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Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 460, featuring an interview with the author of Crossing the Desert: The Power of Embracing Life's Difficult Journeys, Payam Zamani. 
 
In this episode, Payam shares the most important lessons he learned from building a record-breaking billion-dollar IPO called AutoWeb, and how it fell apart. He took those early lessons and created his current company, One Planet Group, with the “people-first” culture he wanted all along for AutoWeb. As a result, One Planet Group’s success has allowed Payam to reacquire AutoWeb and bring it back to profitability.
 
In Payam’s book, Crossing the Desert, readers take an intimate look at how the paths we choose, the values we embrace, and the systems we decide to participate in (or not) can make or break us, not only financially, but spiritually. Payam’s story is a timely reminder that enduring and embracing life’s most difficult journeys can lead us to a brighter future—not only for ourselves, but for the people around us, and even the world.
 
Payam Zamani is an entrepreneur, investor, and the founder of One Planet Group, a closely held private equity firm that owns a suite of online technology and media businesses.
 
Born in Iran, Zamani was forced to flee at the age of 16 due to his religious beliefs as a Baha’i. He was offered asylum in the United States in 1988, settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon graduation from the University of California, Davis, he and his brother founded AutoWeb, one of the first online car marketplaces, which they took public in 1999. 
 
Since then, he has built and currently owns multiple technology and media businesses, has invested in more than 50 companies, and is striving to redefine capitalism in an attempt to elevate business to serve humanity. He has been named the “Best CEO for Diversity,” is the recipient of Tahirih Justice Center’s Hope Award, and received an Award of Distinction from UC Davis in 2018. Zamani and his wife, Gouya, have two daughters, Sophia and Ella.
 
Get Crossing the Desert here: https://rb.gy/pio8ht
 
Here are some free gifts for you:


Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
 
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
 
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
 

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 459, featuring an interview with the author of May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about It, Alex Edmans. In this book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples, he highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.
 
Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School and an expert in the use and misuse of data and evidence. He has given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World with 2 million views, spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and testified in the UK Parliament.
 
Alex served as Managing Editor of the Review of Finance, the leading academic finance journal in Europe. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review, and been interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. He was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.
 
Alex’s first book, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, was featured in the Financial Times Best Business Books of 2020 and has been translated into nine languages. Alex was named Professor of the Year by Poets & Quants in 2021 and won 25 teaching awards at LBS and Wharton. Alex has a BA from Oxford and a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
 
Get May Contain Lies here: https://maycontainlies.com/
Learn more about Alex Edmans here: https://alexedmans.com/
 
Here are some free gifts for you: 

Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 458, featuring an interview with the CEO of Fireflies.ai, Krish Rameni. 
 
In this episode, Krish took us back to the early days of starting their company, Fireflies.ai, and how they stayed motivated despite the challenges. He shared valuable advice from the lessons he learned throughout his career that will be useful for individuals who are starting their careers or planning to transition into the world of startups.
 
Krish Ramineni is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes meetings. Named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Krish graduated from UPenn. He was one of the youngest Product Managers at Microsoft, leading projects in customer voice and growth. He has guest lectured at Stanford on machine learning and holds patents in workflow automation. Krish is a thought leader in SaaS/AI and an active startup advisor.
 
Here are some free gifts for you:


Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
 
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
 
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
 

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 457, featuring an interview with the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose, Dr. Mark G. Shrime. Solving for Why is an inspiring memoir about finding the answer to life's biggest question—"Why?"—and about following that answer through remarkable, unlikely places on the road to fulfillment, purpose, and joy.
 
"Turning your heart toward the poor doesn't have to be on a hospital ship in West Africa. It doesn't have to be grandiose. It doesn't have to be newsworthy. It doesn't have to be what your friends, pastors, rabbis, priests, or colleagues say it should. It just has to be." Dr. Mark Shrime
 
Dr. Mark G. Shrime is the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships and a Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose (Hachette 2022).
 
He previously served as the O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as the founder and Director of the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and as Research Director for the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard. 
 
He has spoken at the United Nations, WHO, Harvard, Princeton, and around the world addressing issues of healthcare inequity, moral injury in the healthcare workforce, and the non-health outcomes of health policies. In 2018, he was awarded the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Award by the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery.
 
Get Solving for Why here: https://rb.gy/okpa08
 
Here are some free gifts for you:


Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
 
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
 
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
 

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 456, featuring an interview with the author of Better Decisions Faster: Unshakable Confidence When You Need It Most, Paul Epstein. In Better Decisions Faster, Paul draws from the green-light wisdom of Fortune 500 CEOs, Olympians, Shark Tank entrepreneurs, world-record holders, Ivy League professors, and Navy SEALs to reveal a revolutionary new system for maximally efficient and confident decision-making. Paul shares how to make better decisions using the Hands Equation, which is Head + Heart. This equation taps into the three most primal and powerful aspects of our humanity to make better, faster decisions.
 
Paul Epstein is a former high-level executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams and the bestselling author of “The Power of Playing Offense” and “Better Decisions Faster”. In 2022, he was named one of SUCCESS magazine’s top thought leaders who get results—alongside Tony Robbins, Brené Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Mel Robbins—and his work has been featured on ESPN, NBC, Fox Business, and in USA Today.
 
In nearly 15 years as a leader in the world of pro sports, Paul helped take NBA teams from the bottom of the league in revenue to the top two, broke every premium sales revenue metric in Super Bowl history while in the NFL’s league office, opened a billion-dollar stadium, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy, where he was known as the “Why Coach”.
 
As an award-winning keynote speaker, Paul’s impact continues off stage providing leadership development and culture transformation programs for companies and teams including Amazon, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, NASA, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Cowboys.
 
He’s also the founder of the Win Monday community (an elite personal and professional development network) and host of the Win Monday podcast, where he interviews high-profile guests who reveal their secrets of confidence and work-life mastery.
 
Get Paul’s book here: https://www.paulepsteinspeaks.com/better-decisions-faster-book
 
Check out the Confidence Quiz: https://www.paulepsteinspeaks.com/confidence-quiz
 
Here are some free gifts for you:


Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
 
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
 
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo
 

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 455, featuring an interview with the author of Ping Pong Leadership: 18 Principles to Succeed at Any Table in Business, Sports, and Life, Justin Bookey. In this book, Justin distills lessons from a beloved global sport into 18 actionable and unforgettable “Pong Principles.” Justin has spent decades as a competitive table tennis player, trained with national and world champions, and won medals at the US Open. He is an Emmy-nominated content creator and strategist, and he’s worked with leaders at global companies to accomplish their business goals. As these two worlds overlapped, Justin realized that the core principles he learned while training to compete at the table also apply to success in business and leadership. Ping Pong Leadership is a powerful guide to success at any table.
 
Justin Bookey is a former lawyer, an award-winning marketing strategist, and global ping pong player. He’s had the good fortune of learning from some of the best and brightest in several arenas while working with leaders at Disney, Sony, Honda, Qualcomm, XPRIZE, and more. After practicing communications law for several years in Washington, DC, he transitioned to web content development. He’s earned Emmy nominations for feature documentaries he produced, and Telly, Viddy, and ADDY awards for digital marketing campaigns he spearheaded. 
 
Upon moving to LA, Bookey stepped up his training with Olympian and world-class table tennis coach Wei Wang. His efforts with her and other national/world champions helped him win medals at the US Open and the US national championships. He learned different leadership cultures while studying in India and teaching in Japan, and has played table tennis on seven continents. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and now lives and works in Santa Monica, California, where he also runs PongFit, a nonprofit that builds fitness and community through ping pong.
 
Get Ping Pong Leadership here: https://rb.gy/wbgkae
 
Here are some free gifts for you:


Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach
 
McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf
 
Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo