26] Robert Hossary: And as the frost builds up, your space becomes less. So, if you do what you’ve always done, ergo not defrost your freezer, you get less than you’ve always got. And especially the way society and technology and everything is moving today. You must get out of that comfort zone to learn new skills, to be better, to improve yourself.

[00:08:49] Robert Hossary: I couldn’t agree more. That is a wonderful lesson, and it’s a great way of putting it, Faris. Thank you very much for that. Well, let’s go to lesson number two.

[00:08:59] Lesson 2.   Don’t be sucked into the headlights.

[00:08:59] Robert Hossary: Lesson number two. Don’t be sucked into the headlights. I understand the metaphor, but I’m really looking forward to this lesson.

[00:09:10] Faris Aranki: So if we fast forward to, when I turn 17 here in the UK, when you turn 17, you can learn to drive. and it is a real honor, my parents, as my 17th birthday present, has arranged my first driving lesson, with a guy called Bruce. I’ll never forget Bruce, he rang on my doorbell, made a very powerful impression on me, and we got into his little mini metro and we, you know, he taught me all the things and we started driving.

[00:09:31] Faris Aranki: And it wasn’t on that first lesson per se, but a couple of lessons in, we were driving at night for the first time, and what I found was I was beginning to drift into traffic. and he had to pull me back and he shouted me, don’t drift. You know, don’t be sucked into the headlights. He said, this happens all the time.

[00:09:48] Faris Aranki: You know, the first time you see headlights on the other side of the road, y your brain will drive towards them, but obviously that’s a terrible thing. You’ll be result in a crash. he said this, he was very comforting, and he said, look, this happens. It’s a natural thing. You have to overcome that urge to just get sucked in to just, you know, you need to be in control, not let the external influences.

[00:10:09] and that was such a powerful lesson for me. Again, this is something that reinforced time and time again throughout my career, and I often say it to myself in different ways. You know, a very similar way I say is that I’ve kind of converted to nowadays is to be demand led, not supply led. Okay? It’s always very easy, to get sucked into the headlights because they’re there.

[00:10:31] Faris Aranki: Not because you want them to. And it’s the same in life. It’s easy to do something because it’s there, not necessarily cuz you want to do it. And if it wasn’t, you know, introduced to you, would you choose it anyway? be that in the choices of food we eat, the work we do, the people we spend time with.

[00:10:46] Faris Aranki: So, a really powerful lesson. Fortunately there was Bruce by my side to pull me back from those headlights in the early days. But who’s your driving instructor in your life nowadays? Now? Who’s your Jimi cricket? who can whisper that phrase? and that’s why I write all these things as little phrases because they’re the little triggers for me, particularly when I am in danger being sucked in the headlight, I can just say them to myself and remind me myself of that wisdom, and what I should be doing, and not getting sucked into the headlights.

[00:11:12] Faris Aranki: So for those fans of sort of, psychology and neuroscience maybe have heard of the two systems of how the brain works.

[00:11:19] One is an automatic, is a reflex. and the other is a really, intentional, thinking. Okay. they’re called system one and system two. Now, most of our life we use system one because it is too much energy and too much time to think through everything. Like imagine if, when we come to walk, imagine we had to think about each action we take when walking.

[00:11:37] Faris Aranki: No, we do that through the instinctive.

[00:11:39] Robert Hossary: Yep.

[00:11:39] I think, and that’s the headlights are useful. Going with the flow is useful in a lot of times, but a lot of times you want to stop and actually think, why am I doing this? What do I intend to do? and that is, that is what for me, not being sucked into the headlights is about intentionality.

[00:11:53] Faris Aranki: Yeah. Is about, you know, being certain, making decisions for the sake of, of what you want rather than reacting to the stimuli around you. intention, the intention, and not the stimulus. I like that. And that makes a, that makes perfect sense.

[00:12:07] Lesson 3.   The platinum rule is better than the golden rule.

[00:12:07] Robert Hossary: Okay. So, Let’s move on to lesson number three.

[00:12:12] So everybody’s heard of the Golden Rule, but Faris says that the platinum rule is better than the Golden Rule. So, tell us about your platinum rule.

[00:12:23] Faris Aranki: Well, it’s not my platinum rule. I unashamedly borrowed this, but, yeah, the platinum rule. Well, let’s just remind listeners of what the golden rule is.

[00:12:32] Faris Aranki: So the golden rule is what you were probably taught as a child. , which is treat others how you would like to be treated. Okay. It’s a great rule and it’s fantastic. It’s applying your set of thinking to others.

[00:12:42] Robert Hossary: I’m going to disagree with you on that, but anyway, I’ll let you finish.

[00:12:45] Faris Aranki: Okay. But it’s a rule that many of us at all.

[00:12:47] Faris Aranki: Yes. But there’s an even better rule, which is the platinum rule, which is treat others how they want to be treated. Okay. And that’s probably where your disagreement will come from, but it’s not until you, you realize that, that you will just stick in the golden rule because it’s Human beings are great, but we are self-centred.

[00:13:04] Faris Aranki: We put ourselves at the, in the middle of a narrative and we initially think everyone thinks the same way as us. us. this was what creates tension. And for me, where I first really saw this lesson, was age 17. Not long after those driving lessons, I actually went to spend a year, before university, living in a little village in Nepal.

[00:13:22] Faris Aranki: And I lived with a local family, as one of them. And I’d learnt the language I ate with them, I slept with, lived in the same house as them. And, we used to have meals together. And, me being British, whenever I wanted something during the meal, be it some salt or, you know, somebody’s passed something.

[00:13:37] Faris Aranki: I’d say a lot of please and thank yous. And I did this for the first week. And then finally after a week, the dad of the family just erupted at me and he said, why do you keep saying please, and thank you when I, when you asked for the salt, for example? And I said, well, you know, That’s the polite thing to do.

[00:13:53] Faris Aranki: He said, no. In Nepal we only say please and thank you. If somebody actually does something a worthwhile, let’s save your life, . He said, it’s offensive to me that you think this is on par. This is just a human being should pass somebody else the salt. Right? Please. You know? And he was like, stop it immediately.

[00:14:08] Faris Aranki: And it, I, you know, I was aghast step back and thought, you know, how could I, how could what I thought was right in the world really irritate somebody else? And it was because I was just looking through my lens, not his. and it really changed how I approached other human beings. and when I years later read about the difference between the platinum and the g the golden rule, it just made absolute sense to me.

[00:14:28] Faris Aranki: So it was a, it’s a mantra I adopted and, and a large part of the EQ work that I do with companies and individuals.

[00:14:34] Robert Hossary: Well, I’ll be using that moniker from now on. I, I learned the same lesson, many years ago. Not in the same way, of course, but interestingly enough, I learned it. Overseas.

[00:14:44] Robert Hossary: So I learned it while I was working in another country. So, it’s the same lesson. We are a diverse population in every country of the world. We are diverse. You treat people the way they want to be treated. So the from now on, I will refer to that as the platinum rule. thank you Faris. But I totally agree with you and the old, you know, treat people the way you want to be treated is just so myopic people, you know, you don’t understand, or you don’t appreciate that people are different.

[00:15:18] Robert Hossary: We are all different. We are all unique. So, thank you for that. that is to me, Just such a powerful, powerful listen.

[00:15:27] Faris Aranki: So I’ll just say, Robert, you know, once you start thinking like this, it really unlocks things like being more curious, talking to more people, listening more, you know, basic human things that make us much better humans.

[00:15:39] Faris Aranki: Absolutely. I just love that one. All right. We can, I can spend hours on that alone, but let’s move on. let’s move on.

[00:15:47] Lesson 4.   What kind of learner are you?

[00:15:47] Robert Hossary: Lesson number four. Yeah. What kind of learner are you?

[00:15:52] Robert Hossary: Now this is a brilliant question for me. it’s a brilliant rule and lesson because I had to learn that.

[00:16:00] Robert Hossary: I learned what kind of learner I was, throughout my career. I didn’t go straight to university out of school. I went to work. Because I just didn’t think I was that kind of learner. And it turns out I’m a mature age learner. I did my university while I was at work. I got my master’s while I was working because that’s what worked for me.

[00:16:23] Robert Hossary: Now it doesn’t work for everybody. So, it’s a great lesson. Great question. So tell us your story behind what kind of learner you are.

[00:16:30] Faris Aranki: Yeah. So, carrying on my journey, I got back from Nepal. I went to university, studied my degree and it was suddenly, maybe it was cuz I’d spent a year out, but it was suddenly felt a lot harder to learn than I had done at school, whereas spoon fed and, it just came a bit more naturally.

[00:16:45] Faris Aranki: And, it’s really fascinating. but obviously it was something I needed to crack, quite, quite early on to, to make the most out of university And. I realized that the way I, you know, had sort of a book learned education and being spoon-fed, was useful, but it wasn’t going to work in this environment.

[00:17:03] Faris Aranki: And my way of being, of absorbing the information I was learning was to rewrite it and was to re go out and tell other people about it.

[00:17:12] Robert Hossary: to teach, in other words, To teach. Yeah. and, yeah, which would be a, sort of a springboard, and maybe an insight into what I would do next in life.

[00:17:19] but it, so that, that made sense to me and that reinforced now, it wasn’t until years later I was reading an article about, which was called “What kind of Learner are you?” that, the penny suddenly dropped. What had I, what I’d stumbled across, but was actually a well-known sort of, school of thought in the learning industry is we all learn differently, as you pointed out, some later on in life, some in different environments.

[00:17:39] but, uh, fundamentally there’s one or three ways of learning, you know, seeing, you know, say listening. You know, we get so much information every day. And in fact, I think I saw a stat the other day that an average human being will absorb, you know, 5 trillion gigabytes of, information, which is, you know, more than out there.

[00:17:54] Faris Aranki: So how do you actually make stuff stick? You either, write it down in your own words. Right. A hundred times. So, say you learned something new, it’s, it doesn’t mean anything until you do something with it. So you could write it down a hundred times and then you suddenly get it and you write it in your own words.

[00:18:06] Faris Aranki: You could go and tell a hundred people in your own way and then you get it. you get it even better. Or you could just apply whatever you’ve learned a hundred times. Okay? whichever one of those, and it might be a combination of those is what’s going to make your learning stick and be the difference between just skimming an article and forgetting it 24 hours later and actually taking that knowledge and doing something with it.

[00:18:28] Faris Aranki: But, many of us have never sat down and thought, what kind of learner am I? So how am I actually going to turn it from a passive learning into an active learning and make the most of whatever I have just been reading,

[00:18:38] Robert Hossary: apply what you have. I couldn’t agree more. Th this is something that again, took me years to understand, but apply what you’ve learned and it sticks.

[00:18:50] Robert Hossary: My god, it sticks. and we can go off on a tangent here with recruitment and recruiting based on pieces of paper as opposed to, achievements. But we won’t. because this podcast will never end if we do that there is a danger. No, definitely. if you find out what kind of a learner you are and you use that, it will absolutely boost your skillset.

[00:19:14] Robert Hossary: It will absolutely boost your results, because you’ll then know how to apply it in your life. . Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you Faris.

[00:19:26]

[00:19:26] Lesson 5.   What is the problem you are trying to solve

[00:19:26] Robert Hossary: Lesson number five. What is the problem you are trying to solve?

[00:19:31]. Tell me about it.

[00:19:32] Faris Aranki: So this is a biggie, right? Bid.

[00:19:35] Faris Aranki: And it was first, and it literally said to me when I moved into the business world and was working for a super, super intense, super intelligent boss. and you know, I remember the first piece of work we did together. I sort of got the piece of work, sort of started blustering.

[00:19:49] Faris Aranki: He said, what do you think about this? And I blow bluster. He just paused me, and he said, Faris, what is the problem you’re trying to solve? You’ve just rattled off for five minutes. Incessantly talking about stuff. I’m not even sure, you know, what you’re trying to achieve. And, you know, bruised my ego. And I was like, how dare he?

[00:20:05] I thought I made absolute sense, you know? And he said, just explain to me simply what is the problem before you start explaining what your solution is. And I found, I couldn’t articulate what the problem was. And he said, go away. Come back when you do know, because at the moment you’re just wasting energy talking at me.

[00:20:21] Faris Aranki: And this became so clear, to me, it became so clear, not just in my work, I looked, when you look around, so many people do not know, in the moment, in their, in the grand scale of life, what is the problem? What is their objective? and it’s not until you know that, and that’s why that’s really a lot of the driver of Shiageto until you know that stop.

[00:20:41] Faris Aranki: Yeah. and there is an amazing quote by Albert Einstein that I tell, I pretty much say to all my clients, and he once said that if I only had an hour to save the world, Imagine there’s something, you know, meteorite or something. He said I’d spend at least 55 minutes of that hour working out what the problem is.

[00:20:57] Faris Aranki: Cuz then it’s really easy and not enough of us spending that amount of time or have that clarity. And, you know, if it’s good enough for Albert, I think it should be good enough for all of us.

[00:21:06] I love it. one of our previous guests, I think it was Ori Isen, said, take the time to sharpen the saw.

[00:21:16] Robert Hossary: So it’s the, it’s a very similar lesson. and that’s what it’s all about. Don’t waste your time coming up with all these fancy solutions when the problem hasn’t been defined. Your solutions may not fit the problem, may not answer what it is that you need to solve. It’s just busy work then.

[00:21:40] Robert Hossary: And I’ve seen this, and I’m sure you have too, Faris in a lot of organizations that are just focused on revenue, focused on whatever they focus on. And they forget the mission, number one and two, they forget why they are having these issues. So that is an incredible, powerful lesson and to have learned it in, you know, so early in your career must have been an absolute, boon to you.

[00:22:13] Faris Aranki: Yeah. Yeah. It’s so simple. And I probably irritate all my team people around me when I often stop and I replicate what that old boss did for me, . And I can just see them go, oh, here he goes again. But the one, they get it. yeah. And do you know what, you know, your listeners might begin to start to see and was only when I started writing down some of the, the builds between these lessons, because this goes nicely with the, don’t get sucked into the headlights.

[00:22:36] Faris Aranki: Cuz if you don’t know what problem you’re trying to solve Yep. Then the headlights grab you even more.

[00:22:42] yep, yep.

[00:22:43] Faris Aranki: All right. So, this one is very much linked to the other one, but, but yeah, it is a powerful one on its own. It is absolutely wonderful.

[00:22:51] Affiliate Break

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[00:23:33] Lesson 6.   What are your 3 adjectives?

[00:23:33] Robert Hossary: Now back to our lesson. Our guest today is Faris Aranki. He’s the CEO of Shiageto in London.

[00:23:42] Robert Hossary: Now, lesson number six, Faris lesson number six is confusing me, so I’m really going to need you to tell us what it’s all about. Yes. What are your three adjectives?

[00:23:57] This is a question everyone should be asking themselves, and they’re probably listening right now going, what is he talking about?

[00:24:01] Faris Aranki: Just like you do.

[00:24:02] Robert Hossary: Just like me.

[00:24:04] Faris Aranki: Let me tell you a story. So, I told you about my career and I joined consulting. So at this point, I joined consulting. Now consulting is a career I love, but equally I hate, and it confuses me in, in, you know, in many ways. Now, what one of the big things about it is the performance review aspect.

[00:24:21] now, yeah, professional services, careers, a little bit different to other jobs, is that you don’t have one line manager. You don’t have one person who says, you’ve done your job, you’re doing great. Well done. You get a promotion, you get a pay rise, blah, blah. Instead, because you’re working on so many different things and nobody has a single thread, view of your life, we, they have something that is called round tables, where at the end of the year, you’re judged against all your peers in a room by your seniors. And what go happens is you prepare a bit of material saying, I’ve done this this year. Somebody reads it out on your behalf. And then they discuss and say, well, I think Faris is great. Let’s give him this. Let’s do it right now. I imagine this was a fantastic, well run, process.

[00:25:00] and I was, I was fascinated to discover when I stepped into that room that what actually happened was many people had never heard of you, right? In large organizations, not heard of you. And the first thing that would be said before your little script is read out was, oh, who’s Faris again? And whoever was your spokesperson would say, oh, you know, he’s the guy who is A, B, C, and read out three adjectives.

[00:25:21] Faris Aranki: And suddenly everyone would not go, oh, I know who you’re talking about. Right? And what fascinated me is whatever those three adjectives that were said about you were usually always the same. But also they massively influenced how people thought about you. Doesn’t matter what was read next, if the adjectives used were, oh, you know, he’s the quiet one, or he’s the, he’s the disruptive one.

[00:25:42] Faris Aranki: Even if they then read some very positive things about you. That would influence them. But what I also discovered is that your adjectives moved around an organization quicker than you did. So everyone would suddenly, you know, you’d meet them for the first day and say, oh, I’ve heard about you, you are the, or they might not say it to your face, but that’s, they would play out the three adjectives in your head.

[00:26:00] Faris Aranki: And I became fascinated by this. I wanted to know what my three adjectives were. I wanted to know could I change them? I wanted to know how I could influence them. And, I, I learned a lot about that. And I can tell, I, you know, we can go off on a tangent. I can tell you all a bit about that journey. But what I realized very early on is we all have three adjectives.

[00:26:18] Faris Aranki: The sooner we know it, the better. And I advise all junior people early on in their careers, learn your three adjectives. Own them. Be proud of them, and make them work for you.

[00:26:28] I’m laughing because this is so true. This is so absolutely true, and it’s not something I’ve. Ever actually thought of, but I’ve absolutely engaged in it.

[00:26:42] I have been one of the people that says, oh, they are the one, they are the one that does this, this and this. I’ve also been the one who’s probably a pain in the ass to other people. and that’s probably how they describe me. But yeah, that brilliant. I have never heard this. I’ve never come across anyone who has taught me this, so I want to thank you.

[00:27:07] that’s why I love doing this show. I learn something every time. what are your three adjectives? Yeah. So my three adjectives are and always have been right, laid back. Analytical, sociable. and now the reason I say they’ve always been, because when I started my career, they were often particularly laid back, was used as a negative thing.

[00:27:28] Robert Hossary: Yep.

[00:27:28] Faris Aranki: Oh, well you, we can’t promote you cuz you’re too laid back. You’re too like, and I spent ages trying to change that adjective, but I couldn’t because human beings are…. But what I did do was change the meaning of that adjective. And I’d say to people, yeah, in a crisis you want someone who’s laid back.

[00:27:45] Faris Aranki: Yeah. When a teams are feeling down, you want someone who’s laid back and in tune them. So I turned what was previously a weakness into a strength.

[00:27:53] Robert Hossary: Because you owned it.

[00:27:55] Faris Aranki: Because I owned it and I leant into it, and I acknowledged it. So, but I did, you know. Yeah. I’ll tell you listeners, I spent a couple of years trying to fight it and trying to change it, and that was wasted energy in hindsight.

[00:28:06] Faris Aranki: But I perhaps had to go through that journey to realize the power of the three adjectives.

[00:28:10] Robert Hossary: Well, that’s why we’re here, Faris. we’re paying the stupid tax for our listeners. we’re trying to let you know, dear listener, that if you listen to some of these lessons, all of these lessons, if you go back through our catalogue and listen to all the previous lessons, you’ll come to realize that there are things that you don’t know.

[00:28:31] Robert Hossary: And maybe some of the wisdom that is being shared by guests like Faris will help you overcome those stumbling blocks. So, thank you, Faris. that is brilliant. I’m actually going to be using that, probably tomorrow. So thanks a lot.

[00:28:46] Faris Aranki: by, by all means. and something just struck me while you were saying about the, how much wisdom there must be in all these podcasts that you’ve created.

[00:28:54] Faris Aranki: I mean, that alone is probably a trillion whatever gigabytes. So for your listeners, Put it with what kind of learner you are and apply some of those learnings in however you like to learn so that you get even more the out of it than just a nice listen for half an hour. It actually, you start embracing and adopting some of those habits and applying them to your own life.

[00:29:12] Robert Hossary: Thanks for the plug. And, but I couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree more. Thank you.

[00:29:16] Lesson 7.   Pre-decide and don’t half decide.

[00:29:16] Robert Hossary: Well, let’s move on, to lesson number seven, which I love. I just, it’s, it, I just love it. So pre decide, don’t half decide. Oh, brilliant.

[00:29:29] Faris Aranki: This is a big one for a strategist. and I first stumbled across this, working on a strategy project, actually in the UK for the department of.

[00:29:37] Faris Aranki: No less. and your listener is probably going to chuckle when I say this. I was working this about 13 years ago for 13, 14 years ago on a project called Pandemic Flu Preparedness for the UK government. So we were preparing the UK for a pandemic. and it was the first time in my career I’d been introduced to a concept called war gaming.

[00:29:56] Faris Aranki: Now, war gaming is a tool we use in the strategy world to simulate what might happen and how we might react so we can test strategies in advance. Okay. And this is where the pre decide came from, right? we were preparing for what would be a pandemic, an emergency, a difficult, stressful situation.

[00:30:13] Faris Aranki: We wanted to pre-made decisions before that stressful situation so that we weren’t making bad decisions. A period of stress. So, we designed these war games and we played out, and there’s a whole other story, probably a whole podcast I can tell you about, that activity and, and actually the pandemic flu preparedness.

[00:30:32] Faris Aranki: But it was really powerful because it meant, and I do this time and time again with companies that you have a playbook that when you need to, you can just dig into and say, well, already made that decision, let’s go with it. Right. You know, and I’ve made it based on facts and time and non-pressure. And this is something we can all do in our own life, right?

[00:30:49] Faris Aranki: You shouldn’t have to, be put under stress, go, oh, would I rather A or B, you know, it’s much better to have made that decision well in advance so that when the time comes, if you ever have to choose between A and B, you already know.

[00:31:01] Robert Hossary: Look, I agree with that, but can I challenge you on one point?

[00:31:05] Faris Aranki: Yeah.

[00:31:05] Robert Hossary: I’ve always said that you can only make the best decision you can make with the information you have at the time, but.

[00:31:14] Robert Hossary: As you get more data, you may change your mind. the more information you have and the more recent that information, your decision may be different. So how does that play into pre decide and don’t half decide?

[00:31:28] I completely agree, right? Uh, so, you know, update your pre decide, regularly if you get new piece of information.

[00:31:33] Faris Aranki: But very rarely do we get fundamentally completely different pieces of information, you know? and if I talk about it on a personal level, You, you know, and it kind of goes maybe with the headlights thing. Somebody says to you, what should we do tonight? Or, you know, do you fancy, and this is very simplistic, you know, should we get a Italian takeaway or a Mexican takeaway?

[00:31:52] Faris Aranki: And you’re suddenly like, Ooh, you know? Whereas if you’d sat beforehand a completely out of stress, you’d probably say, well, I love Italian way more than I love Mexican. Right. you know, that’s the logical choice. But in, in the. the other person might be putting pressure on you and say, come on, you know, so, you know, in that circumstance, you’re not, there’s not really any new information you’re going to get apart from the pressure you’re getting from the other person.

[00:32:13] Faris Aranki: And actually the reverse of this is where a lot of salespeople and a lot of very experienced influencers work, they apply pressure to force you to make a decision that you wouldn’t make ordinarily. You know, that’s what the whole Black Friday’s about, that we’ve just passed . It’s this fake fear, fake, you know, scarcity that you suddenly, rationally, if you sat back and said, do I actually need this item?

[00:32:36] Faris Aranki: You know, what is, what problem is it going to solve in my life? You’d probably decide I don’t need to buy this. but under the pressure, under the intensity, you’re not getting new information. You’re actually getting. Fake information that someone is replying, and manipulating you. you do end up buying it.

[00:32:50] Robert Hossary: You’ve just, I’ve pissed off a lot of marketers now, you know that right? ?

[00:32:53] Faris Aranki: I’ve pissed off a lot. Sorry. Sorry guys. but you know, I’m looking around my apartment as we talk and I see a lot of items that I bought in a previous Black Friday, so that’s probably why I’m thing. And, the other half of this thing is the half decide, right?

[00:33:05] Faris Aranki: The other half the saying is it’s slightly the same. it’s along the same axis, but it’s slightly different.

[00:33:08] Faris Aranki: Now. When I was a child in my house, in my mother, God bless her, she had this rule that we can only eat chocolate on a Sunday in an attempt to keep us healthy. Right? now, that for me is a half decision.

[00:33:19] because what happened was, you know, as children we’d lobby for more chocolate obviously, and my mom would sometimes say, well, okay, well we, you know, we’re doing something tomorrow on Sunday, so I’ll let you have it the Saturday instead. And then it became Saturday and Sunday. And then, and you know, we’d keep chipping away and before we knew it, we were eating chocolate every day of the week.

[00:33:36] Faris Aranki: Because, and what I mean by the fact they, that was a half, that was because it was a half decision. She had created a, you know, an opportunity to test the rule and then think, whereas if she’d made a simple rule or either there is no chocolate in this house, there was no way we could challenge that there was a concrete rule.

[00:33:53] Faris Aranki: And, you know, from a Focus Quotient point of view, it takes away all this noise. , you know, how much effort did we spend as kids lobbying for that extra chocolate when we could have been doing something else for that time or she could have gone the other way, which is where we ended up eventually just saying, look, you can have chocolate whenever you want.

[00:34:06] Faris Aranki: Right. because that’s where we eventually ended up. so that’s often what happens with half decision. Now I use a joke you want to show, but that’s often what happens with half decisions.

[00:34:15] Robert Hossary: Yeah.

[00:34:16] Faris Aranki: You know, people exploit it. You waste a lot of energy debating things, whereas if you’re pre-decided, make it concrete.

[00:34:23] Faris Aranki: Then actually you get a lot of time, energy focus back.

[00:34:27] Robert Hossary: Absolutely. Brilliant, very brilliant. And love the anecdote. I, you just, you’re making me laugh because you’re bringing up so many of my childhood memories, but brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[00:34:39] Lesson 8.   Would you use your genie in a bottle

[00:34:39] Robert Hossary: Let’s move on to lesson number eight.

[00:34:43] Robert Hossary: Would you use your genie in a bottle? Yes, Faris, I would definitely use my genie in a bottle.

[00:34:52] Faris Aranki: That’s good to know, but it’s, it’s about a specific moment in time. I know in general we’ll all use that genie. Now. Now, what do I mean by genie? So let’s just, let’s bring that to life, right?

[00:35:01] Faris Aranki: Yeah. And many of your listeners will know the story of a Ala-Din or Aladdin, either through the Disney version or the actual original, story. But in that story, the hero finds a bottle, a lamp, that has a genie in it, who grants him three wishes, okay. That he can use at any time. Now, imagine having three wishes.

[00:35:19] Faris Aranki: That’s quite a powerful in and in the story, he uses them for different things. But imagine you have that in your life. Like what, how, I don’t know about you, but I’d be like, how difficult would it be to use those three wishes and not regret, you know, particularly if you knew you could only. During your entire life, right?

[00:35:34] Faris Aranki: Would you use them all in your first, in your teenage years and then regret them the next 60, 70 years of your life where you’re like, oh, I could’ve used it there. I could’ve used it there. How about, and that’s with three wishes. How about if you only had one wish? So I often say to myself, I do have a genie with one wish.

[00:35:49] Faris Aranki: Now, when things go wrong in my life, the mantra I say to myself is this so bad that I would use the genie on this? Is this the thing? And if the answer is ever no, I go, well, it can’t be that bad. Reel myself back from the precipice. Okay? And it’s such a powerful thing to remind me this isn’t that bad, right?

[00:36:07] Faris Aranki: In the grand scheme of things, this, I wouldn’t use my genie here. This can’t be that bad. This can’t be the end of me. And that, you know, and that first came to me that, again, I didn’t have the mantra back then, but my first big career failure. And I mean, you know, big and you think in the moment you think these things define you are terrible, you cannot go on, your rest of your life is screwed.

[00:36:28] Faris Aranki: The rest of your career is screwed. You know, and if I had at the time been able to articulate myself the genie thing, it would’ve been instantly more comforting. Instead of having to take a gradual, this is okay. But now I neatly summarize it as the genie. and it is, and I tell other people it, and, but it is really an instant switch for me when things are bad.

[00:36:47] Faris Aranki: And I go, actually, it’s not genie time yet.

[00:36:51] Robert Hossary: Wow. I rarely say this, but when I do, I mean it. If you are listening to this or if you’re watching this, go back to the beginning of this lesson and listen to it again. Because there’s a lot there. This is a very powerful tool that Faris has shared with us, and it is a tool, with the issues we have in the world today with mental health and, you know, the need to feel that you are progressing or the need to feel that things are going to work out.

[00:37:26] Robert Hossary: This is an absolutely brilliant tool. So I will urge you, listener to please go back, listen to this again, listen to Faris’s explanation. Again, I’m not going to make any glib comments. I think it’s a brilliant tool, Faris, I think it’s fantastic. I congratulate you on creating it. I’ve not heard anything like this.

[00:37:48] Robert Hossary: We, we all have heard. This too shall pass. You know? Get over it. there are actually two lessons on our podcast. we’ve heard all of these, we know how we should react to this, but what you have given us is a tool. It’s not self, you know, a, you know, self-will that will get us over it. it’s a system that we can implement to ask ourselves, bring us back into reality.

[00:38:20] Robert Hossary: Would I use it now? Is now the time? Yes, or no? It’s a yes or no answer. Yeah. and if it’s no, it’s not that bad that’s, I’m speechless because I am so in love with this tool. thank you for sharing that with us. that is just so powerful. That’s very powerful. Thank you.

[00:38:40] Faris Aranki: Oh, my pleasure.

[00:38:41] Faris Aranki: My pleasure.

[00:38:41] let’s move on to, do you want to say anything more about this before we move on?

[00:38:45] hey, yeah, it is a really powerful tool. I’m glad you, you like it. What also springs to mind is that if people are looking for another tool is, I often talk about failure anniversaries. is this something you’ve heard of Robert?

[00:38:57] Robert Hossary: No, but it sounds just as powerful. Go ahead. So there you go. Two, two lessons for the price of one.

[00:39:04] Faris Aranki: Two lessons for the price of one. So if you were to ever open my diary and you know, if you know people are welcome, you will see something in there. I have a, I color code my diary and you have something which are failure anniversary, which are, if something bad has happened in my life, not, and doesn’t need the genie, but still it feels bad, I immediately open my calendar and I put a meeting with myself six months or a year or three months, depending how severe it is in the future to, to celebrate that failure.

[00:39:36] Faris Aranki: Now what happens is imagine something devastating is happened to you or you think it’s bad, you know? and a year from now you were to open up your diary and you go, oh, that thing a year ago that no longer seems as bad. Right now, the power of this isn’t putting it in and, and waiting for that year to pass so that you can go, oh, that wasn’t so bad.

[00:39:52] Faris Aranki: If you start doing this regularly, I pretty much guarantee you not long after something bad has happened to you, you’ll have a failure anniversary come up in the next week from something a year ago, and you’ll be like, while you’re reflecting on the bad thing that’s happened today, you’ll look at that anniversary and you go, actually, that thing that happened a year ago that I thought was terrible, that’s, that no longer is bears any real resemblance in my life or any power.

[00:40:14] Faris Aranki: Well, well, if I got through that, then I’m pretty certain I can get through this. And it gives you just a bit more of encouragement and, and a visual tool for me, about, as well as celebrating things that have happened in life that make you. so yeah, that’s what my calendar looks like along with other things.

[00:40:31] Robert Hossary: That’s fantastic. You have a genie and you have a failure anniversary. That’s fantastic. Look, I love both of those and I think they’re excellent, strategies to implement, to keep you focused, I suppose, to keep you from sliding backwards. So again, thank you and great stuff.

[00:40:56] Robert Hossary: Lesson number nine.

[00:40:58] Robert Hossary: We’re almost there, Faris, actually, before we go into lesson number nine, I should have started with this, but I’ll throw it in now. We ask a lot of our guests, two questions. This is one of them. Okay. So, what would you tell your younger self? What would you tell younger Faris, if you had the chance to tell him anything that you have learned?

[00:41:21] Robert Hossary: So far, What would be one, one piece of advice or one piece of wisdom you would give a younger you if you had the chance?

[00:41:30] Robert Hossary: I mean, I’d be, listen to the, 10 Lessons Learned podcast with Robert Hossary, but, thank you. a future version of yourself will record his top 10 lessons, so get them early so you don’t have to learn them.

[00:41:40] I think if I were to go meta and summarize all these 10 things, is it’s two, it’s twofold. Let’s be more curious and listen more. Is, you know, ask more questions, learn more stuff. Because everything will enrich you. and, and you’ll get to these lessons quicker. Okay. So actually, I don’t want you to listen to the podcast.

[00:41:58] Faris Aranki: I want you to learn them, experience them, but do it a little bit quicker, and learn other lessons. And the only way to do that is get out there, talk to more people, ask more questions, and your life will be richer for it.

[00:42:09] Robert Hossary: Love it. I think that’s brilliant. I lo I, I just, they’re the two words I use.

[00:42:13] Robert Hossary: Brilliant. And love it. But and I know I repeat myself, but they’re great. they’re absolutely great.

[00:42:18] Lesson 9.   Who is your tribe?

[00:42:18] Robert Hossary: Alright, well let’s move on to lesson number nine, Faris. Yeah. who is your tribe?

[00:42:24] Faris Aranki: Ah, that’s a great question and one that. Who is your tribe? Everyone should answer that about themselves.

[00:42:30] Faris Aranki: Who is your tribe? and it’s not something I really actively thought about, until I set up my own business. Now, setting up your own business is great in so many ways. You know, you are your own boss. It’s, exhilarating when stuff goes right. But then the flip side is it is incredibly lonely.

[00:42:46] Faris Aranki: You go from an org working, well, certainly in my case, I went from working in an organization surrounded by people in teams working day in, day out with them to just being on my own in the early days. And I struggled. I struggled not just for, the social side, you know, that being lonely, but you know, advice about what I should do in the company and sharing, successes and failures.

[00:43:06] and so I took a step back and said, look, I need, I clearly need a community. I need a tribe And I, let’s go find one. Right? Because in previously it’d just always been there, just taken it for granted. Yeah. so I, funnily enough, I went and found a friend who was doing something similar in a different field, and we would work side by side once a week, in a coffee shop.

[00:43:27] Faris Aranki: I then found a second friend. I’d work with them on a Thursday, the first friend on a Friday. Then I found a third friend and a fourth friend. And before I knew I had 30 friends and I just threw them all together. And now we have a little community who all support each other. Okay. That unbeknownst me was my tribe.

[00:43:42] Faris Aranki: I’ve created my tribe and it, my life is so much richer for it. My business is better for it. and, when I look around, a lot of the difference that I see between not just successful people and unsuccessful, but happy people and unhappy period at different periods in life are because maybe they haven’t got a tribe at that point in time, or they’re not well connected into their tribe.

[00:44:04] Faris Aranki: And it’s easy to forget because tribes come and go. You know, we have long lives, and we need to constantly be re-centring ourselves in different groups and different communities. So it is a good question to ask yourself periodically, who are my tribe? What do I get from them?

[00:44:18] It is very important.

[00:44:20] and it’s something that, a lot of us take for granted. I, I never put it that way, but I always found my tribe. and now I’m like, you creating tribes? Not so, not for me so much, but for my community. so yeah, look, that is a, that, again, it’s a great lesson to learn. It’s something that you should ask yourself quite often and listen to your answer.

[00:44:45] Robert Hossary: Don’t just ask the question, listen to what you say.

[00:44:49] Lesson 10. It’s about the things you do, not the things you don’t.

[00:44:49] Robert Hossary: Okay, well let’s move on to the 10th and final lesson. And this has got to, you know, this should be attributed to a, you know, a famous name and it probably will be, it’ll be attributed to you, Faris. So lesson number 10, it’s about the things you do, not the things you don’t tell us about that.

[00:45:11] Faris Aranki: Yeah, it’s, I’ve always been one who suffers from FOMO. If your listeners who don’t know, that’s the fear of missing out. Yep. and as I suspect most of us do, to some degree, some more than others, and it’s certainly something that’s compounded by social media, you know, when you see others doing stuff.

[00:45:26] Faris Aranki: And in fact, it’s the very ethos of, what the companies use to get us to scroll more and stuff. and it’s so easy to beat up and feel like, oh, I should get that. You know, I, oh, particularly when you start comparing yourself to others, you know, oh, look, they’ve got. they’ve got that house, that car, they’ve got that promotion.

[00:45:41] and that just becomes a negative spiral for me. and I’m talking very personally. I real, I noticed it in myself. and it wasn’t just social media and I, when I first set up the business, I set up, I, I decided to do certain things every day. you know, II must read these articles.

[00:45:57] Faris Aranki: I must post here. I must do this; I must do that. and as time, and I got busier, that in tray never cleared. and it began to hang on me. And it began to be like, I feel like I go to bed at the end of the night, and I haven’t done all these things. And I had to stop and say, you are looking at this all wrong.

[00:46:13] Faris Aranki: Don’t look at what you didn’t do. What did you do today? Right? Be proud of those. Those are far more powerful. And actually, you made a choice in doing those because clearly, they were solving a problem. They had a better objective than these things. And maybe these things aren’t the right things. So actually, Going through that thought process, I let go of those things that I didn’t do and began to celebrate the things that I did do, and took much greater comfort.

[00:46:37] and it’s such a radical difference in my mental health, in how, what brings me comfort and what keeps me, you know, I sleep a lot easier and sounder and just letting go of that. it was a real difference for me. So, it is definitely about the things you do and not about the things you don’t.

[00:46:52] Robert Hossary: Absolutely. It’s, again, it’s a very hard learned lesson. It’s not something that humans take to quite easily. We always fixate on the things that we haven’t got, the things that we didn’t do. Instead of having that. mindset of gratitude for the things we do have and the things that we have accomplished.

[00:47:17] Robert Hossary: So that’s it. It is a very hard learn lesson, but a very good one that everybody should be following. So we’ve done your 10 lessons and they’re fantastic. So, thank you again.

[00:47:29] Let me ask you one final thing before we sign out, and that is Faris, what have you unlearned recently?

[00:47:39] Robert Hossary: O what have I unlearned? I’ve unlearned, I mean, a lot of it comes as tangents of the lessons that I have learned. , and particularly that last one. yeah.

[00:47:47] but I’ve unlearned, About, it’s a bit like Marie Kondo, your learning and your life. I’ve unlearned the time fillers, the things that seemed important and entertaining, back when I was a younger person, because maybe they brought an element of show boating and they brought an element of, keeping up with the Joneses.

[00:48:04] I, and I’m still doing it, but I’m unlearning those things, you know? and my life all the richer for it, right? There is no, it’s amazing. It’s like you say that fear, giving it up is the hardest part And then just stand back and enjoy the halo effect and the after effects of that wasn’t really adding anything to your life.

[00:48:23] Faris Aranki: Yeah. so yeah, there’s lots of little things that I’ve slowly unlearn, that, that add up to be big things.

[00:48:31] Robert Hossary: That’s true. Well, when you put it that way, that is very true. So, let me ask you, what are you doing now? So where can people find, Faris Aranki?

[00:48:40] Faris Aranki: So, come join my tribe. They can find me. I hang out a lot on LinkedIn, looking up Faris Aranki, or they can, look me up on Shiageto.com, which is the company website.

[00:48:49] Faris Aranki: Yep. and, if they’re in London, they can look me up, right. I’m a man who loves going for a coffee, getting to know new people, virtually or in person. So yeah, just drop me a line. Look me up. and I’ll make myself available.

[00:49:01] Robert Hossary: Well, thank you Faris, and it has been an absolute pleasure sharing your 10 lessons today.

[00:49:08] I’ve learned something, and that’s why I love doing this show. I always learn something and you’ve been a fantastic guest. and we’ll finish here. Today. You’ve been listening to 10 Lessons Learned. Our guest today has been Faris Aranki, founder, CEO and strategist, for Shiageto Consulting. this episode, is supported as always by the Professional Development Forum.

[00:49:34] and what we would like to ask you is if you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a review or a comment. Please tell us what you think of today’s lessons. you can even email us at podcast 10 lessons learned.com. That’s Podcast one zero lessons learned.com. go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell say you don’t miss the next episode of 10 Lessons Learned, the only show on the internet Making the World Wiser Lesson by Lesson.

[00:50:09] Robert Hossary: Thank you for listening. See you at the next episode.

 This episode is produced by Robert Hossary. Sponsored as always by Professional Development Forum, which office insights, community or discussions, podcasts, parties, anything you want here, but they’re unique and it’s all free online. You can find the www.professionaldevelopmentforum.org you’ve heard from us we’d like to hear from you. Email us it’s podcast@10lessonslearned.com. Remember, this is the podcast the only podcast. That’s makes the world wiser lesson by lesson.