Neil Metzler: 0:05

Welcome to a special 2023 Wrap up episode of your next big thing. Looking back at 2023. We've seen uncertainty change and disruption, the economy, global events and job market continue throwing curveballs at us. So in this episode, we're looking at the idea of creating and claiming value, how this helps us build resilience and independence through those waves of change, and what this means for careers. So I have two expert guests with me here today. So welcome, welcome. First of all roommate's you have developed a career in elearning, and education since 2006. And you currently work for one of the premier social networks for professionals, where you create and curate elearning content. I know you as a lifelong learner, and you're also studying drums in your free time. So I hope we're gonna get to that on the show. And welcome. Yeah,

Ümit Uludag: 0:59

thank you. Thank you for having me. Good to be here. Awesome.

Neil Metzler: 1:02

And we also have Mik who is a thought leader and coach for high performance professionals on the path to financial well being. He's the founder at lean High Performance Academy. And he focuses on helping helping people capture and claim value in their compensation, development and life conversations. So I'm excited to get kicked off with you here. We actually have all met through different phases of our careers. And before we dive into the heavy hitting career questions, can you share with the audience how you two got to know each other? Oh, man,

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 1:36

you want to get

Ümit Uludag: 1:40

that alone, that alone could be a podcast, but I will try to keep it short. We met back in high school, I think in what seven

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 1:49

or eighth grade Yeah, I was was eighth grade.

Ümit Uludag: 1:53

It was back in the first class trip that we did back to Oba Tawang, it was a skiing trip. And we didn't know each other. And that's where we met, we kicked up immediately had a good vibe, we were immediately very open and honest with each other is the one thing I still remember from the get go. And from there, we just we just build our relationship. And finally, we've been talking about an ood can can expand on that. Back then even we were talking about things that we will dive deeper in in this podcast, because even back then where we were talking about soft skills, we were talking about how school doesn't necessarily teach what people need to learn to succeed in business and in life. And we even back then we had the strong belief that we said, it is important that we that we know these things that we have these communication skills that we have this psychological skills, empathy skills, and we believe that someday somewhere, somebody will value these skills. And now we're at this point, I hope.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 3:01

To a degree, I think that really hits the nail, maybe I can, I can add my piece to this story. Because I was new to the scope. It was already on this call, right? So I came what they call in Germany, the shoulder, which is I would say the second best school in Germany, at least in public schools. And because of probably grades I had and all that I there was someone who really invested in me because she said, Hey, I think that could be similar if we if we invest in him that that could pull it off, put something back off in life. Let's take him and move in mid school, to a better school to do NASM that's how I ended up at the school. Obviously, I had a hard time to socialize. I was the only kid with a migrant background. I think that's important to say as well at least in my class yet, and I had no exposure to other classes until the skiing trip that we had and that's where I met him it ever since. And that's the note I have to put in as well. We've been best friends for the past. How many years is that? 20 plus years?

Ümit Uludag: 4:09

Yeah, it's been a long time.

Neil Metzler: 4:13

That's That's fantastic. So you had these conversations in high school and then not too long after it sounds like it you got into this idea of elearning and and kind of self paced learning or tell me more about what what that sparked look like.

Ümit Uludag: 4:30

Even even that we kind of kicked off together with all he he was giving sessions and tutoring sessions, tutoring sessions, thank you and an NGO with four kids with a migrant background. Then he started that, and then he asked me how you wish you'd like to do that. And even back then I knew that that education and teaching was always at the core of me. It was it was my purpose and still is to help people to help them develop their skills to help them reach their goals and get In progress in life, and we started then, and from then on, I always wanted to help those kids and I wanted to help people. And it just developed, right, we started tutoring there, then I moved on to another NGO to tutor there. Then in college while while doing my studies, I, I figured I might not want to be a teacher, that might not be my realm of teaching. And decided to go the university route. I said, You know what, I'll become a professor. And getting to know the people there, they kind of said, you might want to rethink that. It's, it's not the nicest of ecosystems, maybe, to put it like that. And I kind of pivoted, but always still pursuing my purpose. Because during my studies, I was also working student at an IT company, and they also focus on elearning. And back then I did something very similar to what I do now, with the only exception is that I built those earrings as well, and we did web based trainings back then. And way

Neil Metzler: 6:10

back then, okay, that's pretty, that's pretty cool. Because, you know, post Corona, we've seen this shift the idea that learning needs to be more decentralized, democratize kind of always on always available, but I think back pre 2010, pre 2015 2020. Like, those are quite different, disruptive approaches to the learning, it was

Ümit Uludag: 6:30

definitely what it was the early times, and it was fun for me, because because we were kind of spearheading it. And we're successful. And that is always fun doing it, right. And then I figured, well, if it's not University, then it's elearning, right? Because I can still help people, I can still do it, even if I'm not the person who's teaching. And we got different experts teaching it, and I just coach them along and help them along to really professionally and to the point teach the people. And that's kind of how I, you know, looking back at all makes sense. But while I was in it, that's kind of how I slide it into this space. And it's, I love it every every day. I love it. It's so much fun to probably besides UI, I'm the only one waking up on Monday and going like yes, let's go.

Neil Metzler: 7:21

That's the best. And you know, that's a precious feeling to, to find that it sounds to me like you've got a bit of alignment from that is not just a job or career, but it's also part of your calling. So I want to take this chance to pivot MC into the conversation here and ask you similarly, how you got curious about this topic, which is such a big focus with Lean High Performance Academy, when it comes to creating and claiming value. How did you start getting interested in that topic? Space MC?

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 7:50

Yeah, I think I had two two paths going for me early on. One was sports. So I've been really, really heavy on sports. I've been playing football, which is which is your us way of soccer, right? Semi professionally or early on, which is which is the junior Bundesliga best. And I was a weightlifter early on, I think with 60. And me and I started the gym hitting the gym. And then early on I was I was interested in competing on national levels. So that was good for me, I really enjoyed it. The second piece was oppositely tutoring where we had, we scaled the business from 40 people to 75 ish people, and had four teachers like I made myself and two more teaching to those kids that were underprivileged in terms of their starting points. And both carried into my professional life as well. So I wanted to make sure that I get that I can be high performer be competitive, while the work environment is obviously different than than a football pitch, right? So you're not competing against someone because it's a team effort. It's a business. It's almost almost like professional family, which is different than in sports. And the second piece is what I carried over as well is supporting underprivileged kids. So I started a scholarship program where I really support people with my own money, providing people with the necessary resources to make sure that they can focus on on growing, whether it's on the university or on businesses. And that somehow, I felt like hey, this is is following me for the past 15 years. I think it really makes sense to double down on it. And that's how the Lean High Performance Academy actually started. So the pillar I think we may be to add on that the pillar actually still is the same as it was with the tutorial classes. We want to make sure With that, people who haven't had exposure to how the game works, how they can claim the value, and give them give them also a compass about where to pursue a life that's worth living. And those three pieces together can transform anybody from any circumstances, onto probably the peak of mountains there are.

Neil Metzler: 10:25

So I wonder, what you might define as like creating value, what would you challenge me with.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 10:37

So I will differentiate it in two pieces. One is your overall life aspect and how you create value or what your actual value is. And trust me, it's not your skills, it's not the amount of books you read how much you make, it's not what I believe your value is, is the net positive impact you have on society. In terms of professional life, obviously, that is not a single currency that you can run with. So you have to create commercial value, right. And that usually, is probably very well defined in either growing revenues are growing businesses, that can come through innovation that come to being a fast follower in the market, whatever. But usually, the value brand that you want to create in a business is that you want to be someone who is reliably creating growth for whomever he touches, whatever he touches. And I think that is something that is very easy to run with, in conversations with leadership, which see suit, because anything you do requires gross that you can claim future value,

Neil Metzler: 11:55

should I should I wait for those opportunities to create value? Like how do I find opportunities to create growth and create value?

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 12:04

Yeah, you should definitely shouldn't wait for that. And there is no age or experience level for them. Particularly where opportunities are so great, we have so much access to data. So it's pretty easy to analyze public data, whether it's on investments on on product, or on performances, to understand where something is moving outside the norm, which we call exponential growth. So it's not linear. And those are super good indicators or impulses for you to dive deep in check whether you can explore and uncover opportunities for yourself. And it can be by you creating a new vertical, creating a new product line, or creating a new revenue stream for the same product line creating an uplift reading a cross sell. And I think taking that running a pilot, proving that it works in a startup, lean startup fashion. And then once it's proven, roll it out, and see whether the same paths that you created it with could be applied for other verticals on the products, or other other endeavors as well. And that's usually the easiest way to show that your value is exponentially greater than your individual contributor role that you've been hired for.

Ümit Uludag: 13:40

I would maybe even want to go a step before that, as we talked about purpose. And I can maybe share a personal story so that you see where I'm coming from. So it's the second step makes sense when you found what you want to do. Because again, back back when I was young, I always said, I want to do something that's fun to me. I want to do job that's fun to me, because because I didn't have the framing and the wording of what is purpose. And I always said you know what, I gotta get up until like, what I'm 67 to do this. I'm not doing anything. That's not fun. So first of all, it needs to be fun. Now we use the word of purpose for that. And when I always said that, but when it really hit me is when my cousin is a developer. And back then even you knew it, and developing that is where the big bucks All right. And I tried to learn that I was like, Yeah, sure I can work with him. That's gonna be fun, right? And working with him was fun. That was not the problem. But I figured I'm not a developer. My mind doesn't work like that. So I could have tried doing that for the sake of money. But I wouldn't have been successful. I wouldn't have been a high performer. It wouldn't have been fun. So it's not only finding the things where the data matches but also matching the data to your purpose to your skills, the strength that you have. And what's fun to you what energizes you? That's that's made me think because people if you ask me, What are your strengths people are, I don't know what my strengths are. reframe it, ask yourself, if you do something, what energizes you what gives you energy, and then you know what your strengths are?

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 15:23

That's absolute right. Apologies. In the future, I'm gonna because that's super applies to me, I studied mechanical engineering. By the time I think in third or fourth semester, I knew I wasn't going to be a great engineer. And neither did I liked the topic much I was just good in mathematics and physics somehow ended up there. I wasn't bad in the studies, but I really didn't enjoy it, I hated it. Actually, once I finished university, I came back to Germany. In I knew I rather stay unemployed, before going into a career in mechanical engineering, because I just didn't enjoy it. I knew there's no light for me in that industry. And therefore, I totally agree with it. So if I'm coming across from from speaking, working backwards, if I approach how you could tap into creating tremendous amounts of value, I think that also comes with you finding something I really enjoy working on.

Neil Metzler: 16:32

As you both pointed out, by tapping into our values, and what's meaningful, and also what's energizing, and fun. We can, I believe, I've tried to over time better align the work that I do, and the the commitments and the way I designed my, my life setup, to more and more better, better align with those activities. So let's take a hypothetical person and take take a real case here. So imagining that I am feeling a bit stuck. And I might be thinking, Okay, that's great that you guys have know what energizes you? And you guys have made steps and taken steps in this direction? How can people start to get curious and tap in to discover maybe what could mean more or where they want to go?

Ümit Uludag: 17:28

That is a complex question. And it's a complex case. And I think something that you mentioned is the very first step, right, the first thing they have to do is reflect, you have to pause, and think about because if you just keep going, you might not ever know what you love. And what you're doing is not really satisfying you or even that that there's something something else out, right, because but way back growing up, I had nobody telling me work is fun. I enjoy Monday mornings, that wasn't something that I had as a mindset mind frame. And it's probably that to recognizing, you don't have to hate your job. A job doesn't just have to be a paycheck. So that's the first thing stop, reflect and understand that you are allowed to have fun, you're allowed to love your job. And not only allowed, you should you should love your job, you should have fun at your job. And once you have that, then you're good to go. Then you can reflect and then you can think about okay, Are there parts in my current job that I liked doing? What are those parts? And they can go from there? Yeah,

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 18:41

I think many of their apps I absolutely agree, right, I think I have a different approach. From from where I come. I look at the profession as a couple pixels of the overall picture. And the overall picture is much greater than than then your profession or skills. That's one piece. So we have to make sure that we don't over consume ourselves with the idea of profession and having fun and profession. It's more important about do you not only enjoy life, but do you have a purpose as far as living that really fuels you on your good and bad days. That's one bit and that's your 4k picture for example 4k video. And then within that 4k picture, you have your profession, ideally you like it IT ops obvious and you shouldn't you shouldn't settle for less. That's one bit. The second bit is you have to look into the bigger picture to understand where you want to go. And where you have to carry your profession and the value you create and you claim as well. And that come to the skills as Matt mentioned the the additional skills that you build on top of layer Have a layer of a layer to ensure that you're moving into the right direction and probably also swim with the growth. As I mentioned earlier, growth is super important. But I think the second bit is that you ensure you are still aligned with the overall purpose. Seen that is even more important that you can articulate your purpose, claim your purpose, also in your job as well as in life. And, and vocally, put it out there, and you'll see people being naturally dragged towards you, because they they look for people that amplify same values, same purposes, same direction, and same efforts as you do in life. And I think that's the additional piece where, at least what we teach in the LhP Academy, the first three sessions are around purpose, because we believe that's, that's, that's the fundament of you performing high. And it's not about performing high in terms of running 60 to 80 hours learning the most complex skills. It's not, it's for you to finding vehicles and resources that you can carry towards a purpose and help other people's raise and rise in the same ocean.

Neil Metzler: 21:27

I love that starting with purpose, and I'm calling back starting with the why because these paths can be challenged career progression, value creation paths can be challenging, also falling through on skills development, we can start something but do we finish it? So are we a bucket Dipper, or a bucket filler that always stuck with me, I've been trying to do more of one than the other. But sometimes I fall back. And I was thinking about how if we do have a clearer sense of our own purpose, at work, it's harder for us to get caught up in someone else's agenda, our managers agenda, things like that, we can have a better sense of self, and not become a player in someone else's drama, but rather be forging our own path. And as we talked about in the intro with all of this disruption and change from layoffs to reorg, to adjustments, and with the intensification of change through AI, which I would argue is not like a brand new thing, but is rather accelerating a new wave of automation, having a true sense of self will really help us stand strong in those waves and and continue to press forward. Even with this friction and resistance against us.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 22:52

How would you put it, Neil? I mean, considering I think you came along great, right? You've been someone who moved from Seattle had different roles, totally different roles, different products that managed different managers, and through your cloud champions, you you have a framework for yourself as well, how you help your mentees and members to claim value. Do you have something that is the typical working backwards manner? Or do you start with a member is and then have a more bottom up approach?

Neil Metzler: 23:36

Yeah, I have been starting more with this bottom up approach of discovery first. So the first session is an activity called the achievements map, where I present people with this kind of guided exercise on uncovering what are the three most impactful achievements in your last two to four years? And this is a weighty, heavy question for many of my clients. That is that is uncomfortable because we don't often stop to reflect or talk about oneself. In many cases, though, we need to we need to practice that get comfortable to find an authentic voice and doing that. So I introduced the exercise I give them then a week to go off go home as a homework to produce a version one. And folks tell me this is surprisingly difficult this is they they put it off it is not something that they wanted to do but they know how important it is to get this achievement smack type of activity infused into their thinking and fused into their mindset and their self identity about who they are in their career. And what I find from this is it starts to reveal not only measurable achievements and impact that they created, but it starts to tease out their strengths their superpowers areas where they AR outstanding. Because in order to unlock that achievement, for example, a client needed to manage very difficult or even hostile stakeholders on the client side. So if you've been there, if you've been in those situations, you you've realized that developing such experience and yes, there's a skill aspect to it. But it also has to, you have to be able to shine and step up in those difficult meetings, those difficult situations. So I use this achievements map to give an example of how to do discovery and start to get a sense of this person's personal narrative. Because narrative speak louder than resumes, right. And in terms of like, working backwards, I use achievements based I help clients create an achievements based resume or CV and achievements based LinkedIn. Because when we can build and portray those achievements, and right, don't you want to go into a room or an interview, where you have clear achievements that speak to who you are, and you just need to show up to reinforce what the audience already knows and likes about you. That's a much better entry point to a successful interview journey. So this is one of the topics right now that I've been very excited about seeing clients do self transformation with this achievements, man. Love

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 26:21

it. Love it, love it. Yeah, it's, it's still surprising to me that this is not obvious information. I still see many, many people that partly when we go to the LhP, we have an understanding of self assessment in the beginning of the session, as well, where they also run through the LhP indicators and stuff like that. And you see how people speak about themselves, right? Kind of narrative they have, and you'll be surprised how unbolt the statements about themselves and how how none of them is leveraging their success. Keep ideally KPI driven to position a brand that is speaking, high performance. And you just have to show up and then prove that whatever you have displayed as a brand as a personal brand is true. Dave, I love it. I totally agree with you on this. And I think only that alone is probably I don't know, probably 50% of you positioning a personal brand. And claiming your wealth along the way.

Neil Metzler: 27:43

This gives so much confidence, because the next step right can be Hey, I'm going for this promotion, or I've found a role that I want to apply to. But you know, when we have a chasm to cross to get in the room for that interview, gosh, it's nerve racking, gosh, like we get, we get nervous, you know. So by breaking it into these chunks, and creating ground to stand really be rooted and grounded from a communication perspective, but also like to be producing and performing at a high level mentally in that moment, we can we can help ourselves, right? There's things that we can do to boost ourselves up, so that we don't have to rely on heroics every single time.

Ümit Uludag: 28:30

It's exactly I will add to that, and then we can maybe move on. But it all ties back. If you see there's that common theme, right? If I don't know who I am, and what I stand for, I can't present that to other people, I can't stand for something. So it all comes back to that you have to know what is your purpose? What do you love to do? What is fun. And then, and this is something that I learned over the past years. And I always reflect about. If you then show up as your true authentic self, then things kind of work out by themselves. It sounds weird. But but if you don't have to perform, if you don't have to act as something and you just you just are then then it works. Because because you can focus on what you're doing. You can focus on being the best that you are without trying to please any agendas or any vision of somebody that you think you are. I mean, again, coming back to that if I would have tried to be a C sharp developer, that wouldn't have worked because I would have worked so hard as trying to be a C sharp developer that I couldn't have been me. I couldn't have been authentic. I couldn't have stood for what I stand for. And now I don't have to perform. I don't have to think about it because once I do what I do, it just shines outwards right and people people feel that if you are authentic people feel that you build trust with that. And when you build trust with somebody, it's the best thing you can have even even outside of business, right? If you have trust with people, you have strong relationships. That's what you need. You have strong relationships, a strong community. And from there on, you're safe. You're good to go.

Neil Metzler: 30:18

Love that point on trust and authenticity. Nick, what did you want to say there? Yeah.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 30:23

Apologies, I was on mute. Alex Hermoza had a great quote I love and I think it only needs extension, because he said, confidence. And you can you can put value there and as well is that you have a set of evidence that you are, what you say who you are. But the second piece to it is it you need to make sure that it is put together and visible. That's super important, if people know about evidence is you have proof of performance, proof of success, that your personal brand will be tremendously bigger than only you knowing what you're capable of. And you've done.

Ümit Uludag: 31:14

And also one last sentence that yeah, sorry. Because people might hear personal branding. And they think that that is a performance or that it's work. But if you if you are yourself, there is no branding that you actually need to do. Because as you said, your Action speaks for themselves. You just are and and that works. You don't have to do anything extra you just be you.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 31:42

I think I can open open a second topic of that. So I

Neil Metzler: 31:45

want to take a quick break and pick up from that hot second topic. So we'll be right back. Thanks. Welcome back, I'm here with Mik and Ümit. And we are rounding out the year 2023 by talking about crucial career and value development topics, and also how to stay enthusiastic, engaged and inspired about what you do. So make it welcome back. So, Mike, before the break, you had a hot topic on top of mine that you wanted to follow on from before. Tell me about that?

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 32:32

Yeah. So we've been speaking about the topic of personal branding, right. And we do that with our LHP Academy members as well. I think it's really worth mentioning, it's not about you having an advertising sign and running through the company and say how cool and great you are, that's definitely not the brand that we're speaking about. It's more about if you do something great in ideally, you do that because you really enjoy what you do. And you're passionate about changing the world. You try to give the learnings and bits and pieces to as many people as possible that can make use of it. So you democratize the best practices you'll learned and stuff like that. And that alone is what we call the span of value or span of impact. And that is actually how you create the brand. It's not about you running and trying to be the loudest in meetings be the loudest on paper, if you're writing, QB RS and stuff like that. It's really trying to help people as far as you can, as cross teams, cross GEOS cross organizations as you can, with the best intentions. That's what we call personal brand.

Neil Metzler: 33:56

That's fantastic. I wanted to emphasize what you said there about this idea of incremental or excess value creation, access in a positive way, like above expectation, because when you talk about cross team cross Geo, it might not be related to my performance metric are my KPI for my next annual review specifically, but because I'm getting curious because I'm hungry and on the hunt for novel value creation, or novel application of some skills that I have that might be of use over here, that can be really helpful. And that for me, MC spark, one of my career pivots that you mentioned earlier that actually helped me pivot into into tech and cloud because I had been doing a skills development and was on the certification path for Cloud Solutions Architect actually found a project in the in the fashion team that was about trend detection, and they needed to use a lot of data and they needed to use machine learning So I was able to actually use my kind of emerging DevOps practitioner skills to support a senior data scientists and several business leaders to roll out a trend detection engine, which was serving like 10 Plus account managers. And in this, this is certainly not a core part of my goal. But I was able to illustrate to management, why this project was a value add. And it had very trackable you know, measurable deliverables that I communicated with all those stakeholders like, hey, in order to stay in this, I want to, I want to do this, I think this is great. But I also need something from you. What I need you to do for me is helped me with the reporting helped me show the value show the impact. And by the way, business leader, can you please sync with my manager and you know, share some of that feedback about why this is impactful for you? So in that sense, like, calling back to what you said about it's not only about the data, it's like, yes, have the data, but also understand how to manage the stakeholders understand how to communicate about the value that you're creating, don't wait and feel unappreciated. Right. Absolutely.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 36:08

Absolutely, totally agree. And that hits the nail on that. So

Neil Metzler: 36:12

zooming it back to 2023 disruptions, I want to bring AI into the conversation here. So how does AI help or hurt our, our career progression? And does it change the way that we should think about our our individual progression path?

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 36:34

I think there's obviously roles that are directly impacted by the automatisation, that comes through AI Yes. But in general, I think we are still early in terms of what AI can do, and what kind of value you can create that is really unique to who you are, and how you got there. And for AI to replicate as similarly, I'm not saying it'll be different. It won't be different in a year or two, it can change really quick, we know about exponential learning, learning factors that that neural networks bring. But I think if you are someone that is a constant learner, and continuously put new data into whatever you do, and into your skills, then you are no different from Ai, obviously, AI can learn much faster, much more and consume much more data. But as long as you keep moving to be good.

Neil Metzler: 37:35

Do you agree?

Ümit Uludag: 37:36

Yeah, yeah, I do. And I'll I'll add to that. And we'll also tie back to what we said about the skills portfolio. And that's how you do things is unique to you, that makes you special people can do it. Everybody can paint, kinda right. I can't paint but people can paint, right. But there are levels to painting, right. And the skill that you do is painting. So that skill is the same for everybody. But the way that you do it is unique. Picasso had a unique way of painting. That's why we value his paintings, right. And it's the same thing here. It is, it is building your skills portfolio, to the things how you do that you love doing. And also right now with AI, we are in the eye of the storm, right? We don't know, we don't really know what's going to happen. Looking back, we can say you know what AI may impact this job this role, this right here, because that's easy to say. Because we don't know where things will go. We don't know what new robots will come up through AI what new jobs will be developed, what new skills we will need, because we're still in it. So again, to what Google said, If you are curious, if you are a lifelong learner, if you are in the habit of building your skills portfolio, then you don't have to worry. Because you know, you are resilient, you know, you are able to adapt to change. And then change is a good thing, right? People fear change, I also fear change, right? But if you get accustomed to change, and you see that, with change, most of the time, always there's good things coming, there's positivity coming, and you embrace that part of it, then you can be open to the future. You can be open to that and you can you can now think about you know, what, what are the things that I don't know that I need to do? For example, I didn't play around a lot with Chet GPT. And until recently I did and it is it is mind blowing, right to figure out okay, how can check GPT helped me what are the things that up to this point were time consuming for me or maybe that I even even wasn't able to do? Maybe I wasn't a good painter, right? And now you have API's that can help you with that. And that that's the thing, find your way to leverage AI to help yourself and, again, strengthen your strength by using that.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 40:08

I think there's one more layer I'd like to add to that, while I'm also having on chip at and other solutions that are in mark in the market. When we hold our sessions in the LhP Academy, right, we use obviously, church CBT, to help us curate at least a framework about what we want to speak. And then we dive in. And then really bring in the meat into the topics about experience and about about bringing in high class coaches as well. And if we go through the session, the first half is really about definitions, mythologies, and science and statistics. And the second bit is where the coach is actually really speaking off out of experience, and sharing personal stories. And that's where you see the students really hanging on their lips, to nurture from, from the experience as a person has, and that's something that you can't replicate with AI, at least not today. In a second pit is in terms of business, we do like to do business with people we like. And that will never change that is here to stay, obviously, you get a high degree of efficiency through AI. Nevertheless, there will be always a layer of us willing to do business with people we like, as long as they their value is competitive in the market. One

Neil Metzler: 41:38

thing I'd like to do is kind of go around and give people one tip for the kind of holiday season. And mine is very simple. So mine is creating an honoring a meditation habit. So this is something for the past year or two at 3pm. I have a regeneration blocker in my calendar. This is typically like a 12 minute power nap than a 12 minute meditation. And then I like to enjoy a cup of green tea and some sweets, like dates or some nice German cookies Hill. after that. And in 26 to 30 minutes sequence, I really refresh and regenerate back to the level of kind of focus and productivity at from 3:30pm onwards that I enjoyed maybe from nine to 1030, originally. So the second point about this, though, is it's really not just productivity, our brain has this default mode network that we can go to. And especially if we're meditating or taking a walk, we can kind of get there. And this allows us to subconsciously process on ideas or opportunities or find novel connections and things that may not be obviously related, but might be part of a new idea or a new project that we do. So just to conclude from my side, I love people to find a mindfulness practice or just going for a walk, so that they can get either into that mindful open place for enhanced productivity, or that they can start to see novel connections that are going to help them going forward in the year to come. I

Ümit Uludag: 43:11

would love to add to yours. And then we can answer as I kind of jumped in. But that is one of the most important learnings that I received when I when I started my job. And that's when my manager said, I don't consider you working only when you're at your laptop and typing into the keyboard. Right. And that was she did so much by saying that to me. She won, she opened up my mind. And because I was like what I work if I'm not working. That was the one thing I was like, okay, cool, like work can be everything and everywhere if I choose it to be so right if I choose to be creative on a walk somewhere, if I choose to be in a cafeteria and think about something and also what you did by that, so if any managers listening that this is my, my best practice for you. Please see that because it also showed and that was first day ish that she told me it also showed me her level of trust. Right from the get go. She She paid it forward with the trust, because she didn't know who I was. I mean, yeah, but but she didn't know what, how I would perform if I would be a high performer or what everything, but she just gave me that trust. And that gave me so much. And from there who knows maybe if she didn't give me that that paid forward trust maybe wouldn't have performed the way I perform. Right? And I wouldn't be where I am right now. But that's it. That's what I tell managers please. Trust people show them that you trust them support them. Because that goes miles and miles and miles.

Neil Metzler: 44:59

She made an investment in you, she invested her trust in you. And, and gave you the chance to honor that trust, which it sounds like you've done right. So I think this is different than being detached as a manager or saying hey, do your thing I trust you right that's that's not the that's not investing trust right. Sounds a bit different.

Ümit Uludag: 45:20

He she invested I love the frame that you that she invested the trust. But also it was it was a kind of sparring right? She she did check in on how I was doing. She didn't micromanage she didn't tell me do it like this, do it like that, if I had challenges, because we have that trust, right? She she gifted me that trust. If I had challenges, I would go to her and be like, you don't want this? And that is like, I'm not quite sure. And she she wouldn't give me the answer. She'd be like, Well, what do you think about it? How would you approach it, and she coached me through that approach. And then she would tell me stories about her past life, or she would tell me stories about her failures that she had. And saying that you know what, I failed at this, you don't have to do that same mistake. I did this and that I learned this. But then again, she gave me the She trusted me. And she said you know what, but now you know, everything I can tell you about it. Now you choose, you do what you feel is right, you do what you can stand behind. And then we'll go from there. Because you know, I will stand behind you no matter what happens. And that, again, is so empowering. Because you have the trust, you have the support, you have the knowledge because that is that is always what I tell my mentees. And I created in our team, I Co Co lead a mentoring program. And that is that is also always what I say mentors are a cheat code. Because that it's like a game, right? Like you can jump to two levels.

Neil Metzler: 46:49

Here. We're Yeah, we're opening up the whole medical topic, which is a super big one make I want to give you a chance to comment on that. And I just wanted to say there was structure, I heard structure there that I heard accountability. And I also heard support. So it was not trust given without all of those things together. And I think that sounds amazing. And yeah, we'd love to send an invite to her for a future episode as well.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 47:17

Yeah, I think, yeah. So I totally agree with both of you. And maybe it makes sense. I touch one by one. So one, one piece is nearly said you have your meditation routine that you try to establish yourself and get better at it right. I do believe that you need to have multiple micro meditation moments a day. I'm not super heavy on meditation, it's not like I sit down on my knees on a yoga pad or something like that. And meditate. It's not the way I do it. For me, I pride day early in the morning, because I have a purpose. I have a compass, I have emotions, strong, strong emotions behind it. And I make sure that the day comes that they where I make progress. That's one bit. The second bit is, as your energy level fluctuates over the day. You want to make sure that you have small micro breaks, we use it as a mental transition moment to reinforce what you are actually up to. Because across the day, you can lose sight because there's a lot of information that is really dropping on you. Whether it's emails, internal communications, channel customers and stuff like that. And you want to make sure that you still see a clear path. No matter what happens through the day. It's actually not important, what happens to the day habits, how you navigate still on the same Northstar that you had in the morning. And that day in day out every day, 365 a year. That's one bit. The second bit is I have two large blockers a week. I think roughly an hour or one and a half hours where it's really about brain time. Why? Because most of us, at least for people that are having office jobs. They're their biggest asset is the brain right? You have to make sure that you use it as properly as you can create up site. Many, many people jump back to back into meetings without breaks, not giving them transition time not giving them brain brain time. Yes, and they deliver the same results over and over again and that there is no growth in that very, very limited. Gross. Make sure that you invest in yourself in your brain as well in your physical health because that's what actually is your biggest asset for longevity as well as On the great upsides that you can create, don't settle for an average intuitionist don't settle for an average blood test, go invest in yourself heavy that should be your present for Christmas this year. Um, one

Ümit Uludag: 50:15

thing maybe that that ties it together to the second thing that that will said, I think the learning that the listeners should should focus on is that you need to give your brain and yourself time to decompress. And, again, as Google said, if if you're able to do so multiple times throughout the day, because you have to decompress, you have to decompress going from a task to a task, if you're in a business day going from meeting to meeting, all of us done this right, we had back to back to back to back meetings. And maybe by at least for me, like, by the middle of the second one, I'm out of gas, like there is no value that you will get from me decompress between tasks. And give yourself time between meetings give itself time between tasks, so that your mind can really refocus and hone in on what you're about to say what you're about to do. So that is one thing that you decompress throughout the day. And then also, what I've learned, you have to decompress, throughout maybe a longer period of time. And this is something you mentioned, I just learned, or I'm just learning to play the drums. And this is something that my drum teacher taught me right and week to week, I still can't believe it, but it works. So I'm sharing it here with you. And the thing is that if we if we do something in the session, and we do a technique or fill or whatever, and I I won't be able to get it right the first time. And I'm I'm practicing. I'm practicing and you have to practice, right? Practicing. We're doing it for the hour that we have. And by the end of it, he goes, You know what? Cool, you got it. Like, what did you? Did you listen to what I listened to like, that doesn't sound like getting it? He's like, no, no, you got it. Like what? And he said, No, you have the technique down. It's all good. Now, let it rest. Don't practice at home. Don't think about it. Don't look at the sheet music. When you come back next week, we'll do this first thing. And you will be way better. And every time like Yeah, right. Because Because I'm such an avid believer in practicing. And, you know, practice makes perfect. And if you're prepared, then you have to, you don't have to doubt yourself and still believe like people prepare and practice it is important. But still, every Monday, I go in there, and it works. And and that shows me just like give your brain time to decompress. And that's what he says, your time your brain needs time to just build the muscle memory to really marinate that new knowledge in your mind. And then if you don't think about it, if you're not too focused on it, your body will take over and you will do the Phils and it will work out. So, decompress chill, let your mind do its thing it will work out.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 53:10

Because the compressing part and learning a technique and then letting it rest something will deny experience early on in school. So when we when we were close to becoming I think 18 years old. So we started already partying, right. And if you go party, you always need some dance moves. sounds so stupid. I know. It's probably doesn't even tie to the idea of professional life and continuous learning. But what's the most desirable skill or dance that you could imagine? At least for kids in the 90s it's the more work right. I

Neil Metzler: 53:54

seen a tick tock Yes. It's gonna walk. Yeah, it's

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 53:58

absolutely there's a great MJ. So as the son off of a breakdancer, my father was was a local champion and breakdancing I need to find my ways to fight my own moves. Right. So because I was absolutely not a breakdancer, everything but a dance. It was early, early years of YouTube 2006 Seven ish, who I found the videos of moonwalking the step by step tutorials. So I'm at home on this slippery ground that you find in the bathroom, you try to learn to move walk up and down, up and down, up and down and couldn't get it in. So I think after three or four days trying it I just let it be and say okay, I will not figure it out. So I leave it and I think somehow because I practice is so much I randomly started doing it. It's somehow worked and it's the same same way with what what image said you have to allows skills and your your your mental brainpower to decompress something and let it rest marinate. And somehow magically, it works. And the next second you see him and may in the clubs, move walking up and down. It wasn't cool. It wasn't charismatic. It didn't work for the girls, but it was fun.

Ümit Uludag: 55:24

It was it has to be fun.

Neil Metzler: 55:28

And this is so so wonderful with the with winter holiday upon us in the in the importance of decompression. So I think give each given our audiences a chance to embrace that embrace that decompression amongst all of the self improvement work that we do amongst all the striving that we do. So you actually realize and integrate decompression into the striving. Is that fair? It is yeah. Awesome. I want to thank you guys for this conversation. And we'd love to have you get out. We'd love to get back together again soon. So Thanks for Thanks for making the time. Thanks for being here.

Ugur "Mik" Catmak: 56:10

Thank you so much for having me, as well. Yeah, absolutely. Love it.