Tanveer Naseer on Leadership: Persistence, Connections & Introvert Success

The world needs us to share our talents now more than ever. The real you, not something where you saw, okay, I took a course and they said, these are the 10 strategies. So I'm just going to duplicate what they did. What's your unique thing? What's the thing that makes you really excited? What are the things that you're noticing that you're reading it? You're paying attention to, what are the things that are connecting in your mind? Share that and share it with no expectation. Okay. This is going to lead to a book deal. Oh, this is going to lead to a speaking engagement. This is going to lead to someone saying here, I got a hundred thousand dollars. I want to invest in you to create a new company. No, just do it. And you'd be surprised at who you're going to attract, who's going to start paying attention to you and start saying, Hey, look, I want to partner with you. I want to hire you. I want you to write a book. Yeah. Whatever it is that you're looking to accomplish. Welcome to super entrepreneurs podcast. I'm your host Shahid Durrani. Today we have with us Tanvir Nasir. Tanvir is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, award-winning leadership writer, and a host of a popular podcast called Leadership Biz Cafe. Welcome to our show, my friend. Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here, Shahid. Appreciate the invitation. So how'd you become such a big shot? You know what, Shahid, if I knew the answer to that, to be honest with you, I would have a best-selling book. Here's the 10 steps to do what I did. But if you had to look back, if you had to do it all over again, what, what steps would you take to create the success that you have now, or would you do something different? No, I wouldn't do anything different. I think there's two things that really come to mind. The first thing is persistence. This is the long game, right? I think for a lot of us, we tend to see someone who's in there. I feel like I'm successful. Some people, I also might think I'm successful. And you tend to look at the accomplishments, but you don't necessarily see all the behind the scenes, blood, sweat, and lots of tears and stress that went to get to that point, right? I think persistence is key, which is why you have to make sure that what you're doing is really what you're meant to do and not something that you, Oh, I'm really excited about this new endeavor and I want to explore it. The second thing I think is that I believe, I strongly believe is what's been key and something I still do to this day is relationship building. I think you have to approach it with an abundance mindset. Even now to this day, I think a lot of people are quite surprised at how much I'm like, Hey, I just met somebody. I think they'd be really wonderful to connect with you and so forth. And these are people who I just met relatively new and now they start becoming friends and they start saying, I actually have something good. And it's just this, there's no strings attached to it. It's just that you want to help people. And I think when people see that you're genuine about that, then they start looking out for you for opportunities. And I do think there's a few times where opportunities came my way purely because someone saw the kind of things that I were doing and said, I really want to help him. So I do think that's what's key. That you're building relationships, not with the expectation of anything return, just to say, I want to be surrounded by people who are going to lift me up with their ambition, their positivity, their outlook on life, what they're trying to do with their work. Because then I think that motivates you to say, I want to accomplish the same. So that's the two things I would say. Good. Unfortunately, me and you are not getting along, but if we did things, because at the end of the day, I feel like it's all one to me. And I don't feel there's duality. I just feel like everything comes from one source and everything is just energy. And we just have these personalities out there, they're mingling with each other, but there's a deep rooted love that you have for every human being and every experience and everything and objects. And when you come from that place, like you said, uh, by nature is just flow, ease and flow, I guess that people just want to be around that type of person. And I can see that you, you have that ability because we hit it off right in the beginning. Yeah. And I think I know some people might be listening going, yeah, but I don't know how tactile that is and so forth. And it's look, you, we all have something that's a unique strength and unique talent, just share it. The world needs us to share our talents now more than ever. And yeah, exactly. The real you, not something where you saw, okay, I took a course and they said, these are the 10 strategies. So I'm just going to duplicate what they did. What's your unique thing? What's the thing that makes you really excited? One of the things that you're noticing that you're reading it, you're paying attention to what are the things that are connecting in your mind, share that and share it with no expectation. Okay. This is going to lead to a book deal. Oh, this is going to lead to a speaking engagement. This is going to lead to someone saying here, I got $100,000. I want to invest in you to create a new company. No, just do it. And you'd be surprised at who you're going to attract, who's going to start paying attention to you and start saying, Hey, look, I want to partner with you. I want to hire you. I want you to write a book. Yeah. Whatever it is that you're looking to accomplish. And you just spoke about abundant mindset. Did you get training for that? Or are you naturally abundant? I think I'm naturally abundant. It's hard sometimes these days to really want to see the good in there, but I just think I'm naturally M I do. Look, I just love one of the reasons I started my podcast, honestly, was that I love the opportunity to speak with interesting people and to hear their stories and to learn from them. And hopefully that learning and that value that I'm finding that they have others will see too, and then basically saying, Hey, check this person out. Look, they have something interesting to share. I think I've always had that. And again, it's just like that thing where if you have this mentality, people are just drawn to it. And then you start getting opportunities because people want to work with people who are driven to say, look, I'm not in it for me to gain a 50% uptick in my quarter this year, because last quarter wasn't so great. They're looking for people who say, I want to create value for both of us. How can we create value together? Yeah, I can relate to the podcast point. Um, for me, when I started this podcast, it was more about being in the vicinity or being with people where you want to be. That's what started that journey. And then as I started meeting people, I was very uncomfortable. Like I'm very camera shy. It was very difficult to do this show, but when I started doing it now at this point today, it really is about, like you said, meeting people, just learning from them, building relationships and not worrying about anything else. And it creates such a easy format, a very comfortable format. I know podcasters that get stressed before interviewing. They have to have everything proper. You have to have all the proper questioning. Everything has to be just perfect. And I feel like it does a number on your body and your health and then the real you doesn't come out. And that's what people want now, especially since COVID people just want real. And that's what this heart centered businesses are coming about now. And people are changing their way of doing business and how they interact with their consumers. So everything is shifting and who knows what the world is going to look like in 50, a hundred years, but it's definitely shifting. And my point of view, I feel like it's shifting in a positive direction. I agree with you too. I think we have to always focus more on our better angels because I think otherwise it's hard for us to find the opportunities. It's hard for us to say, okay, we can make a change here. We can make a difference here. And Shahid, I love something you just said, because I'm sure again, people looking at the two of us talking or probably going, ah, it's easy for Cameron to do this. I can see it's obvious. These guys can build relationships and so forth. I love the fact that you brought that you're camera shy, because one of the things that people are always surprised. Yeah, you were, you know, now are you those spotlights on you and so forth? But you know what? The thing that's surprising that people find out about me is that I was, and I still am introverted, which again, you're introverted, you're an extrovert. No, when I was younger, I was a really shy kid. I was very introverted. I couldn't speak public. I remember I hated the fact that I couldn't speak in public and I pushed myself. I still remember the worst talk I ever gave was in grade nine. We had a public speaking competition in front of the whole school. I was so nervous. My voice sounded like I was on a bus that was on a very bumpy road. It was just shaking. But you know what? And I kicked myself afterwards because I felt, boy, I just bombed. And it was my mom who told me, no, you had the courage to stand up there and do something that clearly scared the crap out of you and you finished. And so I realized that, you know what? That's what we have to do. We have to meet our fear and say, look, what is it we're afraid of? Okay. Like you said, Jade, everyone's worried. Oh, I gotta be so perfect. I gotta get my questions right. And so forth. No, just have a conversation. It's just another person on the other side. There's nothing special about the other person any more than what's special about you. So let's just connect and let's just find something of interest that we can talk about and share and be excited about and learn from one another. And when you approach it from that vantage point, you got nothing to fear. Yeah. Tanvira, I had to meditate for 10 minutes before I came in front of you because you're such a person. I had to get the nerves back and I was just like. No, it was a wonderful conversation so far, but I'm really intrigued by the name of your book, Leadership Vertical. Can you speak about that? And because apparently the people are enjoying the book. I didn't read it unfortunately yet, but I'm intrigued because it's the first time I heard it. Well, how did you come up with this concept for leadership and what do the gain from consuming this content? Sure. First of all, I can tell you, maybe if you hadn't spent 10 minutes meditating, you could have read my book, but that's okay. No, you're a smart guy. You can just power. Yeah, that's right. So leadership vertigo is such a, just a simple definition of is it refers to this gap that exists between how we view our leadership and how our employees experience it. And honestly, from all the stuff I'm seeing right now, it's like there's a resurgence of this gap widening between what leaders are thinking, this is what we need to do. And what employees are expecting in order to thrive in that organization. And the source of it came from a lot of times when I would be consulting with organizations and I would be giving keynotes and workshops. And I would have conversations with leaders who would be sharing all these strategies and things that they're doing. And it's like they would do, I'll look at one person, my favorite example, which really inspired a lot of why I was wanting to write this book was I had this leader who came in and said, you know what? I used to have this energized workforce. People used to walk in and there was all people smiling. They're all happy and so forth. Now it's like you walk in and you can just feel your energy draining. Everyone's just so glum looking. So one day I decided on a Friday, I'm going to organize a pizza party in our parking lot. I'm going to get all these food trucks. We're going to have a band or a DJ and we're gonna have this great party. And he said, it was fantastic. Friday just seen everyone was laughing. People were mingling from different departments. I was like, there's the people I remember. And I said, okay, so how was Monday? Oh my God. You should have seen it Monday. All the dube and gloom people were back. I'm like, what's happened to them over the weekend? And so I said to remind me again, what do you guys do? Are you event planners or something? And the guy looks at me, no question about event planners. And he says, we do this, that and the other. And I'm like, see, that's the thing. You gave them a diversion from their work lives, which clearly is not enjoyable. And so you have to recognize that you're doing things that you think, this is what they need. They need a break, but that's not what they need. So there's a gap between how you're seeing the stuff that you think. And he says, cause he even said to me this, and this is the part I love. Cause after he said the story, he says, look Tamra, I got to tell you, I'm so frustrated because I give them everything they want and they're still not happy. And that was it. There was the little light bulb going off that you're seeing things from your vantage point, but not taking into account. What is their experience? Cause if you took into account more of their experience, then how you view yourself as a leader, you would realize that it's not an alignment and you have to bring it in alignment. And so that's where the inspiration for this book came was how do I help leaders understand that? And it's going to keep happening over time. I always tell leaders like, look, you're always going to have this gap. The goal is to narrow it because our brain will convince us to see things. We've all seen all the lists, all the different cognitive biases we all experienced. And that's just, that's just our brain's way of saving energy. None of us think when we go to work and we had to go to work and we commute. Okay. What's my route I have to take. If there's a detour, we just drive and we are thinking too busy about the email, the meeting we have to go to. That's your brain saving energy. It's the same thing with our biases. It's just our brain saving energy. So we can focus on other things. It's fine when you're commuting to work, it's not fine when you're working with your people because you want to be fully present to understand their reality. And that's where this book leadership vertigo helps leaders address that situation. Interesting. Do you practice presence yourself? Yeah, I do. I always try to be very, especially when you have conversations with people. The one thing I always tell leaders is one of the things that we're always doing. And I said, I have those exercises doing some of my workshops where I do these exercises to like, like mind tricks where people think, are you a magician or a speaker? And I'm like, no, I'm just using neuroscience to show you how in real time, how your brain operates. So you might be convinced right now. I don't do that. And you get convinced. No, actually you do. And I remember one talking recently, I had one leader in the audience who was neurodivergent. And he got caught off guard too. He actually came up to me afterwards and said, I was so convinced. I wasn't because I'm neurodivergent. So my brain doesn't work the same as yours. But I got caught off guard too. And I said to him, see, we have to be mindful that we have these assumptions about how our brain operates and it's not always true. And so that's where we have to be intentional. So when there's a conversation happening, we have to just quiet our brain and just say, I just want to listen to the person in front of me. I'm curious to hear what you're going to say. Like when you're asking me questions, I'm not anticipating what you're going to ask me next. I'm just sitting to hear where you're going to take the conversation next. And then that way I'm really listening to you and I'm able to respond to you so we can have this wonderful conversation. It's so important, especially in leadership to be present. But the only thing is that because the mind gets really active and it's just been like that forever, especially when we're using our intellect so much that we get to a point where it consumes us. But having that ability or training yourself to be present, you actually have more control in situations moment by moment. Absolutely. And you're right. But I think we also have to be mindful that we have to practice it more than we probably had to 10, 20 years ago. And I always tell people, if you want to know why, watch a movie, an action movie, one of your favorite action movies that just came out last year. And then right afterwards, watch one of your favorite action movies that you enjoyed from like, let's say the 1970s. Notice how impatient you're going to get watching that action film in the 70s. Like, come on, let's go. What's with all this exposition and so forth. But the thing is when that movie came out in the 70s, we were in caught. We were like transfixed. We were just like, oh my God, this is so exciting. And now it bores us. Right. Why? Because our attention span has shrunken to such a degree that it's hard now for us to really stay present in the moment. This is why you see so much discussion about mindfulness, because our attention span has shrunk to such a degree that it's really hard for us to stay present in a conversation where our brain is not suddenly going, oh crap, I have that email I have to do it. Oh no, it's true. I got that meeting coming up. You know what I mean? And it takes effort and practice. But once you do, see, I'm not thinking about, I don't even know what email I have because I'm too busy thinking about my conversation with you right now. And I think this is something we can all do, but it takes practice. It takes effort. No, you need to engage your will to make this happen because it requires consistent work to be in that stillness, to be in that present moment, just present and then being aware. And it takes a lot of back and forth, but it's probably the primary gift that I gave myself and I'm grateful every single day that I was introduced to it. It changed everything for me. And I'm grateful to have met you that you're doing the same thing because when I heard the key word right away, I pick it up when I have a guest and we speak about this. So it's great. It's great to speak about this. Now you spoke in different countries, many countries, which leadership culture made the most impact on you and why? Oh, that's a good question. Thanks. That was part of your meditation, right? I'm not sure if there's any particular culture that influenced me. I think what I do now notice is I'm noticing that there is this, there's a widening gap that's starting to manifest itself between North America in Europe in terms of how we're viewing the nature of work, the future of work. I think now what I'm seeing and through my work with leaders in Europe, I actually find, cause I've been, I've worked for so long with Americans and I'm used to their go culture that when I work with Europeans, I literally have to put the brakes on so that I don't become impatient with them, right? And it's not because they're not as competent. They just have their priorities straight. To be honest with you, I think that they realize, look, yes, work's important, but it's not my everything. You know, I'm not defined by my job title. And I think that there's something inevitably, I think I, if I, at least here in Canada, we tend to be whatever happens in Europe, it takes about 10 years for it to show up here. So maybe in 10 years here in Canada, we'll have it. But unfortunately, I don't know how much influence we're also still going to get from the States in terms of their go culture, which I don't think. And I think a lot of them are realizing it's not sustainable. It's just not. And the younger generation is just not interested in it. And understandably, because they don't have the guarantees. Heck, as a Gen X, we didn't really have much guarantees, but they even have lesser guarantees than we did. There's no gold watch at the end of working in 20 years to come, which was never our thing for Gen X, but they don't even have the possibility of recognizing if I work hard, I get a good salary, I'll be able to afford a home. I can do all these things that our generations have been able to do. As a consequence, it's understandable. They can say, then what's in it for me. And for them, it's, I want to live. I want my job to help me live my life. If I can't have the things my parents had, then I want to have experiences. And I think when you recognize that reality, it's understandable why they are the way they are. And what's happening in Europe, I think will come here, whether we want it to or not, because the next few, the younger generations are just going to force it just because of their economic realities. And I think this is why we're seeing so much pushback right now from CEOs, because they don't like it. They want us to dedicate our lives to work, right? But like I've shared with people, if you think about the best leader you worked with, what is the things that come to mind, right? And more often than not, people think about how they were supportive. They were encouraging. They believed in me and so forth. I'm like, oh, that's wonderful. So thinking about that leader, how many of you can remember, what was the percentage of market share gain they were able to accumulate over the last five years you worked with them? And everyone looks at me like, what the heck are you talking about? I said, but this is what we focus on. And it's when we realize if we look at it from the perspective of leadership, that's not what people are going to remember. They're going to remember how we made them feel working with us and how we saw them, how we helped them grow, what was the potential we saw in them and helped them to see, look, we see you capable of doing all that. And I think that this is the culture that we are going to have to recognize. And I, unfortunately, I think in some areas, in some industries, people are going to just be going at this and screaming, which is unfortunate because there's studies that show that you actually become more productive, more prosperous and more innovative taking on these approaches, but it just takes the leaders to say, I have to change. And let's be honest, whether you're a leader or not, most of us hate change because it's hard. And when you live with the abundant mindset or the being fulfilled as a leader, that definitely has a ripple effect with the people that you lead. You become more, you connect more. Right. And look, abundance also is a growth mindset, right? Because it means there's so much. So you're always looking for opportunities to stretch and grow, to learn new things and to do new things. And that's the way I approach my work as well. I'm always trying to say, I want to learn something new. I want to grow. I want to develop a new skill. I want to figure a way that I can continue to add value. I know I add value now, but I want to make sure I can maximize the value that I'm able to offer to my clients. And so I think when you have an abundance mindset, that's the way you're looking at it, you're not thinking, Oh, I already have my expertise. I've landed. I'm this blah, blah, blah. I got all those accolades. Now I can coast on my accomplishments. No, I think when you have an abundance mindset, you're always hungry. You're always looking for what's the next thing that I can learn that I can add value with. It was a pleasure having you on the show, my friend. It was great talking to you. You, your energy is very enlightened and it fills a room. You have a very deep type of energy about you. And I could see that being a speaker that must help you a lot with your audience. And I'm just grateful to have met you keep in touch, appreciate your time. And if you have any final words, please go ahead. Oh, it was a pleasure to be on the show again, just to remind people, look, I was an introvert and honestly, if any energy you're seeing it's because I'm feeding off of the energy you're giving me shade with the conversation that you're providing. You're engaging me and I'm excited to talk and I'm excited to share. And I love the questions that you're asking. And for those who are interested in learning more about me, just go visit my website, Tamva Nassir.com. You can find that podcast that Shahid mentioned, Leadership is Cafe, as well as seeing some of the other work that I've been doing and Shahid again, thank you so much for allowing me to be on your show, my pleasure. And thank you for the kind words. I appreciate you. Keep in touch. Will do.