Edutainment Revolution: How Making Learning Fun Will Transform Training

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Amanda Prescano and welcome to the web talk show. Our guest today is Leandro Dilva, Harvard Educated with a fellowship from Oxford University. He is the founder and global training director of Miller Wineman Training Inc. and they are the world leader in executive leadership communication. If you weren't aware, he's trained, coached, and mentored presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, senators, and global CEOs and entrepreneurs in their executive presence and public speaking. some clients like Virture Haway, JP Morgan Chase, Pepsico, Meta, Walmart, Bank of America to name a few. We are joined by a master in his craft. Welcome, Leandro. Thank you, Arando. I hope I can become half the man you describe me to be. I'm sure I'm sure you are. Your trajectory has been truly impressive. Uh when I I'll be honest, when I reached out originally, I had seen some of your stuff, but then as I did more research, I I just found a breath of we'll get into what you actually do. But there's there's so much things that you've done for people to help them grow that affect all of us without us knowing because of the people that you've helped. And so it's truly an honor to have you here. And I'll get right to it. I do really really want to know how how did you get to personal transformation training? H how did you stumble upon this? Well, let me take you way back and you're never going to believe this, but I was a very shy and reticent child and my mom realized that very early on and uh of course she threw me at the deep bend and I had to swim. uh she put me into some very good theater and **[00:02:00]** drama schools back home in Bombay initially and uh I realized I started to get a new found confidence which was able to articulate my point of view in a more succinct manner and today I go around the world giving people that confidence that I didn't have as a child growing up. Wow. So theater now was this musical theater was it regular theater classical theater? It was regular theater. It was a lot of the classics as well as well as very non-conventional stuff. Things like, you know, play rights like RD lying and of course a bit of Shakespeare as well. Do you think people can get out? Well, you know, cuz it's your your path, but people sometimes think they might be shy and that's that's them. That's how they're going to be for the rest of their lives. and and they're not outgoing and they think maybe because of how I am and talking maybe a young person maybe they they don't see themselves in a leadership position for example because they're shy. So do do you think that's something that stays with people or or can it be overcome? Oh it definitely can be overcome. One is being true to yourself and today we talk about being authentic or authentic leadership but that's one part of the ball game. The second and more I think burden part is the part where we talk about pushing people out of their comfort zone. Specifically if someone has something interesting to share to a larger audience but they're holding back just because of nerves that's where we come in. We give them a platform to perform train them coach them mentor them and then the world becomes their oyster. Wow. This this whole concept of learning via **[00:04:00]** other methods, in this case, entertainment is very interesting to me. We've had a few guests, specifically last week on the training space. And one of the things that was said was that a lot of training programs or workshops don't work at the end of the day. Some companies come in, they do the training, they get people in their workshops, they didn't really find the root cause, they put everyone in, and then yeah, they do the training, but then it doesn't really help any results. And so, when I was looking at what your company does, I found the edutainment part of it and just the word alone is great. How does making something more fun affect its output? Ah, very interesting question. And thanks Aranda for that. I'll break that question up into two parts. The first is going back to the adult learning principles. The moment the fun stops, the learning stops. So if you take learning, if you take fun out of the equation, you're just going to have learning. And then sometimes now the second part to your question is everyone could provide a platform to learn. And that's not taking away from anyone. But specifically from this perspective, is that learning pragmatic? Can it be practically applied in a real world situation in the real operating shop floor? Because if that learning can't, then it just stays by the textbook. It stays in the learning room. And like you rightly said, a good 90% of learning stays just right there. And 10% is where learning is applicable. It can be applied, adapted, adopted, and lived through the letter. Interesting. So, we take the fun part out, the learning stops. I love that. Why then do schools have it totally backwards? Well, uh, **[00:06:00]** Armando, I wish I can go to every school in town and beyond because I was a product of some very boring teachers and I realized sometimes that, you know, if I had to start my own learning venture, which eventually I did. Uh, I would make learning fun. I would make and that's exactly the phrase where you took edut, you took education and you put entertainment and together you had edutainment. And I wish a lot of high school teachers, a lot of university teachers applied, understood adult learning principles specifically from a learning with fun perspective. Learning being pragmatic. Uh learning doesn't take place unless behavior changes. And you can't change anyone's behavior unless you change the way he or she thinks. So it goes back to mindset shifts. That makes a lot of sense. I was talking with my wife this morning specifically about music class. So, her daughter is in music class and she really enjoys it and there's this other girl in her class who is constantly distracted. And in this case, it's not that the class isn't fun, but that that girl might not tremendously enjoy music class or that type of music class and therefore she gets distracted. So do you think there is something to be said about in schools or education in general that we need to make sure we listen to what the children or how the children are acting and maybe change up the structure to make sure that everyone is actually taking it in. Armando again a fantastic question and thank you for the question. I'm going to answer this in two parts. The first part being uh getting your learners engaged, involving them and audience engagement is critical because the moment you have an isolation principle **[00:08:00]** at play where you as the facilitator, trainer, teacher, mentor, coach, guide, whatever name you want to call it is at one end of the spectrum and the learners are on the other end of the spectrum and somewhere you don't come midway or you don't go and pull them, you know, to the learning curve. of a platform, you're going to have a lost audience. That's the first part. So engagement is key and critical in the learning curve. The second part is when you talk about your daughter today, we live in an attention deficit society. Social media has made a lot of us socially inept and you'll find people just you know going from real to real to real and it's been proven by neuroscience as well that an attention span the preffrontal cortex takes roughly around I would say about 11 to 18 minutes and that's exactly why TED talks even on that platform and at that level are roughly around 18 minutes because however good the facilitator speaker is People tune out, people zone out. Now it's a great facilitator who will bring back, involve, engage and can see that now this is where theater came and helped me. I could see a disinterested audience. I could feel their pulse and I would bring them back to their fold with simple energizers, activity based learning things that they would love to do. That's that's a great example. The theater part of it I think compared to cinema is a whole other art. A lot of people don't see this because you are on stage and the audience is right there with you. Sometimes we forget but they are there with you. And if you pay attention, you can change what you were about to do **[00:10:00]** based on them not actually paying attention or you want to get a different response from them. And you're the expert in this part, but I think theater is so important in this sense because well, I'll give you an example. when maybe I don't know what 10 years ago they asked me to go there was this program they were going to do in my old high school bringing in entrepreneurs and giving some some small talks to some of the students and I was like oh yeah sure of course that would be interesting getting on the other side right because these are high school students and so I remember very clearly because it wasn't like a big talk or anything it was just I was just telling them about some things but I noticed that some of you could tell who is who in the classroom very very fast. And so there were these kids that I knew were probably going to be the troublemakers and the they start chatting amongst themselves. And so I included them in the conversation immediately and brought them back and I and then I s I stopped to I just thought to myself later what if if teachers would do that more often you wouldn't get so many distractions because the kids if they are edging away it's just because they don't didn't feel like you were just saying that connection with the teacher and the subject and so they just not off or try to do their own thing. But if we bring him back right, how important is it when you have someone you are training to build a connection? So how important is building a connection with them for the communication to occur? Uh Armander once again a **[00:12:00]** fantastic question and again there are two parts I'm going to level up. The first part which you talked about is KYA. You got to know your audience and specifically that there are different types of learners. You're going to have visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, ones who love to learn by seeing, love to learn by listening in the auditory and kinesthetic are people who love to learn by doing and experiencing the learning curve. The second part to your question is um how do you connect? I think you can connect on two major fronts like we have the left brainer and the right brainer. People have a logical connect as well as an emotional connect. So when you talk about a logical connect could it be talking about like we learned at Harvard Business School demonstrations examples facts figures statistics numbers datas they don't lie. I remember working with a very big Indian industrialist a couple of years ago and he says you know Leandro in God we all trust but everyone else needs to bring data to the table. That's a good Yeah. And when you connect when you talk about an emotional connect you talk about having the power of stories and today storytelling has become an art and a skill as well. a learn skill as well as a science uh humor, analogies, references, quotes, or even a picture speaks a thousand words. I could talk about Mother Teresa forever, talk about world peace forever. But if I show you a picture of Mother Teresa, you get the message immediately. That's world peace. That is powerful. And having a picture or a video in the context of today is such a powerful tool as well because going back to training there's there's still **[00:14:00]** many and you might have some numbers on this but there's so many training programs and workshops that are still based on slides, PowerPoint presentations, keynotes that just have text on them and you wonder why people are dozing off. Correct. You could use pictures, one picture, one striking image like Mother Teresa or a video or a graphical representation of something or even music. But why do you think people still use slides knowing that if they were asked to go to that presentation, they probably wouldn't enjoy it either. Absolutely. We call that death by PowerPoint. Now specifically if I've seen a lot of slides and I see a business presentation in fact a couple of business presentations every day around the globe and I see such textheavy slides. Now I remember when I was doing my thesis in leadership communication we were specifically told and we researched as well that uh there's the 6x6 rule. Now in a 6x6 rule they specifically mention that you should not have more than six bullet points per slide and not more than six words per bullet point. That means that's roughly around 36 words per slide. Now if you just go back rewind and if you look at some of the slides we see even as you know as of today you'd find jeez they are heavily loaded. They're textheavy. There's an information overload. People should be able to read and understand your slide in the first 10 seconds. And if they can't within 10 seconds, you'd know you haven't done a great job. That makes a lot of sense. I remember looking at some presentations where even if you're trying to pay attention to the speaker, if it's so noisy, you're trying to figure out on your own and **[00:16:00]** you stop paying attention to the speaker. So that makes a lot of sense. 6x6. hadn't heard about that model. That's that's makes a lot of sense and just keeps it simple. You can just go back, revise, make sure you get rid of all the and now with these all the LLMs and everything, people you might love them or hate them. They are tools at the end of the day. So, if you have something that's heavily packed in content, well, try to pass it through it. If you're not good at summarizing, pass it through one of these LLMs. Explain, tell it the 6x6 principle. it might get you closer. Now, you still have to revise it to keep it human, right? But at the end of the day, it will help you get closer. I give you a simple examples. For example, when people kind of have text heavy slides or they there's an information overload, I say just mail it to me. I'll read it when I have the time. But if you're presenting, keep in mind that you are the message as a presenter. That slide is just the medium. People spend so much of time in the medium and spend very little time on the person who's actually the message, which is the presenter. That makes a lot of sense. And I've seen these powerful presentations where this person goes up and they have a blank slide or a black slide and it's just and it's a shock, but at the end of the day, there's such a great presenter that captures you and the theater comes back into it. At the end of the day, a presenter is doing a performance, right? Yes, absolutely. I I I really like your KYA know **[00:18:00]** your audience bit because I'm wondering do you think even if it's something that you're doing let's say I'm doing a training every week and this is for all of you who who are doing training if our listeners do training programs and they're doing the same program every week. Do you think it is worth it to dig into who the audience will be for each of those sessions and adjust the content ever ever so slightly such that it will match even if it's the same basic structure who is actually listening? Absolutely. And that's what we call the power of reinventing yourself as a facilitator as well as the content. Like you said correctly, the content the base content could be the same but the way you connect the way you roll it out, the way you run an activity differently with the set of audience knowing that they are a certain level. For example, we run a program called the management due and that can be run right from CX level to the junior most individual contributor at an organization. Now, the base content stays the same, but the messaging changes along the way depending on who's in front of you. And if you don't KY know your audience, you're in for trouble. Interesting. So, I was looking at some of your programs and solutions and management. you I wasn't really sure where in the structure it fit. So as you're explaining now it makes a lot of sense. So the program really does apply across the board. Right. Absolutely. In fact the management you program is a personal transformation program. It's run for the CX level across the globe as well as like I said an individual contributor. What's interesting is there is a threepoint **[00:20:00]** objective. It makes you more confident, more uninhibited and more expressive as a communicated presenter. In fact, it's a master story board in how to tell a great story to the audience, how to connect with them, and it takes a deep dive into the three big V's of communication. It helps you with your visual, your vocal, and your verbal. How to interact with audiences across the globe, and how to answer those pray don't ask questions. H let's unpack that. So there's visual, there's verbal, right? What is this is? Well, we could go to down a rabbit hole, but visual, let's start with visual. So how does that affect someone's communication? Oh, absolutely. In fact, when uh Dr. Albert Morabin who's the father of body language in fact I had a distinct honor of being trained by him he's a former UCLA professor and he came over to Harvard to lecture us on the power of non-verbal and when I was attending uh Dr. Morabian sessions he he talked about the three Vs and he says visual is everything that people sees for example even your dress sense they look at your eye contact your facial expressions it takes more muscles to frown and less to smile so go ahead and smile you automatically open the audience to your point of view uh look at your gestures all of that right now vocal is your voice modulation it's your energy your enthusiasm your pitch, your pace, your pause, your power. And finally, verbal is he says talk is cheap, but the rubbers really hit the road. And so he said about 7% is verbal, 55% is visual, and vocal is 38%. But very interestingly he went back to study the three concept and he came up roughly **[00:22:00]** around a decade later he came up with visual vocal and verbal have to be 33.3% each. The reason being is because that's when you're really in business. That's when your communication is congruent. Otherwise you're non- congruent because what people see is what they don't hear and how they perceive or receive it is a totally different ball game. So your three Vss have to be in congruence for you to be in business. Wow. Verbal I think some people understand even though they don't apply it or try to get better but it's a very important one. Visual I think some might relate as well though most don't apply it. But then vocal is one that I found so much power in and throughout history everyone can see that's when you see a great speaker, a great president and how they express themselves. They have definitely used both of the other aspects, but the vocal, the lowering and raising of the voice and the speed and the pace and the changing of the tuning right of the melody of the voice is so important to learn that I don't know why we're not learning it. Aside from being in theater, musical theater or other type of performance-based activities, where do people are where are supposed people people are supposed to be getting this training be before going into the real world. Armando, there's a company called Miller Wyman. Might I remind you? Well, jokes aside, that was in light of vein. uh I believe if one ain't working on their visual, vocal and verbal, they're definitely not in the business of communication and everyone communicates. I keep telling this to my students across the globe, Armando, that the moment you open your mouth to speak, you are performing. **[00:24:00]** The moment you open your mouth, you are selling yourself. You may say, well, I don't like selling. I detest selling. I'm not in sales. But everyone is selling. And it's not what you're saying, but how you're saying it that makes all the difference. It's not what you know, it's how you tell the world what you know. Yes, I I agree. The We mentioned this last week in in some of the other shows as well. The part where you're talking about you're always selling. At the end of the day, you're trying to get someone to either move in a certain direction or take an action, whether it's your kids or a client or a colleague or someone in your business hierarchy. And you have to make that connection first, but you have to also use all these visual, verbal, vocal aspects to be able to engage with them. Otherwise, they'll not off. But you mentioned something very important at the beginning which is being authentic because even if you cover everything that's where the sales bit comes in. Many people sort of shy away from the sales aspect because they get that they remember seeing or feeling uncomfortable with someone being pushy in a sales conversation. And that is I mean that that is not the proper way to do it. But we all have felt it and so we attribute sales to that and it's not right at the end of the day. So what advice could you give to someone who has that fear of feeling pushy or salesy? What can they do to overcome it? Like someone that is shy in this case. How does someone who shies away from a sales conversation overcome that shyness or that fear with some of these **[00:26:00]** tools? Uh well again thanks Roman but there are two parts to your question. The first is what does one do? fun has to realize there has to be some amount of selfawareness and the moment self-awareness sets and it also sets the ball of being a little more emotionally intelligent and saying hey yes I realize I'm shying away from the selling bit at the same time I know it's critically important for me to put my best foot forward now the person who's shying away has to be told right at the very start that if you don't sell yourself and you don't sell yourself well enough to to the larger world or you don't share what skill sets you bring to the table, the spoils go to someone else. So if you're happy to be relegated to second place or back of the pecking order, so be it. Right? You got to respect where if the person doesn't want to move forward, you can't move anyone forward who doesn't want to move forward. So self-awareness is critical. The second part is I remember very early on my parents. I mean they threw me at the deep end being a very shy and reticent child. I mean I I I would just not want to go to that drama class or school and I went to some of the best speech therapists in the country growing up in Bombay. I remember that uh whether I liked it or I had to lump it, I had to show up, dress up and show up to class and I did just that. today because I did that about 20 25 years ago. It has given me that confidence to go around the globe start a trading company that builds people's **[00:28:00]** executive presence something that I was shying away from and today we've become the world's leading executive presence company. a a boy started who started off in a small little town in Bombay called Bandra and now based out of Boston but I traveled extensively around the globe. I think that is if I hadn't pushed if I hadn't pushed myself Arando I would be still back home in Bombay. That is exactly what I was going to say the people who are might be in this position. So, if you're listening to this and you feel you're you you can't go anywhere because you're shy or if if your parents are are trying to guide you towards doing something where you can expand your your sense of of uh self-worth and also perhaps improve your speech patterns. Some people are they they hear speech therapy and they say no no I don't I don't want that or or even the parents they they know their child will be better off if they do that because it'll it'll change something for the better. So hearing it from someone as successful as yourself should be at least for someone out there very powerful because because that might change the the little trigger in their mind and say okay yeah I maybe should continue with this maybe I should put my first foot forward because if you can do it they can too. Absolutely. And might I add one point here Mando is I I would like to share with the audience whoever's listening in or who would listen in. If you don't believe in yourself, don't expect anyone to believe in you. But also, might I add here, sometimes when you start to believe in yourself, you're going to find a **[00:30:00]** lot of good well-wishes along the way who slowly start to believe in you. Like I because I kept pushing myself to the deep end and out of the comfort zone. I realized I had a few very good professor friends. I had some well-wishes. I had some professional directors growing up who helped me come out of my comfort zone. And so a lot of kudos to a lot of mentors along the way who helped to build me up to becoming a better person. That's that's great advice. I uh we in this world of social media which is a great thing. Social media if used properly is think about it we we can reach a global audience in seconds just by grabbing the phone posting something. I can post a video. It could be watched by someone in Mumbai. It could be watched by someone in Australia. it could be watched by someone anywhere in the world and that's that's amazing especially if you're sharing good content. I think in this world that we live in now many people that become successful are then ex sharing only the successful part of it and how they've made it and now they're like yes I did this and this and this and this but they don't necessarily mention what you just said which is the mentors along the way the well-wishers along the way those that actually helped you get further. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh you know not only the mentors and I realized teachers, principal, certain priests, certain nuns, certain friends of the family, uh certain uh you know well-wishers they all were instrumental in my becoming a better person and professional in the last 23 years. And so credit goes to all of them. And I start off **[00:32:00]** with, you know, my immediate family, my parents who of course both bast and no more. Uh my sisters, their families, relatives, neighbors, friends, everybody who just believed. And because I believed in myself along the way and with a lot of hard work, effort, and education, it can take you from place A to B. But one thing I'd like to say is invest in yourself. And I'm not saying this because we run a personal investment company in terms of the management due and mil but if you don't invest in yourself growth becomes a challenge whether you want to move from Mumbai to Munich to Manchester to Madrid you need to invest in yourself. That is so true. And by the way, Miller Wyman does have some really amazing programs. And that was really one of the reasons I reached out originally when I saw that you used guided discovery and roleplaying and learning with fun. That immediately caught my attention and I if we can dive a little bit into that. What is guided discovery? Oh, Armando guided discovery. Uh there are various pedagogical tools that one could use in the facilitation cycle. Uh guided discovery is a tool that helps you as the facilitator to become a guide on the side. So you kind of give a little download and then you step aside and you watch them perform. You watch your learners in the room do practice and as a guide on the side you first leverage peer feedback and then you can share your feedback. Now let me share something about feedback. A lot of people think feedback is only what A, B or C ain't doing right. But that in fact is wrong because good feedback is what the person is doing **[00:34:00]** right. So they can repeat that behavior. As a result they can hardwire it. it becomes automatic and it becomes second nature. But there's no harm in constructive criticism along the way. If you would like to sandwich that between the good, the bad, and what can be done better, the start, continue, stop method of feedback, you're in business of sharing. But more importantly, it's the tonal quality and how you share that feedback. Rather than using it as a punitive measure to punish people, you use it as a redemptive me measure. You use it as a measure to uplift them and upskill them along the way and cross skill them and give them a platform to perform. Oh, that's interesting. So, it's no longer just a lecture where you're just giving them something. You're actually involved in the whole process. Yes. Wow. How does how does roleplaying come into play? Absolutely. In fact, uh we've talked a great deal about me having a you know theater background growing up in Bombay and beyond. Uh I've been able to leverage a lot of those skill sets in the training room. If you ask over the 10 lakh students I've trained or professionals or executives I've trained globally right from the CX level to the junior most employee they'll tell you oh it's always fun to be in LEO session. uh and the reason being is because I've done a lot of role plays. Now you got to understand that role play if is just a role play is dangerous but a role play which leads to real play that is where it the rubber really hits the road. So you start off with asking them to come out of their comfort zone to play a character they can't **[00:36:00]** really play can't they sometimes it's difficult being themselves. Can you imagine asking them to be someone else that they're not? And then through that process, you extract. So I use a lot of recording tools as well. And I let them watch how they've performed. And I say, "Hey, look, this is what you've done well. This is what you continue to do and repeat, but this is something you can start doing. Possibly this is something perhaps you may want to stop doing." as a result of which they slowly pick up the right pieces, they put it together and they get more holistic in the learning curve. But keep in mind, role play only for the heck of role playing ain't a great learning tool. But role play which leads to real play where they can apply what they've learned in that role play that is when you're in business. I wow this is bringing it back to the source original basis of the word team. We we talk about teams in corporate but we don't really think of them as teams like a sport team. But if you go to a sport team and you see the American football or any other type of you see they have this whole process where they're constantly training, putting in the work, but then they go in and they do the diagrams and they show them and they look at the recordings and they see what they did wrong, what they did right, now we can do this thing right again, like you were just saying. So some of that mentality should spill over more to this side, right? Absolutely. where you do a postmortem post every match. Mhm. Which we have something you like which we don't do **[00:38:00]** exactly which we should be doing and that's why with every session specifically in the management you Armando we do a preassessment we record them we show the student community where they are currently and we also show them their potential map of where they could possibly grow or go on to become. Yeah. Uh then we do a mid assessment in between the program to tell them okay now you're here but you still have potential to reach here and we kind of push them sometimes push their limits a bit as well and ask them to push themselves in that learning curve and we do a post assessment and so they have a pre-mid and a post assessment and there's no rocket science and you'll always find that the post assessment is far better than the preassessment because of the students community, their effort and their inclination and their dedication and commitment to the learning curve. Nothing to do with us. We're just guides on the site. Wow. Now, I'll pause here just because I think the audience should hear this. Leandro here is being a little humble when he says he's gotten good feedback from from some CEOs and executives. There there's a quote from Warren Buffett saying, "Leandro is an absolute genius in bringing out the best in people." So this we are in another league here with Leandro and just so you take his advice as it is. I mean you take it with a grain of salt of course but you're listening to someone who's doing this at a very high level helping people become better persons, better humans. But these are people that affect our everyday lives with their businesses with their running of their countries. And so it is again take it **[00:40:00]** with a grain of salt but at the end of the day he knows his stuff. So going back to Leandro what you're saying about management you I read about it and I say wow this is wonderful. I like I as a regular entrepreneur would love to have something like this but then I think well I mean I see their client list. This must be a tremendously expensive thing. this must be completely out of my reach, etc. So, I I we don't have to talk about pricing or anything, but just in general, what should someone who actually hears us and says, "Wow, this is definitely something I need in my company or for myself as an entrepreneur, how do I get the benefits of this? Is this something achievable? or should I see this as something that I should plan for the future in maybe the next 5 years when I'm ready or at the right level? Uh interesting question Armando. Thank you. So this is a course that's easily affordable by anyone anywhere in the world. Of course there are levels to the course. There are levels to the certification which we'll talk about later. But this is a course that can be achieved by anyone who's willing to learn. If they have the will, we will give them that skill. And I don't mean to sound like a frustrated copyright or you or or kind of use rhetoric here, but it's a fact. If they have the will, we can really create magic together as a team. It's easily affordable. In fact, uh being born and raised in Bombay myself, um I keep coming back to India very often. When I come back to India, we've been running a lot of programs across various **[00:42:00]** universities in the country and beyond just to give back to the Indian population to the Asian population because I I see a big difference uh with the Indians and the Asians. There's no doubt about it. They're a bright love. They got their gray cells way up there. But there's a big and there's a big difference between the Americans and the Europeans. And that's the difference is communication and presentation. The Americans and the the Europeans could sell ice to an Eskimo. He he doesn't need the damn ice. He lives in the Tundra region. But the way they put their point of view across, this is where our Indian community and our Asian community need to really step up. This is why I keep coming back to India. In fact, one of the work important work that we do is the ministry of external affairs in the country as well. And so I'm back a week every month to spend some time not just with the global CXO community of the various companies and consulted within the region but also with the government uh to help their uh people the Indian foreign service uh various uh I would say ambassadors of India to various countries helping them to come up the curb as well and that makes perfect sense because of your background. around. I imagine you also made it such that even though it's such a powerful tool, it's still affordable to affordable. Absolutely. Affordable and should be accessible to everyone. That is fantastic. I didn't expect that to be honest. I because of how it's just I just mentioned it already because of the types of clients you have, the people you serve, sometimes it becomes sort of a gated thing for for us mortals **[00:44:00]** to not be able to get it until we reach a certain level where okay, so now I can spend this this amount of money. So I'm really happy to hear that. Absolutely. And and might I add something here? Well, you know, uh, with the amount of companies that I've consulted with across the globe, there are some leaders who have a vision for their people and their teams and their organization. And so, they bring us in because they have that vision. And yet there are many others who also don't have that vision. And so sometimes been training in firms and then because either of change of leadership uh you find that people with a little narrow vision step in and then they say, well, this is what our people don't need. But everyone in reality needs to communicate and present himself or herself in the highest or to the highest level possible. So in fact shortch changing your people or taking it away from them is a very sad thing. But I always say each to their own. We don't judge. Who are we to judge? That's right. That's right. Talked about the certification which is another thing. You have the C3 certified corporate consultant. you have a few other programs. What does this mean and why would someone in the business world consider something like this? Uh Armando, like I I said earlier, everyone needs to communicate and present well, but if you have a stamp of approval from a globally accredited organization and body, it always is a door opener. For example, a lot of people have asked me, "How was your experience at Harvard?" I said, "Lovely." They asked me very honestly then, "What new did you learn at Harvard?" And I had **[00:46:00]** already had years of experience before I enrolled at Harvard Business School. Uh to be honest, I already knew what I was thought in those two years at Harvard Business School. It's because I was doing that on a daily basis for years before that. But what did I gain was a certificate which became a door opener. So today when you sit across a room and you say well someone's Harvard educated or an Ivy League educated professional or Oxford educated people almost sit back and listen. Now I'm not saying or I can guarantee complete sense because we've seen otherwise as well but uh fairly I would say a good percentage you you know there'd be sense coming out from there uh studied research knowledge is well shared and that's critical uh but more specifically you'd find that people come out with a C3 certification a certified corporate consultant. Now what does that entail or enable them to do in the real business world? A lot of entrepreneurs who have all the possible technical knowledge, they have a great product and service line, but now that they want to share it with the larger world, they don't have that platform or exposure. That's where we come in. They go through the management program with us. We upskill them. We bring them to a certain level where they can sell their ideas to the larger world now and get or build a new employee or customer base. So that's where we come in. And then we give them the C3, the certified corporate consultant, which comes from the highest training body in America, the American Society of Training and Development, the ASTD. Now it's known as the ATD, the Association of Talent Development. Now, if you have an ASTD **[00:48:00]** or an ATD certification, which is from the highest training body in America with the best C3 certified corporate consultant training with the world's leader in communication and presentation, I think doors open for you. That makes perfect sense. So once you want to do it professionally, maybe you want to offer the service or maybe even you want to get a leadership position at a top tier organization, the certificate really will help open or I mean it does as every certificate from a third party body can give you which is great but and by the way for for those who don't know I not completely sure of the stat but I understand that is you're one of the only bodies that actually provides this. Yes, correct. We're the only learning organization in the world to give you the C3, the certified corporate consultant. There is no other trading company in the world who can give you the C3 and the C3 is the highest level of softskll certification. We took years well as a board we have over 100 years of experience. You see we have a fossil and dead haulingworth on board and he's trained roughly around six US presidents. I have worked with President Obama as well. That is fantastic. And so I don't want to take off too much of your time because you've already shared so much with us. But I do want to ask one more thing which is if you had something you would recommend to people, anyone who's listening, what would be your topmost recommendation to someone who is You know, as a leader, remember, your only job as a leader is to create new leaders. And so, you need to ask yourself, how are you creating that new leadership **[00:50:00]** pipeline? And in order to practically create a great leadership pipeline, you need to coach, you need to mentor, you need to at times counsel, at times you need to facilitate. Now all these are different skill sets and disciplines. Many leaders I've worked with don't even know that there is a difference between coaching, counseling, consulting, training, and mentoring. And so they may they they mean well but they make an absolute mess of the entire game plan. So remember as a future leader the only job is to coach your people to become the next in line to lead. We need great leaders not followers. There are many followers any which ways. Thank you so much Leandra. That was fantastic advice. Where can people find you or the Miller Winemind group if they're interested in following up? We can leave our website with them. They I we can also leave at the end of the show my personal email ID so they can get in touch with me directly. We're based out of Boston but we all live out of a suitcase. Uh I spend a week in India and then I'm in I'm in Asia, in Europe as well as in Africa. I was in South America right through September and October. So I pretty much live out of suitcase and travel a bit crazy. That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for opening yourself up to questions to give us this possibility of learning from you. I will put that information in the show notes for everyone who's listening. And it's been an honor having you on the show today. Leandro Armando, thank you very much. And from all of us at the middleman family, once again, all the very best and thank you very much. **[00:52:00]** Invest in yourself