Maha Abouelenein: Author of 7 Rules of Self-Reliance

Episode 595

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, join us as Maha Abouelenein, author of 7 Rules of Self-Reliance and CEO of Digital and Savvy, delves into her rich background in global communications. Maha discusses transitioning from advising major corporations to authoring a book that empowers individuals through masterful communication. She shares essential insights from 7 Rules of Self-Reliance, emphasizing the importance of effective communication for personal and professional success. Throughout the episode, Maha offers actionable advice for enhancing influence and leadership in a digital world, maintaining integrity in business, and balancing entrepreneurial demands. This discussion is packed with valuable strategies for anyone interested in boosting their communication skills or understanding global business dynamics. Don’t miss out on this enriching conversation! Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. I’m so so excited to have my next guest. Here we have Maha Abouelenein, who is the author of 7 Rules of Self-Reliance. And this is mahas first book. She is a Master of Global Communications. We’ll let her talk a lot about everything she’s done in her journey. She’s also an entrepreneur, and she is the founder and CEO of digital and savvy. Has spent over 30 years advising corporate giants, CEOs, startups and governments, leveraging her vast experience to enhance global communications. We all know how big and important it is to be able to have the proper communications, especially when you’re working globally. And Maha is really it, but she’s also wrote this book that is so incredible, called 7 Rules of Self-Reliance. I have it right here, and it is just absolutely inspiring. I learned a lot super rich insights from her own entrepreneurial journey, but also just invaluable lessons that she’s learned along the way, so I can’t wait to dive into hear a lot more from her about strategies and thinking bigger and Breaking Through Barriers, all of those things. So welcome. Maha how are you?

Maha Abouelenein 2:14
I’m good. How are you? I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for that lovely introduction.

Kara Goldin 2:18
Sure. I’m very excited to talk about your book, because it is absolutely so so good. And finally, why didn’t you come out with the sooner? I mean, this is like when I heard that you hadn’t had a book before this, I was like, what? This is crazy, because you have so much to offer. So can you start by just sharing a bit about your journey and your experiences over the years to get you to today?

Maha Abouelenein 2:48
So yeah, so I’m born and raised in Minnesota, a small town and called Mankato. Lived here, grew up in the US. I’m 100% Egyptian, and I work for General Mills in the US, doing sports marketing. And when I was 27 I moved to Egypt. And imagine Kara you moving to Egypt like you don’t speak the language, you don’t have friends, you don’t have a network. I was 27 years old, and I moved to Egypt because my mother had multiple sclerosis, and so I moved to Egypt for personal reasons, and I got to Egypt and I’m like, Okay, I gotta figure this out. Like I don’t have a job, I don’t have friends, I don’t have a business network. What do I do? And so I ended up getting a job as an office manager for this billionaire. And if you ever get a chance to work as a personal assistant or an office manager for somebody senior in an organization, my message to you is, take it. No job is beneath you. And I ended up reluctantly accepting this job because I thought I was overqualified and I should have a better job and and I was wrong, was what I learned. And I basically put my head down. I put in the work. I started to figure out how I can add value for this chairman of this company. Ended up having a great career working with him. Ended up being the Head of Communications and Public Policy for Google. I worked for Netflix for five years, launched them into the Middle East. I moved to Dubai. At some point in my journey, I built Weber shanwick, a big PR firm in the Middle East, 18 offices. I worked for the ruler of Dubai. I served several under secretaries of State for Public Diplomacy. So I did a lot of corporate work, and I did a lot of government work. Governments like companies, want to tell their stories. They want to be transparent. They want to know how to be communicating with their audiences, to connect with them. And then during the pandemic, I moved back to the US. After living overseas for 23 years, I literally decided in 24 hours that if I didn’t get on this plane, they’re going to shut the airports and the world’s going to shut down, and I’m never going to see my family. And that was just enough incentive to say, pull the trigger. Let’s go. And I moved. I moved back to Minnesota in 2020 and I’ve been here ever since. I have a strategic firm, communications firm with offices in the US and in Dubai, and we work with the likes of Gary, Vee, Jim quick. I done some project with Deepak. Chopra, and we work with a lot of different corporate clients as well. So,

Kara Goldin 5:03
so incredible. And you’re based out of Minnesota. I mean, that’s based out of Minnesota, yeah, which I

Maha Abouelenein 5:09
love Minnesota, which we share.

Kara Goldin 5:13
Definitely, yes, absolutely, it’s, you know, when I was very little, but definitely, I think the Midwest feeling and personality as well as is definitely there. So what’s it like today? I don’t know, versus maybe even 10 years ago, thinking about establishing your company in Minnesota, because I think a lot of people would think like, oh, communications firm, you have to be in Dubai or New York or LA or you know that you have you are doing it and making it happen. So I think if there’s one good thing that happened through the pandemic, I think so much around communication has changed so much that it doesn’t really matter where you are. Yeah,

Maha Abouelenein 6:02
I think. I mean, first of all, I love being in Minnesota. I’m really proud to be from Minnesota and to come back and start my business here. I mean, Minnesota’s famous for lots of things. Now, we got Anthony Edwards, we got SUNY Lee, we got some good athletes. So there Minnesota is happening now, is the home to, actually, many Fortune 500 companies, the targets, the three M’s, the General Mills of the world. But when I thought about like, when you’re an entrepreneur, you have to do what’s best for you with the decisions that you have in front of you, right? So when I was having the pandemic hit and I wanted to move back to the US, I had to think through, can I bring my clients from Dubai to the US? Can I service them from the US? Maybe this is an opportunity for me to get new clients in the US. And when I thought about Minnesota, my company’s 100% remote. It still is. It’s been that way for four years since we opened their offices, and it allows us the flexibility to be productive, the freedom to travel to our clients when we need to go with our clients. But I think any entrepreneur who wants to start a business can do it from anywhere. And I feel like now we have the freedom and flexibility to do that. It allows me a lot of savings on office space and renting an office space and thinking about that and pouring that into my team, into their benefit packages, into other resources that we use in marketing the company. And I feel like anybody who wants to start a business and wants to do it remotely, should take that plunge and think about all the benefits that you can offer, not just for yourself, but for your team,

Kara Goldin 7:29
definitely. So 7 Rules of Self-Reliance your book. So how do you define self reliance in today’s fast paced and interconnected world. I feel like you’re a living example of it, but definitely, I’d love to hear your definition of that. Yeah,

Maha Abouelenein 7:50
self reliance, to me, is about betting on yourself. It’s about investing in yourself and dedicating time to invest in yourself to have the tools that you need, right? So how can you be accountable to yourself? How can you make promises to yourself? Self Reliance isn’t about being independent. It’s not about being alone and not working with anyone. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. And what’s in this book is not what. It’s not about communications. It’s not that kind of a book. It’s about the how like self reliance, like, how can you bring value to other people? How can you invest in your personal brand? How can you be a long term player? So if you rely on yourself, I’m telling you to have all the cards in your hand, and those cards are experiences, relationships, skills. So rely on yourself to know things like I have sent out some advanced copies of the book to men and to women, and they’re telling me the book’s giving us confidence like, Oh, I didn’t know Self Reliance was about trusting myself. It was about trusting the confidence that I know what’s best for me. So a lot of people wait for permission from others or wait for someone to give them the opportunities that they actually want for themselves. And so what I’m trying to empower and inspire people through this book is you can rely on yourself. You’re more powerful than you think. You just need to know. What are the things that you need to know and what are the things you need to rely on other people for? Because you shouldn’t outsource everything to everybody. So what I’m trying to do is build the balance of these are the things you should rely on yourself for, and here are the skills and rules to do it, and here’s the things that you need to rely on other people to help you for, because asking for help is always seen like as a sign of weakness, and I’m saying it’s not. It’s actually a strength, but have the self awareness to know what are you good at? What do you know? And then pour a lot of energy and investment into yourself. That’s

Kara Goldin 9:43
so true. And also know that some people may not know how to help you, right? So sometimes you actually have to direct them and be very specific. So yeah, I think that that that’s just so so key. So you’re. Book discusses these, you know, personal challenges, learning from failures. I love that. Could you share how these types of experiences have really influenced your own professional philosophy?

Maha Abouelenein 10:15
I mean, I think a lot about the times my back was up against a wall where I got asked to do something I had never done before. I had to make a decision that I had never made before. Asked to do something for my family that I had never done before, and I had to, like, figure it out on my own. I had to rely on myself to say, Okay, what do I know and how can I solve this problem? Some people are really good at problem solving. Some people are really good at like they’re people people. Some people are very good at connecting A to B and being that kind of conduit and super connector. So I think in my personal experiences, when I came to think about this book, I was like, what has been consistent in my life, besides the fact that I had to rely on myself, it was, how do I create value for other people? Because when I learned how to create value for somebody else, that ended up being my secret sauce. I’m like, Oh, if I can create value for someone, I can build a relationship. If I can create value for someone, I can be in their network. If I can create value for somebody, I might do business with them. And so I think in my own experiences, the times where I was forced to think about how to create value for somebody else ended up being highly rewarding for my business and for myself. And I just feel like it’s a lesson that I want people to learn how to do, because the sense of satisfaction you get when bringing value to somebody, it makes you indispensable.

Kara Goldin 11:40
It’s so true. And if they shine, you shine right? Especially if there’s a significant change in how they’re perceived, or things seem chaotic, and then all of a sudden, they’re like, wait, what? What changed? And they understand that, or they learn that, you know you’re involved. I think that that is such a key, key thing for people to remember. It’s not about competition or who’s getting the most attention. It’s really about remembering that if, if they’re shining in some way, then you are going to as well. You’ve created

Maha Abouelenein 12:14
that value. I mean, it leads to another rule in the book, which is about being a long term player. Like, how do you think long term like right now. Business is all rewarding everything now, right? Transactions, getting things done. A video has to load in three seconds. I have to tap to pay and get out of there. I want to watch a whole season right away. We live in a real time society, right where we want things now, what I would like to people to think about is, how do you play the long game. What is the long game? How do you nurture a relationship over the long time so that you can get that value for somebody else or create that value for somebody else? Being a long term player doesn’t mean you’re naive and you’re just going to give your way your time, for free or not. You know, get what you’re looking for, but it’s a strategy for how you can rely on yourself. Like, if you think on the long term basis, like I can do this, like, if I can put in the effort and put my head down and try hard and think about where the benefits will come in the long term, then you’ll be able to win. So it’s like losing weight or gaining muscle or working out, like it’s a long game. You got to think of the long game. You can’t think about the short term. The short term results. You have to think about, how do I develop healthy habits? Healthy lifestyle of eating more or eating better, or sleeping better, you know, moving more, all those kinds of things.

Kara Goldin 13:32
I love it. So rule number seven, no regrets. How would you can you talk a little bit about that?

Maha Abouelenein 13:39
I mean, it’s hard to say. I mean, it’s hard to say, I want to live with no regrets. It’s not that easy to do, but I want you just to think about one thing to put it in perspective for you. This is your journey. We are only on this planet for so long. How Why do you want to walk around with all the baggage and luggage of things that you should have done, you could have done, you would have done. You know, Today’s a new day. Today’s a new day for you to start doing the things you want to do, and Today’s a new day, and you own your life. You are in charge of your life. No one is going to put you at the top of your priority list, but you so don’t regret decisions you’ve made. Those are all good experiences or lessons. And, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine who was making a big decision, and he’s like, I don’t want to do something. I’m going to regret. I’m like, it’s not a regret. A decision has two ways to go. You make a decision with the information you know, at that time and see how it plays out, and if it doesn’t work out, make another decision to change the course, and I don’t want people to live in regret or to feel failure, or what other people are going to think like. I don’t want to do something I’m going to regret, or I want to do something where people are going to judge me and say, Who does she think she is? So the message in the no regrets chapter, because I talk a lot about my struggles and how I turn them into my strengths, but. Both my mother and my father were really, really disabled and sick. My mother had MS, my father had ALS. And how do you turn your struggles into strengths? How do you turn those setbacks in your life into comebacks? Everybody has setbacks. Everybody has struggles. Nobody’s immune in this world, not one single person. And knowing that other people also have that makes us feel better because we know we’re not alone.

Kara Goldin 15:24
I think that leads very nicely into highlighting the power of storytelling and kind of catching people up. That’s how I took that chapter, and when you’re talking about storytelling and and how that is building not only your brand, in some sense, but I just feel like it’s building connection. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Maha Abouelenein 15:48
Yeah. I mean, the most important story you tell, you tell is the one you tell yourself, who am I? What do I stand for? What’s my purpose? What are the things I want the world to know about me? So when you think about storytelling, it’s something that’s obviously in our common business or creative vernacular, like, oh, we need to be good at storytelling. What we’re trying to say is we need to be good at connecting with others. And how we get good at connecting with others is we build a relationship, and how you build a relationship as you build trust. So storytelling is as easy as you know, talking to someone one on one or one to many through social media, what are you doing to connect with your audience? What are you doing to add value to your audience? What are you doing to inspire or educate your audience, depending on obviously, there’s several different entrepreneurs that might listen to this and say, you know, my goal to build my personal brand might be to, you know, generate awareness for something, or it might be to inspire or educate or call to action, to get somebody to do something. I want people to be intentional about their personal brands. And I think a lot about personal branding. It’s not about self promotion. It’s about idea promotion, and it’s about your reputation. So I’m not saying that I want you to be a personal brand so you can be a social media influencer. That’s not at all what I’m talking about. I’m talking about waking up every day thinking about your reputation and your name, because it’s the only thing that you actually own. How can you think about your brand? If you work at a company and want to get a promotion, you need to think about how you show up at work and what your personal brand is. If you work at a company and you want to get that project that’s going to get you to the next level. Are you? How are you showing up? How are you articulating your values and your goals and who you are as a team player, a collaborator, a hustler, or those types of things. If you’re an entrepreneur, people follow people. They don’t follow companies. So make sure that you’re articulating your brand ethos. What you stand for. How do you make it? How do you do it? People love behind the scenes of a business. So I always think about personal brand equals reputation. They’re not two separate things. And don’t you want to be obsessed with your reputation.

Kara Goldin 18:02
Yeah, it’s that is so, so true. You’re you’re talking to somebody who is preaching this constantly, because I absolutely believe the same. The more you can let people in on your why and also who you are and what you believe. And that’s not talking about religious or political. That’s really just talking about, like, what gets you up in the morning? What do you do? One of the things that I like you’ve talked about daily habits and practices in order to build self reliance. Can you share a little bit about that?

Maha Abouelenein 18:40
Yeah, I mean, I think when we self reliance is a lot about self confidence and believing in yourself. So if, if I don’t believe on myself, why would you believe in me? Right? So I need to make sure that I believe in myself. Like the daily habit of practicing self reliance can be something as simple of, okay, what am I doing to invest in myself this week? What are the things I’m going to learn? Is it from friends? Is it from podcasts? Is it from books? And guess what? It’s all for free. Learning is for free. So investing in yourself is a core habit of a daily Self Reliance practice is like, Okay, I need to teach myself some skills. I need to make sure that I am doing daily affirmations about what I’m good at. You know, everybody has unique talents. Everybody just a lot of people don’t think that they do, or they don’t take the time to sit down and say, Okay, make a list like, what are the things that I’m really good at? And they could be skills, or they could be talents, like I just mentioned. I’m a people person, I’m a problem solver. I’m a super connector. Those are skills. I’m really good at writing, I’m really good at creating things with my hands. I’m really good at doing research. All of those are skills that you can rely on yourself to build from.

Kara Goldin 19:55
Yes. So true. So, so, so true. So you talk about, uh. High stress situations and maintaining kind of that mental resilience. In your book, can you speak more about how that, I think, at today’s business landscape that is so relevant, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what your gender is, I think it’s it’s definitely kind of getting a hold of this and being able to control it. So what would you any thoughts or advice on that? Yeah,

Maha Abouelenein 20:27
I mean, there is the chapter in a book called stay low. Keep moving. And stay low. Keep moving is a military term where they were, you know, teaching the army men to, like, crouch down, be on your stomachs and kind of crouch through so you can stay low and keep moving so you don’t get hit by any artillery, artillery. But what I took it for as a metaphor for life, staying low is about staying super focused. So when we think about the distractions, when we think about all the things that are happening in the world around us, turbulence in the economy, job changes, AI layoffs, changes to technology, always on social media, that’s a lot going on, right? Forget about political news and other things that are happening around us, right? So you have to learn how to be focused on your goals, because everyone’s going to try to distract you from doing what’s important to you. They’re going to want you to do things that are important to them, not to you. And so I always think about even how you manage your inbox, like, are you just fielding incoming emails, or are you just only getting in your email when you need to send something? Like, are those priorities that people think are urgent for them, that are interrupting your day, or things that you should be focused on? So stay low means don’t be low profile. It means stay focused, put in the effort, put in the hard work, put in the reps. There’s nobody that I’ve ever heard of that worked hard, that didn’t have success like hard work always pays off. It may not be this month or next month. It might be a 10 year journey. It might be a 30 year journey, but hard work will pay off because you’re putting in the hours, you’re putting in the reps, you’re dealing with the ups and downs of the market. You’re dealing with the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur, which is hard and lonely and and stressful at best. You know, I mean, to be your own boss and your own manager is not easy, but it also comes with incredible rewards and stuff like that. So when I talk about stay low, keep moving, it’s like that ultra focus on on from the distractions and then keep moving is despite setbacks, despite obstacles, just win one day at a time when I became very overwhelmed. And many times during my life, I was like, Okay, I don’t need to boil the ocean here. I just need to win today, and I need to put the one day in front of me and win that day. And so I feel like having that that resilience to like, not stress yourself out over all the things you need to do to break it down into smaller things, it makes a big difference, and it’s been a recipe for success that’s worked for me. And I feel like when I want to challenge myself to do something that’s outside my comfort zone that I’ve never done before, I always rely on that kind of stay low, keep moving. Mantra to just like, put the blinders on, put my head down, do the work, and come up for air when I feel like I felt like I really put in the effort.

Kara Goldin 23:11
Yeah, definitely. So strategies from the book for I think it’s not just for entrepreneurs, by the way. I think it’s, it’s, you know, for people that are just trying to really ignite something in them that they feel like has not really been active for a while, and I feel like that’s what i i Your book just helped me really think about that too. When you think about women. I know you talked about, you know you had given the book to men, you had given the book to women. You have clients that are men and women. You’re dealing in communication. But when you think about women today, do you see a big difference in sort of, how they maybe, how they think about self reliance? And maybe this is something that is, that is kind of varies by destination as well. But I’d be very curious, as it relates to business, how you see that?

Maha Abouelenein 24:16
Yeah, first of all, it’s a great question. So I feel like women, want to learn the skills they need to rely on themselves. They want to learn about everything from being on the front foot on terms of finance and investing to building their personal brands to how do they network they see, you know, men, how they operate in the boardroom, and what they do on networking and building their personal brand and and so I feel like a lot of women want to learn, what are the skills I need? How do I need to build my personal brand? There is the difference between being, you know, a lot of women struggle with being, you know, building their personal brands, the staying low versus low profile. Like, I’m not saying, Hey, look at me. I know stuff. I’m saying, you have incredible resources. You’re incredible. Asset. You have a strong reputation, you need to learn how to use your reputation to your advantage. You need to learn how to use your personal brand to your advantage. And so I explain a lot in the book on how to do that, like, how do you need to stand up for yourself and to promote what you believe in, whether it’s for your community, your neighbors, your your church, your you know, social life like what you want your personal brand to be about, or it related to work. It’s it’s super important, and I feel with 24 hour news and with media and social media, there’s a lot of noise out there. So if you’re not doing it, you can bet that someone else is doing it for you, or someone else is doing it better than you. So communications is not something that’s a nice to have. It’s a must have, and you need to know how to advocate for yourself, and what are the tools and tricks to do that. I do spend some time talking about mastering how to DM on LinkedIn and how to master that art of networking on LinkedIn that’s critical, like you have to know how to talk to people on social media, because you’re not going to be able to talk to everybody one to one. So what are things you can do on people’s social media sites? I can show support by commenting on your post, sharing your posts, engaging with your posts. I can network with hundreds of people at my fingertips without even leaving my house to go to an event. So how do you get good at that? Like, what are the things that you can authentically do that brings a relationship that you have on social media into becoming a business relationship, into becoming a romantic relationship, whatever you want that to be like, there’s a way to communicate now, in the modern age that we just need to learn these new skills.

Kara Goldin 26:37
So true. So last question, if you could have readers take one thing away from this excellent, excellent book that you’ve written, what would it be?

Maha Abouelenein 26:49
I got this question yesterday for the first time, and it was about that you can reinvent yourself at any age. Honestly, I’m 54 I’m on my third chapter now. My first chapter is in the US. My second chapter was in the region, the Middle East, in Dubai and Egypt. And my third chapter is when I came back, and I’m in that chapter now. And obviously I feel like there’s so much you can learn, and you can adjust on yourself for free. And I feel like you can reinvent yourself at any age, at any stage, whether you are 35 years at a company and want to think about what you’re going to do next. To do next if you want to have a side hustle, if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re a student, if you’re a Gen Z er, and want to know how you should promote yourself on LinkedIn so that you can get a job. This book will help you. And I feel like it’s just knowing the tools of what it’s not the what you do, it’s how you do it. How do you become a long term player? How do you become a value creator? How do you not wait for opportunities to be anointed and bestowed upon you? How do you go out and grab those yourselves, like talk about some of the stories I things I did for Gary Vee at the Super Bowl, or things I just wanted to create opportunities of things I wanted to experience, and it worked, and I just I once I learned that muscle. I do it all the time. Now I’m like, there’s an opportunity. I’m not going to wait for someone to give it to me. I’m going to go create it. I have to study, I have to do research. I have to build relationships. I have to have a good relate reputation. I have to have a good network. But you have to do all of these things, and not just one of them, because you know this very well, you could have the best sales team, the best supply chain, the blessed marketing campaigns, the best you know sales product in the world. But if you don’t have a good reputation, you have no business. That’s

Kara Goldin 28:37
It’s so, so true, and nobody knows that better than you, so you have done such a great job of that, but also you talk a lot about this in your book. So 7 Rules of Self-Reliance. Everybody needs to grab a copy of this. We’ll have all the info in the show notes. Of course, Maha thank you so much for coming on and best of luck with everything. I can’t wait to see all that you do in the future. So you were just a wealth of information and inspiration for everyone.

Maha Abouelenein 29:13
Thank you. Means so much to me to be here today.

Kara Goldin 29:15
Thanks so much. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review, and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thank. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now. Bye.

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