It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Harry Thaliwal, CEO of Cross Hotels & Resorts, interviewed by David Kong

• David Kong

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Harry shares the pivotal moments of his career journey that led to his success. He talks frankly about the disappointments and setbacks in his career and the lessons learned. We discuss the importance of risk taking, finding mentors/sponsors and networking. Harry reveals his secret in finding inspiration in disruptive thinking and his structured approach in corporate purpose and employee empowerment. He also shares his thoughts on "Finding your true north and navigate boldly."

David Kong:

I'm David Kong, the founder and principal of D E I Advisors. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to self-empowerment. We are delighted to have Harry Thaliwal on our show today. Harry is the c e O of Cross Hotels and Resorts, and a well-respected industry veteran. Harry, welcome to the.

Harry Thaliwal:

Thank you, David. top of the morning, but I just realized, hang on, it's morning for me, but I guess it's pretty much late in the afternoon or early evening for you. So thank you for having me on your show, and I'm absolutely excited to be having a chat with you today. Thanks again

David Kong:

for joining us. Let's start with your career journey. Got an interesting career journey. Could you share some key pivotal moments that led you to where you are today and what did your learn from those moments? Sure.

Harry Thaliwal:

I've been very fortunate, starting my career in Malaysia sort of some 30 ish years ago and having moved and lived in nine different countries in just over 15 different moves. So I've gone from. Malaysia to Singapore, not necessarily in that chronological order, but made my way all the way to the O Oceania in Fiji, in between Australia did Sydney, Perth, et cetera. And one of my key learnings was cultural integration. Really adaptability was super, super important for me. Sort of moving out from one culture to another, having an appreciation for, I, the diverse. Not just only in geography and cultures, but in people, in behaviors. And our tables. What celebrated in one culture is probably taboo with another. So it was a really mixed bag of different rich experiences. But I guess my biggest takeaway was that you can't treat an individual or you can't treat a human being in. in a broader sense. Everyone is an individual and everyone needs a different treatment. And I think you see that across the board as you move, as you travel area to area, country to country and culture to culture. So I, I guess if I had one one key learning it, it was, as you adapt, have an appreciation, celebrate the diversity that's around you. That's such

David Kong:

an important learning and such a valuable lesson also for all of us to learn how to adapt means that you embrace the uncertainty as well as a diversity, people's culture, language, how things are done. They're so different from country to country, and you had such wonderful exposure. Wonderful. Let's move on and talk about lessons that you learned from any disappointments and setbacks. All of us have disappointment and setbacks. I always look at them as great learning opportunities, but can you share some lessons that you've learned?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. I think it, it all begins with initially having a purpose. And I, me as a person, as an individual, I'm extremely competitive. I have a true north that I follow. I have a purpose for the organization, and the purpose gets filtered all the way down. So when we have a purpose, we have a direction and we are leading for a reason. And disappointments or set of achievements come from expect. So for me it's always been absolutely key that along the way through your journey when you're driving or when you're trying to achieve goals, it's really important to set yourself realistic goals. It's really important to self realistic expectations. Now, disappointments come in my view from unrealistic expectations, so I try and avoid disappointment. And setbacks were possible. I probably have more good days, bad days a thing, as opposed to a total setback or a meltdown or a breakdown. So it's about calibrating your expectations. And again, we do live in a very dynamic fluid world today. So it's super important that we are continuously calibrating our expectations as we go. We are staying fluid, so we are able to see a. Based on, challenges and obstacles that come my way. So it's your ability to manage your expectations as you go down this journey of achieving your goals and your targets would potentially reduce you, or the frustrations of setbacks and disappointment. So I guess my, my, my sort of thing here is, Realistic expectations. Keep your expectations fluid and ensure you're constantly checking back to avoid these setbacks and disappointments in life.

David Kong:

Said. And that's great to have a true north and have a purpose so you can always fall back on it. And when things don't go right, you can always go reality check and that's That's really good. Said.

Harry Thaliwal:

Yeah. And if I, sorry, go David. Yeah. And I could add to that as well. You, I, having the whole true North piece and. Calibrating expectations equally important cuz I'm also extremely competitive and I, I just don't play for the sake of participating. I'm playing to win. So in a there is girl, it's super clear. We're gonna get there and we are gonna try and win every single time. So it's also important when you're calibrating, when you're awarding disappointments, you are not discounting your ability, your capabil. you need to push that extra and you need to go for that 110%. So it's super important. While you're chasing your true north, you also need to navigate boldly. You need to make some tough decisions as you go. So I think the caveat here is that, go ahead and align expectations, but don't sell yourself short if you want to win.

David Kong:

This is a very interesting point because you have said many times I've heard you quote it that you want to find your true north and navigate boldly, which is exactly the point that we are on. Would you mind to share some stories and lessons?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. I guess for me if you look at Cross Hotels and Resort where I'm at the moment my, my true north essentially is growth. So everything we do is centered around growth and that message is filtered all the way down the organization. Now, everyone has a role to play in growth, our operating hotel. Our leadership teams in our hotels play a pivotal role in ensuring that we are always providing superior customer service. General managers are tasked to ensure we, we drive profitable hotels. That in, in turn provides for a very positive owner advocacy, which in turn drives set of positive sentiments in the development world to try and accelerate or stimulate growth for us as an organization. So that's probably one example where, you know you have a true north, you're filtering it down, you rally the troops. Everyone's on that same journey every. Is sold on that trajectory, but everyone along the way is contributing in their own different way to different parts. But ultimately, I'm sitting, steering the ship and the ship's heading the same direction. All the fleet that's sailing behind me are all heading the same direction. So I think that will be a, an easiest way for me to try and illustrate how I. Never get boldy and have a true north as a set compass direction for me.

David Kong:

That's very well said. Thanks very much for that explanation things so always go right, and sometimes we have challenges in front of us roadblocks. I'm just wondering what is your general approach when you face those challenges? What are the few things that you do when you face them?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. So I guess one, one of the first things I do when I'm faced in challenges is a pause and also to stop deep breath, try and analyze what's going on. And I guess the catcher is being in a leadership role, it's so easy to jump into a solution mode. When someone throws a challenge in you as a leader, you're always thinking that someone wants an answer nine outta 10 times. That's not necessarily. the challenge comes your way. A, as the leader, my personal practice is stop, analyze and then try and look for those nuggets, peel those layers back and understand the root cause of the problem or where this challenge is stemming from, I generally use the seven wire approach, the technique, which was adapted way back by Toyota in the day in the manufacturing plant to say, if you had an issue, ask yourself why seven. That's a strong chance you're gonna get to or very close to the root cause of a problem. So pause, go the seven why's. And I also engage with my team and I also engage with close associates. I then bounce my sort of ideas and suggestions. I get the team involved. Sometimes it's a team discussion. You do the seven Ys as an organization, as a team. Cause if you try and do it by yourself and by the time you reach your fourth or fifth, you're almost pulling your hair, although not, don't have much left. But when you are in a team environment, that energy being able to push and pull and throw things around and you'd be surprised the the outcome that comes out of a challenge. So there's, and I if as a leader, if you're always looking for adversity, if you're always looking for opportunities in a challenge, I think you're always gonna come out. that's very

David Kong:

well said. And I do the seven why's. For me, I, when I face a challenge, I always want to understand what that challenge is first. And oftentimes people say, oh, I have this problem. Describe problem to me. And as you drill down by asking why and all those questions, you find out that's really not the problem. the initial problem is they find. Wasn't really the problem. It's something else. So it's a very wise thing to do. Thanks for sharing that. The seven whys I totally subscribe to and it's very wise thing to do. Fantastic. Now talk about challenges. We all faced the most difficult challenge in our career with a pandemic, and it lasted a long time, and it was Sean J, both from a professional and personal standpoint as a c e O of a big company. you led with grace and courage, and I'm wondering where did you find that grace and courage to lead during such insurmountable, seemingly insurmountable challenge?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yeah. I guess David, that, that was a very tough time for us all. I don't think anyone industry was despaired from the wrath of the pandemic and this was. All geographies. It was a global pandemic, so for us it, it was, again I've used a similar approach where it's fairly structured, so we rallied the troops together. I got the leadership tip together essentially in a war room type setup, and we went on a two-pronged approach. One was a commercial approach. What do we have to do to stay afloat? What was survival mode? What did that look like commercially? And the second was the people mode. And the people vertical was probably one of the hardest. The commercial is really easy. It's dollars and cents. It's quite simply mathematical, right? Revenue streams have all but subsided. You've got a cost base and you need to try and maintain. Some level of cash flow within the business. So we knew what we had to do. Essentially, we had to reduce our base costs to try and stay afloat for as long as we could, so we could come back bigger and stronger when the world reopened. So that was the easier part the tough part was the people. We've got a real loyal bunch of individuals that have been working with us for us and have been doing so for years and years, and, So as an organization, as a leader, we had an obligation in return. And I and I think this is where humanity kicks in business is not always about profit and loss statements. Not always about dollars and cents, but that there is a softer side to it. It's the people piece. We, now, we have a moral obligation, but we also know we've we've got a very challenging commercial situation that's almost dire. How do we balance this out and get the best out of the two? So in, in the people's front, again, I'm absolutely blessed to be surrounded with some amazing people that I work with and we look through scenarios and. We all agreed as a team, as a leadership team, that we were gonna avoid redundancies. We were gonna try and avoid standing people down where possible, and that was the start of the conversation. So we had an idea of we want to try and keep everyone on board if we can for as long as we can. What do we need to do to achieve that? So that was our goal. So everything we do, we sent it back. So that was the true. For that instance during the pandemic and the interim. So we then decided, alright I guess like most organizations, there were salary sacrifices. We looked at immediately turning down unnecessary expenditure, et cetera. So as a team, we decided, All right. We will all make salary sacrifices keep the ship afloat. The leadership team included, we volunteered a sort of a higher burden to try and ensure we're able to carry the team on board. So we then also assessed each team member individually to try and understand. Their personal situation, whether it's kids, whether it was a dual income family single breadwinner, et cetera, to try and understand how we could support them further. So we're apart from a set, from a salary reduction, was there anything else we could do from a social standpoint to support? So this came in the form of mental wellbeing. We were able to provide counseling for our people our parent company, flight centered trouble group. We've got A center called Healthwise that we could tap into. So true healthwise, we're able to access counseling, we're able to access and share relevant podcasts with our team in our simple things like everyone was sitting at home. everyone was zooming or teaming as they call it, and a day in there. We started our dates with simple things like a couple of laughs, online yoga sessions, breathing sessions, all those sort of things that sort of not only promoted mental health, but also later on in the afternoons it were a little bit more physical. And now whether it was a pump class, online pump class, or simple stretching or yoga. So we did all these sort of things to bring our people. A spiritual and physical journey as we were trying to heal the business, the commercial vertical as best as we could. So as a team, we never get it through this, and I'm extremely proud to say we're back out on the other side. We're bigger, we're stronger, and we did not lose one person. And that 24 month transition we. While we were in hibernation, we continued to work every single day and during the transition we developed two other products, two new brands and three new business solutions, which correlates back to my true north, which is growth. So while the rest of the world was hibernating, we were busy chip marks in the background, just doing what we had to. We knew we had to hunker down, but we kept working and that's allowed us to come off the blocks fast and to continue to win in this space as the sort of growth trajectory now flies as we're out of the pandemic.

David Kong:

That's absolutely remarkable and kudos to you to take care of your employees and look after their wellbeing and their mental. And keep them engaged and still thinking about your true north, which is to grow the company and developing new products. That's really remarkable. Thanks for sharing that story. Let's talk about the risk taking. You've obviously taken quite a few calculated risks to get to where you are today, moving around. doing taking on different positions. Would you mind to comment on that and share some lessons?

Harry Thaliwal:

Absolutely. One of my favorite subjects risk taking, so I guess it's it all boils down to the reward risk ratio. You don't expect to be rewarded if you're not taking risks. I think we all take risks on a daily basis, whether it's in our personal or professional lives but the key here again, Ensuring we truly understand the exposure we're up to on, on the downside. And how should the chips go down? How far exposed are we have a total clear appreciation for your risk appetite. How much rich can you take when. So balancing that out. And I think it's absolutely critically important that once you understand your risk appetite, once you know the downside of the task you're about to embark on is equally important to know the consequences of not taking that risk. That is a downside to that too. So weighing the downside of not taking the risk versus the upside of taking the risk is also a critical component when making decisions. On, on, on embarking, on, on certain tasks. So I guess for me it's a balance between the two. The rewards, the one that's always flashing in the eyes, but you've also gotta be cautious. You gotta ensure you've got enough data and you're making informed decisions as you go along the way. And for me, I have another checkpoint I build in place. And I, this is again, the way I manage cuz I'm extremely competi. I also like to have checkpoints as I go along the way, so I've, I understand the risk. I'm doubling down. I'm going for it, but I kind of revisit progress as we go to say, all right, how are we doing? Has anything changed? Because, again, when you're taking risks, you're doing it under a certain set of assumptions. And as we all know, we live in a dynamic world today. So if the external environment's starting to. what? What does that mean to us? Is that gonna increase the risk? Is that gonna get us closer to the finish line? So it's also equally important. You set yourself check marks or checkpoints along the way that allows you the opportunity to proactively manage and pivot as you go, as you navigate through your way to try and ensure you have made the right decision and again, and now you come up winning at the back end. Well said.

David Kong:

Now, do you have any contingency plan, what we call plan B when you are taking on risks?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. I think it is absolutely important to know that at any given point in time, there could be a plan B, but I never take a risk having a plan B in mind. Plan B is, we formulate on the fly as we go because if you are starting, if you are gonna take on a. and you've got a Plan B mentality, strong chance you're gonna come up with a B type result, because you're gonna proceed extremely cautiously. You are not gonna take a true risk because you're always gonna be finding that easy way out. So potentially you're gonna end up with a very diluted outcome. So I guess, if you're pushing, if your mind's thinking plan B, you're gonna come up with B results, go with a plan, a mentality, and come up with a plan a. Have plan Bs along the way. This is when you're pivoting. When you're pivoting is your kind of plan B, but you wanna do a temporary plan B to eventually get back onto plan A. Just avoid an obstacle and get back on track. Said. I like that.

David Kong:

Now let's talk about mentors and sponsors. You don't get to where you are today without mentors and sponsors. Would you mind to share some advice on how one can go about finding mentors and

Harry Thaliwal:

sponsors? Sure. Th this one's an interesting one. I guess it's a little bit like finding a life partner, right? It's th there's ne there's never an easy answer to this. Go ask someone that's single and tell you all about it. For me it's really taking a step back here and critically evaluating yourself. Understanding your gaps and understanding where you could potentially benefit with external support whether it's in the form of a mentor or a sponsor or a coach. I do it slightly differently. I don't have one mentor or a sponsor or a coach. I have multiple. So when I'm faced with a challenge, when I'm faced with an issue, if I'm thinking and if I'm embarking down a new strategy, I'm not too sure. I generally have different people I go to for sounding boats, and if it. People related issue. I go to an ex-colleague of mine, she has been an absolute gem my years growing into where I am today. So I bounce my sort of people related initiatives, ideas, issues with her. If it's something to do with leadership again I talk to a really close friend. Who has been my superior for many years. A really strong leader in the industry, which I look up to. So I have a, I surround myself with a few different peoples and I have a few different relationships. These are more coaching type relationships as opposed to formal mentors and sponsors. But here's the thing as well the other thing that I do, which I. To be highly successful. I look within my organization, I look at my team, not necessarily just my leadership team, but my team members within the organizations. Let's talk tech. I like to think I know tech, but boy, am I wrong. I learn every single day and I'm learning from my team. And these are the young kids that have come in the industry in the last sort of 12 to 18 months with a highly disruptive mentality, which I love. And I have conversations with them. I bounce things off them. I talk to them about the blockages, the challenges we have, our industry and how could we potentially, lean down the technology angle to see if we could ease burden with a clear goal of alter. Driving efficiency, driving profitability, et cetera, and you'd be surprised what comes out of the people around you. So I, my, my thing here is sponsors, mentors, coaches may not necessarily, or do not necessarily have to be external individuals that have had years and years of experie. Look internally, you'd be surprised what you find in your own backyard. And I find that highly successful and highly motivating for me as well.

David Kong:

I love everything that you just said and it's so true, and I find for myself that I'm always learning from people around me. It doesn't need to be formal, and you are looking to improve yourself so you can find coaching anywhere. And you're right also, especially the millennial generation, they offer so much. They, you talk about disruptive thinking. They really, I really embrace their thinking because they elevate, help elevate our thinking. So I like that very much. Talking about disruptive thinking, you've been recognized as being a disruptive strategist. And I'm just wondering how do you find inspiration for that disruptive thinking and the creativity and innovation?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. I think it, it comes from my mentality of never accepting status quo. Now we all like wins. We win quite a bit and we celebrate our wins, but, I am continuously pushing the boundaries. I'm going, all right, and now we're winning today, which is awesome, but what's the margin? And now we're winning. Are we winning by 10%? Could we have won by 20%? And what was it 10% that we may have left on the table? So I'm very critical of myself, and I'm also very critical of my team. And I think it's that mentality that drives the inspir. to disrupt and to be creative. So it's also an area how I find myself being creative. It's it stems because you're focused on, on succeeding. Your teams focus on succeeding and these are all high powered sort of teams that. In an environment, in collaboration, we continuously go, all right, how can we challenge norms? What can we do differently? We've done some amazing things, like one, one of the biggest things in our industries for the longest time ever I think you probably agree with me I hate this thing, right? You go in, you sign up, you have a bed and breakfast. But breakfast time is 8:00 AM or 7:00 AM to 10. Why? Why can't I have breakfast at midday? I've paid for it. Why can't I have breakfast at 5:00 PM? Why do I need to go to the dingy dining room and have breakfast? Why can't I have it in my room? Et cetera. So one thing we've done, for example, in, in all our hotels, you got breakfast anytime anyway, sit. If you've signed up for a breakfast, you can hit, you can have it at any point in time. If you're staying in a pool villa, we'll even serve you a floating breakfast. And I, so we were really pushing. What we can do in our offerings. And we've also made it fun. Breakfast is no longer about fried eggs and toes and some beans on the side. We also bring in entertainment component into our breakfast. We're trying to add more interaction. This is if you're dining in the formal hours and some of the brands, we our cross brand has a Barbie breakfast every single day. Drink as much as you want. Cross vibe, breakfast, have a slushy machine or a selection of slushies available with breakfast, and now we throw in a DJ at breakfast time. So it's all these sort of things, right? You just gotta be different. It's a busy world out there. We need to stand out, we need to be different. But you don't want to be different for the sake of being different. You want add value. So this whole breakfast example that I've just given you is centered around guest. and, cause it's a big bug bear for me. And I'm going, why do we do it? I thought, no, but guess what? We don't do it anymore. So we now have the ability to go out and make these changes and drive the changes. So it all stems from not accepting anything at face value. It comes from always pushing and striving. And I you've gotta be grateful what you have. You've gotta celebrate the wins. You've gotta take the wins, but then go back and reassess. what else can I do differently tomorrow? Because if I'm winning today, I'm not gonna win tomorrow doing the same thing every single day. So it's always, gotta do different things to have different outcomes.

David Kong:

I like again, I liked everything that you said, and I do believe that inspiration starts with a desire to be, to excel. And in your case you have a true north that's all about. Taking the company to the next level. And you talked about navigating boldly, so it's at North Star, which is great. And I'm just wondering though, when you talk about the breakfast anywhere, anytime, and or the wonderful creative things that you're doing with breakfast, where did those ideas come from?

Harry Thaliwal:

From the team. So what we did is we sat together and our breakfast was a big thing. And I said to the guys, he, here's the challenge, right? The challenge is we cannot serve breakfast at a set time. We can serve breakfast only in the dining room. We need a solution. So we met this, an obsession, and we threw this back into our hotels. So this went from the corporate. to our hotels. Our general managers took charge of it. They then rallied the hotel teams and everything flowed back upwards. So we eventually formed a little service circle and we had all this amazing ideas that came up. So what I've shared with you today is just the tip of the iceberg because this space is gonna continue to evolve. And that's why I come back to what we touched on before, nine outta 10 times the best idea. Come from the people within your organization. You have to take the time to stop, engage, and ask the right questions. If you ask the right questions, you probably get the right answers. So we don't necessarily have to come up with all the answers ourselves every single day.

David Kong:

I agree with you so much on that front. I I always say I don't have old ideas, but in this room we have old idea. And so you're getting your people involved and getting them motivated and excited about the being creative. That's just wonderful. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Now, you are a very structured leader from what I've read. You believe in the corporate purpose and employee empowerment. Would you mind to elaborate on that?

Harry Thaliwal:

Sure. I guess I'll start with our purpose. For our company, cross Hotels and Resort, our purpose is to transform hospitality for all. So you see how the dots are connecting throughout our conversation. Today it, it stems from that. Through that transformation. We are not just transforming our product, but we are transforming processes and everything that we transform is not for the sake of being different. It's for the sake of being more efficient. It's for the sake of being more profitable for our stakeholders, et cetera. So that, that component is quite clear and that flows all the way down into our hotels. Everyone's working. transforming hospitality. And we ask our people now from the cleaners to, to the waitresses. The receptionists, what are you gonna do today to transform hospitality? It's the little things, the subtle little things. And for me, the structured approach essentially is we've got that purpose. We compartmentalize what we need to do in micro and macro strateg. And then those strategies are evaluated as we go along the way to ensure that we're not hitting obstacles and roadblocks. So this is that whole pivot thing we spoke about earlier. So that's the process of from. Ground level working our way up. So it's not a sort of top push down approach. It's top feet down, communicate, empower, and then through that empowerment you start to see the results come up. And all we do up top is navigate and steer as these results are coming up to ensure we're not hitting a brick wall as these things are filtering upwards. So for me, taking your employees on that journey is super important. And I guess empowerment for me, my, my personal interpretation or empowerment is centered along the lines of, having intentions, genuine intentions, how do we action our intentions? So the process of bringing our intentions to life successfully is empower. and the way I do it is I involve the people around me. I involve our team members in decision makings in strategy meetings, and also equally important we are providing development for their growth. So trainings are super important. It's great because everyone comes with a personality. Everyone comes with an ambition, they have a clear direction, but sometimes there is a requirement for upskilling or reskilling. So it's also important to try and underst. Or you need to try and balance ambition with capability and ability. So if you've got gaps in the capability or the ability phase, it's super important that we are providing the right level of education to the right people at the right time so that they are being empowered to be successful. Because on the flip side, if you're involving all these other people, and you may lack capability or ability. You are in for a surprise at the end of the day because you may have overstretched or again you've got the wrong expectations. You're gonna be disappointed. So manager your expectations, go back, understand the seven wise, what's the problem? Maybe it's a capability problem, maybe it's a language problem. So address those things, start again.

David Kong:

Great. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Pleasure. Let's talk about work-life, harmony. You lead a very busy life and obviously you have demands at home also. How do you manage that?

Harry Thaliwal:

Yep. I guess it all stems to me. I'm very lucky to have a very supportive wife who understands the workload I go through cuz she was working in hospitality prior and again I apply a very similar approach in my private. My personal life, but I, but a little bit more flexibility, of course. And it's semi-structured. And now there, there are certain things that I do and I think David, when we had a chat this morning, and I, we spoke about habits. Your thing is you wake up in the morning and before you go to work, you exercise every day. And I, that's a habit. So similarly for me it in the personal life to try and have the work-life balance. I have a fair few habits. I'd like to say exercise is one of. Not always right. So since there are other things that I do, I've, I have passions, I, my, my passions center around motors, spots. My passion is around cooking. And on the weekends I try and cook and I have a meal with my wife. So we have set times, we have, and a digital detox time at home. So it's quality family time. And I also have me time, which kind of stems from self-love. I think it's super, super important to understand the concept of self. because self-love a it's about you. It's about your family, it's about your loved ones, people around you, and it's also of your organization. And I think that this is the interesting part, the kicker for me is you need to love your job, your organizations, just as much as you love your family and your personal life. If you can get that balance in check, I think you, you are in for an easier ride because you're not juggling one from the other. You are enjoying this side of your life and you're loving that side of your life. So for me, the family time is critical. It's super important. It's a habit. I make time. So that's given. And then comes the me time piece. That's the spiritual, physical side of me. And a motorsports I touched on. I ride motorcycles. I love riding big bikes, so it ties back into what I do during the day. when I ride my bikes, I'm on a journey. I'm traveling again. I'm meeting new people, exploring new locations, having the opportunity to appreciate different cultures. So it's all meshing back again and links back into what I do my day job. So there's a correlation. It's never a separation. I think there's a correlation, and that's why it's equally important to love what you do. and love what you do at home. So having that, if they consider gel, it's almost a seamless interaction between the two. For me, that works really well.

David Kong:

I really the introduction of self-love and this conversation because a lot of people talk about work life, harmony. as balancing demands at work and the demands at home. But seldom have I heard people talk about self. self-love or self-care, because that's really the glue that can tie the two together. They, it keeps what's happening at work and what's happening at home more in harmony. If you don't have self-love or self-care, you can't do it properly. So I. Appreciate your introducing that. It's very important. Yeah. I see that we're coming to the end of our show, so I always like to ask, this show is about self-empowerment. Do you have a final piece of advice that you'd like to offer to the

Harry Thaliwal:

audience? Yep. I guess my big thing is on an empowerment perspective, you're surrounded by amazing talent, all of. Regardless of where we are, what we do on a daily basis. So I would say stop for a minute, have a good look around. Appreciate what you have around you, and try and work out two things. One in the empowerment piece, how do we extract the best out of the people that we have around us, the absolute best. We don't want be results and two. How do we celebrate? Because there's lots of diversity around us, whether it's culturally or whether it's, different geographies. So how do we celebrate that diversity that we have in teams and individuals around us? A combination of that involving them in the day-to-day business, whether it's in strategy discussions, whether it's in decision making, and you'd be. what comes out of it. On the other side, you're gonna get a high powered team that is highly engaged, motivated, that have a very clear direction because they're subscribed to your Tru North. They believe in the direction the company is going, they're involved in the direction, and they're participating in not only the what, but the how and the wise. So it just becomes a nice, seamless journey. So I guess you. Do not discount the people around you. Bring them on that journey. Empower them, work with them. Ultimately, it's all about people.

David Kong:

I love that. Absolutely love that. And I. Think it's so enlightening that you talk about corporate purpose and employee empowerment, and then you talk about your true north and navigating boldly. Those pieces are so important if we want to be successful. Thanks. Thanks very much for sharing the wisdom to the audience, if you enjoy this show, I hope you can join us on our website, d e i advisors.org. We hope to see you there. Thanks again.

Harry Thaliwal:

Thank you, David. All right. Take good care. Enjoyable. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye.