Prayers for the memory of the dead God rest his soul.
It's It's sad to see right prospects die young because of
inadequate medical expertise or attention, but really it's.
It's easy to say if you have not met a human being that has gone
through that particular experience, but when you know a
human being that's gone through that experience, it heats up on
run for you. Back to what I've said from the
beginning, your body of work, the work you know, you guys do
in the health sector, you know public health, do not take it
for granted. I appreciate it very, very, very
much. First, they are leadership
philosophies, right? And of course, you have that
academic background, right? And definitely it has an impact
on your leadership role in industry.
So yeah, how do you marry that which, which would I say
strategies to your dot? Which philosophies to your dot?
Yeah. So strategy, how do I use
strategy in my job and how does that, how does academia inspire
me? I think it's consistently having
a culture of learning. And I will challenge you, my
friend, to say that I think that, you know, we talked about
is it strategy as a leader? Welcome to the Kingdom's podcast
where growth mindset meets leadership and business
insights. Get insights from top
entrepreneurs, professionals and thought leaders.
Visit kingdomspodcast.com. Fuel your mind.
Your next breakthrough starts here.
We are live, ladies and gentlemen, you'll once again
welcome to the King James broadcast and diary of a CFO.
And today I've got we'll meet a very, very special guest
fighting out of Brazil, Switzerland by way of the West
Coast of the United States of America.
Big welcome. Jennifer Kane, Burt Moss.
Thank you for the invitation. Thank you so much.
It's wonderful to be here. Oh, wow.
So I guess during the introduction you were thinking,
am I now a fighter now? Yeah.
Where do I fight out of what's What kind of fights do I do?
Well, definitely everybody is a fighter in life.
If you've seen a very many past episodes of this podcast, I've
had a lot of fighters. I've had boxing world champions.
I've had enemy champions on the show.
And you know, it's a bug with mindset, leadership and peace.
Less insights. So you are passing that.
There's multiple feathers on their heart.
And you are well deserving of an interesting intro.
So sit back, relax while I give you flowers while you are alive.
So today we have the privilege of welcoming an extraordinary
leader who's carriers pants the boardrooms of some of the
world's most influential health organizations to the vibrant
stage of improv committee. Jennifer King Bergmers is a
global health advocate, board member and Co founder of an
innovative health tech startup with over 2 decades of
experience transforming healthcare systems, advancing
patient access, and shaping policy at the highest levels.
From the World Bank and HO to Johnson and Johnson Roche and
the Gates Foundation's Medicines for Mandaria venture, Jennifer
has built a legacy of impact driving change that touches
millions of lives. She is also a gifted
storyteller, a TEDx speaker, and a graduate of the Second City
Conservatory, proving that leadership can be as creative as
it is strategic. Get ready for an inspiring,
insightful, and yes, fun conversation as we explore
leadership, innovation, mindset, and the power of laughter in
building a better world. Ladies and gentlemen, once again
make welcome. Jennifer Kane Burke bows.
You're welcome. Amelia wanted to host a webinar,
but the tool couldn't deliver. Zooming out, she turned to
Webinar Key, an expert solution for webinars with seamless setup
and intuitive design. She delivered the perfect
webinar. Webinar Deep host webinars like
a boss. Wonderful.
Thank you so the for the beautiful, beautiful and warm
introduction. Thank you so much.
Wow, you are welcome, and of course you are always welcome.
I believe very much in speaking in the present tense instead of
past tense. At ease.
I believe very much in giving people their flowers while they
are alive. I I'm not one to you only give
you your flowers where you're gone because that's what most
people do. They wait till you die until
they say great things about you appreciate your body of work.
I'm not one of those people. You know, people tend to be
quite, I don't know why as TNG with compliments and
appreciation. And I don't think that is the
right thing to do because good attitude, good behavior, good
impact should actually be appreciated.
And yeah, you're very much appreciated.
So talking about how it all started, the origin before all
of your career evolutions, because it seems like you've
lived different lives. So I would say you are they
leave an example of the proverbial cuts with night
lives. But it's just that you you seem
to have more than that night lives actually.
So you learn transformations at the World Bank, WHO, Johnson,
Johnson, Boucher and now health tech.
So looking back at the key moments, right, What key moments
actually define your career path?
So what key moments to find my career path would be moments
where I could do two things consistently.
One would be to serve a mission, which is a mission to support
people or patients truly find ways to have that big impact
where I can help people truly. And on that mission, as I switch
from different, maybe working for different companies or even
different sectors, always holding that mission vision
close to my heart, The other career transition for me would
be or guiding light would be when could I learn something?
So I know that you're a passion. I know you're passionate about
learning as well and cheering, right?
You know what something I did not tell you is that you
involved in that bill and then in the Gates Foundation work for
Mandaria, right? I was actually involved in the
global foreign brand for malaria as well, and I was back in
Nigeria. What?
A small world that's so exciting.
What a small world. That we share that fashion,
that's fantastic. Yeah.
So I've had about one time in, you know, the public health
work, but what a lot of people know me for is my time with the
week for accounting firms, you know, because that I've had the
longest span of my career, like yeah, about eight years, right?
Yeah, with the public accounting sector.
But before that there was public health and yeah, we did some
work there and made some impacts.
And, and that's one of the reasons why I'm not happy about
the, the new policy of cutting of the USAIP grant, because that
grant actually did a lot of, you know, it works for people,
especially in yeah, vulnerable people in the less developed
economies. So I come from Nigeria, I'm
proud of my country. It's interesting.
And it's great to see the impact that your work has actually done
for my people, right. It's it's all love and
appreciation. So it's a small world.
We know that we've at this point we've touched 500 million
patients with our malaria medicines.
Yeah. So it's it's.
Aside from the medicines, the the Li and the lasting
insecticides next that you guys are also distribute is very
impactful. Yeah, medicine.
So it's all about, I mean, the the work of medicines for
malaria venture, we discover, we research, we discover, we
research, we develop and then we have commercial partnerships to
make those products available and like treatment, chemo,
prevention, environmental control.
So exactly what you say, the bed Nets.
And we're constantly, constantly inspired by our researchers.
And when I say our researchers, I mean the people that are
inside the company, but also they, they work extensively,
especially across the continent with different researchers to do
open source discovery and also development together.
So we're very passionate about making sure that the science is
discovered on the continent, not only that the products go there
to treat patients because they need them.
Of course, we also want the capability of the science to be
there and also the manufacturing of the products to be there as
well. So we do a lot of these kind of
partnerships also now with the African Union and that, you
know, African Medicines Agency as it as it starts to take form,
do a lot of partnerships there. It's really important and what
if, again, what a great small world that we've both been
involved. Right, Yeah, what a small world.
But you know, something in addition I like, I like to touch
on is the the programs of works that you you partner with a lot
of when I say sub recipients of all your brands for that is the
outreaches, the educational programs, the seminars and
workshops, right? They go a long way to make
impacts right people in educating them in order to lead
a better lifestyle because a lot of times these health
initiatives are not just a function of medicine, of
distribution of drugs, but almost so lifestyle changes are
required in order to lead a better life.
And you know, it speaks to a proverb that I would very, very
much tell you to my heart of the Chinese proverb as he gives give
a man a fish, he fed him for a day, but teach a man to fish, he
fed him for a lifetime. So it's interesting how you guys
give men fishes to eat for a day.
And of course, you also teach them to fish in order to have
them fed for a lifetime. Yeah, I mean too, you're right.
It's, it's not only about the pill, but it's about the system
and it's about, you know, obviously treating patients who
are sick. And also especially in West
Africa, the work that we're doing around seasonal chemo
prevention is saving lives for children who are 5 and under.
And now we're even experimenting with children who are 10 and
under. But we know that if we are are
effectively dosing the the medicines that we distribute, if
we dose them strategically in advance of the season of the
rainy season, we're going to protect those kids.
And it is. So it's, it's a, it's a system,
systemic environmental intervention that's saving kids
lives. I think it's also really
exciting to see the commitment of the organization, not just to
children, which is important, it's also to women and to
specifically pregnant women. And many companies that develop
medicines don't like to treat. They don't like to include women
in their clinical trials because, you know, the for fear
of having a pregnancy. And what if the medicine could
affect, yeah, could affect the unborn child.
We actually, because the risk of malaria is so much higher when a
woman is pregnant, we've been developing medicines for women
who are pregnant. Yeah, I love that.
It means you're prioritizing vulnerability over sensitivity
and that's that's the right way to go. 100% In fact, in June, we
launched a new medicine that is for women who are under two
months pregnant. So right when you're learning
that you're pregnant and you discover you have malaria, you
can be treated because that's part of the most critical phase
of infant development is they're, you know, they're
developing all their bones, essential organs.
And we know that if they, if those mothers are infected with
malaria at those times, then they're really at risk of their
baby that's being developed in Reutro.
These new medicines are really about protecting the mom and
protecting that unborn child as it's developing its mother's
womb. You don't know how our pathways
are interconnected until you just sit down and have
interesting conversations like this.
And the other thing is we always estimate the power of one
person's voice to have vision to set the momentum in place for
change. So if that's set the momentum in
place to create an agency like this that actually has this
massive global commitment for babies, for children, for
mothers, to prevent them from dying or getting sick from
malaria. So the power of the individual
to have vision, to gather excitement, enthusiasm and other
people to put money behind those initiatives.
There's so much that can be done.
Voice. Yeah, it's, it's very important
to, you know, to, to, to have the concern and, OK, you know,
it's crazy how much power, you know, an individual has to, to
make an impact. And I also remember the teachers
from Bible schools saying something and say, when God
gives you a vision, he will make a provision.
So if you have that vision right, you should always go for
it and trust. But to, to, to make the
provision, you know, you just talked about how, the, how the
power of an individual is amazing, coming up with a vision
and, you know, showing up that enthusiasm, you know, creating
teams, teamwork makes a dream work, But it's started with, you
know, the vision of that one person.
But God had to make the provision of these other systems
and people and, you know, places and, you know, methods to come
up together to to make it happen.
And you know, God, or for whomever is listening, you know,
the God that unites us all is working through all of us in
their way. So it's not only just the
individual, but it's the inspiration that might even be
channelled through that which is divine that makes us all.
So we are, you know, these energies and powers work through
us in mysterious ways. What happen in in this world?
Wow, so nice. Lead up to becoming a Co founder
of Weaver Friendly. I think this, this desire,
passion, vision for impacts in global health.
I'm not exactly sure the origin story.
It was always there. And some of it has to do with, I
think that because I grew up in a family where almost everyone
was involved in some form of either healthcare delivery or
patient advocacy, health policy, patient advocacy, We were all
involved or activism, really activism in the service of
others, in the service of the system, the community, the
patient themselves. And I think that from a very
young age, I was exposed to that and I was equally inspired and
continue to drive that red thread through my own life.
And so like I said, you know, you asked this beautiful
question, which is, you know, what are the things that drove
each of those career decisions that I had?
And I think the ability to drive that impact and also the ability
to learn. And I kept making those
decisions. Yes, no, yes, no to each of
those twists and turns of my own personal road and life journey.
And when I was given the opportunity to be a Co founder
of this company, Viva Valet, which is a digital health
company that serves older adults, for me, it was
absolutely a no brainer. It was completely clear that I
should do this. Perhaps I was a little afraid
and which made me think even more, I should be doing this.
But it was so consistent with the mission of helping people
who can't really help themselves or need a little additional
support. And it was a chance for me to
roll up all my experience, maybe my, you know, hard earned scars
and my wisdom through the work and global health and find a way
to apply those learnings into helping older adults who are
living at home and wish to live at home independently.
And finding ways to continue to deliver services, both physical
or digital, that can support them so that they can live at
home independently, with dignity and with confidence.
Well, I, I, I love that word dignity.
Nobody in life deserves to lose their dignity regardless.
Gallus Award is that they have done or hasn't done to them.
Nobody deserves to lose their dignity.
But in a world of rigid healthcare systems and how do
you balance policy expertise with innovation to drive that
real change? Yeah, so I can even give an
example of having worked in, you come originally from Nigeria.
I've spent time in, I've spent time in Nigeria myself.
I was there and I was working with your Ministry of Health and
your Ministry of Defense supporting them in actually
looking at health system policy and helping them create plans to
deliver what they wish to deliver.
Let me explain. So he said, you're right because
these things are a little complicated, but let's make them
very clear. So when you say a healthcare
system is complicated and there's a lot of things that you
need to do that's inside the healthcare system and there's a
lot of moving parts. If you know, you know.
What the outcome is. And so often what I do is
especially like when I spoke with your, you know, deputy
Minister of Health and I was working with other members of
the Ministry of Defense who were trying to design the healthcare
system for the, for the military.
I really had them think about what is it ultimately that they
want to achieve? Because often we think, how much
should we spend? How many doctors do we need?
How many hospitals do we need? How many clinics do we need?
How many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many
means, what are the inputs that we're going to put in?
What's the investment we're going to make?
Well, we need to make investment.
But I think before you do that, you have to stop and say, where
do we want to go? Where's the destination?
And that destination could be, I'm making it up, making it up.
But it could be, for example, I want to reduce malaria by 50
percent. I want to reduce malaria deaths
by 80% of my country. Therefore I want to reduce
transmission by 50%. And I want you know that to
therefore have a 70% chance of reduce the chance of five year
olds and under dying from malaria, for example.
Or I wish to create a program for patients with chronic
disease like diabetes to have an increase in testing, to have a
reduction in in disease or have a reduction in amputations,
which is often an unfortunate thing that is a part of a
patient that's not managed well who has diabetes.
So you look at ultimately what is the thing I want to achieve
and then you start to pull it back so in order.
For that reality to be true, that outcome to be true, we have
to start pulling it back. So that means that that patient
needed to receive the right urgent care at the right time.
They needed to receive the right treatment.
The malaria patient needed the right treatment within that
seven days of receiving their fever, right.
That means that we needed to get the diagnostic in place quickly.
We needed to have a clinic that was near them or we need to have
some way for them to have a diagnostic which even could be
remote. So what then?
We need to make sure that our patients understand these
things. So we need to either help with
literacy, help with education on the ground up, and we also need
to make diagnostic health seeking behavior, educational
information about how to seek and receive care in a way that's
accessible for everyone, language, culture, appropriate,
etcetera. We have to pull it all the way
back and then we say, all right, what are those things going to
cost? Then we can start investing in
the cost to run that program for the diagnostics, the cost to run
the program for the physicians and the nurses and their and the
Regional Health ministries and the remote distribution of bed
Nets and the remote distribution of of treatments into these real
clinics. So we pull it back that way.
So you're right, there's a lot of moving parts.
And I think always if we think about what's the end stop on our
train, we're taking a train of for health, what's the last stop
on that road we're going to. Then once we get there, we
arrive there and we think where do we get?
How do, what do we have to do to get there first?
Yeah, you remind me of the MDGs and the SDGS, you know.
Exactly. Looking at a certain toll goals
and starting with the end in mind, quickly, what's would I
say? Medical goal maybe we could be
the SDGS, it could be the MDGs or it could be some other like
rightly Rice a normal global medical goals have you seen or
worked on and you are impressed with the with the quality of
work that was done to achieve that particular goal.
So that's actually not so long ago I I worked with rare
diseases. And rare diseases are very
special because very often it means that they're rare, which
means you don't have so many of them in a population.
As the name implies. As the name implies, there's not
so many people who have that disease and so it's often very
difficult to provide access and treatment in a comprehensive way
for people who have that rare disease.
I was involved in being a leader in a international haemophilia
consortium and we donated product into that consortium.
We were able to disseminate, distribute and make accessible
drugs to treat haemophilia. Again, that's like 95% of those
patients are men and usually young men who are young boys,
teenagers, early 20s. We were really working hard to
make sure that those kids could survive into adulthood and that
they could actually. Yeah.
So that was the program in like, what, 35 different countries?
And I actually got to go and do work with the the International
Hemophilia Federation in Kenya as well.
So that was really inspiring because it doesn't matter if
you're a rich person, if you're a poor person, if you're
educated, if you're not. Hemophilia doesn't know.
Class or highly vulnerable like that's what's disturbing to me.
Like if you get a cop like yes, it means your your life could
end. Like how now I'm I'm curious
like how do you support them? Like what is it that you do to
help them is in lifestyle changes and you know what it it
can happen. Yeah, so, so a person and man is
generally it's a male disease. They're born without a clotting
factor, a factor 8. So you asked me about hemophilia
so and you were saying, you know, it's it's a disease where
person is born without a clotting factor factor 8 that
allows them to have a blood clot if they have a cut, like you
said, or if they have even a bump or bruise.
So you're saying that someone could die because they might
hemorrhage, they might eat out. That's very possible.
The other thing that was really terrible special for these young
boys is that their joints, you know, just because you're, you
know, you're playing football, you're living an active life,
you're a kid, you're playing, you may bump your elbow and your
knee or your ankle. And that bump would with Someone
Like You and me who have a adequate factor 8 will it'll
clot internally and it's no big deal.
So maybe you get a bruise, but basically it's still healing
those kids or those people. The blood will continue to fill
into the joint and it could damage the joint.
And so it could make moving very difficult and limit their
ability to walk around. And So what I would visit with
several of these kids in Kenya, many of them had had major
attacks like this where their joints were having lots of pain
and they had to walk with a, they had to be carried or they
had to walk with a stick. And So what we were doing in our
program is we were providing the medicines that helped them avoid
having those major crises so and would help them survive into
adulthood so they can have a healthy life.
And I think constantly what we see is that we have consistent
evolution of innovation that brings new medicines to these
patients that will help them live longer and live healthier
and less painful. And so as as you, you know, help
them survive into these older years already the technology
jumps and jumps and jumps and is more heat stable and is more
long acting and is really helping patients have a better
life. So that we're very happy to have
been a part of that in Africa. I guess for the first time on
this broadcast, I've had to shed a tear because what are you
talking about just reminded me of a traumatic experience.
I had a friend in secondary school, God rest his soul.
His name is Uriyami Atali and very, very brilliant individual
and I don't know if he probably was suffering from Timothy
there, but last I heard of him worse, he want to play football,
sustain an injury and. I'm so sorry that you lost him,
especially at such a young age. So an early life lost.
And for you especially a friend who is clearly special for you
that you lost so young. I'm so sorry that you
experienced that and you lost him.
Between the side and trust me, this, this person was brilliant,
very, very right. It's crazy.
People used to think myself and him would end up becoming sports
journalists. Of course we we'd love football
so much. We love to analyse sports.
I know. Can I call myself a journalist?
Of course you have a podcast. You're officially a journalist,
Yes. And then we can talk about
sports, you and me, and then we'll talk.
We'll officially, we'll both be sports journalists on your
podcast today. OK, OK, yeah, let's bring the
childhood dreams 3 But prayers for the memory of the dead.
God rest his soul. It's, it's sad to see right
prospects die young because of inadequate medical expertise or
attention. But really it's, it's easy to
say if you have not met a human being that has gone through that
particular experience, but when you know a human being that's
gone through that experience, it hits a home run for you.
Back to what I've said from the beginning, your body of work,
the work, you know, you guys do in the health sector, you know,
public health, I do not take it for granted, you know, I
appreciate it very, very, very much.
And the, the work is actually a function of leadership strategy
to achieve impact. So from the boardroom to the
classroom at Intel, you've actually influenced that leaders
worldwide. So what core leadership
principles do you believe translates, you know, across the
industries that you've worked with?
Let me make sure I understand your question correctly.
What are the things I'm teaching at the university that I learned
from? Yes, a mix of both, right?
That is, we can add the leadership, right?
But leadership comes with strategy, right?
And of course, there are leadership philosophies, right?
And of course, you have that academic background, right?
And definitely it has an impact on your leadership role in
industry. So yeah, how do you marry that?
And which are which would I say strategies to your adopt, which
are philosophies to your adopt? Yeah.
So strategy, how do I use strategy in my job and how does
that, how does academia inspire me?
I think it's consistently having a culture of the learning and I
will challenge you, my friend, to say that I think that, you
know, we talk about is it strategy as a leader, are you,
you know, do you own strategy? Yes.
And even more even on top of strategy is a leader, you're
owning culture. And so the culture, a culture,
what we say eats strategy for breakfast, right?
So as a leader, you have you're in charge of.
Yeah, it's true. So we.
I'm going to compel my friends to watch to watch this episode,
OK, because there is something I always say that is eat it
something from. Breakfast culture is true for
breakfast. And you know as a leader you
bring the weather in every room you enter.
So does that mean are you, excuse me, you have a choice
every day as a leader, you can arrive sunny, you can arrive
cloudy, you can arrive rainstorm, you can arrive a
snowstorm, you can arrive lightning.
You know, you choose what's the weather that you're bringing.
And that's another kind of metaphor for what's the culture
that you're going to create. Very often culture you don't.
It's difficult to see and identify it because you're
inside of it. So like a fish that's swimming
inside of a fishbowl, does a fish know that it's swimming in
water? Fish is probably unaware of the
water it's swimming in. So it's like you and I were were
immersed in our culture. And culture would be things like
the collection of the ways of working, or the language that we
use together, or the lexicon even that we use, or the rituals
and habits that we have on a daily basis, or the symbols or
symbols we use to identify who we are.
Your lingo, Your Dragons. Our values so those are all the
collection of what makes up a culture and then that once you
have that culture and you are operating inside your culture
linked to your mission and vision of where you're going,
what's your North star, what you want to accomplish, then you
connect your strategy to achieving that.
And so I think as a leader, we're in charge of all of those
things as founders, as C-Suite. And I think also truthfully,
it's leadership in every moment because there are people who are
appointed as a title leader. And I think actually leadership
is something that's just that dispersed through everyone and
that you have a moment to be a leader every single day, even if
you don't have the title of leader.
So maybe the leader with capital L, who's got the name leader in
their title, they're in charge of driving culture.
They're in charge of driving a strategy which is towards that
North star that they want to achieve.
And everyone has a role to be a leader every given moment, to
step up in the moment of requirement, to do the thing
that is important and is to do the right thing.
I like that. You know, for, for me, I, I
really don't like titles, right? Because, yeah, leadership for me
is more about leading by example, collaborative
leadership. What's important is not the
example of your power, but the power of your example, right?
To think about it, if your example is powerful, people
always take your example so you don't have to boss people
around. And that's why influence breeds
impact, right? I would argue that if you have
to boss people around, you actually don't have power.
Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, they are.
Intimidating people and people in my my history, you know who
you are. You know who you are, right?
If you acted like that in a room in front of me or my colleagues
or in front of hundreds of people, you actually didn't have
power at all. You were afraid and you were
acting out of fear. And those were behaviors that
were from your own fear inside, sadly.
So I kind of want to, I kind of want to hold them and say you're
OK, even though they might have done me dirty or done a whole
bunch of people I know dirty, but they would stand in front of
a room intimidating people. That's because they have a fear
inside and so. Not now you have earned you.
And by respect, I'll, I'll tell, I'll tell you something.
You. You've.
Earned it. You've earned it.
I will unlock it. Well, thank you.
And I have to say, I'm not a woman of faith yet.
I'm a woman who's extremely spiritual.
And I relate to this idea of the spirit that's channeling through
all of us. And I, but I look to you as a
man of faith and I, you know, from the scripts that you read
and the text that you read and the practice and your, you know,
culture of faith, you know, I do believe it's all about living
with love. And so love your enemy, even if
your enemy happens to be that really mean boss who made you
cry before the meeting and made you stand up in front of
everybody and pretend you are crying.
Love them and forgive them because they're just afraid.
Just love them and then know that you're going to keep going
forward and doing the right thing.
Yeah, you know something. But I, I always feel sorry for
those kind of people. I pity you, right?
Because I, I, I see this right in the real world.
In the real world. There is something as karma.
I do believe in karma. I am the predator and you're the
prey. I do believe in the.
Real world I. Believe in karma and I've seen
karma that those individuals, you know who you are.
You know, you know that you can only make threats.
When it's coming for. You when there's security there
to save you. So I think the point is where
you're you're going to pay, where do you pay?
Do you pay upfront or do you pay afterwards?
I think it might be more painful if you're paying afterwards
because you're going to in the process of falling from grace.
I think then that's when the karma comes is yeah.
And karma. Only from status.
I think that's really, it is like if you've had that big job
L with a leader with a capital L in your title, eventually your
job is going to leave you. You might leave the job, but the
job is also going to leave you. And those, the status that you
have in that role is also going to leave you.
And you better get right with who you are inside.
Because if you're not, all those things that you never dealt with
are coming back and. It's big time.
And so for those people that I know, they're going to get their
due, they're going to get their chance at dealing with all this
reckoning. I love you, I forgive you, and
you have your chance at experiencing your own pain.
Yeah. Well, Speaking of breakfast, you
know, there was a guy from some country, I'm not going to
mention a country. And he was telling me how, you
know, that I'm a gangster from this place.
I'm like, OK, interesting. It's a country in Europe.
I told him, hey, bro, I've been to your country.
I've been to the capital of that country and I I know, I know the
gangsters from there, right? You can't trust me.
But have you been to my country? He said no.
Like you've been to Lagos, right?
Yeah, I told me. I told you something.
Do you know what we do in Lagos? In Lagos, Nigeria?
We eat gangsters for breakfast. You can ask Jennifer.
She's been there. Yes they do.
In Lagos, we eat gangsters with the.
Side of okra soup I've seen. It I'm telling you.
With the side of okra soup and maybe a plate full of garden
slug, it's a. Thing be careful.
Be careful. All the cool kids in Legos are
having that for breakfast, so. I'm, I'm telling you like, OK,
don't, don't play. Don't play with the people that
are represented by this flag. Never, never.
No, I agree. It's never a good idea.
It's we only end in tears.
Yes. This is nice.
You're having a good time here, right?
Oh wow, I wish I had this side of Aqua soup.
You know, it's it's delicious. So.
I will. I have to confess, I did eat it
on several occasions. Oh wow, So what was your best
food today? I don't enjoy it.
You don't enjoy Aqua, No. I have.
I have to be very honest. Yeah, I love the honesty.
I didn't. I didn't eat Aqua.
It wasn't just I tasted it once I had I had many bowls because I
I love. I think that's part of what's
the exciting part about visiting other cultures is did you?
Try the seafood option Seafood Aqua.
What? What did you try?
The seafood Aqua? No, I only had just the good old
so fried okra. Give it to me day and night.
I can't get enough of it. Fried, fried okra, yes, please,
I'll eat it right now. Okra soup again, I had multiple
bowls of it and multiple days and multiple meals thinking, oh,
well, maybe it was just this restaurant that I didn't like or
maybe at this place I didn't like.
It wasn't my preference because the way that the consistency,
the way that it. You know.
Taste is OK, but it's the way that it's kind of gelatinous.
Yeah. Deli or slime, It's kind of a
slime. I mean, you know, it's kind of a
slimy soup, so I didn't love it, but what I did enjoy, I really
enjoyed having the slugs. I thought it was great, like I
had a whole plate, many plates of slugs.
I lot thought they were fantastic And please help me
remind me. I think it's.
I want the I can see. White like porridge that's dry,
that you serve, that's. Oh, pounded yam.
Yes. Oh God, yes.
I. Literally eat.
I could eat that every single day.
It was slow. The pounded yam.
That is a dope. Oh, I could have eaten that and
I still could. Like, I could eat that today.
I wouldn't. Like, I would have ordered that
right now. I was so good, yeah.
I have a doctor friend of mine and you know, like, what are two
other food one day And he was like, oh man, I don't want to
eat pounded Yum. It's got so much, so much
calories. It's going to make me feel
heavy. So for a minute, what's tell me
I'm just going to. Audit, it tastes nice.
It's like comfort food. It's in the American South.
We have foods that we call comfort food, which are all
about like the potatoes with the fried foods.
So the pound of yam is like Nigerian comfort food.
Like I would imagine it's the thing that like mom, please make
me pounded yam because I'm going to feel loved.
I'm going to feel I'm going to feel cared for by you and I'm
going to feel cozy. So give me that food like
that's, that's the food. It's good.
Did you try jollof rice? Which?
Jollof Rice. I may have, I don't recall.
The rice that is. Yeah, it's red.
It's just like, yeah. Oh yes, Oh my gosh, yes, so
good. Like every everybody likes that.
So good. I wonder why do I only give you
awkward soup? But how about ecracy?
Did you ever try something called Ecosy?
It's like yellow with like green leaves.
It's a. Soup.
Yeah, Yes. The yellow one, that one, it has
a good consistency. It's.
Yeah, the texture is. Yeah, I really like that too.
I could eat a lot of that. The grape veggies like.
Super. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Veggies. And then there's another one
called an FRB row. That one is just yeah, green
veggies. It's a pretty much a mixture of
vegetables and it can be quite hot.
You know, a lot of the things are spicy, so like, how do you
cope with a spice? You just have a piece of bread
nearby and you smile really large.
Really something I brought back was the dried meat that was
super spiced. Like so good, so good.
On the road back I need to have some.
Right now I have some. Have a bite, have a bite, and if
you're me, have a little piece of bread nearby that you can
dampen the pain. But have a bite and enjoy some.
Bread. Have some bread.
Just be ready. Yeah.
Show me the package. Hold it up.
Let's see it. Yeah.
Is that? Wait, hold it up again.
Is that package blue? Is that package?
Yes, it's not blue. It's wrapped in something blue.
Yeah. That's so good.
It's.
This is what are you talking about.
That's exactly what I'm talking. About I'm sorry, I'm going to
send you some. Yeah, yeah.
You speak about a friend that you lost.
And again, I'm sorry that you lost your dear friend when you
were so young. And I lost a dear friend two
years ago and he teased me about okra soup.
He teased me about eating it. He just was so absolutely
disgusted by the description that I gave of him.
I gave him of that. And so when you brought that
meat out, I think I remember trying that meat and giving him
some. When I came back from my dear,
he did not appreciate it at all. Might this dear friend of mine
died two years ago and he always sends me little messages in the
color blue. So for example, this book called
Solve for Happy would be a book you would have loved.
He shows up to me in the color blue.
And you when you pulled out the packaging and it was blue, I
said, Oh my gosh, this is my friend giving me, you know,
winking at me, winking at me and laughing.
This is him saying a little message of I'm here.
So thank you for visiting. Thank you for visiting our
wonderful podcast. And you're right, soup, miss.
I hope you're having an open soup in heaven, my dear friend.
Probably. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully so
hopefully so, you know, it's interesting and life how like
certain moments like give you certain memories.
But it's good to be open. And yeah, some people think
being open is you've been vulnerable, but yeah, you're all
human beings. Yeah, you'll be allowed to be
vulnerable. Yeah, last time I checked, you
know, we're not machines, so. Yeah, exactly.
We are. We are humans, emotional animals
or animals driven by emotion. This, this dear friend of mine
was also a neurosurgeon and like a brain surgeon for real life.
Brain surgeon and the neuroscientist and he would say
the brain is the only organ in our body that if my brain is
sick, like if, if I, if my liver is sick, your liver won't be
sick, but if my brain is sick, your, your brain could get sick
too. And so this idea of the
connectedness we have between people and the vulnerability
that we have that could actually create vulnerability in other
people or like we talked about earlier, leadership culture.
I can bring improve the culture any given day.
I can be a leader even without capital.
Li could be a leader. I can be as someone who spreads
joy and brings the weather as well.
Guess what? Speaking of neurosurgeons, this
is August, right? Yes, I think on September 1 we
have a neurosurgeon from Stanford University.
Oh wow. Expected to be on this podcast.
Okay. I say.
Well, congratulations, that's so exciting.
I can't wait to listen to that episode.
Definitely. I'll let you do as soon as it's
out. Yeah.
So yeah, yeah, good luck to you. We have that apartment.
Well, I mean, thank you so. Much for having us
interconnected, yeah. Everything, everything is
connected. Nothing is accidental.
Everything is by design and interconnected.
So I'm so grateful that you have me on your show.
So thank you so much and thank you for making me very envious
about your little snack. Let's go.
Very envious, Very envious, very envious.
You need to receive that Jerry again.
Yeah, it will happen. I'm absolutely certain it will
happen. There's no question it will.
So yeah. But OK, my next question right
now is, have you ever faced relapse situation wherein your
strategy is faced with resistance And how did you use
collaboration or perhaps some improv to turn it around?
I mean, strategy is only as good as, you know, the people that
built it and the people who can implement it.
So you might have the most perfect strategy and you realize
when it gets to implementation, you don't have the numbers, you
don't have the resources, you don't have the capability.
You know, you just when I say numbers, I mean numbers of
people or the people who know how to do it.
Look at what I have on my back. Push through.
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Exactly.
So there's some pain. There might be some.
Everyone read the the words behind.
So it could be that they're all those things in your team are
not capable or it could be all the circumstances that drove the
strategy have changed. And so I think every decision we
make, we can only hope to make the best decision with the data
that's in front of us, so that that we can only make the best
strategy with the data that informs it.
And when that data changes, so when the circumstances change
about the thing that they, the thing that's outside of you that
you're trying to get or grow, etcetera, you got to change your
strategy. And if you realize you've got
the wrong people, then you need to fix the people, fix change,
etcetera. And so the world of improv is
very useful in that improv like business, same thing.
We're both creating something from nothing always.
So you develop a strategy in business, you develop a business
itself, you develop a show. When you're doing a show in
improv, entertaining someone, you start with nothing.
So you get the suggestions, you gather data from the audience,
you gather data from the market, whatever.
And then you create something new.
And in order to be able to be creating effectively and then
making the thing, you have to be hyper connected with each other.
In order to be hyper connected, you have to trust each other,
you have to listen. And as an individual, you have
to be hyper focused, then you have to listen so and you say
yes. And so you keep building
everything as you go. So I think they're 100%
interconnected. I have been running a comedy
school here in Basel for the last four years and we perform
on a, on a monthly or more than more than more often than
monthly basis. And we're often coaching senior
executives like yourself, like that, your listeners on how to
use these tools of improv comedy and the tools of theatre improv,
improvisational theatre to make something new.
So it could be new business model, It could be how to have
better executive presence. It could be fighting imposter
syndrome, which makes you feel so unsure or afraid.
Like we could talk about those people before who are yelling at
people in front of large groups of large audiences.
These are things that can fundamentally support you in
your leadership journey. So I'm so grateful to be doing
that because it's it's fun. It's first of all, it's fun.
It's just a heightened way to live, really.
I, I, I love the fact that you talk about impulsive syndrome,
right? And when you look at the
Kingdom's podcast, it's all about #1 world's mindset.
Yes to leadership. #3 yes. Inside mindset is very, very
important to me. It's at the heart of the the
body of work that I have put together.
Mindset also influences your storytelling, improves about
storytelling. Yes, if you do basically a
storytelling, but not just storytelling, storytelling to
create an impact. Yes.
That's what's set to your power. But what?
What would you say generally people need to do in terms of
their mindset to adopt A growth mindset so that they can succeed
at anything that they do in their lives, whether it's a
business or sports, whatever it is that you do, Yeah.
So I'm going to use the rules of improv to because I'm going to
rely on that as my toolbox that I used to have my own growth
mindset and that I often teach the growth mindset.
There's not a lot. There's four of them.
So rule #1 yes. And so yes means you say yes.
It doesn't mean that agree. It means sometimes in the world
of business, yes, I heard you. And I'm going to keep building.
So keep using yes and don't use yes.
But I'm sure you've been in lots of rooms where people say, yes,
this is a great strategy, but all right, we all know someone
who's done that. And it kills your collaboration,
it kills the energy, etcetera. So rather say yes.
And, and you can keep that, that mood light, you can keep the
creation going. So that's part of the yes.
And mindset is part of the growth mindset #2 listen 2 ears,
one mouth, right? So listen for a reason.
I tell people there are four language skills you can, at
least in reading, writing. Yeah.
So say yes and listen with all of your ears.
Serve. So don't be a diva.
Serve other people. So as a leader especially,
you're there to get the best out of your people.
And it's you as the the glory that you have is rather
irrelevant. You need to get stuff done
through other people. So therefore you need to lift
them and serve them. So lift them to their highest
potential. Lift them, grow them, teach
them. Know that without your team, you
are nothing. So continue to serve as a
leader. And then the last one is accept
that you will fail and actually push yourself into situations
where you can fail and fail with joy and know that you're going
to fail and you're going to just keep building.
When you fail, you realize one of the 99 things that that won't
work. So now you've got you've got 100
tries. You get a failure for the 1st 30
times. My gosh, you still have 7
possible 70. Fail and fail fast.
Fail fast. Get.
Get up. Take yourself up.
Dust yourself off. Keep going.
Yeah, I love that a lot. And yeah, everybody who knows me
knows that's what the life I am about.
I'm never afraid to feel like I won't be the first person to
feel or something. I'm not going to be the last
person. So why am I sad?
But each other is people who succeed at things that people
who are good at many other things.
Yeah, absolutely. As a clean slate.
Yeah, but you got it, right. You got it.
You got the four things. You got it.
Go for it. Wow, it's been really, really
great, you know, having you today.
I've had a lot of fun and you know you, you are an inspiration
to the younger generation. When we look at the show, we
look at the demographics from the back end.
On Spotify, majority of people who listen to this show or what
to show are millennials between the ages of 28 to 44.
The form about 75% of the listenership of this show.
So you are speaking to young professionals, young
entrepreneurs and you are making an impact in, you know, the
lives of the people that are shaping the next generation.
So it's, it's a very big, I won't let you leave without, you
know, you being a big sister to, you know, the aspiring young
women out there to what's your, your, would I say your advice,
right, to young professionals, especially the females, right,
who aspire to be in leadership roles, you know, in business.
Yeah, I, I think the four things I said before, Yes.
And listen, serve and fail, fail with joy and fail fast.
That applies to you ladies as well.
Now the other thing I'm going to say, gentlemen, plug your ears.
Now, ladies, girls, let's talk. The most important decision that
you're going to make for the future of your career is who you
decide to have as a life partner.
Whether that is a charming man, a charming woman, a charming
they whichever whomever you're going to be partnering with the
he, she, they, them, that decision you're making is the
most important decision that you're making.
And I don't mean that from like a sentimental, oh, how sweet.
It's that that person is going to influence possibly where you
live, how you live, if you have children together, the future of
your genetic code that's being passed on, and also whether
you're going to have help when you are having children and
whether you're having a career. You need that person to be your
copilot and your person who celebrates you and every
decision you're making if you're young.
Microsoft is going to be happy with you, Copilot.
Go by. Microsoft's Copilot.
Copilot this episode. Guys, guys, you need the
president is going to be your GPT.
Copilot. But really, ladies, it's really
important to find someone who's going to support you because
you've you're here, you're listening, you're building your
career, you're building your empire, you've educated
yourself. Keep learning.
Don't stop and know that the people that you surround
yourself with, likely a romantic partner, will influence so much
that you end up the opportunities you have in your
life. So go get it.
Choose well, choose wisely, and not that you shouldn't choose,
choose for sure, but choose wisely and know that that person
needs to be able to support you in all those decisions you can
to go be the master of your life and master of your business.
That's a good advice. In that case, quick fire around.
I'm going to put you through the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. 5 questions
in one unit. SO1 book every leader should
read What one book? One book that every leader
should read. Emotional Business by Ravi Rao.
OK. Emotional Business by Ravi Rao.
Nice voice, the best advice you ever received in your career.
Going. Keep going.
Give up, just keep going. I don't know going consistency
is I. Think over the different over
the different phases or seasons of my career.
I think there's different advice that I received that helped me
keep going. And I think it's really trust
yourself like you are, you're, you're making all this up,
you're driving all this. You are the creator of your life
and trust that inner voice that you have.
And I think often in my own life and many people I know, they
didn't trust that inner voice. So trust, trust that inner voice
because that's your intuition telling you what's good for you
and what's bad for you. So trust that inner voice and go
with it. Tea or something stronger?
Coffee. OK, right now it's 8:00 at
night. I am dreaming and I'm not
kidding. I'm dreaming of my coffee
tomorrow morning because there's nothing.
I love coffee. I could drink it all day, and if
I the experience of the first coffee in the morning, double
shot espresso, maybe with a little bit of coconut cream.
Pretty good. That experience of the taste,
the texture, the feeling, the experience, the jolt from that
first coffee. I wish I could be like that all
day. I see say no more.
I see less. I'm dreaming about literally,
you're not making one have a coffee right now because now
then I won't sleep. But I want, I want, I want
tomorrow morning's coffee right now.
OK, so if you could have a coffee date with any three
people, dead or alive, who would?
Those people. Be any three people.
Oprah Winfrey. Miss Oprah.
Please Miss Oprah. She is like my North Star.
I'll have Oprah. Winfrey on this one.
And, and I mean, really, I rehearsed the day that we're
going to meet. I'm always like, Oprah, come on,
it's a joke between you and me. No, Oprah, I know.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Oprah.
I know, but it's between you and me.
I know, GAIL. I know.
It's it's funny. But Oprah.
Yes. So I rehearsed the for the day
we're meeting and we're friends. So Oprah, please.
And then I'm going to say I, I mentioned when we were starting,
I really love musical theater. I really, really love musical
theater. And I would love to meet with
Oprah and Lin Manuel Miranda, who is a playwright in America.
He's from the, he's from Puerto and he no, so is it Dominican?
He's anyway from the Caribbean and he has written some of the
most influential theater pieces this Millennium, which are just
great pieces of art. And they because of his pieces
of art, he has inspired people to learn history in a new and
different way and look at our current life through a lens of
history that's unique for today. So I would love to sit down and
talk to him and get his creative process and get his mission and
vision. Would love that.
And then I think the last one would probably be our dear
brother, Nelson Mandela. Truly a long walk to freedom as
a leader, as a as an activist, as a leader, as a man of God who
is able to endure all he did he and watch his people, his
colleagues, his community crumble and still have the
fortitude to forgive and to turn a turn a moment of which could
have been potentially bitterness, anger, retribution,
into forgiveness, love and leadership.
I would love to talk to him about that journey and just to
be in his presence. There are people who have met
him. I never got a chance to meet.
I met Kofi Annan, who had that kind of vibe.
You've. Got Kofi Annan.
I met Kofi Annan and. You have something interesting.
He's really, he had that vibe of like he's, he's a good person.
So I understand that people who met Nelson Mandela had that
feeling like you were in the presence of someone who truly
was channeling love in a way that you could never, never not
experience. I would, I would love to talk to
him. Wow.
Yeah, he passed. OK.
The interesting stuff I'm going to confirm to you is that both
Iana and Attisha the same birthday with me, I was born
April 8th, 1938 and I was born April 8th, 1992.
So you're in the presence of greatness.
So it's a passing of the bottom. I am was certainly in the
presence of greatness. That's fantastic.
Yeah, wow. Yeah, I have some like
interesting, but they made Kofi Annan April 8.
That's who you would be with. That's who you have coffee with.
Who you? Have I, I need to, I need to
find a, a number of 8.8 guys to have coffee with baby Robert
Kiyosaki, Kofi Aden and I'll find one more.
OK, Myself. Myself.
That's three, Three. Yeah, this 32 is a company, 3 is
a crowd there. You go, there you go. 4 is
complicated, so 3 is better. That's complicated.
OK, what's one word that sums up your life philosophy?
Joy. Joy.
OK, I love that. Yeah, joy is.
It's very important because joy is different from happiness.
Joy is actually deep. Well, a lot of people tend to,
would I say, mistake joy for happiness.
They're two different things. Joy.
Joy is deep. It's would I say it's more long
lived or happiness is more short lived?
Yeah, yeah, I love that bro. So now let me keep the joy.
But you. Keep the.
Joy, maybe. Maybe the happiness, the
happiness is going out the window because it's it's the end
of the show. But for me, it's love and
respect to you, of course. Yeah, this has been a great
time. Great impacts, great
conversations, great connections.
And you know, guys, guys out there, do the needful like,
share comments, subscribe. And of course, I will keep
working tirelessly to bring in great individuals like Jennifer
Kane. And of course, if you don't, if
you don't share it, if you're going to see me in your dreams
and I'm going to break your nose like a birth mouse.
Now I'm very afraid. Thank you very much for putting.
Me on your show, I'm so grateful.
It was a wonderful conversation. Do you have anybody want to have
a shout to give a shout out to you?
Anyone I want to give a shout out to?
Yeah, I just think in the spirit of the older people we serve, we
are here every day. We love serving you and it is
just a delight to know that we make your life a little better
every single day. OK, so love and respect to you
the audience that of course keep going for something in your
life. Always go for something in your
life. Conceive, believe, strive to
thrive and go achieve. Bless you guys.
For me it is goodbye and of course from Jennifer, it is good
night.