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Choosing Leadership with Sumit Gupta
Trailer
Bonus
Episode 28
Season 1
Leadership Journeys [20] - Thomas Vles - "I realized I was living a life that I thought I wanted, but not the life I really wanted."
This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.
I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other's stories - of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.
In the interview, Thomas opens up about realising how he was living a life that was not what he really wanted. We talk about the importance of focusing on yourself first, and the importance of happiness, friendships, experiences, and relationships. He shares the wisdom of doing nothing, and the important role sports and exercise play in his life. In addition to leading his company, he climbs mountains, does kickboxing, races cycles, and has plans to make a movie. He knows he is more than what he does and doesn’t let work define him.
You can find Thomas at the below links
I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other's stories - of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.
In the interview, Thomas opens up about realising how he was living a life that was not what he really wanted. We talk about the importance of focusing on yourself first, and the importance of happiness, friendships, experiences, and relationships. He shares the wisdom of doing nothing, and the important role sports and exercise play in his life. In addition to leading his company, he climbs mountains, does kickboxing, races cycles, and has plans to make a movie. He knows he is more than what he does and doesn’t let work define him.
You can find Thomas at the below links
In the interview, Thomas shares
- I realized about myself that I was living a life that was actually the life that I thought I wanted, but not the life I really wanted.
- Later on I realized that's actually it's more important to also focus on yourself. Having the quality of life, happiness, friendships, relationships, experience and yeah, that, that sort of you have changed the whole ambitions that I had.
- If you ask people, then they would probably describe me as being very ambitious, but for me, work is lower on the priority list
- I think it's very important to live your life like that you take, most of life gives you, and I think that's the responsibility to everybody, as you can not change what happens to a person, but you can still change the way you respond to things that happen.
- In the weekend, I really try to focus on not working. I tried to keep the weekend really private.
- My team gives me a lot of energy. everybody takes ownership. Everybody feels as if you're on a mission and that's, I think very special.
- I believe that every person is interesting and has a story, so I always am keen to hear about that.
- I'm currently here and enjoying it, so there's no need for me to really look ahead in life.
- I really enjoy doing something for the first time.
- I try to put myself in places where I can really take everything out of myself and full myself and grow a lot
- He basically helped me out in a very difficult period of my life by sharing with me his wisdom about doing nothing and letting everything go for a while in order to to find what you need to do. that advice is advice that actually led to where I am today.
- I think it's going to sound very egoistic, but let's say this, the first thing you need to worry about is yourself. If you are not in touch with yourself, then how can you love work?
- People would describe me as being super ambitious. So it's, I think it's about seeing the relevance in it and also not letting things define you. Like it doesn't make me a better person to have a great job, but it does put me in a position where I can have an impact on leadership.
- I think gratitude is key in life, for sure. I'm really grateful for the people around me for the blessings because I'm very privileged in life. And also I was lucky sometimes. But mainly also about let's say how amazing I'm healthy. I have a beautiful wife and a good life. Everything is really good.
- I do think that if you can create an environment in your office where you have the feeling that you were friends with everybody and it's a fun experience for everybody. And I think that's very important also for your success as a company.
- You need to be basically naive enough to believe in your own dreams. And then really go for it.
- If you have a product start selling it before you have it and see if people like it.