C-Level Leadership for Women in Tech: What It Really Takes to Thrive With Adelina Peltea

My guest today, Adelina Peltea, has scaled SaaS companies from 1 million to 100 million ARR. She’s led companies from Europe and Asia, worked across companies that have been acquired by giants such as Intuit and Vizma, and today she is Chief Marketing Officer at UserCentrics, one of the leading companies in data privacy and privacy-led marketing. But that’s not what we talked about. What I loved about the conversation that you’re about to hear isn’t the scale, it’s her honesty. 

Adelina talks about what it really takes to operate at sea level, including why she describes it as giving a speech in every meeting. And before that freaks you out, don’t panic. We’re going to unpack the emotional energy required to lead at this level. The invisible responsibility behind every word you say. You have to decide whether the executive path is actually right for you. Even if you’re at the sea level, it’s worth having a listen to see if there’s anything you can do to just level yourself up, calm your inner system.

Maybe operate without draining yourself so much. There’s so much packed into this episode. We also dive into something I know so many of us struggle with, how to stay calm, grounded, and powerful in that high pressure situation, including micro meditation practices that she uses in the middle of tense executive meetings. And of course, we talk about AI. Not from a hyper-spectre, And of course, something I’m talking about with everybody right now. We talk about AI, not from the hype perspective but from a responsibility perspective. What does it mean to lead responsibly in a world where this technology is evolving faster than our governance for it? This is a conversation about ambition, energy, identity, and impact. So as you listen, I want you to ask yourself, are you sure you know what you want? And do you truly understand what it’s going to take? Let’s dive in. 

Toni:

Welcome to the show, Adelina. Thank you for joining us today.

Adelina:

Hi, thank you for having me. Really excited about the discussion.

Toni:

Well, let’s start with your journey. I love to ask everybody to tell us about their journey, where they are today. You are a CMO, for listeners who haven’t picked that up yet, but tell us a little bit about how you became a CMO. What got you from where you started out in your career to where you are today?

Adelina:

Yeah, it’s been quite a journey and a bit of a different path because I feel like I was thrown in the world of leadership very early on. Like I was managing a team of eight people when I was 20 years old and I was doing very interesting things. At 22 I was giving speeches at UNESCO. It’s been a different journey, I would say. And I think there are two paths to this. what got me to be a C level and what got me into marketing. And they are slightly different topics. For what got me into marketing, I would say when I was young, I actually didn’t know what I want to do. I guess it’s happening to a lot of people. And somehow I felt like, I still need some practical skills.

And I felt like marketing that was really taking the spotlight back then was giving you the opportunity to combine a lot of parts of the brain so can be creative, can be analytical, you can have a touch on design and on content. it was very diverse. And at the same time, it allows you to work in any industry. So I was like, great, I’ll start with this and I’ll figure out what I want to be. Turned out to be a lot into the tech industry and entrepreneurship. I’ve been basically a lot of my career.

in tech startups. And I found my place with that. The path to C-level, as I said, I started very early on with leadership roles. And that really taught me kind of like, yeah, what it means to be a leader, that it’s actually hard and not just glamorous. And I would like to speak more in this podcast about this, especially for the audience here.

And basically, as I also went through the ranks, because in some cases I was C level, in some cases I was starting maybe with VP and so on, I found that actually for my personality, it was more of a fit to be C level rather than the other way around. And I think a lot of people aim for this as it’s a natural progression for me was more It fits who I am and how I’m thinking and how I work with people and take decisions and stuff like that. yeah.

Toni:

Let’s dive into that a little bit more because I think most people don’t understand this. I’m a big believer in we all have a… I don’t want to use the word natural level because I do think we evolve as we grow up, as we learn things and I think what was natural when we were in our 20s would be not different when we are 40s or 50s or 60s. But I do see… I see women that I work with frustrated at being at a particular level. Director is the classic.

I think directors are really hard level to be at. You’re managing managers, but you’re not strategic yet. And you’re still dealing with underperformance quite a bit. So you’ve not got that flourish of being the higher levels that pays off for like dealing with the really hard stuff. But I don’t think really many people realize that we all have a level that we flourish at. How did you figure out that you were going to flourish? And what was the difference between the C level and the VP if that was the key differentiator for you?

What was it that you noticed?

Adelina:

Yeah, I’ll give you a bit of a story also from when I was, I don’t know, think 21. I was working in a marketing agency and I was going through my usual and your performance review and the classical, you’re doing all these things well. and the but was a lot on I’m not detail oriented enough. And most people, mostly at 21, but probably throughout all the life would just take the feedback and try to improve on that. I have a very different approach to life. I always said that you need to be aware of who you are and make sure you’re in the right place to flourish exactly as you said, rather than try to be a bit of everything but not good at anything specific, right? So I actually told the manager back then, I get it, but in this department of eight people, seven are detail-oriented. I’m not, I will admit it.

I can find ways to navigate this, like make sure someone else checks my reports or stuff like that. Of course, mistakes shouldn’t happen.

But I told her, but you know what I am? I am very innovation driven. I can see trends. I can see patterns. can create. Use me for that. And that would have gone really wrong, but luckily I had a very good manager that really resonated with what I’ve been saying. And a few days later, she told me, you will work on this project with the CEO to form our digital products for us as an agency moving forward. And that was a fantastic experience. And I learned a lot.

and the company really did well with those digital products. It was the beginning of social media and so on that they incorporated with research and yeah, it all went really well. And that’s just from this perspective of know where you fit and where you don’t fit and ask to be in the right place. And I’m a very big advocate of this.

Toni:

I love that so much. I’m a huge advocate of know your team’s strengths and weaknesses. And whenever you hire, I’m always talking about this on the podcast. Whenever you hire, don’t hire somebody like you. Hire somebody for the gap that you and your team have. And so I love that you push back by saying, well, I have seven detail oriented people. I don’t need to fill that gap. What the gap the company has is this. I wish listeners, one, if you’re a manager, be that manager who helped Adelina.

who listened to her and said, okay, let’s make you flourish in that area. I’m a huge believer in developing our shadow side, the side that we’re not good at, but there comes a point where you’re just pushing a rock up a mountain, you don’t need to be aware of your weaknesses, you don’t need to develop them, what you need to do is hire in those areas. But equally for listeners, do exactly what Adelina did and advocate for doing the very thing you’re good at, provided it’s not a gap and you’re not causing a different problem in the business. So.

I that. I don’t think I’ve had anybody say that before on the podcast and I love that so, so much because it is such an important part of us flourishing in the workplace is advocating for our strengths and not just saying, yes, I’ll grow my weakness. Let’s talk a little bit more about when you first stepped into the C-level roles and you’ve said to me that you didn’t realize what you’re signing up for. I feel like that’s the epitome of my life. If I’d known half of what I was going to do, I don’t think I’d have done it.

In particular, you described being at the sea level as giving a speech in every meeting, which I talk about with clients all the time, but they’re always kind of daunted by it. And it does take a lot of energy. Tell us a little bit, like, what are we talking about here? How does that show up? What actually happens that means you’re giving that speech? What does it mean for your presence every day, hour after hour?

Adelina:

Yeah, I think a lot of people say, you know, I would like to be a C level, but my main thing is, are you sure? Do you know what it would take? And I always say, OK, think, for example, how much you are worried about giving a speech, right? How much preparation it is and so on. And I make the analogy that being in this role, it’s giving a speech in every meeting, even if you like it or not. And honestly, it’s not nobody’s perfect. Nobody has that energy all the time. people really look at you. Every word you say matters. You impact people in ways you sometimes don’t even understand. So the presence you carry, what you say, if you create clarity or not so much, if you ask questions, that makes them think or puts them too much on edge and what’s a healthy dose. Really going to the Y, really helping people work better together, especially cross-functionally.

Yeah, and sometimes just not even the words you say, right? Just purely the presence. If you make people feel calmer or more alert and so on. And this is a key thing. Do you see yourself doing that every day? Do you want to improve on that every day? Because a lot of people get affected by your presence.

And I think that’s an important remark for anyone considering this because, yeah, just take how you felt with giving one speech and then think you’ll do six of these per day.

Toni:

But what I would say to anybody who’s like, my gosh, I couldn’t do that is I Started out not liking public speaking being terrified I was the person it was excuse me for saying this but stand on stage dripping in sweat in terror and throwing up afterwards that was me early on in my career and you know today I’m a professional paid for a speaker and You know, I was at the sea level and I flourish there So just because you don’t enjoy public speaking doesn’t mean you can’t get there But what I would say is the energy required is is a biggie. And the other thing I just want to call out which you’ve hinted at there is be mindful of what you say I’ve we’ve all had the boss who says a single sentence and it generates this cascade of Effort, you know a single sentence which they in their heads think is a simple thing turns into derailing a team of ten for two weeks and then they’re surprised by it is it really interesting one that’s just happened to me personally, which is

My husband and I are currently applying for permission to do something in our home and we can trace this 80 page document that we’ve had to create back to a single sentence mentioned by a politician five years ago that create this whole cascade of like, well, there’s all these processes that need to happen. And I do wonder if they had that intention when they said that single sentence. I really want more executives to understand them.

power of what they say and the impact it has. I don’t see many executives being really mindful of that. What do you do to make sure that you’re aware of the impact of what you say?

Adelina:

Before I go into what do I do, I would want to call out that at the same time that shouldn’t be like what we’re saying here shouldn’t be more pressure to perform. It’s actually the opposite. It’s just. As much as it’s what you say and what you transmit, the spotlight is not you. It’s about them. It’s about the people in the room. And as long as you understand that you are there for the people and you’re responsible for the people, I think that completely changes because then you’re more curious, you might be more mindful and so on. And now into the what. And again, not saying anything is perfect, right? But at least the things that I’m using, it’s on one hand, personal tools that have helped me a lot. Meditation, it’s a big one. meditation, I also struggled with it. I guess a lot of people struggle. And then I was sitting and thinking, you know, I take all these supplements and stuff, but I know that meditation, it’s also really important. I just can’t figure it out. And I thought to myself, but it comes from temples and monasteries. And then we tried to apply it to the modern, fast city life, capitalist world.

It just doesn’t fit in. I took on a journey triggered by a coaching session actually where they’re like, let’s do something different. Think of a place where you feel safe. And then in my mind, I was like, this, not really, this, not really. And I went from real imaginary, like nothing felt safe in the moment. So was like, my God, I need to have a place that I can think in a second. And that brings me to calm. So I started from there, my whole journey and then interweaved things that I learned from coaching, psychology, power of imagination. I read a lot of science stuff, but also just the day to day. And I created my own method called Inner Sanctuary. There’s a book about it as well on Amazon. And the concept of it, it’s kind of you start from figuring out what your inner safe space is. It can be the room of your childhood or something completely made up because imagination can go really wild.

But then every meditation that you do, you go into that place. And because you associate that feeling with it, your calmness goes like in a second to where it needs to be. And it’s faster way than like now trying to, you know, slow down the thoughts and all that thing. And then the rest of the meditation is a guided meditation on a goal, because I’m also not a fan of you leave your life to now try to clear your mind. It’s like no, I have a decision to take, I need to process something. So each meditation it’s more on this, okay, like I want to take a decision at work but bringing my full self and not just the rational side or whatever. And because of all this, it can happen in five minutes. More importantly, the part where you can dive into your inner safe space, what they call the inner sanctuary, can be done in a meeting. Can be done right now while we’re talking the podcast. My mind gets on whatever cross-line. I only need a second to That’s a huge scale that more of us should have. So that’s really powerful. So I really think I’m a huge fan of meditation now that I figure out that you know what, you don’t need to practice it as everyone does. Find your own way or find something that’s adapted or try this one, the inner sanctuary or whatever it is. But you can make your own out of everything that is out there because it’s you with your mind, with your inner world anyway. So that’s one. Second is the power of listening and not just jumping in. And I think that’s also again, right, director, VP, C-level. The more you become leader of leaders, the more you need to kind of ignite different fires rather than provide the solutions yourself.

And it’s not easy because I think we all say, yeah, like listen to the people and empower and all that. But where it gets tricky is that you’re still responsible. So that balance, it’s like super interesting. And I think, yeah.

Toni:

I just want to touch on that for a second because I think there’s so much I want to touch on here but I really want to just have a quick chat about this. It’s like you’re spot on that you know this you need to empower others, allow them to make decisions but the hard bit is the fact that we’re still responsible right? And I hear this call I have this conversation probably on a daily basis like but what does that mean? It’s not fair and how do I cope and what if they mess up and all this?

I think it leads us to micromanagement because of the fear. How do you deal with that? How do you empower your team and trust their decisions while knowing that it’s on you if it goes wrong?

Adelina:

First of all, communication is a two-way street. If you are uncomfortable, it’s because you don’t have enough information, visibility, whatever it is. So on one hand, be aware to ask for what you need. Say, hey, on this topic, I want to be informed. Don’t come to me for decisions, the decisions are yours, but I want to be informed. I want to know what’s happening. Hey, do you have a plan for this? If you don’t have a plan, will you have a plan? Right? Because otherwise, maybe I’m a bit on edge.

And some things are literally like, you know what, go and figure it out. Nobody knows. Like I always say this 80-20, 20 % innovation in the sense of try things we haven’t tried, use time or budget to a certain limit to figure things out. So in those things, no question asked. Like just come to me once you’ve learned something. So it’s these different buckets where you need to be super spot on. You need to be informed. And it’s perfectly fine to ask for that information. And there are places where you let people completely

free because everyone needs to try something completely new and figure it out. So when we say empower and trust is not blindly that communication has to flow and you need to be informed. And then make sure that whenever plans are done, like you are clear about your expectations, the other person is clear if they want to get something from you because sometimes I ask, why are you asking me this? Do you want just feedback? Do you want a sparing partner? Do you want to just inform me? Do you actually need a decision on something? That’s important to distinguish.

Toni:

I think that’s a good one as well. And I think it helps when you ask that question, it helps train your team or coach your team, maybe a better way looking at it and hey, if you’re going to come here, come here with a reason. But it can be, I need someone to like chew through this where it doesn’t have to be like really like, well, I need an answer or this. Yeah, but make it clear.

Adelina :

Sometimes I just need someone to listen. It’s like fine, but as long as you say what you want.

Toni:

Yeah, exactly, say what you want. I’ve had this conversation with my husband recently, he’s like, can you just tell me what you want? And he’s like, what? Like, this is something we should all be doing in our lives. I think our lives go better if we can tell the person in front of us what we’re after, because I think we assume it’s obvious and more often than not, it’s not. How does that fit you? Do you ever do that with a CEO, with your boss, as a C level? Do you practice that? Do you go in and say, here’s what I need from this conversation?

Adelina:

Yes, sometimes we take the default as more like a conversation, but sometimes we’re very clear. Okay, there is this thing happening. One of my first questions is who should decide? Because you can have all the person in the world, something can be a bit atypical. Then we clarify that, then it’s like whatever.

And also having time to prepare topics. So sometimes it’s a bit of an unstructured discussion that eventually leads to somewhere. So yeah. And this part of know what you want, like sometimes, hey, I’m informing you. Hey, I really need help on this. It really works on all levels, with your team, with your peers, with your manager, with the CEO. Yes.

Toni:

Yeah, I love that. So then I have to jump back to meditation. Obviously this is your tool, the tool that you use all the time. Let’s open the doors on that. Do you use meditation in meetings with people like the CEO when you get stressed? Do you have like micro meditations? Yeah.

Adelina:

Yes. I used it just yesterday in a C-level meeting where things were getting intense and I could feel like I’m like, okay, I should calm down before I speak. And I went exactly to this inner sanctuary. It takes me a second. I’m like, okay, land it. Now I can speak from a different perspective.

Toni:

So now that you have this tool in your toolkit, obviously you’ve developed it. You said that you didn’t know how to meditate. was this thing that, done in temples, how can you possibly do it the workplace? You’ve had to figure out how to do it. Can you see the level change in the, when you take that moment to calm yourself, does it impact what happens in the room afterwards? The way you show up, does that immediately change things?

Adelina:

Yes, I do hear feedback that I’m calm in certain situations. I’m like, really? Because just before I was on fire, so I think that’s like, it’s really working. Because I am a personality that’s very like fire personality. I get heated up. It’s good in some cases where like, let’s go and all the energy in the world. But also, I can get easily triggered in discussion. then that is kind of like my cool down moment to like, OK, calm perspective you know, like, it’s working 90 % of the time, so would say, and it’s like spot on.

Toni:

Yeah. I like that. It’s honest, you know, it’s not 100%. I don’t think anything is. I like the fact that you call out the Umara Fahri personality, because somebody listened to this and have been like, well, she’s obviously just Zen, you know? And I think the way you’re saying it’s a little bit like me. I got the feedback early in my career that I was always stressful and I was all stressed out and all this. And I was like, no, I’m just excited. And I didn’t have, one of the reasons I now teach executive presences is because I didn’t have it.

I couldn’t walk into a room and calm the room. I could walk into the room and fire off instructions and solve a problem. But I made everybody else more anxious rather than bringing them along through this through this moment of disruption where they needed the leader, which was me, to calm the situation. And I think, you know, I now teach the staff and of course, you know, I like to think I’ve got it down. But the reality is, as you say, 90 percent of the time is pretty damn good, right? How could we possibly get to 100 percent?

Yeah. OK, I want to change gears because I’m really, I know that you are talking about AI and I feel like this is such a topic right now that I have to ask you about it. You’ve been, you’ve been resisting some of the changes perhaps around how AI is reshaping how we make decisions and for good reasons. So just talk us through that. What’s what in your mind is the role of AI, especially from your perspective as a C level leader? right now in the world, it’s changing almost daily. What do you think is the current role of AI? What questions do we need to be asking as leaders before we adopt AI, before we get our teams to? And my favourite thing is slow down to speed up. Just take a moment, slow down, speed up. How do think we all need to be slowing down just a little bit so we can move faster in the medium term?

Adelina:

Yeah. It’s first of all a great tool that gives us a lot of power. But once again, with great power comes great responsibility. we are still learning that it’s kind of of its own making, so to say, compared to what we’re used to that it’s built. And this was my revelation. I actually worked in an AI company in Singapore in 2015. Back then was like AI what?

And I still remember, like I was talking with the engineers there, it’s like, what do mean you don’t code, code these things that it kind of learns by itself because you feed it information and figures out stuff. and yeah, I was like super fascinated. And I think now it, when a lot of chat AI came, a lot of people are using it as if it’s Google, you’re asking information.

First thing there, it’s kind of understand that that information is not necessarily the source of all truth and non-biased and so on. So take everything with a pinch of salt. Second is, it’s not just a search. It’s about how you train it. To be really powerful, you need to train it with information. So I’ve been using ChatGPT since the launch of it, the book that I said the Inner Sanctuary actually wrote it with ChatGPT in the very first year. By now it’s so much more advanced. And I use it for a lot of stuff. The more it learned about me, the more it’s so helpful.

But then it makes you question, then what should I train it and not train it, especially as it goes into this black box that you can’t just retrieve information. I’m very big now on, OK, what’s the best use cases of AI, but also how can we responsibly use it? And the company where I am, UserCentrics, we started with consent management platforms, mostly for websites. So kind of what’s the data flow between a website, third parties? Does the user allow for certain things to happen, do they understand what’s happening and so on. And now we’re spanning to AI as well and we added MCP manager to our portfolio, MCP being a protocol and this company kind of sits at the intersection of AI agents with other tools or between themselves. it’s still the human responsibility to say, okay, now we are all connected, maybe my agent can tap into my customer information or whatever as a company, but at least I’m clarifying what can be accessed, how it works, you know, have the transparency and control and I think that’s super important, especially now where it’s early days, because once it’s in, it’s in. So I’m really, really passionate about this. I always said that whatever happens new year, like kids in a candy store, right, like, digital, let’s put all the photos up there on social media, let’s put this and that and then, I don’t know, you got all the political scandals or whatever, right? So these things can be used, although in the beginning it’s just for fun. So I think it’s the same with AI now. So I’m really advocating for responsible use, but at the same time understanding it’s a very good tool. And then it also comes, well, if you can train it because you upload information, can we train it also for doing the good in the world, for posting good information as well that AI can use and develop further?

So this, think, especially for anyone working in technology, right? Like again, we talk about these careers and stuff. Ultimately, it’s this, like, what do you do with that power that then you have? What do you shape? Why are you there for? Are you just for yourself or for the world? And what missions resonate with you? Not everyone who resonates with what I’m saying now, but you know, what’s your mission? What do you care about? And I think as human beings, We’re always ingrained to give our talents to the world, to help develop. People get depressed if they don’t have something to do or a sense of progress, right? It’s just who we are.

Toni:

I do think there is a I think there’s a real place for AI But I do think some of us are giving over too much to it I also hear plenty of people saying we can’t possibly use AI because I’ve heard people say you shouldn’t use AI because it rots your brain and there it there is research behind that but It’s never that simple, right? It’s not that you shouldn’t use your rain You shouldn’t use AI because I’ve wrote your brain is that you should use AI with critical thinking I think that applies to everything in our lives and and I do think as executives we have a real role to play in how we adopt it. But I hear so many people go, I’m not using AI because it lies, it makes things up and I’m like, so do humans. So what you’ve got to do is be discerning. And I think there is a place for it. think if we don’t take it, if we don’t use it, we will be left behind. It’s either we use it and try and use it as a force for good, or none of us should be using it. If we aren’t here pushing for it to be a force for good. I can pretty much guarantee the people who are using it will not be pushing for that. So I’m quite passionate about that right now. 

Before we move on to the quick fire round, one other quick question for you. If you could give your younger self advice about her journey, what would it be?

Adelina:

follow your heart because a lot of things, as I said, they can look ideal, right? Like these careers and so on. It can get quite hard on a day to day basis. But if you follow like what you really want to do, that gives you the energy to continue. And that can be a million things. It can be from save the world, like as we just said, all the way to the influence in your circle of closest five people to I don’t know, learning something to anything. So find your energy givers, the motivation, the why, because that will take you really, really far. And I think throughout my career, I sometimes got, because of, again, the fire personality, I was getting very excited about just the next step. but I had to work actually with coaches to realize, okay, hold on, pause, like perspective a lot, like what do I actually care about? And it’s fine, like you build a plane while flying, right? So it’s living day to day, also realizing it’s about enjoying the journey, but take this time to reflect really deeply from time to time.

Toni:

Yeah. Can I just also, of course I’d say this because I’m slightly biased here but I applaud you for having hired a coach to help you with your career because of course I think it accelerates everything. I would say that. I’m a coach. Let’s move on to the quickfire round. Are you ready for this?

Adelina:

bring it on.

Toni:

Let’s do it. What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Adelina:

This one worked because we tried it before. I’m like, sure, different timings, different context, different approach, not taking it.

Toni:

Yeah, yeah, 100%. my goodness, made that so frustrating. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Adelina:

Something around what I was saying before, Like the follow your passion and the passion can be, I think I got it until you also zoom out. It’s like, wait, I need a bit of a tilt because life is long from every five, 10 years. Maybe you need a bit of adjustment and re-realization.

Toni:

I talk about sparkle planning in my world. What is going to make you sparkle in the next five, 10 years? And I’m always saying to people, was just telling all my groups this last night, it’s time to revisit. Like you’ve all been with me for a good couple of years. It’s time to relic because you know what? Who you were two years ago has changed today. And one, you’re two years further down the line, but two, your needs have likely changed because nobody stays still.

It’s really good to that. I love the phrase tilt because it’s just a real a readjustment Hopefully by the time we have done this work for a little bit. We’re not doing 180s, but a little readjustment is bang on, right?

Adelina:

Yeah. This reminds me as well of the saying when, how did two kids turn out completely different with the same parents? And you never have the same parents. You have them years later or earlier. They’re in their different journey. They already had kids or didn’t have kids. They’re in a different journey. It’s never the same.

Toni:

Mm-hmm. It’s never the same exactly. There’s never the same experience at all How can people find out more about you because this conversation is being fabulous So I’m sure people are wanting to connect with you find out more find out more about your meditation book. Where can we find you?

Adelina :

You can find me on two places, anything related to business and technology and so on, mostly on LinkedIn, Adelina Peltea. And on a more personal level, like everything that I preach around meditation and much more, like I’m a lot about navigating burnout and stuff like that, you can find me on verdawellnessclub.com.

Toni:

I will make sure links for all of those are in the show notes along with a link to Adelina’s book if you want to learn how to meditate in the workplace and just calming yourself, bringing yourself back to your centre while you’re dealing with other executives who perhaps don’t have that skillset. I love this so much. It is very hard to be human, but you know what? We can be the best humans. How about I should maybe rename this channel to being like how to be the best human in the room. It might be a little bit egocentric. don’t know.

Toni:

Have you any final thoughts you’d like to share with us today?

Adelina:

I think this conversation sparked quite a few things and I would encourage people to reflect on this. Are you sure you want what you want? Like, do you understand what it takes and do you think you have the energy givers for what that takes?

Toni:

What a beautiful note to finish on. So thank you, Adelina. Just to wrap this up today, a few key takeaways I want every listener to hear is, first of all, know what you want and are you sure you know what you want and why you want what you want? That energy piece that Adelina’s been talking about all the way through. I do think energy capacity is something we can build. So just because right now you’re thinking, I stand up and do a talk every hour for six or eight hours a day?

It doesn’t mean you can’t, but you’ve got to understand, like, what is the cost of that? I do think you can build that energy reserve. You can build that resilience. As you heard me say, I used to be one of these public speakers who would just have full on meltdowns. And today it’s part of my job. So it is something you can grow into, but you have to be aware of what you’re going into. And I love that Alina said at the beginning, what does it take to be a leader? Because it’s not glamorous, it really isn’t glamorous, but what it is is life-changing. It is world-changing. You can have a huge impact on a business, on the people in that organization. You can do great things, but you’ve got to understand what it means for you as well. And then the final thing I want everybody to take away from this, listen and don’t just jump in. Whether that is realizing what am I asking of this person and telling them or not solutioning straight away. I’m a big believer of be the solutions person, not the problem person, but sometimes allow your team to be the solution, not you. Just slow down to speed up, meditate, be mindful, slow down to speed up. Thank you Adelina so much and to listeners, drop in the comments and let me know what is your key takeaway from this today. Thank you and goodbye.