Leading With Heart Through Crisis With Sanjiv Patel

Resilience isn't about pushing through burnout. It's about aligning your business decisions with your personal values. In this episode, Sanjiv Patel, entrepreneur, board advisor, and leadership coach, joins Adam Markel to discuss the reality of leading with heart when the path forward is unclear. They explore the critical difference between reactive leadership and conscious, authentic choices. You’ll learn how to navigate professional crises without sacrificing your integrity. We also break down how to manage your cognitive load and reclaim your role as the CEO of your own life. Stop letting external narratives drive your decisions and start building a foundation of systemic recovery today.

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Show Notes:

01:37 01:27 - Why You Must Lead With Your Heart

14:0714:09 - The Real Cost of Unethical Business

16:40 16:48 - Authenticity Over Corporate Masks

26:06 26:40 - The Power of the Pause

32:13 32:24 - Navigating Media Storms and Trauma

40:59 40:45 - Detox Your Digital Life

50:13 49:04 - You Always Have A Choice

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How do we leverage continuous uncertainty to thrive in this unprecedented new world?

The answer is to build the resilience we need to power us through the challenges we face so that we become “Change Proof.” Prepare to tackle the future with confidence by reading Adam’s latest book Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-Term Resilience.

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Leading With Heart Through Crisis With Sanjiv Patel

Everyone, welcome back to another episode of the show. You're going to love the guest that I have in store for you. I'm going to read his bio and then jump right in. Sanjiv Patel is an entrepreneur, board advisor, leadership coach, and creator of the show, Just Another Lens, where he explores the real stories behind resilience, purpose, and human reinvention.

He's built businesses, led one of the world's most impactful alumni mentoring programs, and most recently stepped into the global spotlight as advisor and spokesperson for the sole survivor and families of the Air India 171 tragedy. With a career shaped by navigating change at every level, personal, organizational, and societal, Sanjiv brings a powerful human-first perspective on what it truly takes to rise and lead in uncertain times. Sit back and welcome Sanjiv Patel.

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Sanjiv, I read your bio. I shared with our audience a bit about you. My first question just out of the gate. What is one thing that is not a part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you at the beginning of this conversation?

Firstly, thank you so much for having me on your show. That's a tough starter. What's in there that they do not know about me? Fun fact. I have lots of interests. I do not define myself by a title. Hence, that's how you'll see me doing lots of things. I go where my heart leads me, where my gut takes me, and I find passion and purpose aligned. I do everything from teaching young children in the community to championing lost causes where I feel that people do not have a voice, and I go and champion those. I tend to find myself involved in all sorts of places. By chance, by being in the right place at the right time. I always, as I said, lead with a heart. 

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How long would you say you could track that back to? What's the earliest point in your life did you start doing that?

From my earliest days, if I'm honest. I come from a migrant family. My parents were all settled in colonial Kenya as it was. When I was a little puppy, about four months old, they had to shut up shop and leave and come to the UK and establish home here. In those early days, it was very much a matter of survival. Parents used to work every hour God sends. I have an older brother who is an absolute extrovert, whereas I was much more the reflective person.

I remember always tuning in to worry about how people are doing, checking in on people, whether that's my parents, my immediate family. I just evolved into this person through the community and the extended family that people turn to when there's something a bit complicated or delicate. From my earliest childhood.

Specifically following your heart. If I count the times, or I should say I probably cannot count the times because it's been too many to count, that I provided that as a piece of advice when asked, what's one thing that you would say to young entrepreneurs or young leaders or anyone really in life. Usually I'm being asked these questions in a business context. What is that one piece of advice? It's always been to follow your heart, to follow inner guidance, follow your instincts, and the like. Has that always been the case for you? When did you recognize that you were actually even doing that?

Again, that's a great question because I was torn. The inside of me wanted to follow my heart, but I come from a family background where my parents, my father, had a distinct pathway to get by in the world. You will not be surprised to hear, I'm sure audiences have heard a lot of times, the traditional way. Get a good education, work hard, do not complain, keep your head down. The only way to get ahead is to go to university. You have to do these subjects. I went down that path, but I really didn't enjoy it. It wasn't me feeling this is my path, but I was going down that path because I just felt I had to, because my father didn't really give me much of an option.

I found myself at a turning point. I guess I ended up at a prestigious university studying something that I found absolutely boring, brain-deadening. It's one of those things, but I used to just muck through, work hard enough just to get through. It didn't give me any satisfaction or pride. I found myself at the end of that undergrad degree with a degree that on paper really was not much use to get myself into industry because I just scraped through.

Fortunately, I found myself with a graduate opportunity, and I decided at that moment, I'm going to be the best person, the best version of me, the authentic version of me as far as that world's concerned at least. I guess that's the first time I noticed myself going, I'm going to follow my heart and be true to myself.

I asked that question because I was curious how much commonality there might be between you and me in that. For me, I give that advice, or I've given that advice, because I know it is probably the best advice that I've ever taken. When I do actually take that advice myself, things tend to work out well in the end, whatever the end is. At some point, you look back and go, “That was a good decision.”

I too did not follow that, or that wasn't a guiding principle for me and the organization of some areas of my life, in particular business areas, for a long time. Probably for at least fifteen years, I ignored all the signs of being tired and hurried all the time and also agitated. Just things that were. As you build something and you get some results and create some success, you would think that it would feel good, and at times it did feel good, but more times than not, it felt something.

It felt differently. Again, my rationalization was this is what you do. This is the price of admission, and you just suck it up and grit it out. There are a lot of people that think that's their genetic makeup, not literally, maybe so from programming and parents, but it was certainly the environment that we were raised in. You follow along. I think that environment has changed.

The pandemic was a pivotal point for that to be seen. The changes were occurring long before that, but that, I think, put it under the microscope that people no longer were willing to accept some mediocrity or accept someone else's vision for what their life should look like. You are an entrepreneur. Tell us a little bit about what that is, because the entrepreneur's journey is atypical. 

In the United States, it's more typical, but I think in the world, it's more atypical. What's it been like for you? Let's lead into a discussion of what's happening in the world of business today, vis-a-vis what we've been discussing. How are these things influencing business operations and culture and demographics, the shift in how younger demographics are seeing this idea of their purpose and the value of their work, but also how it feels to do that work. That equation is different for them. I want to dig into that. What's your entrepreneurial journey been like?

Firstly, when you were describing the fifteen-year journey in business before you actually got to that stage, you made me reflect on my journey. When I described the first time I started saying, “I'm going to lead with my heart.” I wasn't quite free of the shackles. I was being my own boss, I guess. I started off in banking. What I thought was going to be an agent of change as they sold it to me, I realized pretty quickly that actually I'm sitting there with handcuffs on and having to play a corporate narrative that doesn't resonate inside. I'm the type of person, if I commit to something, if I believe in something, I'll go for it.

If somebody gives me the tools to help somebody, I will go out and do that. I was held back in that environment. I jumped ship, and I went into, that's where the entrepreneurial journey started. From a zero starting base, I went into wealth management because that's my starting point. It's a good thing, in hindsight, that if people want to jump into entrepreneurship, they try something rather than something radically different to what they already know. Start with something you do know. That's how it started. That soon got me to a stage where financially I was successful. Everything was there. 

If you like the trappings and the lifestyle, but something inside me just felt like something was missing. That led me on to explore stretching myself, understanding myself against others around in the world. I went on this journey of an executive MBA at one of the top business schools in Europe and in the world. Through that journey, it really was about feeding off the energy of like-minded people who are in similar transitions in their lives and then to see where that took me. Now, where that took me led me to find out more about myself than I've ever learned in my life during that period.

Midway through that journey, you're an agent, you're somebody who's an open thinker, who's surrounded by people who are excited about transformation, making pivotal changes. I got approached by somebody from a telco background. I was from financial services. My old narrative would be, if I do not have the education or training for this world, I cannot go into that. My journey through the MBA said, “These are transferable skills. What do I do? What can I do that's transferable?” What really sold me on this idea was being part of something massive, something global, where I can make an impact on a global scale.

Financially, the numbers look fantastic on this business plan that was presented to me. The journey was anything but smooth, though. At the last minute of this management buyout, the parent company went into bankruptcy protection. The guy who had approached me to start this off said, “Listen, what do you want to do?” I said, “Listen, if we believe our business idea, we believe the plan, which I guess I did, let's make it happen. Let's put our own money in.” He pulled across a third partner, a third investor director, and we started this journey.

Business isn't a smooth curve. You see all these graphs. Business is on a straight line. Trust me, this is like walking through a hurricane. It was that journey every single day, some new curve or some new dramatic situation. We kept going, and we got to this stage where everything suddenly seemed to line up. We had a route to market that was going to basically mean. How many customers do we want? Is this a matter of time? We put the target in, and we had all these global outsourcing companies that were going to acquire for us our pricing model. Happy days. I thought to myself, “All of that hard work, the sleepless nights, the sacrifices we've made, this is what it was all about.”

I looked in the rearview mirror, thinking of my journey from university through there to here. This was what it was all about. I was also clear that I wanted to do business in an ethical way. What I'd experienced along the journey up until then in my interactions with people is people didn't have a problem shortcutting someone along the journey to success. I was determined to prove that it didn't have to be that way. This is why it becomes important. At this pivotal moment, one day this chap takes me for a walk at lunchtime, and he says, “Sanjiv, you and I make this business tick.” “Yes, true.”

He said, “This is what I'm suggesting. There's this partner in a large law firm. He wants to be part of this. He wants part of the action. He's a good friend of mine, and he wants to invest.” I went, “We do not need the money. Sure, I'm open to listening.” He played the rest of the equation to me. He said, “The way it would work is this money would come into the business, and that third director shareholder who joined forces with us at the beginning, he needs to go for a walk. He's going to leave.” I went, “What do you mean?” He said, “He doesn't bring the same value as you and me. He's going to hand over his shares to the investor, and the investor's money comes into the business.

Let's make this clear. He walks away without a penny. The money comes into the business, and he thinks that's a good equation.” I said, “That doesn't work for me.” He said, “This is how big business works.” I said, “I do not really care how big business works. This is how I work. I cannot see if he wants to be sold out or bought out. Sure, buy him out. I'm not going to force him out. I'm certainly not going to force him out without getting fair value for whatever the business is worth for his share.” That then became, pause that conversation.

A couple of days later, while everything was lining up, by the way, for our launch, for our big launch now, he took me for another walk, and he showed me two contracts, two employer or employee director contracts. He said, “Look, all of these expense contracts, this is yours, this is mine. It's lucrative. It has company cards, credit cards, all the perks. You sign mine, I sign yours, and let's do this.” He dangled a carrot that basically he felt would make me go against my morals, my values. Given I'd worked harder than I'd ever worked, I'd maxed out my credit cards, I'd sold all sorts of assets to get to this stage in business, I didn't have a second thought but to say “No, I cannot do this.”  

It came to a head two days before he and I were due to fly out to the launch operation, where he called an emergency board meeting and he went, “He created some scenario where the other partner wasn't performing his duties as a company secretary. We need to suspend him. I knew where this was coming from, so I wouldn't play ball.” He stormed out of the office. We're looking at each other thinking, “What's going on here?” It didn't stop there. The next day we walked into the office. The doors had been broken into, and the hard drives from our computers had been ripped out.

Fax machines had been redated, re-stamped, and our core data had been stolen. That was the start of the most difficult 2 or 3 years of my life because he sent poison emails to our suppliers and banks alleging all sorts of misconduct. We couldn't get rid of him because of some naive decision we made when we wrote the shareholders' agreement that meant that we had to have his permission, so unanimity of shareholders to remove a director. Naive in the highest sense, right? I didn't think of it at the time. It was just to protect everybody. I said, “Sure, I agree with this.” That journey, at the end of that, I realized that money didn't motivate me.

I didn't need to wear a mask to pretend to be something corporate. What really was at the heart of me was my values, living congruently and making a difference. It was a struggle, but I realized that the best version of me was that authentic self. From that day onwards, I walk into meetings like this, not necessarily suited and booted. I walk in there authentically as who I am. I made a conscious decision that if I cannot be who I am in every scenario, wherever I am, then I'm not in the right place. That is where it all started, where it actually went full-blown authentic me.

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Thank you for getting into the weeds of it with us, because I think so often we hear these stories of the pivot. I wrote a book with that title some years ago about reinvention. We hear them at a high level. The nitty-gritty of it, what I think we can relate to more, is in those smaller details. Anybody tuning into this could imagine themselves in that situation and the pain and the consequences of that decision that you made. 

There's plenty of paved road, well-traveled paths of people that would have gone along, especially if it benefited them, and been able to sort of rationalize and sleep with the decision that this is the best thing and whatnot. To be so contrarian, to pay the price for it in time and money and aggravation and stress and all that, takes a moral courage and fortitude that most of us, I think in many instances, do not have. It's wonderful to hear a story of someone who has had that fortitude.

I know for me, it took a great deal of pain before I had that fortitude to make the change. I left the formal practice of law after almost twenty years as a result of just that ongoing repetitive pain point. The marketplace right now is an interesting one because there was a period during the pandemic, a period where people were resigning from work because they were not willing to go along with some of the things that were not sitting well for them. There was a strong enough market that they could find work elsewhere and were okay today.

That was the period called the Great Resignation. Now the new term that has been used recently is one of job-hugging. People holding onto jobs that they do not really love and they do not feel suit them perhaps, but the market being what it is, they are nonetheless holding onto those jobs. You work in coaching. I'm curious, are you coaching the employees to help them in terms of their personal evolution, their transformation as individual leaders and even as just people, or do you find yourself more on the business side of things, the management side of things when it comes to that focus of coaching?

I'm just curious. I do not want to make it an us-and-them thing. Everybody's dealing with that, but it doesn't matter at what level you're at. You have these forks in the road where you have to make a decision. Again, all this started with this instruction to follow your heart. I'm curious, is that an element of your coaching, and who do you find yourself spending most time coaching these days? 

My coaching style is very human-centric. I have this business experience, I have the business knowledge, and I constantly read to try and stretch my mind and take in new input and new knowledge. We have to be lifelong learners. I very much bring myself to people wherever they are in that spectrum and especially with leaders. Leaders now, they find themselves on this treadmill, find themselves often doing things because they're conditioned to. They do not necessarily resonate with it. They do not necessarily find the purpose with that.

They come to me often with questions that are symptoms rather than what they should be addressing. When I approach a complex situation, a client approaches me, the first thing I do is stand back through all of the storms I've navigated, including a near-death experience with COVID early doors. What's held true to me is the ability, through the storm, to cut out the noise and be able to focus with clarity and calm.

Whether that's individuals navigating their journey, I've been fortunate enough to train people from across the world and at different stages of their career. Quite often the business leaders are the people you really need to get inside of because if you can help them think differently, the impact of that transforms the way the organization operates.

I very truly believe passionately when I sit on boards, and I advise people at that end of the spectrum to really stop and rethink and reevaluate where they are in their lives because very few people create that space or have the freedom or luxury to do it. I'm that luxury that goes, “Listen, I'll help you. Let's do this one-to-one or one to many.” The magic that happens through that, I'm sure you've experienced a million times, a gazillion times, simply just tuning everything out and getting people to reflect, describe their world, their scenario.

Outside of the business, helps them recalibrate how they're interacting with people. Start from inside, I would say you've got to start with the person inside for any change. You evaluate that to then evaluate the environment, which is the organization, and then the global environment around you. If we've learned anything since COVID and the last few years, there is no certainty in life. 

We're surrounded by shock after shock after shock. Black swan events are, I think, a norm now. I do not think they can be called black swans anymore. If you can embrace that change, if you can have a mindset that goes, “I came with nothing, I go with nothing. In the meantime, the people I love, the people around me, the people I have responsibility for.” Treat them as humans. Have that human-centric approach to leadership. I created a model called the HEALS model. I can share that with you if you'd like to, but that's my approach. People in mid-career to senior career, to try and get them to be the transformational leaders of the future and today.

It may well be that the best thing to do is to have you share that. My question, the question that was percolating for me a while ago, is there one particular piece of advice that you have given to leaders or given to your clients over and over again? I say that because having been a business mentor and having spent a lot of time, as you say, I've been a lot of time with people in leadership roles, there are some things that you tend to lean on as the right advice over time.

Not every piece of advice over time proves to be equal. Some just are more impactful than others. I'm thinking of one particular thing that I typically will recommend, but that's what's the genesis for my question to you. Is there one thing that you more often than not will say to a leader, knowing that that's as good as good advice as you can possibly give?

I'll give you two elements of that. One is certainly the starting side. Start with you. Instead of looking for problems and what's the problem outside, start with you, assess yourself objectively. You might need a few good people around you. Surround yourself with a small number of good people that you can trust, who will keep you accountable, who will give you an honest answer, and that you'll trust. The other thing is, you do not have to have all the answers as a leader.

Being vulnerable enough to go, I do not know, having the courage to look at a situation and not just follow the herd, but stand back and objectively re-look at everything. If it means sometimes destroying what you've been working on all this time because you got it wrong, be brave enough to do that. Starting inside, it always starts on the inside. Understand what's driving you. Is it emotion? Is it fear? Is it whatever those things are? How we are in our own worlds tends to translate into how we react or interact with the rest of the world around us.

A great person, a great leader, somebody who's calm, balanced, and reflective. Creating space for your people without fear. If you can create an environment where people are not fearful of you, they feel safe around you, then they're more likely to be open, more likely to explore and innovate without fear of the consequences, because I think that's how innovation, entrepreneurship, navigating, and agility all come out of that culture and environment.

Makes perfect sense. I'll answer the same question I asked you, which is to me, the advice I lean on more heavily again and again is something we refer to as the PAC method, the PAC method, but it's simply to pause, to ask, and to choose. The pause piece is why I was thinking about it. Listening to you is how important that pause is. We're so quick. The world is sped up.

Everything is speeding up the pace. The velocity of change, of technology, of so many things is greater than it ever was. The tendency, I think, is that we are a reflection of that in every area. Especially in our thinking and our processing of not only our thoughts, but of the feedback and the inputs that are all around us. To slow someone down, to be very intentional about pausing, to get to a place of neutrality, if you will.

To remove judgment, to not see things as good or bad or right or wrong or fair or unfair in the moment, to be able to breathe, sit, be in your body, just experience some neutrality or some stillness, even for a moment. I'm not talking about 10 minutes or 20 minutes. Some people can do that. That's amazing. That's skill and something that's worth practicing. Even to just get to that space, where you can pause for a moment so that you can consciously ask some questions and allow there to be clarity or for some new information to emerge, because instead of leaning into an answer or being reactive in the moment because you know what's being triggered in you and your feelings, etc.

Letting that drive things to ask questions, to be humble in that moment, to not move forward without more information is one of the most powerful things to be able to then choose to then decide, “I've got enough information right now, I understand enough to be able to respond,” or “I do not have enough information, I do not know enough, I'm not clear enough in my understanding to be able to then make a choice.”

It's just a very powerful tool that you can rinse and repeat over and over again, especially when you feel a good sign is emotions. A good sign is tension in your body, right? A good sign is not knowing immediately how you feel about something, but then feeling that wave of emotion come. I should be offended. I should be angry about this. I should be upset. I should do something. I should hold somebody accountable. Whatever it is. Those are good signs that you're in a reactive state versus a state where you've gone through a process that allows you to come out the other end better equipped to make decisions. 

Ultimately, the quality of our lives is equal to the quality of decisions we make. Certainly, that applies to leaders and business decisions as well. Sanjiv, I know that you have been a trusted advisor to many, and I want to bring something up now because you said earlier that there are events that happen and some of them are very unexpected. I too do not believe in black swan events. It's not what I think of in terms of the organization of the universe, but that's a side.

There was a recent crash, a terrible tragedy, the Air India crash. Many people have heard about it. The plane that went down, where there was a single sole survivor, probably jogs people's memory if they're trying to figure out which plane crashed, since there have been any number of them and doors falling off and every other manner of thing. You've been an advisor to that sole surviving passenger as well as to other families, right?

I have.

Can you share anything? I obviously do not want to break any confidentiality at all. Is there anything you can share about what that has been like for you personally? What have you witnessed? I've never been an advisor or been involved at an intimate level in the aftermath of such a tragedy as that. I have no idea what that is like. 

I'll be honest. I find myself instinctively reacting on that day when that news was unfolding, having been through multiple crises myself. Trauma, personal, professional. If you've experienced it, you know how it feels. Apart from the rationale, you could see this was unfolding. I felt it. I've got to be honest, I actually felt it. I could relive some of that pain. My immediate reaction was, “What can I do? How can I help?” I went into action. Mobilized communities. I pushed back against the media who were trying to contact me about contacting families that I may be in touch with. My first approach was to be there for them, but create space and protect them collectively.

I was asked by one of the national news channels that night, saying, “What do you think the families are feeling?” I said, “Listen, you're trying to make this a generic thing that everybody feels. Every single family is unique. Every single family will process this and deal with this in their own way. All we have to do now is let them know we're thinking of them, we're praying for them, and we're here for them in whatever way they need, whenever they need. The repercussions, the ripples of this will be days, weeks, months ahead.” That became quite prophetic because over the next few weeks, I had various families get in touch with me to ask, to deal with various practicalities of their loved ones and how to give them a funeral and those kinds of things.

Also, then in terms of the process ahead for the survivor. I've been through media storms myself in other contexts. I know when the media have a story, they get hungry for it. Instinctively, I knew that he was going to get bombarded with it from every direction. That's what it's been, by the way. I cannot share too much detail. If you imagine the sole survivor, as the media would call him, the miracle man walking away from this plane, he's had everybody from every walk of life you can imagine basically trying to get a piece of him. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Some with the right intent, but probably not executing it so great.

Many people are coming out of the woodwork trying to take advantage of this poor guy, facing such a traumatic situation where he's lost his brother on the same flight. His whole world, his whole family's world is destroyed. For me, it was about the journey since then, which has been about protecting him, being that person. It takes responsibility. I did this voluntarily. I went, “I'm going to do this.” People to this day still ask me, "Why do you do it?” “It’s because I can.” Having that trust comes with responsibility. I deal with that situation just like I deal with anything I'm working on in the corporate field with 100%.

We managed to keep him in a bubble for four and a half months. His home was in self-imposed isolation at home. The media were camped outside, and social media was saying all sorts of crazy stuff. I managed to control it so the noise died down. We even got him back into the country, back into the UK, where his home is, without anybody knowing. That journey of how to bring him here, how do we do this? Do we take the risk of this? Do we take the risk of that? We managed to do it.

All I can share today is the battles ongoing for justice, for clarity, for accountability. I see this not just for this sole survivor, but everybody impacted by this. Everybody wants answers and deserves answers and deserves to be treated as a human being, not an item on a spreadsheet, not somebody who's quiet, who's going to go away because they do not know any better. That's the journey we're on. I do not know what it's going to take us, but I'm determined to be with him every step of the way.

Is it fair to say that your decision to step into that unpredictable space was again a reflection of just following your heart? Is that fair? Is that a fair through line to describe it?

A hundred percent. There's no logic involved here. As I said, there wasn't any thinking involved. This is right. Instinctively do this. What else? I didn't go and not reach out to Vishwas, by the way. I was very clear about it. I wasn't just telling the media, you stay away from these families. I didn't go. It was people reaching out to me, and then initially it was asking about certain things, and then it became closer and closer, and then it just became everything from them getting precious, and I'm sure I'm not here that he's not the only family.

People were telling them, “If you do not do this, you'll miss out on this. If you do this, this will happen.” All of this narrative, and I was trying to make sense of it. Have I been through taking somebody through something like this? No, but have I got the skill set and the ability to think about it and stand back, as you said? I loved what you said because you reminded me of what I said when I came out of that hospital, and I said one phrase, “Just breathe.” I realized the power, just like you've described, of stepping back and just shutting it down and breathing.

It cuts out that in your mind, and it helps you really calm down and then, like you said, get in touch with your body. Where are you feeling this? What are you feeling? Can you put a word to that? Is it fear? Is it anger? Is it some other emotion? Knowing that the choice you make is the best choice or the best information you have at that moment and not hanging on to the what if, because that happens in life as well. I'm not perfect, but that's the way I think and talk.

It's very powerful. Even in the story that you shared earlier, the connection between the two, because while they're very different, how you framed the telling of the story was that you were immediately put under this pressure to make a decision with the threat of, if you do not make the decision, then things go sideways, or things are not advantageous. React now. Here's something to help you a little. An ethical bribe, and what have you. Something to get you to just make that immediate decision, and you resisted that.

Ultimately, yes, that had its own consequences. Again, in hindsight, it's easy to see that the person that you were describing there wasn't a person you'd want to ever have been in business with. If you could imagine having said, “I'll sign the document and business is business, all's fair and love and war and all the other things we sometimes will use to rationalize that.” Ten years later, who knows what would have been the case or five years or whatever it might have been, but to be literally in partnership in an ongoing relationship with someone that you didn't know was capable of that kind of behavior.

That's its own thing. I very much appreciate the idea here that in a broader context, there's a lot going on in the world. A lot of people, regardless of where they are, feel it. I think the world collectively is feeling a tremendous weight and pressure in a similar respect that there's a need for some immediate action, or again, this pressure.

I do not know what to do with that because I feel like, on some level, the media or that there are other interests involved in having us, the world's population, be as agitated and as addicted even to the melodrama of everything that's happening. That is advantageous to some and to many even. That is in opposition to the better interests of the whole, if you will. I'm doing a terrible job of explaining how I'm feeling at this moment. I just ask Sanjiv. Am I saying anything that resonates with you? Maybe you could say it better than I'm saying.

It really does resonate. When I say I've been involved in media storms before, let me give you an example of a media storm. In autumn 2022, I do not know if it got across to the Americas, but there were some riots in inverted commas in the city I live in. They were described as communal riots. I find myself, because I just happen to find myself being around people and speaking on behalf of the community, where I saw rogue actors. I literally was on the inside seeing how this was played out, and a certain narrative was being propagated that had no foundation in truth. There was not a semblance of it. I saw highly respectable people turning a blind eye to the truth to propagate a narrative which was then magnified by the media.

I remember speaking to the media at that time, some of them saying, “Listen, here's the facts, here's the evidence, here's the photos, chat, whatever you need.” I was horrified at the response of some of these media companies where they didn't really want to know what was really happening. They decided the story, and that story was what was getting them clicks. That really magnified, I guess. Instinctively we know that people have power. I've known people in media companies, the ones who own it, have massive power. The amount that they can influence people's thoughts, patterns, how they can divide people, how they can get them to focus on things that they want them to focus on rather than the big picture is immensely scary.

This world of AI that we're in now makes it even more dangerous. My advice to people is detox. We used to detox back in the day of substances. I think social media, we have to detox. Be very limited in your use of it. It's addictive, a dopamine fix. We know how it works. It's created that way to make all of us condition all of us in a certain way. Knowing how, having experienced fake narratives, knowing how people can rewrite or reprogram what you've said in your own words with your voice in the future, that's dangerous. For me, that's what you're saying, right? There are people in power who want to control the narrative, want the masses to behave and think in a certain way for different agendas, and go across the world.

As an individual, going back to being human, as a leader, as much as we can do remote meetings and all of these kinds of things, making a point that leaders meet leaders, people meet people across the table as much as possible, wherever still possible, because that is where you understand and build real relationships and cut out the noise because those demons that are created for us, those people who are those, it's us against them. When you sit across the table, we have more in common with people, and we've always been that way, than we are different. When people talk to people across the table and socialize, understand the person behind the role, the corporate role or the position that they're playing, that's where the magic still lies. 

I feel like it's manipulation that the us-and-them narrative is advantageous to those that are looking for your attention and time. When you say leaders, and I use the term in a particular way as well, I'm going to broaden that term to say we're all leaders. Everyone's a leader. Everyone's a leader at a minimum of the most important thing, which is your own life. You are the leader, the CEO of your own life. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but it's the truth. To take, as you say, trust means responsibility. It involves taking responsibility.

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To be that leader, you really have to be responsible in that role. If we're giving any advice, and maybe it shouldn't take that form, but rather just in this conversation, what feels true to me is that, yeah, I often advise people to detox from their technology for periods of time. I'm not giving up my phone. I have to say that, and none of us are. I do not believe it. I use AI all the time. I'm not saying that either, but there are periods in my day when I choose not to be involved, engaged at all. I do not start my day on the phone or on any technology. In fact, it takes almost an hour before I pick it up. I know that's difficult for some.

You could get up earlier. That's a choice too, or you could make it ten minutes to start. It's a half hour from there. Ultimately, I choose that. I take responsibility for being the CEO of my life and how I wish to begin engaging with a new day, the blessing of a new day, what can emerge from that, from creatively engaging with everything in the day. I personally feel like it's a choice that we make to be in charge, meaning that you're the boss of you in essence. When you allow this, what is a habit or an addiction to dictate how you spend your time and where your eyes go and where your time is being utilized, you're abdicating. You're giving your freedom away.

You're giving away that ability to choose to be the decision maker. That's all it is for me, in some respects, is a question of who's in charge. My phone is not leaving me. This is a tool I'm not getting rid of. I just want to know I'm the one in charge of it. It's not in charge of me. If you're being honest and you say, "Truly, it is in charge of me because I cannot stop touching it because I'm constantly looking for the dopamine that is promised through it. It controls me more than I control it." Again, that's one of those questions. If you ask that question, who's really in charge here? You answer it honestly, then you at least can choose whether that's how you want to continue to be beautifully, as you said earlier.

Nothing's perfect. You can forgive and, in this moment, make a new choice. When you're conscious of what's not working, and you still choose the thing over and over again that's not working, then you have to take responsibility for that. It's where our world is, increasing in elevation and consciousness, I believe, collectively speaking, at the same time as these other forces at play that are looking to take advantage of what are some unconscious instincts that we have. Probably cannot get into that anymore other than to say I think us choosing to be the one making those choices, being the CEO, if you will, of your own experience.

Profoundly, it is unique to every individual. It is a freedom that no one can ever take from you. You're born with it, you will die with it, it's ours. No matter what else happens in your life, good, bad, or otherwise, that is fundamentally your choice. I say this last thing, and then I want to get your thoughts. Nelson Mandela is a great example of someone who had a very difficult road in life and spent 27 years in a tiny little cell locked up.

As everybody knows, for opposing apartheid and for being a courageous leader, emerged from that experience that would have killed many people or left them completely powerless. He emerged from that, able to lead a nation's transformational journey. That couldn't have happened but for the fact that inside that cell, he did not abdicate. He was a prisoner physically, but mentally he was free. I cannot think of any living example. There are many living examples, but he's the one that comes to mind for me. That is the example of this principle that I'm glad we got to even touch upon, Sanjiv.

That's a beautiful example. Nelson Mandela, quite often when I talk, one of the things that I've heard about when he left the prison cell was a conversation about, "All of those people who've done you bad, done bad by you. Done wrong by you. Now, I guess you're thinking about what to do." The response that I remember hearing was, "Listen, if I carry those thoughts out of the prison cell with me, then I'm prison bound." The ability to let go. One of the frameworks I try to talk about, and you'll be familiar with this kind of framework, is even in a micro moment, even if it's a short time, or whether it's something that builds into your day or in a bigger picture, is the ability to pause and reflect and then reframe and then reset from there and go.

That allows you the freedom to navigate a different path. For me, I create circuit breakers in my day, kind of like you do, by the sounds of it. The morning, quiet space. It's hard. For people tuning in, especially in this day and age, it's hard not to get straight into, “What's going on in the world?” That quiet space allows you to really think about your presence. Being absolutely present. We talk about being present in front of other people.

Being present with yourself is where you should start your day. How much of my life is autopilot, and how much am I actually deliberately, consciously taking control of? As you said, who's in charge? Is it something else, or is it me? Taking charge and maybe just one little thing at a time, that's fine. At the end of the day, that circuit break is about, “Work today? What am I proud of? What can I say? This went how I wanted it to go intentionally.” From what didn't, what of that could I have controlled? The things you couldn't have controlled, it's okay.

Do not waste energy on it. The things you could have, let's figure out what path or what I could do next time round, going forward. That's it. It's freedom. You let go there. The ability to reflect, reframe it in a positive way, because we all make mistakes. We're all human. Not to hang onto your baggage, but as you said, learn. As long as you learn, and if you do not, then you take accountability. Knowing that you have ownership and control is fundamental to us as human beings. Even in the most difficult situations, I say to people, you ask me, what do I say to people? You have a choice. The choice might not be the choices you want, but you have a choice. The moment you consciously acknowledge that choice, you suddenly take control again. That's such an empowering place to be.

It is. Sanjiv, I've so enjoyed our conversation. I feel like I could talk with you for hours. I know our audience has enjoyed this tremendously. As we wrap up here, I'm going to ask you one final question. Also to our audience, if you've got further questions, you've got questions for Sanjiv and for myself, you can go to AdamMarkell.com/Podcast, leave your questions there, and we'll certainly answer them. Sanjiv, what is one thing that is a go-to every single day for you that you do for your own resilience to reset, to refill the cup? Is it the process you just described? Is it something else? What's that one thing?

The one thing I would say to people is it's never too late to reset. Just breathe and take one micro measure to start the journey for transformation, wherever that leads you to. You need to, as you said, just breathe, take a moment, pick something, and do something small and build on it. 

Just start at this moment. Beautiful. I love that advice, Sanjiv. I appreciate you very much, sir. Thank you for going there with me. Thank you for talking about those difficult things as well. We appreciate you. I appreciate you. Once again, thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

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I absolutely love that conversation with Sanjiv and listening to him share very much from the heart, very congruent, just listening to him talk about following the heart and then watching and experiencing him speaking. It was a felt experience for me, not just one of the head. It was definitely something that I could feel as he was sharing difficult times in his life as well as the work that he's doing currently to help other people through very challenging times.

I loved his advice and the frameworks that he shared on how it is that we address the current moment. What do you do in the present moment, other than be present, as everybody says, be present? What does that actually look like? He gave us something really concrete to hold onto there so that you can, in this current moment, this micro moment, like a tiny speck of a grain of sand in a sea or a beach of moments to keep track of, what do you do in this moment to be able to make a good decision for yourself?

To take responsibility for making better decisions again and again and then letting go, forgiving the poor decisions of the prior moment, if you will, or moments in time so that you can then adjust, readjust, recalibrate and move forward on a better path for yourself. As leaders, we're all leaders. As we said, leaders of our own lives, as well as in many ways leaders in other people's lives as well.

If you enjoyed this episode, if this was something that resonated with you, please share it with someone else that you know, family, friend, colleague, etc. Of course, we always are so appreciative when you let the platform know, the platform that you're consuming this podcast on, that you thought that this was valuable content, to provide a rating with the number of stars that makes sense.

Those things are helpful because it allows the algorithm to recalibrate and put this content in front of more people, which is helpful to us and obviously helpful to our community. I thank you for taking the time to do that if you are so inclined. For now, anyway, I'll just say once again, it's a pleasure to have you be part of our show’s community. We thank you so much, and I'll say ciao for now.

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About Sanjiv Patel

Most leadership conversations start too late. By the time a team is struggling, a leader is burning out, or a crisis is unfolding, the window for real change has often already narrowed. Sanjiv Patel work with organisations and individuals before they reach that point. And with those already in it. Sanjiv is also a TEDx speaker, keynote presenter, executive coach, and crisis leadership advisor. Over the past 20+ years he has worked with more than 2,000 leaders across corporations, business schools, NGOs, and government bodies across the UK, Europe, and internationally.