Maha Abouelenein: The Power of Self-Reliance

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People Podcast, and we have someone who is truly remarkable today. I enjoyed reading her book a great deal. Her name is Maha Abouelenein and she's the CEO and founder of Digital & Savvy. She's basically a communications and branding maven, and her track record includes some amazing companies like Weber Shandwick and Google and General Mills, and you are going to love this session. So Maha, welcome to Remarkable People.

Maha Abouelenein:
Thank you so much for having me, Guy. I love the show. I've been actually an avid listener for a very long time, so it's a full circle moment to be on the show.

Guy Kawasaki:
Ah, you say that to everybody.

Maha Abouelenein:
No, seriously.

Guy Kawasaki:
Maha, I was reading your book and I kept thinking, where has Maha been my whole life? How come I didn't know about her till two days ago? Your book is truly enjoyable to read and I love that it's so well organized and there's some OCD to my personality and it's perfectly lined up. I just loved it.

Maha Abouelenein:
Thank you. I'm so grateful that you spent time with it and read it. It's been a labor of love. It's something I've always wanted, to write a book. And I give practical advice, but a lot of my personal story in it as well.

Guy Kawasaki:
It is definitely a lot of personal stories and I think that adds a lot. We're just going to dive in, all right? So I know that you're in Minnesota right now, right?

Maha Abouelenein:
I am.

Guy Kawasaki:
So this is a book that is Dubai, UAE, Egypt, Minnesota, New York. It's all over the world. So can you just give us the gist of your story, how we start in Minnesota and go to Egypt and come back and all that?

Maha Abouelenein:
So I am born and raised in a very small town called Mankato, Minnesota. Think Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie, that's how small town. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. I lived in the US until I was twenty-seven. I worked at General Mills doing sports marketing and did communications at Weber Shandwick.
And when I was twenty-seven, my mother who had multiple sclerosis for a very long time, her and my dad who had lived here and gone to school and just ended up staying forty years, decided they're going to go back to Egypt where they're from. And I had been to Egypt on vacations and all this kind of stuff, but I never lived there and I don't speak the language, I don't have any friends.
So at twenty-seven, I moved back to Egypt with my parents at twenty-seven and have to find a job and start over in my life and make new friends and build a network and I couldn't find a job really. I wanted to work at an American company like a Coke, a Pepsi, a Unilever, a P&G. But I ended up getting offered to be the secretary of a billionaire, which I can tell you stories.
A job I didn't want to take, but my dad gave me some advice and said, "You just moved here, you don't know anybody. You should take this role." I took the role, it changed my life. I went on to have an incredible career. I worked for this billionaire as a secretary, ended as his business partner, went built Weber Shandwick PR firm in the Middle East, eighteen offices. Became the head of communications and public policy at Google.
Launched Netflix in the Middle East, worked for the Ruler of Dubai. And in 2020, I'm fifty years old, pandemic hits, I see a story that they might close the airports. I thought I might not see my family again, and in twenty-four hours after living overseas for twenty-three years, I moved back to Minnesota in 2020 at fifty years old to rebuild myself again.

Guy Kawasaki:
In that story of the twenty-four hours, I don't know how you got all the stuff for your dog. I can understand packing, I can understand getting the airline reservation. I can understand the movers. I do not understand how you got everything for your dog.

Maha Abouelenein:
When you leave the country, you have to get export papers and the Ministry of the Veterinary Services has to approve it. And you have to find an airline that will take a dog, and the pandemic had changed everything. It was a twenty-four hours of the stars aligned. I really felt, Guy, if it was meant to be, it will all happen for me and God will make everything work in my favor.
And it did. I found a flight. I got the movers to come. I got my dog's export papers and I was home hours before the world shut down.

Guy Kawasaki:
By the way, did you play hockey as a kid in Minnesota?

Maha Abouelenein:
I didn't. I skated. My parents used to send us to the ice skating rink as a babysitter for four hours. They're like, "Drop the girls off to go ice skating." But I didn't play hockey.

Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, I'm disappointed at that.

Maha Abouelenein:
I know. You do that in surfing.

Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I didn't serve as a kid either. You mentioned that you were a secretary for your billionaire. And I have to tell you, there's another story in our podcast about someone who started off as a secretary and you will love this because that's what happened to Jane Goodall. Jane Goodall started as a secretary. So people are listening and saying, "Don't be proud." I think one of the pieces of wisdom that you offered in your book is it's not what you're doing, it's who you are working with.

Maha Abouelenein:
And it's how you do it. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. So how could I take that role working for that billionaire as a secretary? I'm like, "I have to bring value. I have to learn how to network. I have to learn to put my head down and just be a student and just do what he wants first and deliver." And if I perform, then I can ask for other opportunities, but I have to do what I was asked to do first and put my head down and just put in the hard work and let that speak for itself.

Guy Kawasaki:
I cannot imagine that in Mankato, Minnesota or something, this brown Egyptian girl was accepted by all the Scandinavians. And then you go to Egypt and you're an American, you don't really speak the language. You were neither here nor there.

Maha Abouelenein:
When I was in Minnesota, I was the only brown girl in my class. I have a very long last name. I'm Egyptian in heritage, so I'm brown hair and everyone is blue-eyed and blonde hair. I didn't fit in and I really wanted to fit in. I felt like when “Walk Like an Egyptian” came out, everyone at school was doing this to me and I thought my life was over.
And then when I moved to Egypt, I am Egyptian, I look Egyptian, my name is Egyptian, but the minute I start talking, they're like, "Oh, where'd you go to school? You are so American. You don't dress like us. You don't look like us, you don't talk like us." So I was never fitting in, nor here nor there.
And I really learned how to take my differences and made me stand out, make that what was special about me, make that my secret weapon even though for the longest time it was a thing that I hated because I wasn't fitting in.

Guy Kawasaki:
So basically as you say that your struggles help you become self-reliant, right?

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes. The concept of self-reliance, when people see the book, they're like, "Oh, she's teaching us how to be independent." That's not what it is at all. I'm like, "It's empowering. What is it that you can rely on yourself to do first before you ask for help?" I need to rely on myself to know how to build my own relationships.
I don't need to say, "Hey Guy, those relationships that you've built up over the years at all your incredible career, can I have those for something that I need?" I want to rely on myself to know how to do that. That's a skill to network and keep relationships. That's what I mean by self-reliance.

Guy Kawasaki:
I almost hesitate to ask you this, but can we take a little sidetrack and relate to what's happening right now in terms of self-reliance? Because superficially, very superficially, you could make the case that Trump and Musk are all about self-reliance, that America should be independent and great self-reliant and not dependent on anybody and all that.
And when I first saw the book, I said, "Oh man, this is going to be about that kind of stuff." But I think it's actually the opposite of what they they're doing.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah, it's the opposite. One of the things I do talk a lot about in the book is to build your personal brand. How do you manage your reputation? How can you rely on yourself to be in control of your reputation? Everyone knows they have a reputation, but they just assume it exists.
So I'm like, "No, no, no, you can actually drive it and build it. What do you want people to know about you at work? Are you a collaborator, a team player? Are you resourceful? Are you a good listener? Are you somebody I can rely on?"
Those are the things that make up your personal brand. And how can that be advantageous for you? Can it help with your career? Can it help with opportunities? Can it help with mobility? Can it help future-proof your career against AI? Because you know how to build relationships. And I feel that's the skill.
The reliance in my definition is what are the seven skills you need to have to operate and navigate in today's world? One of them is create value for other people. How can I be valuable to you, Guy? I would ask you a very simple question, how can I help? And then I understand what is it that you care about? What are your pain points? What are things that you really want to do in the world?
And I try to figure out, can I introduce them to someone who knows about that? Can I share an article? What can I do to create value for you? That makes you indispensable. And that's what I mean by reliance on yourself.

Guy Kawasaki:
I would say that doesn't exactly describe what's going on in Washington.

Maha Abouelenein:
No, in today's world. So in today's Washington world, you think a lot about focusing on just America first. And obviously I'm American so I care about America first as well, but there's a beauty in collaboration. There's a beauty in learning from other people and other cultures. There's a beauty in understanding how we are all living the same ideals and world and dream, and so we're better together.
And I feel that's a big part of understanding how we can change the narrative to be more progressive and more enlightening about being open to other people and other ideas.

Guy Kawasaki:
So what are the ramifications of your concept, not Musk and Trump, your concept of self-reliance on external validation? Does it matter at all?

Maha Abouelenein:
I think a lot of it has to do with don't be waiting for opportunities to come to you or waiting for permission. I feel so many times, Guy, in life, we're hesitant to do the things we're passionate about or that we feel like we should pursue because we're waiting for permission from others or we fear judgment of others or we fear failure or that it might not work out. Well, what if it does?
So many times in my life, and I tell the stories in the book, I didn't think I could do something and then I was like, "I never got asked to do it before. So what makes me think I can't do it? And if I don't believe in myself, why should I expect somebody else to believe in me?" And so I feel like this concept of waiting for permission from others or waiting for external validation, life is too short.

Guy Kawasaki:
So from the outside, looking in, if people are listening to this and they want to figure out, how can I tell if I am self-reliant, or how can I tell if this person I'm dealing with is self-reliant, what are the signs of being self-reliant?

Maha Abouelenein:
First of all, they think about bringing value to other people. They know that they have the power to make the changes they want to see in their lives. People who are self-reliant invest in themselves. They have a level of curiosity. I don't wait for my manager to give me that project that's going to make me a rock star. I don't wait for opportunities to come to me.
I'm thinking, huh, I know where the business is going. I know what my manager cares about. I know the capabilities of my team. Is there an idea where we can collaborate to bring something forward before getting asked to do it? So people who are self-reliant understand that they are the value and they can create the opportunities they want to see in their lives. So many times you're like, "Well, I don't have the experience or I don't have the skills."
Then do you guys think that you can reverse engineer to say, "Hey, everything on the internet is for free, podcasts are for free, YouTube videos are for free." Yesterday I saw a statistic, a billion hours of content of watching podcasts on YouTube on Bloomberg. That's insane. That means a lot of people are consuming content and learning from other people's daily routines, business habits, business failure, successes, entrepreneurship, health, wellness, whatever it may be.
We've never lived in a better time to be alive. We have access to information. If you're self-reliant, you know that you don't need to wait for somebody to give you a course on AI. You literally can go online for free and spend two hours and learn how to use a tool.

Guy Kawasaki:
When you were first approached by the prime minister to help the prime minister and you sat in that room and then at the end of the meeting they asked you the only person to stay and meet with somebody else. So I don't think you ever used the term imposter syndrome in your book, but surely you had imposter syndrome. So how did you get over imposter syndrome?

Maha Abouelenein:
I do talk a lot about imposter syndrome a little bit in the book. So for everyone listening, I was moved to Egypt. I got asked by the prime minister of Egypt to write a speech for him. A, I'm not a speech writer. B, I know nothing about Egyptian government or politics. C, I don't speak Arabic. So I'm like, "This is not a good fit. Why am I here?" I died.
When I got asked to do this, my heart sank because if you mess up with the government, am I going to get kicked out of the country? But I didn't really know what to do at that time, but I was just like, "All you need to do is be calm, take my nerves off the floor." And I did feel a lot of imposter syndrome. Why do they think I can do this? Why am I here? It's because I speak good English? Is it because I speak English fluently that they asked me to write this speech?
I didn't know. And I just felt like surely there's better people than me. Surely there's foreign policy experts or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there's somebody who does this for a living. But they wanted my perspective and they wanted my thoughts because they knew that I grew up in America and they knew I'd done a lot of work in Washington and they knew that I had experience and value. They valued me more than I valued me.
And sometimes when we have imposter syndrome, we don't recognize our strengths. We don't recognize that we're not going to just walk in and have the confidence. We get the confidence when we take action. And when you do the action, then you get the confidence. And that's exactly what I did. I'm like, "Okay, I just have to put myself as if I was an audience member listening to that speech, what would I want to hear?"
And the minute I got out of my own head and said, "Okay, what if I'm in the audience, I will know what to write." And I did. And I feel like it just came to me, but it was a big struggle for the longest time where I didn't believe in myself and I had imposter syndrome. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to fake it till I make it." But then I'm like, "Wait, this is the government. There's no such thing."

Guy Kawasaki:
In people that we have discussed imposter syndrome, they often say, and I don't think you're saying this, they often say fake it until you make it. But in your case, you didn't have to fake it. You really had it, right?

Maha Abouelenein:
I had it, but I didn't know I had it because I didn't have that confidence and I was waiting. So sometimes we're waiting to be confident before we do something and I'm like, "You're not going to get that confidence until you do it." It's the reverse. And that was the biggest aha moment for me, is learning that I'll get the confidence if I take the first step.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Now let's talk about the seven principles of your book. And the first one, it comes from, I think a military.

Maha Abouelenein:
It's a military term, yeah.

Guy Kawasaki:
And it is stay low and keep moving. Stay low, I can understand because the bullets are flying. Keep moving because if you're stuck, you're going to get caught. But explain how you mean it in business.

Maha Abouelenein:
So this is a military term to avoid getting hit by arsenal, stay low, crouch down, and keep moving so they can't see you. I took it as a metaphor for life. Stay low, put your head down and focus on what you care about. There's so many distractions in the world today; doubters, social media, comparisons, setbacks, economic downturns. Things are happening in our lives.
And if you are self-reliant, you know that, you know what? If you want to achieve a goal like writing a book or getting a different job or switching careers or achieving a major milestone that you care about, you got to put your head down and stay low and just keep moving. Because if you're constantly distracted by other people's needs and priorities, you're never going to achieve the things that you care about.
And I always talk, Guy, it's like sitting in front of your email. If you're sitting at work, you're just sitting there fielding incoming emails all day, those are other people's priorities interrupting your day. At some point you need to close your email so you can do focused deep work of things that you actually want to get done that day.
And that's the difference between people who stay low and keep moving and those that react to other people's needs to achieve their goals.

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to go to your second principle about being a value creator, but this is an attempt of mine to add value to you.

Maha Abouelenein:
Okay, good. I like it.

Guy Kawasaki:
I think that you should change the phrase, stay low, keep moving to stay low, keep doing as opposed to moving.

Maha Abouelenein:
I love that. Stay low and keep doing. That's a good edit.

Guy Kawasaki:
Because you're basically saying stay low, don't get all this extraneous attention, but just keep doing what you're doing, and it'll work out. Man, moving implies random direction and all that.

Maha Abouelenein:
I feel the reason I put moving is people face a lot of setbacks and have bad days and just you know that that's going to happen. And there are going to be bumps in the road, so just keep moving through them. Don't let that stop you from your momentum or your goals. I have bad days. Some days I can only give 40 percent and that's 100 percent for me. So you need to just keep moving despite the fact that you're having a bad day or things are getting in your way from your success.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So when you rev the book and if you change it, you should credit me.

Maha Abouelenein:
I will credit you for that one. Stay low, keep doing. Been my mantra for twenty-five years. I feel like it's going to be ingenuine if I switch it, but I'm going to make the edit when I get to that.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. That brings us to the second principle, which is, be a value creator. And you explained it before, but basically it is about how you make other people's lives better, not yours.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah. I discovered in my career that I can be the person that creates value for a client. I can be the person that brings them an idea or an approach or something that they didn't think of. And I always thought that clients have to tell me what they want or customers have to tell me what they want, but I'm like, "Uh-uh, I can think and I can bring something to the table that they haven't thought of and that's valuable."
Because when you do something for someone without them asking for it and they actually love it and appreciate it, you just became a value creator. And so I thought, huh, if I can do that for one person, I can do it for another. And now it's an inner challenge to me, like, oh, I'm going to create value for that person. I just met so-and-so; I'm going to create value for them without them asking me for it.
And not because I want anything in return, but I want to see if A, I can do it, and B, if I can actually create value for somebody. Serena Williams, I met Serena Williams and now I'm like, "Oh, she's not a client of mine. I just met her at an event, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to find a way to add value for her. She has access to everybody and everything. What can I do to add value to her?" That's where my mind goes. It's like, oh, I need to think of an idea.

Guy Kawasaki:
And what did you come up with?

Maha Abouelenein:
I'm working on it right now. I'll let you know how it goes. I just met her four days ago, so I'm working on it.

Guy Kawasaki:
Four days. I'm surprised it took this long.

Maha Abouelenein:
I've been on planes since. I went to Doha in between, so cut me in slack.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, here's my final attempt to add value too. And maybe when I saw this in your book, I looked at that, I looked at it for a long time and I was wondering, is that an error or is that a really deep statement? So this you who won't be able to see that, but there's a page in your book that says, "You cannot edit a blank page." And I saw that, I said, "Was that a note from her editor to her telling her that this page is blank or is that a philosophy?" Because that philosophy is just as good. So explain that page.

Maha Abouelenein:
It's a philosophy. So a lot of people hesitate to start. That first step is the hardest step in anything they want to achieve. Losing weight, starting a business, asking for promotion. But you can't edit a blank page means you got to start with something in order for you to know how to change it or tinker it or improve it or grow it.
And so a lot of times, even as me wanting to write a book, I really want to write a book. And if it's really a goal, if I don't achieve it, if I don't put my head down to focus on doing it, you got to start somewhere, you have to edit based on taking the first attempt.

Guy Kawasaki:
All right. So I am so happy that's on purpose. I looked at that, I said, "That is a very deep message there." So now we're still on value creation. So I noticed story after story where you do things, you don't have a formal relationship, you don't have formal compensation, you don't have any kind of obvious short-term gain by doing this.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes.

Guy Kawasaki:
So basically you say over and over; I don't know if you say it, but you are communicating the idea that you should just add value and do stuff for free and it all works out, right?

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah. Obviously you need to be selective of who you're doing it for and what your intentions are. But I don't like to live in a world, and my whole career and all my success in the last thirty years has not been on transactions. I'm going to do this for you, so you do this for me. Bring value, have good intentions, have meaning behind what you're doing and a purpose behind it.
If you have ulterior motives or there's a reason why you're doing something, it's going to come back to bite you. Pick your circle, pick the people you really want to create value for because you know there might be a meaning behind it. And I don't work for free for everybody, but I do tell a story of me working for somebody for a year and a half for free because I really wanted the chance to work with them.
I volunteered to do work that clients would pay me for free for client because I want an opportunity to get some time with them, and I value the people that I'm creating value for. I don't do it for everyone. I don't do it all the time. I would never compromise my team or their hours or their resources to do it. It might be something where I'm going to donate my time to do it because I know there's a strategic reason to do it. And so being a value creator means you understand who to create value for.

Guy Kawasaki:
If I were pushing back on you, I would say of course you would do whatever it takes to get to Serena Williams, you would do whatever it takes to get up to Gary Vaynerchuk, but what about people who cannot help you? Do you still add value to them?

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah, because I feel like obviously there is a reason for who you create value for, but even if it's not a big name or a client, it might be a customer that could open another door for you that could lead to something that you're interested. It might be you want to learn about an industry that you're not in. There's a price to pay to get in that door.
I'm going to go create value for them because I don't have the experience. I don't know anything about the X industry, so I'm going to have to pay a price to get in, and that might be my time and creating value for someone so I can get that experience or build that relationship.

Guy Kawasaki:
I think there's something in the water in Minnesota, because one of the other guests from Minnesota is Andrew Zimmern.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes, the chef. I love him.

Guy Kawasaki:
Andrew Zimmern tells a story that he had issues with drug abuse, and at thirty, he was an intern at three places at once in Minnesota, and his mentor advised him that you should make yourself indispensable because when you're indispensable, opportunities come to you.

Maha Abouelenein:
And you told the story in the book.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.

Maha Abouelenein:
I read it.

Guy Kawasaki:
And in a sense, that's what you're saying, right? You add value, you become indispensable, and everything works out.

Maha Abouelenein:
In his case too, he volunteered to do every role at the news station in order to get that experience. And I feel like you have to be willing to put in the effort and be willing to put in the work. When I took the job as the secretary for this billionaire, I didn't want to sit outside and answer phones and schedule meetings and get coffee, but I did because I knew that there was value in building relationships that were coming through that door.
I knew that there was value of being close to a billionaire to learn about how does he run this business? When am I ever going to get a front row seat into how a billionaire works? Never. So there was value that I really had to think of it and change my mindset about my approach of the title and the job and my money. I had to put all of that aside and look at what I am gaining.
I'm gaining experience, I'm gaining access, I'm gaining relationships, and that's so, so, so valuable. And I always tell people, "You either get a chance to earn or a chance to learn." In this case, I was not getting the chance to earn any money. It was not a good role in terms of financial benefit because of my title and where I was in the company, but I was definitely getting to build learning, and learning was more valuable than what I was earning. What I was learning was way more valuable.

Guy Kawasaki:
Madisun, are you listening to this?

Maha Abouelenein:
You get access if you get learning and opportunity and relationships, and even I do that right now. I'm fifty-five years old, I run my business for more than twenty years. And I might have a client that I'm not going to charge them that much, lower my rate just so I can get experience in an industry or experience spending time with them. I understand that value equation.

Guy Kawasaki:
Well, number three is don't be a waiter.

Maha Abouelenein:
Which we talked about. Don't be waiting for permission. Somebody said this to me. Someone came up to you and said, "Maha, you're a waiter." I'm like, "What?" And he's like, "You're waiting for Mr. Right to come along. You're waiting for your boss to give you that project that's going to make you a rock star."
And you know what? So much of how I think social media has perpetuated this for us is I don't want to be the person doing that, I don't want people judging me. I wait. I wait until the right time comes, until I get more money in my bank account or until I lose weight or until I can get to the next level in this company, and then I'll do it.
You know what? Life is too short. You need to do what you want to do. And I tell people, "Don't wait for permission from others because you'll be waiting a very long time."

Guy Kawasaki:
Do you know who Daniel Pink is?

Maha Abouelenein:
Of course.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So Daniel Pink did something called the Regret Project.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes.

Guy Kawasaki:
And one of the four consistent and main regrets in life is the boldness regret, which is that you didn't start your company, you didn't write your book, you didn't start your podcast. You were waiting for the perfect moment.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah. And you think about all the incredible people in the world that got their at-bats and took them late at life and succeeded. They waited for a long time when they were fifty and above to do the things that they wanted. It’s just don't wait.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, number, what is that number?

Maha Abouelenein:
Four.

Guy Kawasaki:
Four. Number four is unlearn, relearn and invest in yourself. So what should people want to learn?

Maha Abouelenein:
So I think right now investing in yourself is the most powerful thing. My dad told me, "No one can ever take away what's between your two ears." If you're knowledgeable, if you're smart, if you're investing in yourself, no one can take that away from you. People can take away opportunities. They can take away a lot of things from you, but they can't take away that. What can you do every week to invest in yourself?
And I'm not talking take courses and go to class or online. Can you take fifteen minutes to listen to a podcast? Can you go for a walk and listen to an audiobook? Can you spend Tuesday nights or Sunday mornings instead of watching Netflix that one night, can you spend one hour carving out how to learn something?
Learning can be anything. It could be an AI tool, it could be Pickleball, it could be how to cook. It could be how to take piano lessons. It can be anything. Learning is good for your brain. Learning is good for your longevity. And so I want people who are self-reliant to have this principle that they are not waiting for someone to invest in them, that they can take the power to invest in themselves.

Guy Kawasaki:
As a complete aside, and I just want to mention to you, I just thought of it, that your dad had ALS and we had a guest who has ALS, and she was diagnosed, this is ten years ago. She's still alive. And when she was diagnosed, she decided that she was going to run a marathon in all fifty states, and she did it.

Maha Abouelenein:
It's incredible what the mind is capable of doing. Honestly, that's a great story. My dad had ALS, my mom had MS. We're going to fast-forward to rule seven, which is the no regrets chapter right now, but I do talk a lot about my personal story taking care of them because I feel like there's so much in my life I could have regretted.
I got to be the caretaker and I had a lot of responsibility that I had to shoulder, but I learned so much from that process of how to be empathetic and how to have perspective and how to be patient. And if I thought I was having a bad day, I just had to look at them and say, "Oh, they can't get out of bed and walk and we can and I can."
And so rule number seven is live with no regrets. It's easy to say, it's difficult to do, but I feel like everybody has something in their life. Everybody has a story. Everybody has a setback. Everybody has a struggle, including me, including you, including everyone listening to this show. And so don't let that define you. How can you take that struggle and turn it into a strength?

Guy Kawasaki:
In number seven with live with no regrets, I have to tell you that Madisun and I read at least fifty-two books a year, and I cannot remember an instance of where an author told the story about how they totally blew it. And I love the story of how you didn't get a Facebook job because you didn't prepare enough to learn enough about Facebook in Africa, and that just tanked your interview.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes. I think a lot of life is doing the prep and showing up. What do you need to do to prepare? I had just come off a great job at Google. The head of Google went to become the head of Facebook, and so he said, "You got to interview for this job. You're perfect for us. You should come." And I interviewed. It's a panel, so you interview with different people.
It was going to be a bigger role than what I had at Google. Google was eighteen countries. This was going to be twenty-two or twenty-four. It was going to give me all of the Horn of Africa and Turkey and all that kind of stuff.
So I was like, "Oh my God, this is a great opportunity for me." And I loved a lot of people that were at Google that went to Facebook, did the interviews, came to the last one, which was one of the managers and leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa. And I just didn't nail the interview.
I didn't do my homework. I didn't know my stuff. I didn't study the market. And that just taught me so much, I went crushed. I'm like, "Oh my God, my life is over. I just came from this high of working at Google and I got turned down by Facebook by this role." And I thought my life was over and I was so upset about it, and I'm like, "Okay, I never want to feel this way again. I'm always going to prepare. I'm always going to do the homework. If someone says do four things, I'm going to do ten things."
And it worked out really well for me that I didn't get that role because the following week, I got asked to work in the office of the Ruler of Dubai, in the Executive Office, which is extremely prestigious role to have. And things played out just fine, but I did take very hard lessons from that rejection of what I don't want to feel like again.

Guy Kawasaki:
I thought that was a great story to pass along. Thank you.

Maha Abouelenein:
It's true.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so now we covered number seven. We're going back.

Maha Abouelenein:
Going back to five.

Guy Kawasaki:
Think of your reputation as a currency. What do you mean here?

Maha Abouelenein:
Think about it, Guy, we all have reputations and I want people to understand how important it is that you value that like a currency, what's it's worth and what's its value? Your name is the only thing you actually own and that name can open doors and bring you opportunities. And this is the biggest chapter in the book for a reason. I talk a lot about how to teach people how to build their personal brands.
And a lot of people's like, "Well, Maha, I'm not a social media influencer. I don't need to build my personal brand." If you have a job, you have a personal brand. If you have a social media account, you have a personal brand. And you need to be thinking about how you show up in the world and how your name is what's going to open up doors and keep you strong and build relationships for you and get you the opportunity to meet people and.
The more opportunities you have, the more relationships you have, the more opportunities you have to make money or to build your dreams or start that project that you want. So building your personal brand is not an option. How do you show up in the world is everything today. And we live in a world of cancel culture and real time everything, be intentional about it. And I give people the playbook on how to do it.

Guy Kawasaki:
Couldn't someone make the case that to stay low and now you're telling me to build a personal brand. Are those two things not in opposition?

Maha Abouelenein:
I didn't say stay low profile. I said stay low, meaning stay focused. So stay low means put those blinders on and stay focused on what you care about. Otherwise, you're constantly going to be pulled in a hundred directions. Whether or not you want to be high profile, low profile, that's up to you, your brand, your speed, your life, your style, your authenticity, how you operate and how you live.
But I want you to have basic information about you on the internet that you control so that other people aren't controlling it for you. So have a solid profile on LinkedIn. It doesn't mean you have to be posting every day and all that kind of stuff, but have a clear profile picture, have a nice title, show who you are, your career, your objectives. You have to drive it. And I'm telling you, if you don't, somebody else will, and it's probably not going to be what you want.

Guy Kawasaki:
I interact with a lot of people who ask me how to build a personal brand, and in their minds it's about, oh, I'm going to write white papers. I'm going to reposition myself. I'm going to hire this firm to create social media posts. I'm going to try to get on Ted Talks and I'm going to basically put lipstick on a pig. And that's not at all what you're saying, right?

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah, that's not what I'm saying. I feel like if you have a role at work, ask somebody how they would describe you. And are those three words, the three words you want people to describe you as? Then you're good to go. Your personal brand is solid. But if someone describes you in a way that's not consistent with what you want it to be, then you need to work on your personal brand.
You need to say, "Okay, people don't think I'm collaborative, then I need to make an effort to show people I do want to collaborate." Because if you work in a company and you want to get that career mobility, it matters. If you're an entrepreneur listening to this podcast, you want to have a good personal brand as a founder so you can attract the right talent, so you can attract the right investors, so you can bring the right partners and collaborators to your business.
It's a currency now. People follow people, they don't follow companies. Think of Donald Trump. His brand is more powerful than the Republican Party. He's built a strong personal brand.

Guy Kawasaki:
That's one way to look at it. I tried an interesting thing yesterday, not related to your book, but this merits discussion, which is I went to ChatGPT, and I asked if Guy Kawasaki is trustworthy.

Maha Abouelenein:
Really? And what did it say?

Guy Kawasaki:
And it's a very interesting exercise. You should try it for yourself.

Maha Abouelenein:
Okay, I'm going to write it down.

Guy Kawasaki:
It is very interesting, and I did it for myself. I did it for Deepak Chopra.

Maha Abouelenein:
Oh, cool.

Guy Kawasaki:
Just do it. You'll find it very interesting.

Maha Abouelenein:
I'm going to.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Yeah. Because you could make the case that ChatGPT, for all its hallucinations and all that, but it's not politically motivated. It's hard to game the system. It's looking at everything and it's drawing its conclusion.

Maha Abouelenein:
What did it say? Tell me.

Guy Kawasaki:
It said, I am trustworthy.

Maha Abouelenein:
Okay, I like that.

Guy Kawasaki:
I wouldn't bring this up if it didn't.

Maha Abouelenein:
I was going to say, "What did it say?" Because you built a strong person.

Guy Kawasaki:
I passed the test.

Maha Abouelenein:
You built a reputation. I really want people that when they think of the word personal brand, to replace it with the term reputation. You built a strong reputation. So people know you, they trust you. Trust takes time. Authenticity comes from your intent. Are you trustworthy? Are you credible? Are you reliable? All of those things make up your personal brand.

Guy Kawasaki:
When I was studying your book, I think one of the most interesting dichotomies you drew is the difference between self-promotion and idea promotion. So you have got to give us your explanation of that.

Maha Abouelenein:
I think a lot of people think personal branding is about self-promotion. Look at me, I did things, I know things. I'm doing this and that. I'm like, "No, it's not about promoting yourself. It's about promoting your ideas and your thought leadership and your expertise." I am 100 percent convinced that everybody in this world, from my niece and nephew to any executive I've ever met, has something of value that's unique to them that they can offer the world.
Whether it's how they bake or how they talk to people or how they build relationships or how they know a specific skill, everybody has something to offer. And I feel that's your secret sauce. That's the thing that you should share with people. Your personal brand is made up of your skills and your experience, but also your personality. What's the personal part of your personal brand? And so it's not about self-promotion, it's about idea promotion, about your ideas and your lived experiences.

Guy Kawasaki:
As I have gotten older, Maha, I have come to the conclusion that everybody you meet can do something better than you. I don't care if you're worth a trillion dollars, you're not good at everything. And I see that every day. Right now I have a crew cutting trees at my house and I watch what it takes to cut down a 200-foot eucalyptus tree and it is an art. It's amazing what this guy can do with a saw, so I digress.

Maha Abouelenein:
I know. I read that in your book. I thought that was interesting. I didn't know that they were highly flammable.

Guy Kawasaki:
They're very flammable, yeah.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yeah.

Guy Kawasaki:
That's the only bad thing that has ever come out of Australia.

Maha Abouelenein:
Really?

Guy Kawasaki:
Really.

Maha Abouelenein:
That's interesting. Now, I read that. I was like, "I had no idea."

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so now the last one. It's the sixth one, but we did the seventh one already, it is to be a long-term player. So what is the long-term?

Maha Abouelenein:
I think this chapter has to do with networking. How do you be a long-term player with somebody? How do you not get into the world of transactions, tit-for-tat, I'll do this for you, but you got to do something for me? I've done this my whole career. I will make a deposit in somebody's trust bank and not ask for a withdrawal for years or months or decades because I know that there's a value of showing up, delivering constantly.
I'm always trying to think, Guy, how I can make multiple deposits in different people's trust banks. So I go around being intentional and valuable to other people because I may or may not want to wake a withdrawal, but I don't want to be in this society of transactions, I'll do something for you if you do something for me or tit-for-tat.
I feel like that's a very short-term way of thinking and it's not been the signature of my success as I always think long-term. Create value for people over time. Show up for them. Serve your network. Your network is not there to serve you. Show up for people in a way that's meaningful for them. And that's how you build a good reputation. That's how you build good relationships.
That's what I mean about self-reliance, is like, how do I rely on myself to really have good relationships with so many people? Because that's the currency of life, is having good relationships with people. And you may or may not need to make a withdrawal, but I know that they're there if I need them.

Guy Kawasaki:
We're almost at the end. I'm going to get dark for a little bit and then we're going to come back to the light. So I have to ask you this because it weighs heavily upon my mind, that do you think that America is headed for a Tahrir Square and an American Spring? Are we going to have the same kind of thing that happened in Egypt?

Maha Abouelenein:
I don't think so. I don't think so. I feel like we live in a democratic society where there'll be enough forces that will level the playing field and equality and equilibrium will happen. I feel it's a new time and so there's a lot of new change, but everything eventually course corrects, and I feel that I believe in the power of people and their views and their ideas that will win and prevail at the end.

Guy Kawasaki:
Couldn't somebody in Egypt have said that right when Tahrir Square happened?

Maha Abouelenein:
No, I think for Egypt it was a little bit different. I think it had been brewing for a very long time and I think there was a very specific premise behind that kind of protest, was having the same person in power for thirty years. I think that was a completely different circumstance than we have here. And history judged what happened very differently today than it did at the time it was happening.
It's interesting to see how things play out over time and you have to always take a step back and remove yourself from what's happening in the moment and look at history, and history usually prevails.

Guy Kawasaki:
All right. So let's come back to the light.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes, I prefer the light.

Guy Kawasaki:
I have to tell you that I love your seven prescriptions. I love these tactics that you have.

Maha Abouelenein:
Thank you.

Guy Kawasaki:
So I just want to give you this opportunity to summarize your book and summarize your philosophy and just give us the Maha for Dummies summation here.

Maha Abouelenein:
Thank you, Guy. First of all, I'm so grateful for you and both Madisun reading the book and spending time with it. I feel like this is a book for anyone with ambition, but I feel like it's also a playbook for how we should think about how valuable we really are. And I end the book talking about this, that the most important story is the story you tell yourself because I doubted myself, I didn't believe in myself.
And once I started to change the narrative in my head that I was capable of doing things I didn't think I was capable of doing. A lot of things opened for me. It does hard work and life is up and down. There is no up and to the right. Everybody goes through struggles. I dealt with two handicapped parents. I lived overseas, moved back, came back and forth, reinvented myself at twenty-seven, reinvented at fifty. Things take time.
But now I have experience, I have a lot of perspective and I feel like if anyone's going through something and they're not sure where to start, the answer is just start. And the confidence will come once you do. And if anyone gets the book and reads it, please DM me or send me a message. I answer all those myself. I'd love to get your feedback on it. But I feel like it's a book that will inspire you and also educate you.

Guy Kawasaki:
What else can I say? As you can probably tell, I loved interviewing you and I loved the book, so thank you very much.

Maha Abouelenein:
So grateful.

Guy Kawasaki:
People listening to this, they definitely have a lot of information about how to be remarkable. So thank you.

Maha Abouelenein:
Yes. Thank you, Guy.

Guy Kawasaki:
All right, so this is Guy Kawasaki. This has been Remarkable People. My thanks to Madisun Nuismer, my remarkable producer and co-author, Tessa Nuismer, researcher, Jeff Sieh and Shannon Hernandez, remarkable sound design engineers. And until next week, be remarkable. Mahalo and aloha.