[0:01] Most entrepreneurs, most people struggle with vision clarity and clarity on

[0:05] what they actually want. And it's interesting because clarity comes by doing. It comes through being patient, through time, through owning what you're really good at, what you love doing. But a lot of times when people get conditioned, especially if we get a lot of people coming from corporate, they've been conditioned with should. They have to do this. They should do this. They've got to climb this ladder. They've got to be this person. They've got to show up this way. It can take time to unlearn all those shoulds and being who they thought they had to be and just stepping into their more authentic self. A lot of people think vision starts from here. It actually starts from here. Our guest today, Saleema Vellani, is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and the author of the best-selling book, Innovation Starts With I. As an innovation strategist and founder of Ripple Impact, she's been in the trenches, advising prestigious institutions like the World Bank to Fortune 500s. She teaches design thinking and entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University, and is here to share her playbook on how to get unstuck, amplify your impact, and build a business and a life that truly matters.

[1:15] Saleema, a huge welcome to Skin in the Game. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Super excited to be on your show.

[1:24] Your journey is incredible, I must say. I want to start right at that fork in the road most of us face. Where did your entrepreneurial journey begin and what was the first spark that led you down this path? Yeah, so my entrepreneurial journey, it actually started...

[1:45] I would actually have to say probably I was getting trained to become an entrepreneur as a kid. I went to Montessori school. My mom was a Montessori teacher. And as many of the most successful entrepreneurs, including Mark Zuckerberg and several others, were Montessori students. And so I've never mentioned this before. This is really off script. But definitely being in Montessori environments really enabled me to start with that whole living life more curiously. And then my first actual entrepreneurial experience started.

[2:18] Oof, other than trying to sell stuff as a kid or as in college. But I would have to say it was after college, I graduated into the 2008 financial crisis. I could not find a job. I did not want to be a bartender or be in coat check in Montreal. I was like, I need to figure out how am I going to actually get this career going? And so I moved to Brazil. I actually studied international development and Latin American focused. And I got this amazing opportunity to volunteer and work with kids at an orphanage in the rainforest in Brazil. When I got to Brazil, they were like, you're not going to be at the orphanage. We're going to put you into Rio de Janeiro and you're going to start a language school. We're going to help you with the finances and stuff and give you a place to stay. Very simple. That's another story in itself. But we're going to need you to start up this school with very little resources. And so So we had this little office space, you know, had to go find teachers, like some Portuguese teachers, some different language teachers. The whole business model was let's teach languages to tourists and Brazilian and use that money to finance the orphanage, which was and was not in great conditions. But they needed some money to improve it and to have more sustainability and a better life for the children and the volunteers.

[3:35] I did not know I was doing that. And I don't know what the director saw in me at the time, but he obviously saw some strengths in me. And sometimes it's like you have somebody in real life that doesn't know you very well, but they just know that you're cut out for the right role. And that's an example of a good leader. So Bart Bigen actually put me into Rio and I was now in this very uncomfortable situation. I didn't speak Portuguese. I spoke Spanish, which I realized very quickly was not that useful in Brazil, if anything offensive. And I had to start the school from scratch. I had very little help. I had, you know, I was trying to recruit volunteers.

[4:10] Yeah, it was a very interesting story, but essentially it was being scrappy, trying to figure out how do you do more with very little resources? How do you figure out the business model? Because we were trying to do everything when we started. We were trying to teach all these different languages, get these volunteers to teach. But where we had product market fit was the Portuguese teacher for the foreigners. And so foreign students that were coming to Brazil, whether they're on vacation or there for a few months or going to work in Brazil. So we had all kinds of different Portuguese being taught, business Portuguese for Spanish speakers, for non-Spanish speakers. We had all these other languages we were trying to do as well, which we had to cut out. So it was really the journey of trying to get a school to get to profitability and product market fit. And back in those days, it was different. Like I had to partner with Lonely Planet, figure out to get a website going, literally get flyers printed and go to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and send volunteers to the beaches and try to get tourists to come to the school, which we realized like many of our flyers would end up on the streets of Rio or the garbage. But then we did get people coming into our school, which was a very tiny office space at the time. I'm just so proud that the school is now the number one. It became very quickly the number one Portuguese school in Brazil. It's private school now. the orphanage unfortunately shut down.

[5:28] But it's making a lot of impact. In fact, I actually meet people sometimes in different places around the world, even on the plane. When I was on the plane and coming back from Panama last year, there was someone who said, yeah, I'm coming back from Brazil. I was studying Portuguese. He was sitting next to me on the plane. I was like, oh, where'd you go? He's like, Camino's Language Center. I was like, oh, I co-founded that school back in 2009. So it's kind of like interesting to see that ripple impact of something you plant this season. You think, honestly, I don't know if it's going to take off. It's this tiny project, but it can actually be planting the seeds for something

[5:59] that can grow into something big. So that was my first experience. I was a volunteer, so I was not an owner. But that experience, being in such a difficult country like Brazil, being in an environment where doing business is really hard, especially we were a nonprofit status at the time. How do you actually build something where you're dealing with a lot of different challenges, including a world economic meltdown? That led me to my next venture, which we'll talk about at another point. But essentially, I moved to Italy, love story from Brazil, and started my first venture there, a translation business, which was also very successful and had an exit.

[6:36] That's quite a story. I think at the age of 21, most people are just figuring out what they want to do. But you have taken on a huge financial and social responsibility. And can you share with us what experience has taught you about the realities of social entrepreneurship in that setting? It's a great question. So at the time, social entrepreneurship is a very interesting thing because I was very much all about social entrepreneurship for many years. Now, there was a big movement going on, right? Especially in the 2010s, less so after pandemic. But the realities of social entrepreneurship is that it's very hard to try to figure out a business model if you are trying to also solve a problem that is worse. I'm not saying that you can't be purpose-driven. and I'm all about purpose-driven entrepreneurship today. But social entrepreneurship is tricky because it's almost like you have to think about, think almost like a non-profit.

[7:33] As a social enterprise, but also try to figure out the business model. And typically, because businesses go through different stages, and you're needing to pivot every few months when you're in the early stages, you're pivoting, you're pivoting. And to keep that social mission in place can be really difficult, especially if there's beneficiaries involved, and you're trying to figure out, you know, the product market fit, but then also support these beneficiaries, unless the customers are the beneficiaries, like it really depends on how you structure it. But the reality is it's really tough to do a social focused business or a social enterprise. And that's why we see that, yes, there are several social enterprises, but today there's more a movement of purpose-driven business and businesses that, well, there's like the traditional non-sexy businesses that are solving traditional problems or new problems. And then there's sexy businesses. Like one of my businesses right now is a sexy business. It's something that's cool and it's fun and it's we're making impact. I really am passionate about emerging markets and helping entrepreneurs that are trying to change their countries, change the world. And a lot of these are in emerging markets in developing countries.

[8:39] I had to really realize that for me to make this business successful and profitable, I would rather focus on the product market fit, on getting this business to really great profitability, and then getting creative with the profit in terms of how do we now use some of this profit to support many of these impact-focused entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Instead of trying to find a business model that will figure out how to help those entrepreneurs, it's more so how do we have a business model that allows us to take a portion of that money to give back in some way or provide scholarships or have a foundation set up or a partnership with a foundation of sorts. So it's really thinking about it differently because we have to make money first before we can give. If we're trying to give and find a model that will give as we make money,

[9:24] it becomes very muddy and very difficult. And I had to be okay with letting go of social entrepreneurship in the way that I was operating many years ago. You founded Nine Ventures with three successful exits, which is quite remarkable in terms of success rate. For listeners who may be in the early stages of launching or even facing a setback right now, could you share the story of a venture that didn't go as planned? And what was the most valuable lesson you took away from that experience?

[9:54] Thank you. So definitely had my different successes, exits, but also some failures. Although I look at many of the failures as spinoffs that did something else. So it's almost like I had to go through that experience in order to get to that next thing. And sometimes letting go of that failure or letting go of that and reframing it as, hey, now I have this information. How do I now do this next thing? And so interestingly, and the dots are connecting, the story is like everything that I did lined up to where I am now and where I'm going. So the failure was, yeah, I had this, you know, I co-founded this marketing agency and be careful to disclose for respects. But I started, I co-founded this marketing agency. This was about 10 years ago. And we had a few clients and I was a full-time hire and a co-founder. We were trying to help a lot of small businesses with being their outsourced marketing agency. and their outsourced marketing team. Usually they were too small to really have.

[10:51] Marketing team or a strong marketing team in-house. And at the time, digital marketing was kind of sexy and new-ish, and inbound marketing was also something that was very popular, emerging. And even though we had a business going, we had a lot of new clients coming in, one thing that was changing very rapidly was the industry and the market. And people were less focused on what we were doing, which was a lot of quantity of content. You know, let's spin some articles, blogs, let's create blogs, let's do social media, let's do emails, email newsletters, and things like this for our clients, which at the time, people were like, oh, this sounds great, but does that actually lead to their business outcomes? And for me, I felt like being the outsourced marketing team, now knowing what I know, there was a lack of that authenticity, the lack of thought leadership. It was a lot of let's just spin information, let's write information of course chat tpt wouldn't have been our best friend back then but this is all written by human at the time and so it was very interesting because it was about quantity of content and not quality and even though we had lots of clients and we were actually the fastest growing agency within that space yeah we failed and but the beautiful thing is that it sped off and i'll talk about that in a moment but we failed and i think this is my opinion.

[12:15] I think we failed because our value proposition was not super differentiated. There were lots of other companies that were doing this, like we're going to write you lots of blogs and emails and social media posts and do advertising. But the world was changing. People's habits and due diligence was changing. Algorithms were changing. The days where you could post on Instagram and Facebook and get lots of likes and put some hashtags, that started to change very drastically. So we were like, why are we not getting the same results that we got when we started this? So I would say it's a mix of not adapting to not being aware of where the market was going and where the industry was going and adapting. Or you want to as a visionary, you want to actually have a strategic foresight. Just the way I did with my book research, I saw the great resignation and many of these things happening before they even had a name.

[13:05] And so, yeah, we saw that people were caring more about authenticity. It was actually before authenticity became a thing. But essentially, it was really when people started to do more due diligence, because now there was a lot of content going on the web. So how could you really get to your business outcomes by just having a lot of content? That business did tank. However, it did spin off into one of the most successful SEO companies. And that's amazing to see that spinoff happen or that sort of change of focus happened with that founder that I worked with. And I also went through my own journey of realizing how much impact and purpose and authenticity was to me. And that led to now, obviously, doing something that in some way is related to how do we help people get themselves out there? How do we get businesses get out there? But we've built a whole unique proprietary process, which at the time we didn't have that. We didn't have our own thought leadership. We were not working with the client's thought leadership. We didn't have our proprietary process. We did not have enough success stories based on a framework or process. It was based on a, you know, write this many blog posts, write this many emails, put out this much social media content. But that doesn't necessarily help you actually make sales and grow a business. So, yeah, that was one of the biggest. I said I learned many lessons from that. I'm actually grateful for that experience. It was hard.

[14:25] You know, what happened when that thing failed and all the things that happened after that, including my house burning down and many things just not going the way that I had planned in my life. But in many ways, looking back, it was the biggest blessing because I learned so much from that failure that allowed me to create and to vision and to build this business that is very successful.

[14:46] I would not be here if it had not been for that failure. So, yeah. Sometimes failure becomes stepping stone for success. And that brings me to the topic of resilience.

[14:57] Launching nine companies actually for you has become a marathon of grit. When a venture ends or you face a major setback, so how do you actually mentally prepare and strategically reset to prepare for the next opportunity?

[15:12] Wow. Yeah, that's a really great question. So I find that having to do resets, there's different types of resets. So even before this call, actually, before this podcast episode, I was going through something and like until like a minute before and I had to tell myself, you're about to get on a podcast, you're about to show up in front of an audience or you're about to almost like you're about to speak on stage. And I had to do a car pose or do, you know, whether it's dance, whether it's sing, whether it's meditate, do something that puts me back in flow because that thing, I won't be thinking about that in a few hours or tomorrow or next week. But this episode, I wanted to make sure I bring my fullest, my presence to this. No matter what was happening one minute before and the crisis I was dealing with or fire I was putting out, because as a CEO at the science company I have right now, we're growing lots of fires all the time. There's a lot of things that you're dealing with as an entrepreneur. I don't think people totally understand the life of an entrepreneur.

[16:11] But yeah, there's a lot that you're dealing with. And so being able to reset, and I would say that actually makes one of the greatest strengths as an entrepreneur. So I do many things and there's things that I have to do for example resetting before a call whether it's the power posing or doing something listening to music getting myself into a better state meditation is also very important so by meditating every morning I'm not great at doing it but I'm working towards getting better at it it's in progress that is something that really helps proactively set you up so that you're not just reacting to resetting but also just.

[16:45] Living a holistic life. So for me, it's important to do things that allow me to have that grit and resilience button there. And that means doing things I love. So traveling, spending time with family, doing things that I love, whether it's art, whether it's music, whether it's karaoke or dancing felta, whatever it is that keeps me in my flow. Because there's one way that you're always trying to, you know, when you have to react every time with grit, it's very hard. But if you're proactively setting things up so that you have your grit tank full so that when you push the button, it's full. But if your grit tank is empty and your resilience is not there because you're infused, it's really hard to have something there to push that button and use it. And so it's constantly refilling and refueling that tank.

[17:32] And I've never explained it that way before, but that's the way I would probably put it. Your company, Ripple Impact, advises entrepreneurs and executives seeking to increase their influence and maximize their impact? What is the most common blind spot or plateau you see these smart people facing? What is the first strategic step you guide them to take to overcome it?

[17:55] Wonderful question. And this is something that I learned also the hard way, right? The first actual couple of years, we didn't realize what was the first step they needed to take, because in my mind, it was always, let's go to strategy. I'm a strategist. And what it really is that vision clarity, what we realized, and this is something that I realized I struggled with myself. Most entrepreneurs, most people struggle with vision clarity and clarity on what they actually want. And it's interesting because clarity comes by doing, it comes through being patient, through time, through owning what you're really good at, what you love doing. But a lot of times when people get conditioned, especially we get a lot of people coming from corporate, they've been conditioned with should. They have to do this. They should do this. They got to climb this ladder. They've got to be this person. They've got to show up this way. It can take time to unlearn all those shoulds and being who they thought they had to be and just stepping into their more authentic self. And so the first strategic step.

[18:53] It's actually vision clarity. We actually put them through an experience where it has some meditation, some visualization. They work with a vision coach that is actually connecting them to their heart. Because usually our clients are typically here in their heads. This is very common for people who are deep thinkers, who are knowledge-based experts. We get stuck in our minds. And so how do we let go and surrender from our minds and step into our hearts and just feel the heart space? That's actually where we start with vision clarity it's not actually up here a lot of people think vision starts from here it actually starts from here connecting to yourself connecting to source and so once we get them connected to here we're more likely going to get something that's more authentic to them that's going to lead to something more strategic that's going to come from deep within versus i'm thinking oh i should do this or i should do that so that first step is actually the vision clarity before we go into strategy there's a lot of expectations around us right Like people expect you to be this and that. And I like what you said about having that vision clarity so that it's coming from the heart and it's authentic to who you are. And I'll try to remember that as well. Salima, your bestselling book, Innovation Starts With I, has been praised by

[20:10] big names like Ariana Huffington and Adam Grant. In business, we often focus on teams and systems, but you bring it back to the individual. Why is that so important?

[20:22] Innovation starts with I. It's what we say. It's my book title, right? It doesn't mean it's egocentric. This doesn't mean that innovation is executed by the individual. It's executed definitely in teams. But visionaries, it definitely starts with the I because it comes back to our authenticity. It comes back to our personal story, our why. and there's a certain element of self-transformation when it comes to innovation and when you're trying to make an impact and you're trying to do something big in the world or something that brings you joy and can make an impact on the people that you serve it actually starts with self and it's not me that actually you know thought about this but definitely someone who validated this is Steve Jobs so Steve Jobs one of the world's greatest innovator he actually went through his own journey of self-transformation and I and his own story. And he was rejected. He was fired. He went off to India and did a lot of meditation and did a lot of personal work on himself. And it was after he did that work on himself and reinvented himself was when he was able to come back to Apple or at the time different.

[21:31] He was able to come back and essentially innovate and be that big visionary and be able to really innovate in a very successful way. And so I always go back to Steve Jobs because he's an icon. But essentially, yeah, if you think of some of the world's best innovators, it wasn't getting into a conference room with a team to innovate. It was there's got to be a visionary that's got the vision. Not everybody has that visionary sense. Some people can develop some of it. But a true visionary, if you're an entrepreneur, there is a certain amount of time you spend with yourself. and really getting used to enjoying your own company. And those times, whether you're in the shower or going for a walk or traveling alone, that's when you get some of your deepest insights or when you're connecting with people that are outside of your comfort zone or in other cultures, you get great ideas. It doesn't necessarily come from what, you know, I used to do a lot of design thinking workshops. The best ideas don't necessarily come from just getting in a room with some different people on your team and sticky notes.

[22:26] Sure, that can happen as that next stage, but that initial vision should really come from self. For the leaders listening, what's a simple, actionable way they can start cultivating that eye of innovation in themselves tomorrow? I would say that to cultivate that eye.

[22:43] It's really taking the time to do something that you've been wanting to do for yourself that will help you connect with self. I was talking to someone last night who was like, I just can't wait to get out of this corporate job that just feels so misaligned, this industry that I'm in. And I really just want to start a podcast and just have genuine conversations with people. I want to just not be in this job and I want to be doing some silent meditation, Vipassana, and these things that will help you get into flow. So figure out what is it that will get you into your flow state, take a pause, and I think that's the best place to start. So for me, it comes from usually travel. I get inspired by travel, especially when I'm doing solo travel or travel where I have a lot of space to be creative and go for unstructured walks or without having a lot of plans. Let's just say that. The other thing I would say is like I love just time for myself, spa days and meditating, massage, things where I'm not doing and I can just focus on being. I think getting into that state, flow state, into a state of being is the first step to actually to get there.

[23:50] A core theme of your work is the alignment of purpose and profit. Some entrepreneurs may view it as a nice idea, but may not be realistic. So how do you guide leaders to embed their purpose into a concrete, profitable business strategy? I think ultimately it depends on figuring out what kind of entrepreneur are you trying to be? Are you trying to be a lifestyle entrepreneur and have more of a portfolio career where the business revolves around you and what you want to do or what you feel energized and potentially what impact you want to make? Or are you trying to build something that's like a bigger movement? Are you trying to solve a problem in the market or a future problem that is going to emerge? So it really depends, first off, what kind of entrepreneur you want to be. Second of all, it's really about, in my opinion, this is very much of all about the holistic entrepreneur, figuring out what is purposeful to you as a founder. The profit will come when you're following your purpose. I think that when you're following your purpose, your business model automatically will have purpose in it. So, for example, my purpose is to help as many entrepreneurs as I can in the world that are purpose-driven entrepreneurs that are trying to make an impact.

[25:00] And I'm focused specifically on entrepreneurs that are underserved in the sense of, of course, in the future, I'll be focused more on the emerging market entrepreneurs. I've already done a lot of work with them. Currently, I'm focused on entrepreneurs that are underserved, not underprivileged, but underserved from a, you know, there are a lot of Gen Xers, a lot of entrepreneurs typically between 40 to 60-ish.

[25:21] Of course, before and after that, it's fine too. But typically, entrepreneurs that have a lot of knowledge, wisdom, they have expertise and they're trying to figure out how do I become known and share my wisdom and my gifts with the world, whether they're an established entrepreneur that is trying to be known and become a thought leader to all the way down to a corporate exeter. We call people coming out of corporate that are trying to build their portfolio careers. And so as long as there's purpose integrated, it's not coming from ego, but it's coming from wanting to serve, but also serve self. I think that it's okay to be selfish. And that was a thing I had to really work on accepting because I was always thinking it had to be, yes, your vision has to be bigger than yourself. That is for sure. It can't be just about you. But if it's not aligned, if the business is not aligned to who you are and what you want, you're not going to be motivated. So there has to be something in it for you to feel that you're energized and you're feeling joyful and you're accomplishing your own personal mission when that mission is aligned in some way, whether it's through your story, in some way with the business. So for me, it's how do I help entrepreneurs, those entrepreneurs who are not going to Y Combinators, they're not getting, they're not the young tech entrepreneurs that all the accelerators and VC funds are going after. I'm focused on the entrepreneurs that actually have more experience and are wanting to go through a personal transformation journey because entrepreneurship will.

[26:39] Process of self-innovation is going to help them become a better person, help them connect more to their authentic self and help them share their gifts with the world and make profit while doing it. But it's not just profit first, it's purpose first. And profitability is secondary, but it's totally there. Whether it's making a few hundred thousand dollars a year to a million to helping their business that's already in the millions or billions scale. I hope that answers your question.

[27:02] It does. You've built a powerful personal brand yourself as a sought-after speaker, best-selling author, and trusted advisor to Fortune 500 companies. Many of our listeners are experts in their field, yet struggle to turn that expertise into a recognizable brand. What's that critical mindset shift that takes you from being simply great at what you do to being known and sought after for it?

[27:29] Awesome question and this is i would say the very honest answer to that, What people think is the answer to that is a lot of marketing. Like, I need to do a lot of marketing. I need to get a TEDx. I need to write a book. I need to start a podcast. I need to get on stages. I need to, I should do this. A lot of shoulds. And ultimately, it's not about getting out there as much as being really, really good at what you do and being able to differentiate and have that competitive advantage. A lot of people, and of course, I would say also the network. So it's hard to just give that one tip. But I would say, if anything, I would say follow our holistic wealth framework, which is focused on the financial, the social capital, the intellectual capital and the emotional capital, because you've got to have the mindset. And that is coming from you've got to have the confidence, the courage. You've got to have the growth mindset, because if you already just believe that you're great at what you do, honestly, you might be good. You're not great if your phone is not ringing every day or you're not x-factor if your phone is not ringing every day with people demanding what you do a lot of people think that they're just the biggest secret that nobody knows and i need to do a lot of marketing you may be really good but you're not great unless you have those success stories unless you have those case studies unless you have that product-led growth where people are like wow you are so amazing like i want to tell the whole world about you or i want to tell the whole world about your business.

[28:55] You want to get to raving fan status. To get to that raving fan status, you need to have that competitive advantage. Like what is it that makes you sticky and different and better than your competitors? So having that knowledge, because just thinking that you're great is not enough. You've got to really compare yourself and figure out how can you provide more value and be more sticky and more relevant than your competition. So that's one thing from a business strategic standpoint.

[29:19] The other thing is, sorry, it's going to be hard to give one tip here because I feel like I just can't do it. But the other thing is having the network, having the community. A lot of people do the work to build something great. And maybe they have a few awesome clients that are very happy, but they just aren't going to be enough to spread the word.

[29:36] It's about having that network and really engaging, having that pipeline, having a lot of different really strategic communities, or maybe even not a lot. Maybe it's a few strategic communities that are your funnels where you know these are your people. These are the people that you can serve. And so really building that network where you're focused on giving and not just taking, giving more than you take is something I really preach. And then I also mentioned, yeah, so there was the mindset piece, there was the competitive advantage, it's the network, and then the intellectual piece. So the actually being really good at what you do requires you being three steps ahead. Being three steps ahead means you're hanging out with people that are three steps ahead of you. You're joining networks that are three steps ahead of you. Forget the peer-to-peer networks. Sure, you might want to be in a couple for emotional support or some ideas. Those are not the networks that are going to help you really move the needle. You need to really think about, how do I get to a place where I can be three steps ahead and learning from people who already are ahead and not feel like you're not good enough? And that comes back to the mindset. So all these pieces are very connected and our holistic wealth framework, a tool that I created, a framework is really helpful. How do you build holistically and not just focus on marketing or focus on networking or focus on like one thing?

[30:49] That's great insight. So I mean, my very holistic approach into branding ourselves.

[30:55] You've traveled to over 100 countries and it's fluent in five languages. You see the world through a lens few others have. How does this deep understanding of different cultures shape the way you do business and approach global challenges?

[31:11] This is a question that I feel because I've traveled so much. It's obvious, like I'm so cultured from and curated from these experiences that I've had, and I'm blessed and it's a privilege to be able to have that. It hasn't always been hard. I puzzled my way to get to where I am today and ensure some of it has been nice business travel with companies, but a lot of it has been honestly very personal travel or a mix, of course, as an entrepreneur, right? I would say that being a global citizen, I've really incorporated my different passions for the world with having a global team, being able to hold team retreats in different countries, being able to have clients in different countries and understand what's going on from different market standpoint. I would say just really being fully aware of what's going on in the world. And that's part of, I would have to thank my career in international development relations to some extent for that curiosity and that learning of knowing a lot about the world. But also it's just.

[32:09] I mean, I live in Washington, D.C. I always love joining networks that are very global. So I love being around people who are also very well-traveled and cultured. And definitely it helps me build up that grit and resilience. It helps me tackle challenges because of that different perspective. Again, it is a bit obvious to me, so it's hard to understand what it's like to not have that mindset. And I do talk about it in my book, The Culture Map, and there's all these different things from other thought leaders that I've borrowed. It definitely helps me with the grit and resilience because I've seen what a lot of people have gone through. I've visited refugee camps in Djibouti and Palestine. I've been to really poor parts of Africa. I've been to Haiti to work with the government to solve, you know, how do we do urban development after the earthquake and reconstruct the city of Fort-au-Prince and different parts of Haiti. So I've been to favelas in Brazil. So I've seen people live through challenging things. So one thing I would say is always thinking, hey, there's someone else that is having a lot harder time than I am. So how can I figure out not to how do I get out of this situation where.

[33:13] Oh, my God, this is a really terrible problem. And I don't know how to get out of this as to, hey, there's people out there that are solving problems that are way worse than what I've been through. And many of them are still happy. I've lived in places like the Dominican Republic where you see poverty, but they're playing dominoes and having a good time. And so it's really thinking about reframing. And I think the more you can get into that reframing mindset where you stop seeing the challenge as a big problem, but rather as an opportunity, everything starts to shift. And when we shift inside and how we think and how we feel, our external circumstances, I am quite a spiritual person. I truly believe that what we manifest outside all depends on how we're feeling inside of the stories we tell ourselves. So big believer in energy work. So that's what I would say the global citizenship of really knowing the world and seeing people dealing with challenges has helped me realize that I'm not alone and this can't be that bad. And where's the opportunity?

[34:11] You're clearly a lifelong learner, Salima, teaching at Johns Hopkins University while continuing to immerse yourself in world-class executive education. As a fellow Stanford Lead alumni and current participant in Harvard Business School's prestigious Owner President Management program, how does this duality, being both a student and a teacher, shape the value you deliver to your clients?

[34:39] So as a forever student and a teacher, I'm constantly learning information, processing it, repurposing it, sharing it. It's constantly in my head. I love learning and I love teaching. So I would say that the dual role, basically my business is aligned to that. We attract people who our growth mindset is one of our core values. Curiosity is another one. So essentially we are attracting because I'm practicing that. We are attracting because it's so deeply embedded in our product, our values, our customer experience, like all our clients are forever learners or forever students. They love learning. They are not looking for some PR firm, marketing agency to just do something for them. We realize that's not how it works. As a thought leader, you have to grow from the inside out as a thought leader. It's not about marketing and LinkedIn and all that speaking and all that. No, it starts from within and it starts from the growth within. It starts also from being more educated, being more knowledgeable.

[35:35] Knowledgeable about yourself, your industry, how to be a thought leader, how to run a thought leadership business, our portfolio career. So I've created proprietary curriculum with my team and infused that into our product. And that's been a win, I would say, since a year, about a year ago, we started building our own proprietary content. And so there's a curriculum so that our clients can continue to learn on that journey with us. So it's not just services that we're providing. The other thing is I am teaching and many of those masterclasses and within our curriculum and the modules. But I also encourage our clients, the way that we structure our product is so that they can remain connected.

[36:13] Both students and be teachers so as they're sharing their wisdom into the world as thought leaders they're also constantly being in student mode not just students here at my company in terms of learning from us but students in their own industries like you talked about earlier you're great at what you do now how do you actually become known it's not about just marketing it's about how do you get your insights and your knowledge your intellect to that next level and it's through that curiosity through that growth mindset it's through doing what you're doing, Debbie, is like interviewing other experts, because when you're, for example, starting a podcast, if you're interviewing experts that are three steps ahead of you and where you want to be or you're inspired by, they're likely going to lift you up there in some way, whether it's through connecting you with the right people or it's going to, you know, it's going to bring you opportunities, but you're going to be growing yourself as you, you know, host a podcast or you do interviews. Like I love doing interviews for my books. I'm working on my second book right now And interviewing is such an important part of that, because if I think that I'm the best at what I do and I'm great, then why is it that the world doesn't know who I am? Right. So I really do think that it's not just pausing and saying I'm great here. It's actually being in forever student mode and not just doing a lot of these executive programs. It's also really constantly, you know, being aware of your industry and being that three steps ahead. Who are the experts and the keynote speakers at the top industry conferences? What are they speaking on?

[37:37] What's relevant right now? A lot is on AI, right? Like how are you upskilling in different areas within your industry as well as areas that are adjacent to your industry? So I would say just me being a student and teacher, I also encourage our clients

[37:50] and structured our products so they can be teachers and students as well. So Lima, as we close, I have a final two-part question for you. First, when you look ahead, what is the ultimate ripple impact you hope your life's work creates? And second, for every leader and change maker listening right now, what is the one single truth you've learned the hard way that you wish you knew when you first started putting your own skin in the game?

[38:16] So the ultimate ripple impact that I want to create with my life work is to help as many entrepreneurs as I can that are typically below the $250,000 per year. Like they're typically starting out or very early stage, often under $100,000. And they're trying to get to that next level because I was that entrepreneur. That's where I want to scale. My business is helping a lot of these entrepreneurs that don't have access to what I have access to today. Having been in this amazing Harvard Business School program, being an entrepreneur's organization. I never thought that I would get here. I wouldn't say that's fast. It's been a journey. But I would say there's a lot of entrepreneurs that never get there. And it's really hard to break your first million. But it's also hard to break even your first $100,000, your first $250,000. And make that impact that you want to make. And then feeling like you have to, you know, whether it's go back to a job or feeling like you're failing. And I really want to create that support mechanism through the works that I do between Ripple Impact and this new company that I'm launching called Authority Academy. I really want to help those entrepreneurs. And eventually, yes, a lot of the entrepreneurs in emerging markets. For all the leaders and change makers listening, what I wish I knew that I learned the hard way was that how do you do strategic giving? So from a networking standpoint, I look at it as net giving. How do you give more when you connect with people?

[39:42] And it's something that a lot of people would say, Salima, you're such a good networker. And I had built up this very large network. I have There were 50,000 people in my network today.

[39:53] But at the end of the day, it's about quality more than quantity. It's about how do you be top of mind? How do you be remembered, recommended, and referred? So people know exactly what you do, who you serve, how to help you, how to make introductions for you.

[40:07] And so I would say that single truth is, how do you do strategic giving? Because I was getting a lot of people, when you have those coffee conversations, they're like, oh, I want to introduce you to someone who's doing something similar to you. And it's like, oh, why are they introducing me to a competitor? Maybe I wasn't clear on how I introduced, you know, what I needed.

[40:26] So I think strategic giving is something that's very important when it comes to networking, because I think the more you model strategic giving, which is how do you actually help the person through whether it's your advice, of course, if you're qualified, or through a resource that you think it would be helpful for them. Connection, always try to make a referral or an introduction. I see some of the most successful people, they always do that. They take the time to research you. They take the time to really learn you and find something unique and memorable to say. So there's something that's like oh my gosh like that really hit me not just intellectually but emotionally and then they always try to make an introduction or share a resource or both that would be helpful and I think the more that I learned that the hard way in the sense that it took me to be around a lot of successful people to see how they were giving and why some of the most successful people are big givers and when you're still on your way there how do you get out of that scarcity mindset and focus on giving how do you build a network where you can make those introductions. And I think the more that you can lean into generosity and lean into giving, I think that is actually what will help you get to success. And I had to learn that the hard way because I felt I was giving sometimes strategically, but not always strategically. And giving doesn't mean just give your advice. It means actually moving the needle in some way. Usually it requires an introduction or another degree of connection. So I wish I knew that earlier in that framework that I use today.

[41:47] Saleema, thank you for joining us and sharing your insights and energy, your perspective on how innovation starts with I, something our listeners can take into their own work and lives starting today. I've learned something about strategic giving, which is very key in terms of networking. The ultimate ripple impact, what a powerful way to think about our work and our lives. That was Salima Villani, author of Innovation Starts With I and the founder of Ripple Impact. Thank you so much, Debbie. I really enjoyed being on your show. If you want to learn more from Salima, you can visit her website at salimavilani.com and be sure to grab a copy of her book. We'll have links to everything in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in to Skin in the Game. If you found this conversation valuable, please share it with one other leader in your life. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode. Until then, keep putting your skin in the game.