#628: Why leaders need to become more self-reliant with Maha Abouelenein

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®

Episode #628: Why leaders need to become more self-reliant with Maha Abouelenein
Release Date: January 22, 2025
Guest: Maha Abouelenein (author of "7 Rules of Self Reliance")

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Overview

In this episode, Greg Kihlström welcomes Maha Abouelenein—communications strategist and author of the best-selling book "7 Rules of Self Reliance." Drawing on her extensive global experience with Google, Netflix, and Careem, Maha discusses the modern necessity of self-reliance for leaders. She offers actionable guidance on how to cultivate this trait, build a robust reputation, leverage AI, and adapt in a rapidly evolving professional landscape.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Maha’s Background & Inspiration Behind “7 Rules of Self Reliance”

• [02:59] Maha shares her cross-cultural journey from Minnesota to Egypt and Dubai and the career pivots that required her to build everything from scratch, emphasizing the pivotal role of self-reliance in her success.
  • “What I learned through all these different experiences… is that there are certain skills you need to have to rely on yourself before you can bring value to other people.” — Maha [03:51]
• Self-reliance isn’t about isolated independence; it’s about developing skills for today’s fast-paced, AI-driven world.

Defining Self-Reliance for Leaders

• [05:05] Maha reframes self-reliance not as doing everything alone but as “having the confidence to trust yourself.”
• It’s about self-awareness: knowing strengths, weaknesses, when to ask for help, and building one’s own network—rather than borrowing someone else’s contacts.
  • "I want to rely on myself to build my own relationships that I can use for my needs." — Maha [06:18]

Two Key Rules from the Book

1. Stay Low and Keep Moving

[07:10]

• Focus is critical. “Stay low” means avoid distractions and keep attention fixed on your goals.
• “Keep moving” refers to resilience—the ability to persist through setbacks and negativity.
  • “Stay low is all about staying focused on your goals without being distracted. And keep moving because we’re going to have setbacks… that’s life.” — Maha [07:30]
• Practical tips: Schedule time for goals, use visual reminders like post-it notes or calendars.
  • “If you can see your goals, you can achieve them.” — Maha [08:55]

2. Be a Value Creator

[09:40]

• Emphasizes contributing before expecting returns: anticipate needs, problem-solve proactively, and demonstrate unique skills.
  • “By creating value for other people, you’re showing them… this is why you should keep hiring me.” — Maha [09:59]
• Value creation builds trust, credibility, and strong relationships—not just transactional exchanges.

Rarity and Development of Self-Reliance

[12:00]

• Many professionals expect opportunities handed to them rather than earning them.

• In a highly competitive, globalized, and AI-infused workforce, continuous investment in oneself is crucial. Knowledge and expertise are lasting assets.

  • “As long as you continue to invest in yourself… no one can take that away from you.” — Maha [12:42]

• Actionable First Step:

  • Cultivate curiosity.
  • List what you want to learn: new skills, personal branding, industry changes, etc.
  • “If you want to be more self-reliant today than you were yesterday, get curious and make a list.” — Maha [13:37]

AI as an Enabler of Self-Reliance

[14:59]

• AI can amplify resourcefulness. Maha gives a practical example of using AI tools for efficient research.
  • “Today we had a video… and we wanted to see if one of our clients was mentioned. It’s a one and a half hour video. I can rely on myself to watch it… or I can rely on myself to find a tool that’s going to generate a transcript.” — Maha [15:18]
• Optimizing work through technology is part of being self-reliant; work smarter, not harder.

The Power of Reputation & Personal Brand

[16:51]

• Reputation is a leader’s most valuable currency in a “reputation-driven world.”
  • “With social media, anybody can post anything… your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you don’t have your name, you don’t have anything.” — Maha [17:01]
• Personal reputation impacts influence, opportunities, and even client or talent attraction.
• Building a personal brand does not mean influencer marketing; it means ensuring intentional digital footprints (LinkedIn profile, website, professional presence).

Common Mistakes in Reputation Management

[19:14]

• Leaders neglect personal branding, focusing instead on business or product, not realizing “people follow people, not companies.”

  • “Every person is a brand. And the ones that understand that and are intentional about it are the ones that have stronger images, stronger reputation, stronger sales, stronger opportunities.” — Maha [19:35]

• Advice for skeptical executives:

  • Personal branding is crucial for further progression—board seats, promotions, hiring talented teams, and even accolades.
  • “Your personal brand is your reputation. And don’t tell me you don’t care about your reputation.” — Maha [20:56]

Looking Ahead: Practical Steps for Thought Leadership

[21:37]

• Overwhelm is common, but the key is to start small and be consistent (e.g., one LinkedIn post or a brief video per week).
• Thought leadership can simply mean sharing observations, reacting to market trends, or offering behind-the-scenes insights.
  • “You get confidence by taking action… a year from now, set that goal and reverse engineer the smaller steps you need to take to do it.” — Maha [22:07]
• Example: Daniel Ek (Spotify CEO) sharing authentic stories about product decisions.

Staying Agile in Leadership

[23:27]

• Maha’s approach: Ongoing learning through conversations, podcasts, books, and diverse sources ensures she remains relevant and nimble.
  • “I don’t get my information from one source. I get it from a variety of sources and that’s what keeps me agile and nimble.” — Maha [23:43]
• Agility in adapting perspectives and leveraging opportunities is essential for modern professionals.
  • “If you are one thing in this world, be agile because you’ll be able to adapt to changes in the market…” — Maha [24:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There are certain skills you need to have to rely on yourself before you can bring value to other people.” — Maha [03:51]
• “Self reliance is having the confidence to trust yourself.” — Maha [05:06]
• “Stay low is all about staying focused on your goals without being distracted.” — Maha [07:30]
• “If you can see your goals, you can achieve them.” — Maha [08:55]
• “By creating value for other people, you’re showing them… this is why you should keep hiring me.” — Maha [09:59]
• “Your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you don’t have your name, you don’t have anything.” — Maha [17:01]
• "Every person is a brand. And the ones that understand that … have stronger images, stronger sales, stronger opportunities." — Maha [19:35]
• “You get confidence by taking action. You don’t get confidence by overthinking it and worrying about it.” — Maha [22:05]
• “If you are one thing in this world, be agile because you’ll be able to adapt to changes in the market.” — Maha [24:19]

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Key Timestamps

• [02:59] – Maha’s background, international career, and origin story behind self reliance.
• [05:05] – Definition and misconceptions about self-reliance.
• [07:10] – First rule: Stay low and keep moving.
• [09:40] – Second rule: Be a value creator.
• [13:27] – How to start developing self-reliance through curiosity.
• [14:59] – The role of AI as an enabler for self-reliance.
• [16:51] – The importance of reputation and personal brand in the digital world.
• [19:14] – Common mistakes leaders make in personal branding.
• [21:37] – Practical approaches for leaders to establish thought leadership.
• [23:27] – Maha’s habits for staying agile and relevant.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a practical, energizing roadmap for leaders and professionals ready to take ownership of their growth in today’s tech-driven landscape. Maha Abouelenein distills decades of experience into clear advice on developing self-reliance, building intrinsic value, and investing in personal reputation. Her actionable insights—paired with the importance of agility and lifelong learning—provide listeners with tools to thrive in a changing world.

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Transcript

[Maha Abulanain]

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[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Oh no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Maha Abulanain]

The agile brand.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms and as we explore marketing technology, AI, E commerce and whatever's next for the Omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And now onto the show. Are you truly self reliant or are you relying on outdated strategies to navigate modern challenges? Today I'm joined by Maha Abulanain, author of the best selling book 7 Rules of Self Reliance. With over three decades of experience helping global giants like Google, Netflix and Kareem, which is uber Middle East, Maha is a leading expert in modern communication strategies, personal branding and reputation management. She's here to share insights in self reliance, the power of reputation and how leaders can adapt to a rapidly evolving communication landscape. Welcome to the show Maha.

[Maha Abulanain]

Thank you Greg. Thanks for having me. Happy New Year.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, Happy New Year to you as well. Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. We've got quite quite a bit to cover here, but I wanted to start with you telling us a little bit more about your background as well as what inspired you to write your book, 7 Rules of Self Reliance.

[Maha Abulanain]

Well, thank you so much for that question. I love talking about my origins because I think it had a lot to do with how I got to writing a book about self reliance. So I'm born and raised in Minnesota. I'm 100% Egyptian. Lived in Minnesota until I was 27 and then I moved overseas. I ended up having, at 27 years old to kind of start up my life, figure out my job, moved to Egypt, didn't really speak the language, didn't have friends, didn't have a network, had to sort of rely on myself to figure it out. And then I ended up living in Egypt and Dubai for 23 years. I was head of communications and public policy at Google. I ran communications for Netflix. In the Middle East, I worked with Uber, Uber's version of the Middle east called Karim. I worked for the ruler of Dubai and I did a lot of strategic communications. Among them, I ran a big PR firm. I was the managing director of the Cairo office of Weber Shandwick, which is global PR firm. And what I learned through all these different experiences in Minnesota and living overseas is that there are certain skills you need to have to rely on yourself before you can bring value to other people. And when I thought about my career, 20 years as an entrepreneur, 30 years in communications, it wasn't what I did, but how I did it. And so I decided to write a book called the seven Rules of Self Reliance to empower people. Like if you can rely on yourself, you can do anything. And a lot of people think self reliance is about being independent and I'll rely on myself because I can be the only one who can do it. Right? It's not like that at all. What I'm trying to give people is skills for today's modern world. In a world of AI and rapidly changing technologies, what are the skills or the cards you need to have in your hand? And that's what self reliance. That's what these seven rules are all about.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, great, great. Well, yeah, definitely recommend people pick up the book. And you know, I don't want to give too much away about it, but obviously we're here to talk about it, so let's. I'd like to talk a little bit. And you know what I thought maybe we do is you talked, you touched a little bit on this, but you know, how would you define self reliance?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, I think self reliance is having the confidence to trust yourself like Just a very simple format. Like I, sometimes I think a lot of people wait for other people to do things for them when they actually, if they learned how to rely on themselves before they reached out their hand for help, they'd be in a very different situation. So self reliance, which I outline in the book, is a lot about investing in yourself, upskilling yourself. I'm going to rely on myself first before reaching out for others for help in a way that can bring value to other people. Self reliance for me is not about being alone, it's about asking for help when you need it. But having that self awareness of like, these are the things I'm really good at, these are the things I need to work on. And then knowing who to ask or how to ask or how to build that relationship to do it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really important thing of that you've touched on a couple times already is just, it's not that you're completely on your own, it's. But it's, it's knowing when to ask. Is, is, is what you're saying?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, it's knowing when to ask. Like, honestly, one of the rules of the book talks about building relationships and building a network. Like, instead of me relying on you, hey, Greg, you've spent the last 10 years building up these relationships for your work. Can I borrow those relationships? Instead of me having to leverage yours or activate yours, I want to rely on myself to build my own relationships that I can use for my needs. And so I might ask for help from my network. I might ask for help of something I don't know how to do. But I have to rely on myself to know how to build a good relationship, to how to build a network that's going to serve me or build a network that's going to bring value to myself or to my business or the people I'm working with.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, Yeah, I love it. So I thought again, not to give it all away, but I thought as a teaser, you know, it'd be great to talk through the two of the rules of the seven rules in the book and just get a sense of, of this. So the first rule is to stay low and keep moving. Can you talk about, you know, what does this mean and how can, how can people apply this to their lives and careers?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah. Stay low, keep moving is all about keeping your head down and focused. Stay low does not mean low profile. It means stay focused. There's so many distractions in the world today, Greg. Comparing on social media demands from your Boss demands from your home, demands from your friends. So how do you stay low and stay out of this distraction city and kind of focus on your goals? If I'm spending all of my time responding and fielding issues from other people, I'm never focused on what I care about. So stay low is all about staying focused on your goals without being distracted. And keep moving because we're going to have setbacks, we're going to have problems come up, we're going to have economic downturns, we're going to have bad days. That's life, right? So how do you keep moving through it, knowing that every day you get to reset and start a new day? And what are the limiting beliefs that you're telling yourself? That's those negative comments. How do you keep moving through that? Like, how do you push out that negativity and maybe take a moment to pause and reflect on some of your wins and, and really keep moving? Because it's life is like this. It's up and down. It's not like always up and to the right or a nose dive down. So really taking time to stay low, stay focused on your goals and keep moving despite obstacles or challenges because we all face them.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. And I think it's, you know, somebody said, you know, if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority.

[Maha Abulanain]

Right, Exactly. And I think when you think about we're in a new year, right, everyone's setting goals. Like, how do you really stay focused on achieving those goals? Do you set off time on your calendar every week? Are you taking off once a month to just focus on that, whatever that is? Like, can you build the habit this year of staying focused on your goals by how you manage your calendar and your time? That's the first step to helping you get done or get towards them in doing so. Another way to stay low and keep moving is I like to put it up on a wall, like a big post it note or a big calendar. If you can see your goals, you can achieve them. So what's a visual reminder that you should have, like going through your journal or going through, like what are the things you can do to make sure that if you see your goals, you can actually achieve them?

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So the second rule is to be a value creator and highlights the importance of adding value in interaction. Why do you think this is such a critical trait for self reliance?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, I think it's so important, Greg, because so many people live in a world of give and take. Like I'm going to do this for you so I can get this in return. Well, what I have done, which has been very successful for me in my 30 year career and I have worked for my team, is when we create value for people, we become part of their inner circle. We become trusted, we build credibility, we become more resourceful in how we deliver results to them. By creating value for other people, you're showing them, these are my skills, this is what I'm capable of. This is why I'm different, this is why I'm unique. These are my unique selling propositions. This is why you should keep hiring me, this is why you should keep paying me. So creating value for other people is about anticipating needs, problem solving and doing things before they ask for it. Like what's the thing I can do to create value for you, Greg, but before you ask for it, and I'm going to be valuable to you because I'm thinking on your behalf, I'm looking around corners, I'm looking at trends, I'm looking at insights, I'm listening to what you're telling me is important to you and then try to deliver that. That's what I mean when I'm creating, When we talk about creating value.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, I mean I love that because it's showing, not talking about things. And it's also, I mean I take that to heart in my own work and I always feel like I have a lot of long standing consulting clients or things like that. And I feel like there's a reason for that and that's that I am always focused on trying to create value. It's not like what I did five years ago, which is nice if they remember, but what did I do yesterday or something like that.

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, 100%. I think it matters. I think it matters that we live in a world where there's all these transactions and everyone's just being like give and take. But what about being a value creator instead of a transaction person? And I feel that's just a difference that you can make and how you stand out and how you show up in the world and how you build your reputation and your relationships and your credibility as well.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So I want to talk a little bit more about the characteristics of, of self reliance. And you said that you know these character, I mean you wrote a book about it, they must not be that common. Right. So these characteristics of self reliance in people, why is it so rare?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, I think we live in a society where we have a lot of expectations and we expect people to give us things because we think we deserve Them. And I feel like it's a muscle. We need to develop where we go to work. And we expect our employers to invest in us, we expect our employers to give us promotions, we expect our employers to give us raises, but we need to earn it. We need to show our value, we need to show what we're bringing to the table. And talent can be from anywhere. Now I can go hire anybody online with an online network to work for me, not just people in my city or my state or my area. Right. So I feel like this is why it matters, is the competitive field has changed. AI is coming and it's not leaving. And it's only going to make things dramatically, rapidly changing. And I feel it's a characteristic of giving yourself that competitive edge. As long as you continue to invest in yourself, Greg, no one can take that away from you. What you put between your two ears within your brain, your knowledge is yours to keep and how you use it is the difference. Some people choose to wait to have people bring them opportunities and some people say, no, I'm going to rely on myself to go create that opportunity.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. So how do you, how would you recommend that someone start developing these traits? You know, someone that feels, you know, they feel stuck, they feel like, you know, they don't have what they need to be more self reliant. Like how, how might they start developing some of these traits?

[Maha Abulanain]

First starts with curiosity. What are you curious about? What do you want to learn about? Do you want to learn about different people? Do you want to learn about different industries? Do you want to learn about creating a network, creating your own personal brand? Do you want to learn skills that you're missing? Do you want to acquire experiences? Do you want to learn about a different industry? It starts with curiosity. If you want to be more self reliant today than you were yesterday, get curious and make a list. These are the things I'm curious about. I'm curious about how I can work in this field. I'm curious about how to get a promotion. I'm curious about how I could quit my day job and become an entrepreneur. I'm curious about AI. I'm curious about what's it take to build my personal brand. I'm curious about how to build a good relationship through LinkedIn or through a zoom call. Yeah, that's where it starts.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So you mentioned AI, so I'm going to pull that thread here. And you know, I feel like we have to talk about it at some point in every conversation. So let's let's, let's go there. Obviously there's, I would say particularly in the earlier days of like Chad post chat, GPT launching or whatever, there are lots of concern, probably still some concern about AI replacing people in their jobs and certainly that will happen. I'm an optimist when it comes to this stuff. I think yes, there's going to be some of that but I, I look at it as an enabler and you know, augmentation of what a lot of people can do is, is, can AI be something that actually helps someone become more self reliant? You know, how do you, how do you look at it?

[Maha Abulanain]

Of course one of the rules of self reliance is to unlearn, relearn and invest in yourself and, and that talks a lot about learning. Right? We don't need to work harder, we need to work smarter. So we need to learn how can AI help me become more self reliant. I see there's tools at my fingerprint. I'll give you a very good example. Today we had a video that came out and we wanted to see if one of our clients was mentioned in this video. It's a one and a half hour video. Now I can rely on myself to watch it and an hour and a half leaving it on play or I can rely on myself to find a tool that's going to generate a transcript and then I can search that transcript to see if my client was mentioned. That's how AI is helping you become more self reliant. You're becoming resourceful, you're saving time, you're using tools at your fingertips and at the same time you're getting that intelligence faster. So you're able to add value to your client by returning it around quicker. Yeah, yeah, I love that it actually happened today. That was a good example.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Nice. That's, that's great. Yeah, I mean I, I think, and again that's, that's not to completely discount some of those other. I think we need to be aware of, of, of some of those other cautions and whatever. But I, I'm with you. It's like there's so many things that now I get to focus on more strategic work more creating more value to you know, to, to go to the previous point as well. So definitely a lot, a lot of benefits there. One of the other things I wanted to talk about with you is just the, you know, the power of reputation and something you talk about as well and the personal brand. So you've said that reputation is now a leader's Most valuable currency. Why do you feel this way? I would say I agree, but I'd love to hear your take on this. You know why this is more important than ever?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah. I mean, we live in a reputation driven world. With social media, anybody can post anything and post it around the world and broadcast it. Within seconds it can be up and viral. Right?

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Maha Abulanain]

Your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you don't have your name, Greg, you don't have anything, you don't have livelihood, you don't have friends, you don't have a business, you don't have customers, you don't have neighbors, you don't have people in your circle. So having a strong reputation matters more than ever. And it's not just if you're a celebrity or if you have a lot of followers on social media. Every single person. If you work at a business, you need to know what your reputation at work is. I'm a team player, I'm resourceful, I'm aggressive, I'm aloof, I'm quiet. I'm a go getter, I'm a complainer. What's your reputation at work?

[Greg Kilstrom]

Right?

[Maha Abulanain]

And how can you work on building a good one? So you do get the promotion, so you do keep your job. So you do get the great projects that are going to showcase what you're capable of. So having reputation at work is one thing. And if you're an entrepreneur, it matters more than ever. How are you going to attract that talent if you don't have a good reputation? How are you going to attract that investor if you don't have a good reputation? The biggest thing that I think a lot of people fear when it comes to reputation is how do they work on it. They're like, I just have one, I just have a reputation. I don't know what I should do. And that's when you hear the term personal brand that a lot of people are like, I'm not, I'm not an influencer, I don't want to work on my personal brand. Personal brand doesn't mean personal life. So think about what you need to work on. What happens when I Google you? What happens when I look you up on LinkedIn? What do I find? It should be something that you put there that you intentionally, when people Google you, you know what they're going to find. Because you have a website, because you have a LinkedIn page, because it's based on the things that get the highest traffic. So make sure when you go to LinkedIn, do you have a good picture? Do you Have a good profile photo? Do you have a good name? Do you have a way for people to contact you? You don't need to overcomplicate it. I'm saying keep it simple.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Maha Abulanain]

You have to be able to convert your personal brand and your reputation into something that's intentional and something that's strong and something that gives you credibility because you don't know who's looking you up either professionally or personally. And you just want to make sure whatever people find is something that you put there.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. What do you think are maybe some of the biggest mistakes that leaders make when managing reputation?

[Maha Abulanain]

They don't put enough time into it. They would put a lot of time into managing the company and managing the product and the sales and the marketing, but they don't think about. People follow people, they don't follow companies. You know, what are you doing as a leader? People are modeling your behavior. What are you doing on LinkedIn? What are you doing in company meetings? And I feel the biggest mistake is that it's a nice to have that it's not something that people are proactively doing. And I feel like everybody, Every person is a brand. Every single person is a brand. And the ones that understand that and are intentional about it are the ones that have stronger images, stronger reputation, stronger sales, stronger opportunities. It's just a wheel. It's a. It's a wheel.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I admit I come from a marketing background, so, you know, maybe some of this I, I learned early on, but, you know, I always thought of it as part of the job. Right. And I, and I think, you know, I, I've worked with lots of different leaders, and some of them, you can tell, you know, that some stuff comes not. They don't need to be in marketing or, or comms or whatever. They just get it. And then others don't, I guess. You know, I know you touched on this a little bit. What would your advice to be to those that just. They're like, I don't. This is not important. I'm. I've already got to the V.P. c suite, whatever. Why do I need this? Like, maybe, maybe one piece of advice to just like, push them a little over the edge there.

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah. If you are a VP or you in a C suite, you want to be on a board, you want to get a promotion, you want to get onto a job opportunity. You love your job and want to stay where you are, but want to get more experience. You want to hire the best talent. That's another reason why you should focus on it. Your, your personal brand is your reputation. And don't tell me you don't care about your reputation.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Right.

[Maha Abulanain]

You can attract more opportunities for yourself, whether it's your main job, whether it's side hustle, whether it's accolades like awards. That's really why it matters.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So looking, looking ahead and certainly there's, there's a lot of factors at play. There's, you know, everything from growing AI stuff to economic uncertainty, all those kinds of things as we look out, you know, what do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges as well for leaders in maintaining that influence and that reputation? And, you know, how do you think that leaders should prepare themselves for what's next in this landscape?

[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, I really. First of all, I love this question because I feel like it's simple. You don't need to be doing, you know, 100 pieces of content and posting all day. You need to have dedicated time once a week where you're going to put out your thought leadership and you're going to figure out what's the best way to do that. Am I good at writing a LinkedIn post? Am I good at writing a LinkedIn newsletter? Am I more apt to just posting a video once a week? I'm saying start small, start small, make it a habit and then repeat it. Right. That's how you achieve your goals. You get confidence by taking action. You don't get confidence by, you know, overthinking it and worrying about it. Like, a lot of people are, like, I don't feel like I'm that person. I don't want to be posting. I'm not. That's not who I am. Think about it as thought leadership and think about it as baby steps. Like a year from now, I want to be this and set that goal and then reverse engineer the smaller steps you need to take to do it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Maha Abulanain]

I feel that if you have ideas, how you built your business, observations you see in the market, hot takes on trends and insights, that's all content. That's all really good thought leadership. It doesn't have to be you creating something. You can comment on what you are seeing in the market and react to it. That's super valuable. You're bringing your insights. You know, Daniel Ek, who's the chairman of Spotify, you know, for the longest time didn't post and then he started just sharing. Like, here's a story on how we did, wanted to change the discovery tool on Spotify and here's like the reason behind it and how we thought about it. That's insightful, like that's storytelling. But it's very authentic because he's like explaining how they had a problem and what they did to solve it and just the behind the scenes. Everyone loves to see that.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, love it. Well, thanks again for joining today. One last question I like to ask everybody here. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it? Consider consistently.

[Maha Abulanain]

By the way, staying agile is the most relevant thing for me and my business. If I'm not growing, I'm not learning and if I'm not learning, I'm not developing and bringing, you know, that to my clients. Being agile for me is all about being culturally relevant, understand what's happening in the market. And I do it by learning. I talk to people, I listen to podcasts, I read books, I follow people on social, I subscribe to newsletters. I don't get my information from one source. I get it from a variety of sources and, and that's what keeps me agile and nimble so that I can understand, oh, what are they talking about in the entertainment world? What's happening in the music industry? What's happening in beauty? I like to get a variety of inputs so that I don't have one lens on my point of view. And, and that's exactly how I stay agile. And I feel like if you are one thing in this world, be agile because you'll be able to adapt to changes in the market. You'll be able to stay ahead and you'll take advantage of opportunities and be able to leverage them in a really, really good way.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, that's great. I love it. Well, thanks again to Maha Abulinain, author of the best selling book 7 Rules of Self Reliance. To learn more about Maha and her book, please follow the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the Agile brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the [e-mail] that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.gregkilstrom.com that's G R E G K-I H L S T R O M.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op from Ideation to creation. They craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.

[Maha Abulanain]

The agile.

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[Greg Kilstrom]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

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[Maha Abulanain]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways.

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[Maha Abulanain]

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