License To Code With The People Whisperer - Interview With Taha Hussain

Then I realized somebody was standing in front of me. So I looked and it was my teacher. He was staring at me like this blank face. And I was like, "Damn, I'm embarrassed." Right? The guy said, "You're cheating? I thought you were a mad genius." >> Hi, my name is Nick Coantino and I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. In this interview, I got to sit down with Bond, James Bond. Actually, no, it was it was Taho Hussein. And you'll get to see in this interview exactly why he refers to himself as James Bond. But Taha has a lot of experience at highlevel engineering management positions at big companies. These days, Taha focuses on mentoring and coaching engineers and engineering managers to be able to do better in their careers. One of the things that I really enjoyed about this conversation with Taha is that he's just so transparent and he's such a great storyteller. I really think that there's a lot of value that Taha brings in this conversation. So definitely sit back and enjoy. I'll see you next time. Well, I guess to start, if you don't mind, do you want to give a little bit of background for your journey because you have a pretty extensive journey and I think it's pretty awesome for where you're at now. >> Awesome. Thank you. Um, my journey, first eight years, I was working as a contractor uh for a company. I worked at multiple companies uh Verizon Wireless, Cisco Systems, Zansspec Corporation, USC. And so what happened with that? I worked on a bunch of different tech. Mhm. >> And at the same time, different companies, different domains. I never repeated any domain. >> And back whenn net came out, this company Zinsbank Corporation were using net and uh it was in beta version. So I used net at the time. And one of the things that first eight years, >> yeah, >> it was I had I had one inside um resource at Microsoft and he was telling me all how to go about doing this with documentation. So I was lucky over there. Um and then um one of the cool things that I learned in the first eight years because I had to show up as an expert in the tech I'm using because you you're a contractor, a consultant. So that gave me a muscle to learn things really quickly and I loved it. >> Um when I went to Yahoo I was doing really good from the very beginning and from there I continued my journey and one of the things that happened to me this is where my career sort of took a big big change. I was a principal engineer at Yahoo and I would work with multiple different teams and um I was typically get feedback that you know I I need to work well with people and I would get that feedback a lot. I would work on that. Um and then I went through divorce and it was really big for me and I started learning about how do I basically I became depressed and one of my bosses was new and he said hey I see sparks of brilliance but it's mostly flat. Then I realized I used to point fingers at people that you know they are type B people. They are not ambitious. They're in my way of making progress. But I thought types were fixed. Type A, type B. But then I realized I used to be a type A but now I'm type B. How the hell this happened, right? Like this is >> that was new to me that people are not fixed. It's the emotional state. And on that journey, I knew what it felt like to be type A, but I don't know how to become type A from type B. So I started my journey on that and I started doing that in 3 months the same boss came back to me and said this team they want you to manage them. I'm like what? >> Yeah they want to work they they want you to lead them. I was like I have never heard this before. Somebody wants to work with me. They said yes. And they pointed out that you're coaching them. You're doing this. You're doing that. I was like wow I wasn't noticing these things. But what happened was in order for me to get back up I was trying to figure out who else is facing trouble that I can experiment with. And I in the process I was helping them. >> Okay. >> And in six years I went from managing zero people to managing 250 plus people. >> That's a that's a fair >> that was across. >> Yeah. I was at Yahoo. I learned that stuff. Then I went to Microsoft which was a big journey for me for three and a half years. I got slapped around a lot at Microsoft but I learned a lot of stuff from there. And then I went to Walmart from there. And now I coach people to do the same thing. >> That's incredible. That's uh it's so cool to hear that like and sorry obviously I know going through a period like for a divorce and if you're going through depression like that part not cool like so I don't mean it that way but I mean that you were able to take this situation that was that was very you know negative for you at the time and just kind of it was like transformative it seems right that you were able to have all of these things that you kind of got yourself out of that and just transformed how um your career went. So that's that's incredible. >> Thank you. Yeah. When I look back now at the same divorce now, I see that as a positive thing. Obviously, we do that once we once we look back then we start seeing things. If these things didn't happen, then I wouldn't be here. >> Right. Very interesting. And then like you said at the end now, so I shouldn't say at the end at the end of what you were mentioning which is current. Uh so you are coaching people now and that's that's a full-time gig for you is being able to coach other uh engineers and managers to kind of do a similar thing. >> Yeah. So um 20 back in 2022 I was working for a 2021 I was working for a startup company and I became the head of engineering over there and I doubled the team in 6 months and I saw some lot of potential people growing and I saw a lot of people in the world they need help in leveling up on their emotional intelligence that's what makes them a leader and there was I hired people from externally to come and train them and I was like I have done all of these trainings at all these corporate trainings they're teaching the wrong stuff and so there was a huge opportunity in not just of business but also for me to keep on learning >> right >> and part of this is also kind of a selfish is I want my kids who are kids of divorce also not to get stuck in their life where I was so now if I can help anyone at any age at any step in their career >> stuck as to where they are I can if I can help them reach their full potential I'm confident I'm learning how to teach my children to reach their full potential. So that's the main gist behind that and that why was so powerful that I left my career in early 40s and I started doing this full time. >> That's that's incredible. Um and if you don't mind me asking so you said that uh through the other trainings that you've kind of been through and seen that you said like you feel like they're doing it wrong like they're not hitting the nail on the head. like what what types of things I'm assuming it's multiple things but like what things come to mind when when you observe that and you say like okay they have these trainings they might be touching on X or Y but it's really not it's not the right focus like what's your opinion on what they're doing and what should be the better focus >> definitely I'll say a few things first thing is people teach on the outcomes a lot for example you'll see many managers pointing at people hey uh I'm going to give you feedback and they learn these step-by-step process how to give feedback a micro yes or something all of these things so that they're they're giving feedback as to what they've learned from these researches and all leading people is not about learning these frameworks leading people is about intention when you have the right intention you find your way to give feedback everybody has a different way of giving feedback but we like to come up with these scenarios and what happens when we learn these things we come across as unauthentic >> and when we come across as unauthentic people don't trust us and I'll give some examples over here for example They'll teach people to keep on nodding their head as they are listening to somebody. You know my one of one of my vice president at Microsoft was doing that. He came from Google. I would talk to him and he would keep on doing that. If I test him about if he listened to what I said, he didn't listen anything. He was just doing nodding like that. So what's the point if you're just trying to make me feel listening but you're not really listening. So while that is true, we do want to have that. I mean it does happen when you're listening to people. you're automatically listening like you're showing interest right how does that happen >> and so deep down it's comes down to one primitive and that is ego and ego comes in many different phases it's about our own insecurity I'm doing this whole research about with coaching all of that part but the main thing which people are not learning is emotional intelligence once you learn that part then learning these techniques becomes easier it they won't look unauthentic like when you're listening to people you'll also people will start mirroring mirroring and they'll do exact reflection. For example, you'll say something, I will completely repeat exactly what you said. It doesn't matter did like the idea over here is to rephrase what I understood versus mirroring what I understood. But before we move on, this is just a reminder that I do have courses available on dome train if you want to level up in your C programming. If you head over to do train, you can see that I have a course bundle that has my getting started and deep dive courses on C. Between the two of these, that's 11 hours of programming in the C language, taking you from absolutely no programming experience to being able to build basic applications. You'll learn everything about variables, loops, a bit of async programming and object-oriented programming as well. Make sure to check it out. Right. Okay. That's that's super interesting and I can really appreciate that example of like um it's it's not just like I think the authentic part is key, right? So going and going through these trainings. I've done only a couple of them at Microsoft. I think before that, I don't know if I've ever had any type of like formal training. And even these ones, I wouldn't say they were super formal. They were I think at Microsoft and other big tech companies and even non- big tech, they'll have, you know, periodic learning sessions and training, whatever. It's not uncommon. But it was I can see exactly what you're saying where it's like here's like some almost like scenarios or like some some setups, right? So like if you're in this situation, like here's how you'd go through this and and and here's some tactical things you can do. But I think your point about the intention is key because if you're just saying, "Let me go copy and paste these behaviors and you're not understanding why you're applying them or it's not sort of unique to you," then you end up in this situation where you do truly do like you don't seem authentic and it's very obvious. Or maybe to some people it's not obvious, but they like they sense something's weird and they can't put their finger on it. >> That's >> That's true. And the and the other and as you start learning you become you probably become better to fake it so that others don't catch you. I have seen that many times. I've caught myself doing that part and I realized hey I I get it but it doesn't feel right to me. So how do I actually get it right? Like others are doing it. Like do you think Nelson Mandela was just faking people when he was listening or he was actually listening to people? Right. I'm just saying. >> Right. Right. Yeah. It's uh No, that's that's good. But um I've there's certain things even in like through coaching that I've done uh like received for myself where I've I've heard what was being told to me like you should try to do this more. Um one of them for me is I have a bad habit. I've been trying to fix it for a while now of uh especially for more junior engineers they have a problem. I like to be like, "Okay, like let me just jump in and like try to tell you like what to do, right?" Instead, you want to sit back and be like, "Okay, like you do more listening and kind of let them kind of you you give them a little bit of guidance so they can kind of come to their own conclusion. They kind of solve their problem on their own. So, I have to do a better job of shutting up." And they tried to give us some techniques for doing that and being more just like an active listener, trying to like stay back. And I remember trying them out and being like, it's just not me. So again, the idea made sense and I do need to work on it. That's all valuable, but the implementation was kind of like prescribed. And I think that's the part where that falls down very fast. >> 100%. And that's the most common problem managers have. And this is the first thing when I work with managers, uh, first level, second level, everyone. Here's here's how they go about this, right? So, one of the key questions I have when somebody comes to me saying, "I'm getting burnt out or um my team is not delivering or I'm not leveling up. It's been five years." Question I ask them is tell me uh how do you organize your week? And then the typical answer they give me is that I use Eisenhower matrix and I have like urgent important, I have important, not urgent and I divide things like it. I have one-on-one schedule. So, I grow people, I listen to them, etc., etc. I'm like, uh, that's like saying a manager's job is not to do one-on- ones. That's like an electrician saying, "My job is to use a screwdriver. The problem is that your job is like everybody else is to deliver results and so everybody else is doing it. So what are you doing now?" And your job has changed from being an engineer of a task like a backlog thing to do something else. What is that job? If everyone is delivering results. So the ideal state would be you are standing as a manager and everyone is doing stuff in harmony. Everything is getting delivered. That's the ideal place. And you have to also be and hold that space that you're not doing anything. If you're not doing anything, it's going to feel like hey I'm not being useful over here. You have to get to that state so that a team is doing stuff and you can expand more. Now to do that part one part managers need to do the intention over here is I'm my job is to remove obstacles people are smart they know what to do but they are not good at identifying obstacles they are doing sprint they're not looking left and right my job is to foresee the obstacles and help remove those obstacles and with that intention when you think about it then you think about okay people are not delivering this on time or they're making mistakes common sense mistakes something must be off over here. I may not have made things clear to them. So this is why they're not taking ownership. So you question yourself first. You figure out a way to create like Microsoft has a rule uh clarity generates energy. If they are not clear on what they're doing, energy won't be there. I learned this at Microsoft this technique. By the way, I realize hey before I give feedback, have I made things clear to them? Right? That's the number one obstacle they have. They don't know how their work ties into the long-term picture and so and so forth. So when you're doing these one-on- ons, your goal over here is to figure out the obstacles and that's it. So now when you go with this mindset, people are talking, you're not solving things. You're figuring out what is the obstacle this guy is facing? How can I help this person overcome the obstacle by themselves? Because your intention is about removing obstacles, >> right? you've you've basically framed it by having it as, you know, your job is to remove obstacles, not your job is to do the one-on-one because that's what's been prescribed. Um the I loved what you said about uh the ideal state of a manager, let's say, is to basically to be able to look around at the the team or teams that you're managing. Everything's in harmony, kind of just working. And and obviously it's like this is a sort of theoretical perfect state, but if that were to happen, you would be like, I'm I'm doing nothing. I am useless. But that's the goal to get to. And it sounds kind of ridiculous cuz someone would say, well, what about your job security? like if you're not doing anything then you're not valuable. But it's like no because you don't stop there. You've now you've now gotten things moving. They're it's a welloiled machine. Everyone's got what they need and you can expand your scope. Like that is how you grow. Um and I don't think I've ever heard anyone kind of say it like that where it's just like >> literally calling it out that it should feel like you can look around and like I don't have anything to do now. Obviously, it's a it's a sort of a I don't know like a a bit of bit contrived because we all know there's always going to be a little bit more to do. But yeah, it's >> that's great. I love that. So I think one of the things that you have a lot of insight into and I think this probably stems from some of your own career journey is about you kind of talked about having uh this this realization where your sort of your own people's skills like you had this realization about them and uh how to transform them and maybe before they weren't where you thought they were. Uh can you can you maybe dive into that a little bit more and how your view your own view of your people skills for yourself like kind of help like you identified it you had to make changes and and start driving those changes. >> Definitely. I have like so many stories and you're you're being kind to me about like not so they not so that kind of stuff right I think it's completely okay but I'll tell you I write stuff online because I want people to learn from how we actually feel. We want to be able to express our feelings as a leader and be vulnerable. And that's where the real confidence comes in. And so I talk about my failures and where things that I've stumbled upon. I'll give some examples over here. When I there was a scrum master, she was also a project manager at Yahoo. Multiple teams I used to work with her on, right? And when she was leaving, she came to me and she held my hands and she said, "Taha, be nice to people." And I'm like, I don't cuss at them. I just only point out where they can be better like why is that such a bad thing to do right be nice to people such a dramatic thing but that sort of left me thinking about getting better and better at that then I had a skip level who when I was senior software engineer he gave me some work to do and I was supposed to work QA team and I did a design then the QA lead came we were talk we spoke I barely let her speak whenever she was talking I was stopping her and saying hey this is how it's done this is It's done. She left. Next day my skip level met me and said, "Tell him about the design." I said, "This is the design." And he looked at it. He said, "Wow, this looks really good." He said, "Yeah." He said, "What does the Q lead thinks about this?" I said, "They agree with this. No questions." He said, "I just met them. They have no idea what this is." And I'm like, "Well, you know what? They don't understand. They don't have the information or the prerequisite." He said, "Bullshit. They think you're an asshole." I was like, "Okay, that's a bit harsh." >> So, did you did you know that at the time though? Like, did you realize that you were doing it or was it like you were oblivious to it? >> I was oblivious to it cuz you know, arrogance and awareness don't go hand in hand. Okay, that's a line from James Juan. By the way, I love movies. Uh, but arrogance and awareness uh don't go hand in hand. And when I was doing that, I was always thinking about, hey, I'm the best and I'm saying stuff. If they don't agree with it, it's them who don't understand or they they lack the in knowledge to understand what I'm talking about and I can just force my way to do things. And I didn't realize that this these things won't happen that way. And so the key thing is that this manager perhaps one of the only the best manager I ever had who coached me a lot. He invested his time in me and he said look if you you are supposed to this is the this is the first project just with the QA team you're going to do bigger projects like this and if you can't explain your designs to other people then nothing will happen in your career you won't be able to make big impact and I can't talk on your behalf this is your design you're the best person to discuss these things so I changed the way afterwards when I go for designs you know what my strategy was my strategy was I'm still going to prove myself right cuz that's my muscle. And the way I did it was I would do a design and my proof was this is bad design. I'm going to prove this is bad design. And I would go to people and say I see this this three problems in this. I'm working on them. I'm thinking I missing something. And they would point out more mistakes in it. I would take notes of that and I would go fix them go to more. So all these stakeholders who are supposed to complain at the end, I would go to them and I say tear it apart and they would tear it apart and I would then find ways. So when I would fail to prove it completely wrong, it means I'm right. And at that moment I would go and present everyone and everyone would say, "Yeah, this is good design." You know why? Cuz they were all part of it. It wasn't my design anymore. And that technique led me to become principal engineer really fast. That's a a very critical like takeaway I think is that >> uh and again not the implementation that was your implementation so it's not prescribing the implementation but the the goal of that was that you needed to have other stakeholders >> invested into it they had to be part of the process in some capacity. So, you found a way that allowed that to happen that worked well for your style. And uh yeah, like the the end result is that you do have all of these people that you've now influenced. They were part of it. And you probably and I don't know about your designs, but I'm assuming that they were probably better designs than if you would have just sat on your own, done them, and then just said, "Here's what I'm doing. It's the only way it's going to work." Is that fair to say that they were better as a result? >> They became better. they became and I learned more about so design is all about as an architect we think design is about functional requirements it's not >> sure >> design is about in a big company it's design is about non there are multiple ways to solve something but the way you want to solve it is by meeting non-function requirements a project manager wants things to be delivered on a sprint-to-ren basis versus six months big bang the QA lead wants things to be testable etc etc another team may have other requirements so when If you take out to take this to different stakeholders, they'll talk from their perspective. So as an architect, you are being hammered by everyone and your job is to stack rank those and have a discussion at the end with everyone where they say, "Okay, this is how you stack rank them. We agree with them and for that you need data and when you speak to everyone, you pick the right design that's not just functional, it meets the non-functional attributes, >> right? And I I assume that's primarily because when it comes to the functional requirements, these are mostly I don't want to say they start off as being well understood because maybe they don't, but you they're probably easier to figure out. You start with something a problem space. You can start nailing down functional requirements. Everyone gets on the same page. They go, "Yeah, thumbs up. That's cool." But then, like you said, all these stakeholders have different things that they need out of that. So, how do you start making everyone happy? If you're thinking about we have to go build this solution and now we have five, six different roles of stakeholders that we have to go please cuz they're involved in it and for good reasons. They have different things that they need out of it or they need to put into it. So, yeah, it it suddenly becomes much more complicated than just like yeah checkbox on the on the design because it meets the functional requirements. It's like if you stop there, you're probably in for a rough ride afterwards. So interesting >> 100%. I'll give one example over here specific to Microsoft. Um >> okay, >> by the way, I site my career at Microsoft as a program manager. It was an intentional choice. They offered me engineering manager. I said no, I want to be a program manager. The recruiter laughed at me, but I had my plans. That was a key move that I did against all my coaches and advices and I did that and that helped me become a better leader and I landed the job at Walmart to manage 26 plus teams. >> So >> So we'll talk about that at some point. >> Okay, go ahead. >> I I just I want to hear about that. So we'll park it but yeah we can park it for later if you want to queue it up that way. >> Sure. Sure. Sure. um the so I was working in Azure in the um uh in in team and the CVP at that time was Jason Zander I think he's the EVP now and so he was my skip level at that moment and so I was called one day by my boss he was meeting with Jason and they were talking about we have this tool called ASUS which is one access tool to access production so developers who are working on these services 20,000 developers their access production of Azure this is the tool they would use to access production so that's secure and you can put all the compliance into it so that there's no multiple ways to get into production so when I was there I didn't know about this tool and Jason said that we have 51 different tools to access production today 51 tools when there is no security so he was like like I want this solved and we have a tool which we built it's been two years nobody wants to use it and I'm like okay so we have one tool which we prefer but nobody wants to use it. It's a migration issue. What are they saying? He said we don't know what they're saying but nobody wants to migrate. And knowing Jason, Jason Jason doesn't like like to like beat people around to say hey follow this cuz I said so. He likes to hear he likes to hear the problems. So he wasn't hitting the problems. Nobody was saying the problems to him and he was like something's going on off over here and my boss called me cuz my boss called me people whisperer. He said this guy will figure it out. I was like okay let me say let me see what to do. So I met the engineering manager. He was one year into engineering management and he was thinking from a uh principal engineers perspective. So I said okay he hasn't spoken to the customers yet. So I took the code I took the product I gave it to one of my engineers and I said uh onboard one small service IoT onto it. The guy came back after two weeks said it's inhumane to ask anyone to use a service just to write one API like a start or stop you have to modify five different components and it's basically the code doesn't have even logic it's just to go it's like lot of lot of uh stupid work to do >> and he said and imagine uh and the biggest service was Azure SQL imagine thousands of APIs like that and you have to onboard which is of use because you already have a tool now you have to spend your time in doing the stupid effort and if you have to modify something again modify in five different places so here's a solution we did so that's when he understood this piece the solution we did was very simple we said hey let's keep thing as is cuz it works on the top let's use swagger API and reverse engineer so we we did declarative programming we said the new interface is that you define your APIs just one in one place JSON file and we use the swagger to convert that into those five different components if you edit something we'll delete again do that part boom we demoed it to the Azure SQL people they said on Monday we'll onboard and they did very swiftly so this is where you understand it works but you really haven't understood the concerns of the developers if you're building something you have to make it not just it works does it work the way they prefer to work and you have to listen to your customers this way so this is a very small example how to make it work >> that's a that's very interesting so yeah it's not a I think it's a very clear example of functional requirements were met right you had something that worked. You had to change things in five different locations. And yeah, so what I'm kind of curious like what what type of like thought process has to go into like into bridging that into cuz I think some people depending on their stage in their career, they might not have had the opportunity or they maybe they won't even for a couple years to come where they they're in a position where they they need to go think about things this way where it's not here's a a prescribed problem with a solution or very kind of like I don't know in in the box kind of solution, but we need you to go like talk to people. We need you to go like learn from them. Like what advice might you give to people like that or how might you go navigate that if you're like I need to go figure this out from people? And I want to add that it might sound obvious to you, but I think for some people that haven't had to do this, they're like, "My manager just told me I have this this task I have to go do and and I have to go talk to other teams or or we don't know how they want to use it." Like, again, it might seem obvious to you, but what what might you suggest to people in that kind of situation? >> The answer I'm going to give is I mean, I'm going to give the right answer that works. It's just about my articulation skills. If I can articulate that in a time where you and I have not been and your audience have not been with me, >> uh people who come and work with me, it takes a while for them to warm up to understand this. So I'm going to give the answer that actually works with my clients. You know, every I have not met a single human being who does not want to be good, who does not want to work with people. It's just it's a fact. Even people who are doing bad they actually want to do good, >> right? But in that moment they are not they're reacting with something. So what is that? >> And it's basically learning from myself as well as to I would like get angry. I would not work with people. How do I like why and then thinking about I can hold myself and use willpower does not do because willpower is an exhaustable resource. And you it's like you might have heard yourself or others saying that's it. I've had enough. >> That's that's the way it should not work. So what what can we do to make this work? So I think about this as think about a goal, a goal post. You can just kick the ball. If you want to be nice to people, listen to them. That's your goal, right? Kick the ball. That's a goal. But there's a goalkeeper there. That's an obstacle before the goalkeeper is a line of defense. And there's more lines. So there are certain obstacles in our way of meeting the goal. Again, I'm going to go back to the obstacles part. As a manager, as a leader, our job is to figure out what are the obstacles and we need to become aware of our obstacles. When we become aware of our obstacles then we can have a strategy around them. But if you're arrogant then that's another obstacle in the way of becoming awareness. So one part that I think about is that people are smart. Doesn't matter where they are. They may be in a bad emotional state but people are by general smart. That's the belief you you must have. Once you have that smart then you think about what is my obstacle in listening to them. And one of our obstacles is generally insecurity. For example, if they are talking and they don't let me talk, then I would not talk about my stuff. I'll miss on my goals. My insecurity is coming in. If they are cutting me off, oh, they're disrespecting me. Well, they might be, but why are you taking as a disrespect? Let them cut you off. It's completely okay. I was at when I learned these things as Microsoft, by the way, because at Microsoft people cut you off a lot, by the way. So it it was a place where I faced this hurdle and I had to remain calm and cool and let them do that part as they're doing and learn from that experience. So when we learn about our obstacles, you basically overcome our insecurities. And one of the best ways to do it and I'm going to give a good tip is that appreciate yourself. The reason people don't take feedback well is because they're looking for appreciation for some reason. Appreciation and improving on something. They're two different things. Why do you want to be appreciated before you get feedback? This is where the the the the feedback sandwich comes in. It's you don't need to be appreciated. The reason you want to be appreciated is because you don't appreciate yourself. You're seeking some validation from somebody else that I'm enough. But if you appreciate yourself, you love yourself. It doesn't matter what somebody else thinks about you. >> Right? So this is the part where if you're saying how do I go about and listen to people all of that it won't happen unless you love yourself cuz you'll keep on seeking oh they are doing this to me cuz you it's validating your own belief that you don't you're not good enough. That's uh yeah, that's I feel like that's probably hard for people to hear because what do you mean like what do you mean I don't love myself or whatever or or maybe they're saying like they're acknowledging it and it's like yeah but how am I supposed to love myself? But that's something that takes a lot of work and um I can if I reflect even on my own career I would say if I think about my let's go before Microsoft. So um I worked at a startup for 8 years and I remember being there like right near the beginning right so one of the first engineers and I had I want to call it the luxury of being able to be very confident in my work because I had built a lot of the products from the beginning but my work life in terms of like that like do I love myself kind of feeling which might sound kind of funny but like yeah like I felt good about work. I loved working. I felt confident at work because that was my thing. Like I I just felt good there. But everything outside of work, if you were to ask me the same question, like do you love yourself? I would have been like like how am I supposed to answer that? Like I'm nervous to talk to people. Like I don't like meeting new people. Like I'm I I'm short. I go to the gym a lot cuz I want to work out to be bigger and stronger. Like I probably have some body dysmorphia stuff going on. Like no, I probably don't love myself, right? And I can remember like kind of this nagging thing in the back of my head through those eight years. It kept getting worse and worse. And it was like, you know, something has to change here. And uh I don't I honestly I don't really know what it was. But there's at this point in my life, I can now say like, you know, like I'm a short guy. I don't care. Like yeah, like I go to the gym and if I, you know, if I'm not on my diet for a bit and I start to gain a little bit of weight, like I don't care. Like I know that I have these other qualities about myself. I've been successful in my career so far. Like there's no reason that I should not love myself. Like by every definition that I look at, I'm like, I think I'm doing pretty good. Like I'm happy. But it's a really weird thing that I don't think a lot of people think about. And if they're not paying attention to it, it's very easy to like to have all of these other things going on. And it's like it just seems like everything's bad around you, but it all kind of comes back to like do you actually like do you have like appreciation for yourself? >> So I just wanted to share that cuz I thought that was a very like interesting call out. So >> that's that's a thank you for sharing that. That's exactly what goes on to our head. We think about uh we are not good enough and we look at things where we are not performing good. I have a lot of my clients who are unable to get into uh jobs especially after they have been let go. They now try to go back and think my boss once told me that I'm incompetent. They remember those things versus fighting those things. They try to reaffirm those things into themselves and say yeah I'm not good enough. I'm not doing that or my mom said this to me, my dad said this to me, etc., etc. Um, but you got to have a different story in your head and you have to think about um, looking. So, we go by identity. Somebody you like, you got to think about, hey, I'm like this person. I'll give one example. I like James Bond, that character. So, once I was doing something, somebody says, who do you think you are? I said, James Bond. They're like, what? I said, yeah, I'm James Bond. Like, for example, um, I I've been bored for 20 plus years now. And, uh, I'm from Pakistan and over there, the culture is very different. People think it in different ways. So I was walking somewhere and this one guy was talking to me. He said, you know, have you ever thought about having like haircraft and all of that so you can get married? I said, dude, I've been married twice. I was like, what? Right. So you have to have these things as a reaction in you that who you think you are and you have to have you have to hold yourself um in at high standards and and lift like for example I go to the gym thinking the same thing that hey I want to work out and all of course I'm like James Bond for example right so when we have really helps us role models yeah >> no that's uh that's awesome uh I I really like that example But yeah, I I just I don't think a lot of people pay attention to that kind of thing. It's like uh we we always seem like we're so focused on on other stuff, right? Especially as software engineers, it's like we got we got code to write. Like if you see how people talk about this kind of stuff, even online, I'm sure uh when you have clients and stuff coming to you, I'm assuming probably a lot of things like you you can tell people are so focused on on technical things like if I want to be better, like what's the what's the technical thing I have to be doing? And I would wager that for most people that you interact with, it's like it's not like, "Hey man, you have to skill up because you're bad at you're bad at C or you need more JavaScript." It's like it's probably literally everything else that's not technical that they have to do some introspection on. >> Yeah, 100% agree with that. Once we understand how we work and we can be nice to ourselves, then we can learn these new things. I unlocked a lot of things in my own um like I used to only think I can I can code and I can sit in a cubicle and not talk to people. I used to stutter. I would talk so fast that sometimes I would finish sentence and my lips would still be moving. My friends used to point this out. Hey dude, you stop talking but your lips are moving. I'm like okay >> I get it. I get it. >> And becoming Yeah. Yeah. And and then becoming bold and talking about in public all of those things I would not I would not believe in myself. I would say this is my real this is who I am and that was my own version of me but uh understanding how our emotions work because emotions bring the energy and that's what makes we make decisions through our emotion mindset once we understand these things then we can do a lot of stuff that we don't even think about we can do >> right no and that's that's really good I think something I want to kind of maybe it's almost kind of coming back to it and maybe building on some of the emotional intelligence pieces um in the example that you were giving earlier from your own experience um when basically you had almost dismissed the the QA person uh for the design document and your I feel like your manager at the time had some radical cander and was able to kind of be like listen man like that's like you said it's So um I want to kind of dive a little bit deeper on engineers that aren't great to work with. Right. So I I might again I'm making some assumptions here but I I assume at this point in time for your career um this you might have identified yourself like in hindsight maybe you weren't great to work with right if what are like what are some qualities about engineers that maybe we can start with that what are some qualities about engineers that aren't great to work with because I think some people are like focused on technical stuff so what might that look like and then how might you try to coach someone out of it cuz I think I've spent more time coaching people that have to work with the crappy engineers like hey I have to go deal with Bob again and Bob's total pain in the butt and like Bob might not be someone that reports to me so I have to go talk to his manager separately but if you were coaching someone who was one of these engineers that no one wants to work with what are some of the traits and how might you try to like get them out of that so that they have awareness of it and can start making some progress on that. >> So that's a excellent question. One of the pieces is that there needs to be a desire of you want to get to some place if and it's not about awareness part. It's about a desire. So the person that I was working with he was my skip level and he knew that I have a desire to do better and better and I have proven that in the previous work through my manager. So this my skip level told my manager that I'll be coaching Taha from now on. And so he gave me this first project and I was working with that. So I was already under his wing accepting that he is going to be my coach and I'm going to take feedback from him. So you need to have the relationship that the other person recognizes that they will be they are open to your feed. Without that you can say whatever you want the person won't listen to you. So you first is establishing that. So when people come to me who are in that state like they will come and they'll tell me hey today I I got angry my boss said this. I said these things to them. I was like, "Okay, good part that you recognize these things." >> So, they need to be open that I want to change this this piece this piece or they're not aware of it, but they'll say something and they would listen to me. And that's the relationship you first need in the person that they can call out your Um, you cannot be soft cuz if you are soft in these areas, for example, it may not work. Uh, they'll miss the point. And so, being candid is what engineers love. Engineers don't like that you are trying to say hey can I have like all these feedback things people teach right do a micro micro micro yes guess what you'll fool them once but they'll catch you the next time my boss once called me I was at SAP he he was a new manager and he called me oh 9:00 a.m. for some reason was very important to him. So I I got to work at 9:30. He said, "You, me, the room." I said, "Sure, let's go." I knew what it was all about. And he said, this is how he did it. Literally in in 10 seconds, he told me three things. He said, "You code fast, you learn things fast, you deliver on time, but I said, "Dude, I'm late for work." And I never I never realized you appreciate me so much. I'm going to get back to work. This is how I reacted to him. I didn't give a about what he was thinking. And he's like, "No, I'm not done yet." I said, "So why don't you begin with that first, right? Cuz I know where you're headed. There's no point in talking about these things. You can talk in slow whatever. I don't give a about it. Be straightforward. So one thing is that if you want to influence engineers, understand they don't like to be fooled around. They don't like that you are making fool out of them. That's the number one part you have to understand. You can go and talk to accountants whichever you want to. But engineers are smart people. They understand where you are trying to fool them and they can figure out patterns too. So the best thing is that be authentic. and you might fail that's completely okay try again next time and you'll learn these things over a period of time um so being authentic is very important tying it to something as an identity so this is something I learned from teachers one of when I was in school uh one day I didn't uh study my math and I was playing volleyball all day and all of that week and the the test came and I didn't know anything about it I was really good at math and I thought I can do a lot of good stuff but that stuff I didn't know so I was looking in my neighbor's copy and then I realized somebody was standing in front of me. So I looked and it was my teacher and he was staring at me like this blank face and I was like damn I'm embarrassed right the guy said you're cheating I thought you were a math genius and like what people typically say shame on you all of that but this guy was like I thought you were a math genius and he said you know what go on do whatever you want to do I don't care about anymore basically he sort of gave me this feeling that he was excited about me but this act was not an act of a genius. And so I took my paper and I threw it. It was luckily N minus one. So I studied for the next paper and I did good stuff. But from there onwards, I started sitting in the front of the class for every class that I took, every course because I was a genius. So instead of pointing people as to So the thing is that they give you feedback. Point at the behavior. Don't say you're incompetent like don't label at that. Why? Because labeling is strong. So use it the other way. Label them that you are smart and this behavior does not align with that smart behavior. I thought you were a team player but this behind team player, right? And you say but this behavior does not align with the team player. They say yeah that's right. I got to change that behavior. >> I like that a lot because the and you kind of said this earlier, right? Like having this belief that like that people are smart, that people want to be better, right? like like have you you said I haven't come across a human that does not want to be better. So if you lean into that and you can make the assumption and I think it's valid that people want to be better and again the the labeling thing that you mentioned I think that's super powerful to be able to say like look like you just switch it around on them and say like you you kind of call out the thing that they are and trying to be like you're aligned to this awesome thing and then you kind of give them the reverse to say like this behavior does not align with that. they do feel or I imagine they would feel very much like well I want to correct that because I I want to be this thing. I thought I was this thing. So that's >> that's really cool and it goes back to uh like a lot of the time when we're we're coaching people on things >> if you just tell people what to do especially as a manager right say you're taking on a new team this is one of the worst things come onto a team you just tell people how to start working just like hey like I don't care what you're doing before here's how you work now even if it was a better way to work no one will want to do it so when you can make people kind of realize like that's not a good thing and I do want to be better. I will kind of think about the course of action and the plan like they start to come up with the actions themselves. Now you can continue to guide them on that but the fact that they're like hey this is my idea right this is my idea now I'm like very excited that I want to make this better I think that's a very powerful thing that people can leverage. So um so okay identity I think was a really big one that you said in this willingness >> now so if you're coaching someone through this um so someone that you've identified however that they're maybe not a great engineer to work with from other people's perspective >> identify the willingness assign some type of identity um now like what what what might you do from there like do you do you kind of just sit back and wait for it to happen or like what is and I know this is a very like general kind of thing. So I'm not looking for like specifics. Just kind of curious how you might navigate that with this person to see like how they can start to improve from there. >> So the example you gave is perfect. I can give you two areas. one is as you're working. I used to have that thing as well and I can tell you how to work with that in a one-on-one conversation and then but with my coaches who want to bring a big mindset shift because I work with people who are working at startups and other companies and they don't feel like they can qualify for companies like far and all and so I have to first give them this identity that you are that person and this is how you're going to learn these things and my goal is to get them to that double the salary in six months. Some of them are senior engineers, they make it to multi-staff engineers because when they're interviewing the behaviors changes as they're talking about it. So I'll talk about that mechanism that I do. But very simply at same thing at Yahoo my manager was I gave my manager feedback once he got another team member u from a different manager his peer who left for Salesforce and this is three months before our performance review. So I used to smoke at that time and this person as well. So we were both smoking outside and this guy was like really like thinking I was like hey what happened was your performance review not good cuz he did a lot of good stuff and he said you know I got exceeds rating and a lot of good bonus and raise I said so what's the trouble he said you know this guy said that I don't know what you did cuz I wasn't your manager but here's your bonus here's this here's that and we'll start doing this from this year now I knew my manager was actually really good uh he was once in a meeting with his boss and a VP and And I messaged him, I need your help. He came out. I was like, hey, I didn't know you were in a VP meeting. Go back. He said, no, this is my job. My job is to make help you first. Okay. So, the guy has the right mindset. So, I knew I had to just point to that identity. So, I I said, "You, me, room." So, we both went in there. So, what happened? I said, "I just met this guy. He's not happy." And here's what you told him. He said, "Yeah, cuz I don't know the stuff." And his previous manager didn't care about it. Didn't write about it. I said, "Dude," he said, he said, "This is not my problem." I said, "This is not your problem. This is exactly your problem. He's our team member. It doesn't matter what the guy did. You could have done several things. Can you name some? For example, this this. He's a Okay. I know what to do. After one week, this guy was super happy. We went for Java one. He's like, um, I said, what's going on? and said you know the manager he took one of my compon he met me he understood and one of the components I was making he went to the framework team of yui and I presented to that team and they're making my component part of their framework he was so excited about that I was like that's it that's how it's worked so it's not typically who I like I didn't do any it was that a person had that part but was not realizing so you align the behavior with the identity it works now if you want to change some behavior on your own for example the way it works is that You first define the field of play. Field of play is something like for example when I'm in a meeting I don't speak up. So I need to change that. I want to start speaking up. I have ideas. Okay. So how do you do that part? >> You define four things. First of all, what do you need to stop doing? And these are typically your thoughts. A thought is like if I speak up, it doesn't matter. Or if I speak up, somebody will bash me or whatever. So stop doing that part cuz that's in your way obstacle. Because if you start doing what you want to do that obstacle will keep you away will push you away. So you have to be aware of that. What is the awareness you stop doing? Okay. What do you need to do? Start doing. So write that piece down. Then what do you do? What do you need to do less of? Sometimes that's also the trouble. >> Okay. >> You are doing it. It's okay to do it but in certain you don't. And then what do you need to start doing more of for example. And I when you have this framework in mind then you're aware when that meeting is happening you know what you need to because once you put this into your brain it's your activity system then you remember that that stuff. I talk about this in a video that I made available to everyone. Uh just because it's part of my initial coaching that I do for everyone. I think everyone should know this technique. It's just free for everyone. I'm getting rave reviews about it every day. People who visit it. It's called brainpowered goal setting. The first thing is that when you define these goals, you will never meet your goals unless you stop behaving the way you do and start new behaviors. Learning things like learning how to swim won't make you Michael Phelps. You have to jump in the pool and get over your fears. And to do that part, you need to stop doing what you doing and start doing some new things. So this framework is described in detail. And people who do that, they come back to me very next day. Hey, I example I use is about speaking up. It's very typical problem people have. So they say, "Hey, I spoke like five ideas and everybody start talking about those ideas now. I'm so happy I did this piece." So I highly recommend people to watch his free video called Brainpowered Goal Setting. It talks about this mechanism. >> That's awesome. Um, and I'll make sure I'll get a link from you and stuff at the end and I can even uh on YouTube at least. I'll I'll do the little card thing so people can go watch it above and stuff and I'll I'll at by the end too, by the way. I'll I'll get links and stuff and I'll have them in the description in the comments. So we'll take care of that. But that's a that's really cool. So I I really appreciate that because I I think it's very clear, right? If you're you're like, I need I want this different outcome, right? I want this different outcome. And it's like, well, if you don't change what you're doing, if you just keep doing everything you're doing, how do you expect that you get this different outcome? Like you must do something different. So, uh, I think that really helps to just like kind of put a stop on it to say, look, like you literally have to make a dramatic change here because if you don't, how do you expect that anything, you know, comes of that? Um, that I I love the example you gave too about the speaking up thing. So, earlier this year, I switched teams at Microsoft and I talk about this a lot where um, unless there's a forcing function, I won't put myself I'm I'm very conservative. I don't like I just it's almost like I I like being comfortable. I think a lot of people do, but then I realize it and I'm like, "Oh, this is dangerous. You can't be too comfortable." But I switched teams earlier this year and when I switched teams, uh, it's a very different domain. So, like you were saying, like, have I I don't know if I've ever done the same domain more than once, aside from just like being in C. But this is a routing team. I know nothing about routing and networking at the level we're doing it. uh we have firewalls and things like that. So there's all these concepts that I know about them, but I've never had to be responsible for them. And when it comes to speaking up in meetings, I went again from being on a team for a few years, building up my confidence. Now I'm on this new team. I'm an engineering manager and I'm like, I feel like I'm going to be an idiot if I open my mouth. M >> but I realized like it's just it's just not true because number one the first thing I can do I have a a close friend of mine I don't think he coined the phrase but he's he calls it like ignorance as a service. So at least as an engineering manager or someone even someone new to a team you don't have to be an engineering manager and this is something that new hires new team members do a lot of. They might not realize it but just asking questions. Just asking questions like you're ignorant to it. That's okay. Ask the questions. because those questions, I guarantee you there's at least some way cuz they're thinking about it to try and explain it to you and they kind of catch a catch an angle that they didn't know. So ignorance as a service is just one beneficial thing you can do and it's a good thing to do so you should speak up. But the other thing was I had been on the team now for a few months. And I remember in this one meeting in particular, I was like, just say the thing you're thinking like what's the worst that could happen? Someone goes, "No, that's not right." And we just keep talking like no one no one's mean. So I brought up my idea and I remember on the call kind of went quiet. It's like my boss uh one of his peers and some other principal engineers call kind of goes quiet and the first thing I think in my head is a Like yeah, maybe it could be worse. Maybe people are awkward awkwardly silent about your idea. But this pause happens and then they go actually yeah like that's a I don't think we thought about that before. That's a good idea. And I was sitting there going like all this time you know we have these scenarios where we like we don't want to speak up. We don't want to look stupid. But like what you know this is a great example of like it was just my own beliefs holding me back. And I think the framework you were describing if I was going through that it would have been like stop the negative selft talk like it's not helping you. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You got it right. Thank you for sharing. That's an excellent example of what generally happens. Even if a new team it would happen a lot um as you go down this route also identity helps over here because our imposter syndrome can also kick in. An example of this is Alan Mulali uh the the CEO of Boeing when he was asked to run Ford by the grandson of Ford in 2005 in a press conference his journalist asked him uh you have never built a car you have never sold a car how you going to do this job and the guy said you're right I don't even change oil in my car I don't know how to do it but a car takes 3,000 pieces a plane takes 3 million pieces you can stop a car on the side of the road you can't stop a plane my day. If I can make a plane, I can make a car. So there's a part about also understanding that your identity is still there and you want to reaffirm yourself and that's also another way of getting there. There's more than one way about getting there and that could the same thing about stopping the negative selft talk >> and start but our body wants us to some reasoning for us to believe in that oh this happened so I can do this. We need to come up with that reasoning. uh we are used to giving reasoning about negative selft talk. It works. So find some reasoning in the past. This is why people say keep a brag list right because that will help you recall uh your your your moments that you can shine in. I'll talk about you know toward the end. I want to resolve that program manager thing because we we didn't finish that. >> I was waiting for you to wrap up and I was going to I was going to jump that one on you to say hey by the way we didn't talk about this. So you did it though. Well, it's an it's an excellent one. I'll say um I'll talk about this piece. So when I was at Yahoo and this skip level would give me a lot of feedback and I grew and then um one thing I realized was when so I became a manager and my boss new boss was the VP of platform and he gave me my project was about uh improve uh collecting data about performance >> okay >> and of Yahoo's websites and mobile and the goal was to improve 12 top 12 properties to improve the performance make it subsecond and So my teams are about Hadoop. I was champ of big data, Hadoop, near realtime pipelines, all of that. Even at Microsoft, I didn't use Cosmos. I use Hadoop. >> I won't tell. I won't tell. >> So, so, so after a month, he asked me, "So what are we doing with latency?" I said, "We are recording it and here's a number." He said, "No, what are we doing about reducing them?" I said, "I don't know. Their teams are doing it. I'm here to record data. He said, "No, you think I hired you to record data only. That's not an outcome." I said, "But how can I reduce latency? It's like it's Yahoo mail, yahoo.com, finance. It's their job. I am here to expose data so that they can figure." They said, "No, your job is to go and make it happen." So I said okay, let's start doing that part. So I started doing it for first six months. I got slapped around a lot. And I thought I had built communication skills, but I hadn't. Like I thought working in my own team in among developers is good. But when you go out especially for feature teams who say I want you to focus on performance versus feature building which gets them the bonuses on all that they're like no we have these features to do competing features. So I had to work with that. It took me almost an year to figure out how to work with it and I loved it. I realized that I became a better manager. I could so one of five few of my team members went to some team I was coaching them. They came back after half an hour saying they're not listening. I said, "Here's how do you do it?" I took them all. I went over there. I said, "You have this goal. We have this goal, right? Your this is what your VP wants. This is the this is what we our VP wants." They both have agreed to this. So, what's the problem? They were like, "Okay, three minute meeting." They said, "Okay, let's do it." Basically, talk about what people care about. But in some cases, they could do even worse job at that. And so, what I want to do was there were some some this was easy case. So I asked around where can I go to become a product a program manager that also requires technical skills and it has to be a tough place. It cannot be an easy place. People look for easy places. You want become good. I want tough people. You know what they said? Microsoft. I said really say Microsoft you have to go to Redmond. Said okay. And I didn't like Microsoft by the way because of IE9 and Microsoft Vista and all of that. I said okay let's go in and work at Microsoft. So I applied there. They took me for they were interviewing me and they said oh you'd be good in program management but we would want you as a manager engineering manager. I said I don't want it. The recruiter laughed at me. Another recruiter came back saying hey we have this position for a principal program manager. I interviewed there. They liked me. I said let's do it. My first day at Microsoft I went to meet this partner engineering manager in service fabric. I said hey my name is Tosan and I'm here to the guy said no. I was like what? I didn't even say it yet. He said the answer is no. Whatever you want, it is for your own benefit at my expense. So the answer is no. And I'm like this is so good. I'm in the right place. I want these tough people. Right? And what happens that one might think by the way when they're coming new into this is that the person has ego. They're judging me. All of that. The thing is that if you have compassion, you'll realize that people are smart. They want to do the right thing. Something must have happened here before me, >> right? They somebody must have done this to this person, must have taken advantage of this person and now they are so burnt that they don't want to do it, right? And that led me not to think about me but about them. What can I do the next time that I can reach out with more trust? And I started doing that part and my boss started calling me people whisperer because it was hard to build a Microsoft to work with each other like this. And I loved it because prior to Satya culture it was about hero heroism at Microsoft and Satya was bringing more about teamwork. Uh no rooms anymore. You have open space neighborhood all of that kind of stuff. People are not used to it. They have like a red light. I like I'm going to fuse your red light. Um anyways going through that tough phase meeting people like the aligning them working with them uh made me really good and the reason I took program manager is because a program manager is required to think beyond a project. A company is doing a program it is never a project or a product. You have a program you're running a KPI and now you have to think about how do I start different initiatives that align with that KPI. So you're building a strategy. Each project is like a like a weapon for you. You're trying to hit the problem and you're trying to get the maximum value out of it. And that's a different way of thinking in terms of a level of engineering manager. So you if you think about this as an engineering manager, you would become a director, a senior director because now you have multiple teams. You're attacking them from from a different phase. You would stop organizing teams by services. You would start organizing them by KPIs as to how it hits them. So as I was started doing that part my thinking changed >> and uh I would go to these meeting with Scott you know uh Scott Guthri is having his EVP meetings over here and he's talking the same things and you'll realize that this is how programs run. So that allowed me to make big impact at Microsoft and my thinking elevated from managing a project and output towards outcome and multiple outcomes and outcome for the company strategy. So that really helps you become and so after two years I moved back into engineering management. So, you had a a very big perspective shift, and I think that's You said something there that I I really liked. Oh, I liked a lot of it. I was smiling and laughing the whole time. Um, but you said something there that I thought was such a such a good observation and reflection for you that probably other people can really take advantage of if they just think about it a little bit. And what you had said was this scenario where this this partner uh had basically said to you like like cut you off to be like nope like don't want it you know I know what's up here and the the response that you had was kind of like it wasn't man like why does this guy hate me like like what did I do wrong like all this internal like it must be me you change the entire thing around and This can be I don't even know the right words to say this properly. I'm kind of just winging it. But I feel like this can be very empowering because now it's not like I'm locked up like I can't do anything. I should feel bad about this. This guy made me feel bad. It's empowering because what can I do about this? Like what can I do for this person? It's them. What can I do to help them? And now you have a million different directions you could try and go to make things better versus just being like everything sucks for me and I just want to curl up and never do this again. So it's not easy because it's a it's a >> it's a change of perspective, right? But the fact that you're able to do that, I think that's like a >> I feel like it shouldn't have to be a superpower. I feel like more software engineers and people in engineering should be able to do that because you see it happen all the time. I will even have people on my team or from other teams like we'll be we'll be talking about stuff and it's like it's a it's a me problem and it's like yeah just if you could figure out how to turn it around then you could start taking proactive measures to like go and make things better. So I when you had said that it just stood out to me is like man that's such a good I don't know it's just such a good takeaway that I really hope people caught when you said that. So that's a awesome story. >> Thank you. I would I would just point out one thing that uh while it seems I did well on the first day on after 3 months I same things happened and I wasn't doing I was thinking it myself but then you would do reflection or you would have somebody who would give you feedback you'll say oh okay behavior identity people whisperer this is not people whisperer so that identity really stuck with me that my what my boss gave me and it always brought me back into okay I need to go and reflect back so on this journey especially emotional intelligence there because it's emotional it hurts uh you will have hurdles you will try some some of them you'll pass some of them you'll fall on your face it will hurt you but each time you have to keep on because that's the right thing to do and you'll get better at that everyone gets better at it >> and that's a it's a good good call out so thanks again for that part because it's not it's not an overnight it's not the first time it just works it's it's it's like anything right it's going to take time and practice and there's going to be times when it sucks it's like any like people picking up programming in the first place, right? All the all of us as software engineers, it's like you didn't just get a keyboard and you were amazing at programming like absolutely not. It took time. It took practice. And with emotional intelligence and being able to communicate effectively, all of these things take time and practice. Even for someone at a principal level, right, it's not like you went into it in day one, you're like, "Oh, like I just know how this is going to work." It's like maybe maybe there was one event like that it stuck out to you, but yeah, like you said, it's not just every day is sunshines and rainbow. It's like it's, you know, you have to kind of uh take the the bad and the good and do the reflection to be able to improve. So, thank you for for that. It's it's awesome. >> Well, awesome. >> I think we're right at time here. So, um you know, I wanted to say thanks again for making the time to do this with me. uh I will collect links and stuff from you but do you want to tell the audience just kind of uh where they can find you and uh definitely mention the the coaching again so they can they can know about that. >> Definitely. Thank you so much for that. I loved your questions by the way. uh sometimes when the host ask you questions in a certain way specifically when you talked about engineer who are not aware how do you so it kind of makes me think about hm how do I actually do that because when I'm doing as a coach I don't realize I'm doing that it's becomes part of my identity so I'm in the flow mode but when you ask those question make me think yeah if I were to put a step-by-step process it could be a LinkedIn post who knows um okay so resources wise I'll say a few things uh first is um I do uh one-on-one coaching but I have limited um amount of time. So right now I have a a weight list and so it's first come first. So and generally it's those people who don't have a job at the moment and they're looking for that job and so I train people in fixing the branding so that they can start getting offers. Jordan is a good example about that. He talks about how he fix his resume, start getting quality leads. Um, you know, Jordan is amazing. When you when you listen to Jordan, he would say, uh, he's quite humble as well. Um, he say it takes me two minutes to describe where I went for college. That's how you would describe his his his experience like about where he has been, right? And he has worked only a startup company. So, but to get him into like we talked about getting him into fun companies, we fixed that resume, uh, prepared him. So, same thing happened with everybody else. You go through behavioral interviews and a stuff. Coaching is also for engineers who want to go beyond the non-technical and beyond technical and learn nontechnical skills and that's a regular coaching that I do for like five months six months we target goals for promotion or changing a company things like it and then I have a course called topic engineer method some people who can't afford uh a personalized based coaching they can do that part and then take individual lessons to customize that lesson that they have learned in my uh the top tech engineer method u to take those few lessons few few u one-on-one sessions to do that part. Um yeah, I would and then there is uh they can find me on the website. They can visit the website the coach the course is there the brain powered goal setting you'll have a description I can send it to you and you can put in your YouTube they can go directly use that. >> Awesome. Okay well like I said I'll get all the links from you and stuff after. So Taha thanks again um for your Saturday time and uh yeah this is this is really great. So, look forward to to more exchanges and stuff going forward. And thanks again. >> Thank you.