Ep188 Shafqat Huq - Why Your Startup Idea Should Be Scrappy at Launch

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Shafqat Huq
think there's a better way to do things, whether it's,

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Shafqat Huq
more efficiently with, you know, using, expending fewer resources,

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Shafqat Huq
or,

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Shafqat Huq
you know, more effectively, like, with better results. And so that know everything I, I've started over the last couple of years, I realized that now it's

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Shafqat Huq
stemming from that same principle.

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Shafqat Huq
welcome to Get Unstuck and On Target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with competence and vision,

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Shafqat Huq
but also to achieve groundbreaking results.

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Shafqat Huq
I'm your host, Mike O'Neill. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective

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Shafqat Huq
in each episode.

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Shafqat Huq
Join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you, providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward.

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Shafqat Huq
Let's get started.

00:01:00:21 - 00:01:27:18
Mike O'Neill
Joining me is Shafqat Huq. He's a serial entrepreneur with a passion for creating innovative solutions that have a tangible impact on people's lives. He has successfully launched several businesses now, including CAAZ Consulting, LeadBuddy, and Go Task-Free. I have firsthand experience with two of Shaf's businesses and have seen how incredibly impactful they have been on my own efficiency and productivity.

00:01:27:22 - 00:01:35:22
Mike O'Neill
And it's for those reasons, plus that you will find that Shaf is going to be a perfect podcast. Guests. Welcome Shaf.

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Shafqat Huq
Thank you Mike. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

00:01:39:12 - 00:02:06:22
Mike O'Neill
You allow me to check more than one box as to what would be an ideal guess. One, the fact that you not only you are an entrepreneur, but two, you're a serial entrepreneur. And in the last 15 plus years, my appreciation. But what it takes to be an entrepreneur has grown exponentially. You know, shop, I think, you know, I came out of a corporate HR role and I went to work for small companies.

00:02:06:22 - 00:02:30:14
Mike O'Neill
They kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and the bigger we got, the less entrepreneurial we felt. So I'm looking forward to having this conversation, to not only speak a little bit about the journey that you are currently on, but because I have some firsthand experience using your services. I can ask questions that hopefully would speak to at least what my experience, has been.

00:02:30:19 - 00:02:42:15
Mike O'Neill
Shop. I was intrigued by one the name of the first company, and it's spelled C a Z consulting. What's the significance of C Rs?

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Shafqat Huq
So, CAAZ consulting is, my consulting firm that I created with, two business partners who also happen to be my cousins. And we were going through trying to come up with the name and, I thought about the two places that we're from. Both all three of us have either lived in or or we're going to school in California, in Arizona.

00:03:06:04 - 00:03:18:15
Shafqat Huq
And so it just seemed like an easy way to kind of combine the abbreviations for those two states and, symbolize where, where we're from and, you know, the general background that we come from. So, gotcha.

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Mike O'Neill
Tell us a little about what does this consulting firm do for clients?

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Shafqat Huq
Yeah. So it's kind of evolved over time. Originally it started as a software development agency. My cousin and I, we went through individual journeys as founders, coming up with our own mobile app startups. And we realized as, as founders that there are a lot of resources for people that might have an app idea or something that they want to build, but don't really have, a developer team or just know how in terms of how to build a business around it.

00:03:49:22 - 00:04:09:09
Shafqat Huq
And so it originally started as, software development. And from there we kind of evolved into building websites, web applications, doing digital marketing for clients and now everything. It's very broad. And we, we provide general consulting towards, businesses and startups that are looking to grow.

00:04:09:12 - 00:04:21:08
Mike O'Neill
You know, I mentioned that I have worked with you while you were at least the, founder hat for two of those businesses. The next one would be lead buddy. Tell us about lead buddy. What does it do? Yeah.

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Shafqat Huq
So lead buddy is built on the go. High level platform or high level, as people know it. It is a marketing automation and CRM tool. And really it's just leveraging the features and, and power of that platform. And we've done a really great job of, building out infrastructure around that to really deliver the most value, possible.

00:04:44:02 - 00:05:04:23
Shafqat Huq
And that includes, you know, 24/7 live chat support. We have a lot of support calls in on which our clients jump on. So we're able to implement the, the software to, to a particular business so that they are able to get the best, impact and value for, for, for their business.

00:05:05:00 - 00:05:14:24
Mike O'Neill
There's so, a progression to where we're going to be having this conversation. I want to go back through each of these in turn. But the third one is go test free. What is that?

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Shafqat Huq
So that Go test Free is a virtual assistant agency that I started with. One of my partners from, Cass Consulting, who's my cousin. We partnered with a mortgage broker down in Florida, and a and her virtual assistant out in the Philippines. So we realized that, you know, we have someone on the ground in the Philippines that can kind of vet through the talent there and find us really qualified candidates.

00:05:43:09 - 00:06:08:16
Shafqat Huq
I had been working with American, Canadian and other Western, clients and make sure that we're screening the candidates accordingly. So that we can find people that are capable of working and delivering, work to the standards that our clients expect. And so, you know, we also have team members in Bangladesh for, you know, accounting work, bookkeeping, other admin related tasks.

00:06:08:16 - 00:06:35:22
Shafqat Huq
So it's pretty broad in terms of the tasks that we can cover. It's anything from email outreach, answering phone calls, customer customer support, data entry, social media content planning, building funnels on the high level platform. And so that kind of just completes the triangle of service offerings that I put together under the umbrella.

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Mike O'Neill
So it was that triangle that kind of caught my attention. And that is you've had added services oftentimes to be even a broader, provider to existing clients. I think the way I listed those is that the way that these kind of came online in that sequence?

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Shafqat Huq
Yes. So Kaz definitely came first. And, you know, we were building websites. We were doing paid ads to help generate leads for businesses. But what we found was that there wasn't a platform or CRM where these leads could be tracked, or, we could nurture these leads effectively. Or just reach out to our database organically through social media or email outreach.

00:07:20:08 - 00:07:52:19
Shafqat Huq
So that's where lead money came into play, where you could do all of these things in one place. And then we found that even if we have this platform in place, a lot of times it's overwhelming to manage all of this on your own, especially if you're a solopreneur. And so that's where the virtual assistant kind of came into play, where if we can put this offer together, where we'll drive leads for your business, have a system or the software that will actually automate the outreach and nurture them until they become a client and client, as well as putting in a virtual assistant to kind of run all of this and allow

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Shafqat Huq
the business owner to kind of take a step back and focus on other things that matter to them. That's kind of the ideal offer that we can put together for them.

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Mike O'Neill
You know, I described you as a serial entrepreneur. And when you're talking to folks who are not familiar with that term, what does that mean to you?

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Shafqat Huq
I think it means that I have failed a lot. I've, I've had many failed ventures that didn't really pan out, but it yielded a lot of lessons that I've been able to that apply to my subsequent endeavors. And yeah, so, I mean, my, I, I feel like I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. I it started in high school when I found a wholesale license for American Apparel sweaters that everyone at my high school was buying for $42.

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Shafqat Huq
I was able to get them at $15 apiece. I kind of, I got a wholesale license, took orders, and I think I sold them for 25 or $30. So I was able to get everyone a heavy discount on the product. I was also able to make a margin. And then I use those funds to pay for soccer, to pay for prom, stuff like that.

00:09:06:05 - 00:09:35:01
Shafqat Huq
So I kind of started at that, and then expanded to college, I think I was tutoring people. And, you know, I took a career, I took a job in finance at a college, and didn't really like the corporate system and the ladder and the limitations that it came with. And so that kind of led me to starting my first venture out of college, which was, which is Fast Friends, which is a mobile app marketplace for music festival tickets.

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Shafqat Huq
So for events like Coachella, Lollapalooza, ultra, if you're familiar with any of these are really large music festivals that sell out very quickly. And that creates a secondary marketplace where people will sell their tickets on Facebook, Reddit, offer, Craigslist. And because these tickets are physical and they're a wristband ticket for multi-day entry, you have to exchange it physically.

00:10:02:02 - 00:10:24:17
Shafqat Huq
So you have to meet up with someone in person to give them money and then take the wristband. And that was causing a lot of issues in terms of people getting scammed. People selling fake tickets are just getting themselves into unsafe situations. And so we created a marketplace that you log into with, you use your mobile app, to place offers to buy or sell a ticket.

00:10:24:19 - 00:10:44:07
Shafqat Huq
We would collect the ticket from the seller physically. They'd mail it to us, we would collect the payment from the buyer, and then we would authenticate the ticket, make sure it was legitimate, and then, hand it off to the buyer and release the money to the seller. So we kind of acted as an authenticating party or escrow, service for these wristband tickets.

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Mike O'Neill
You know, you mentioned that you have started and failed, started and failed and learned lessons along the way. For those who are watching or listening, who have an idea in their mind, what is it you would advise people about starting something that you wish you knew then?

00:11:07:09 - 00:11:35:03
Shafqat Huq
Yeah, I think, there's a couple things that I'd say. First of all, I, I think people are kind of fixated on this idea that, you know, they can't really start just yet. They need to do this, this, in this before they can really start on this, or they need to, be working and making healthy income first and then get to a certain point where they're then they can, down the road, maybe a time towards this.

00:11:35:05 - 00:11:55:04
Shafqat Huq
My advice would just be to just start in some way, even if it's super scrappy or, you know, our app idea started originally with a, a, a form on Google, like a Google form saying, you know, I have this ticket that I'm willing to sell, I'm willing to accept this price or, you know, I want to buy a ticket.

00:11:55:04 - 00:12:20:08
Shafqat Huq
I want to pay this much. And so I took those spreadsheet responses and it was manually matchmaking people. And then they kind of iterated into a website where people could list their tickets, and then it turned into a mobile app. So, rather than just focusing on, you know, I need this, this in this to get started, I think if you just build the plane while you're flying it, I think that's, a better way to go.

00:12:20:14 - 00:12:38:07
Shafqat Huq
And then the second thing is, you know, people get get fixated with the idea of perfection that, okay, I need it to look perfect. I need it to work perfectly, before I launch it. And founders are often guilty of being fixate on with perfection.

00:12:38:07 - 00:12:48:13
Shafqat Huq
you're never going to have a perfect product. You're going to constantly have to iterate and improve it. So you may as well just put it out there as early as possible and start getting feedback and then improve on that.

00:12:48:15 - 00:13:17:11
Mike O'Neill
So we've talked about three of your ventures and how they are complementary and how they kind of came on line as a natural progression. But one of the things that I imagine you might be challenge at, you are founder your or a co-founder of each of these ventures. How do you stay such that you don't get so sucked in to the everyday of these businesses that you just don't have anything left for?

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Mike O'Neill
What's next?

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Shafqat Huq
Right. So I think that's where the ability to delegate and be able to trust other people to deliver on, on tasks that you don't need to take on the burden all yourself. And I think that's part of the reason why I created a virtual assistant agency was to be able to allow people to, outsource or delegate certain things that can be, you know, that can be passed off to someone else so that that's kind of how I've learned to deal with that process.

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Mike O'Neill
You used the word founders a few minutes ago, and that is it's it's their baby, if I could use that term. And

00:14:00:02 - 00:14:15:15
Mike O'Neill
it's been your observation, founders oftentimes struggle with kind of letting go. What are the types of tasks that founders can successfully let go that when they do so, they realize, I should have done this a long time ago.

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Shafqat Huq
I think anything that is replicable or repeatable, if you have the same routine process, let's say any time a new lead comes into you, your website, you have the same process where you're sending out an email or you're giving them a phone call. Are you giving them a call and you have the same conversation? Anything that is, replicable that can be passed off?

00:14:38:21 - 00:15:18:18
Shafqat Huq
Anything that doesn't require your exact, whether it's personality or, anything that's unique to you specifically, I think it's better off to outsource that. If there's certain, like, technical expertise that you have that you need to, you know, like, obviously for a lawyer, I wouldn't say ass off, you know, writing your contracts and stuff like that, but, if there are certain steps that aren't aren't super technical or don't really require you individually, then it's worth considering to to, delegate that to someone else.

00:15:18:20 - 00:15:36:00
Mike O'Neill
I'm working my way kind of down this list here a little bit. Lead buddy. I'm a customer. I'm learning like buddy. I know lead buddy is your brand or high level? For those who don't know what we're talking about, can you kind of explain what that is, please?

00:15:36:02 - 00:16:10:01
Shafqat Huq
Yeah. So, you know, as I mentioned, lead buddy is is our white label version, high level. It's, I think the most versatile and robust marketing software out there, right now. With the one tool, you have the ability to, you know, build a entire website, you can build landing pages and funnels for very specific things, like if you want to drive webinar registrations, have e-book downloads like give away different free assets, you can sync your calendar and use it to book appointments.

00:16:10:02 - 00:16:34:01
Shafqat Huq
You can send out invoices and collect payments, send out documents for signature. There is a social media planner where you can draft content with AI and then schedule it out on all of the different social media channels, at a specific date and time. There is an email and SMS marketing tool, so you can send our email newsletters or SMS offers to your audience.

00:16:34:03 - 00:16:53:11
Shafqat Huq
You can build online courses. So if you want to productize your expertise and sell it as a digital asset rather than trading your time for money, it's great for that. If you want to build an online community, you can build that so that it's a group or a community that's not hosted on another platform like Facebook.

00:16:53:13 - 00:17:21:24
Shafqat Huq
You can actually control it yourself. You can have your own domain like you can, you know, you could do groups. Dot, you know, Mike O'Neil, dot com or whatever your business brand is so that it's the, the access to it is controlled by you, not Facebook. And then you can also manage your online reputation. So, you know, getting reviews on Google, which is absolutely paramount to any business success or being, having any sort of visibility online.

00:17:22:01 - 00:17:26:00
Shafqat Huq
You can you can do that from the platform as well.

00:17:26:02 - 00:17:52:02
Mike O'Neill
Very, very cool. You know, as I've gotten to know you in this time, what I see is, the the wheels are always spinning, and that is, you're looking for ways to better serve clients. At what point do you feel that you have to kind of put the clutch in and not go add yet? One more thing. Does that question make sense?

00:17:52:04 - 00:18:24:18
Shafqat Huq
Yes. It absolutely does. And, I've gone through some, you know, internal processing of okay. Am I spreading myself too thin? What is the what is a good balance of having things that I'm involved in passionate about? And I'm still being able to, you know, serve them and provide value to them. And I think I've got a good balance of things right now between cars, lead body and go task free.

00:18:24:20 - 00:18:40:05
Mike O'Neill
So, you know, you've been doing this for a while as you step back and kind of look at where perhaps you were a client got stuck. Can you share an example of what happened and what did it take to get unstuck?

00:18:40:07 - 00:19:11:06
Shafqat Huq
Yeah. So one example that I can think of off the top of my head was, when I was building the mobile app that I mentioned, Fast Friends, we were using a team overseas in Bangladesh. And, you know, obviously being located in the US and having a team, you know, almost 8000, 10,000 miles away is very difficult to have a, you know, visibility into what they're doing.

00:19:11:08 - 00:19:36:06
Shafqat Huq
I'm not there physically in the office to monitor them and see how things are going. And we were the first team that we worked with. We were it was a referral from a family friend of mine. I went forward with them without too many questions and learned later on that that was a mistake. We were very frustrated with the, like, the slow progress and the lack of response that we were getting.

00:19:36:08 - 00:20:01:21
Shafqat Huq
And so we felt stuck for multiple reasons. One, there was a global pandemic that was, putting the entire music festival industry at a halt. And we were dealing with this team that was not providing any sort of help or value. And so the solution that we ended up coming to was I actually had to fly out there.

00:20:01:22 - 00:20:28:13
Shafqat Huq
This is after, travel restrictions start to ease up. I actually had to fly out to Bangladesh and met with about a dozen different teams to find an alternative team to take over the project. And so I met with, you know, multiple teams screen, sort of filtering it down to ones that I kind of had a good feeling or I felt would be able to deliver the level of quality that we wanted.

00:20:28:15 - 00:20:41:13
Shafqat Huq
And then finally ended up choosing one. And that's the team that we are now use that is now our preferred, developer team now. And we've been working with them for almost three years now.

00:20:41:15 - 00:20:59:18
Mike O'Neill
You know, regular listeners know this is a totally unscripted conversation. You may have been prepared for me to ask a question that I haven't asked you yet. What might be something that you'd want to share that I haven't broached on, that you think would be important? Folks, to hear?

00:20:59:20 - 00:21:30:18
Shafqat Huq
So, I mean, I think everything that I do now kind of stems from the idea that I think there's a better way to do things, whether it's, more efficiently with, you know, using, expending fewer resources, or, you know, more effectively, like, with better results. And so that know everything I, I've started over the last couple of years, I realized that now it's kind of stemming from that same principle.

00:21:30:20 - 00:22:00:21
Shafqat Huq
And, you know, I always encourage people that if you if you feel like there is something that you're meant to do, like start a business in something that you're passionate about and you feel like that will kind of allow you to, feel more fulfilled. I say go for and, you know, there's resources. I try to be as as accessible as I can to people that are in this kind of mindset that want to build something of their own.

00:22:00:23 - 00:22:12:13
Shafqat Huq
And, you know, help however I can. So if you're in that kind of a situation and you have an idea, or if you want to explore the idea of building something of your own, please feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to help.

00:22:12:15 - 00:22:34:15
Mike O'Neill
I already shared on the front end. I'm a customer, and I can attest firsthand. And that is, I have found myself sometimes doing business with organizations and you can't find anybody. And what I have found with with you is if I've got a question, you're responsive. You give me the answer in a way that I can understand.

00:22:34:17 - 00:23:01:22
Mike O'Neill
You're very technically oriented. I'm not. But what you've been able to do for for me and for my business is offer the practicality that goes along. And I think that's one thing that that I've been impressed about you. And that is what you know about something as far more complex than people would realize. But you make it a you make it easy for someone like me to really focus on my core.

00:23:02:02 - 00:23:23:24
Mike O'Neill
My core is taking care of clients. I don't really want to spend a lot of my time on these administrative matters, but as any business owner know, you have to be doing that if you want your business to continue to to grow. You know, shop as you reflect on this conversation, what do you want to be the closing thoughts or takeaways?

00:23:24:01 - 00:23:55:19
Shafqat Huq
Yeah. So I'm kind of in line with what you mentioned in terms of being able to help with practicality. I'm not the most technical person. I you know, I don't have a coding background, but what I think my superpower or what I've been able to do well is translate from super technical jargon. And, you know, that kind of lingo to what is actually a use case or a, application of that for the end client or, and business owner.

00:23:55:19 - 00:24:13:01
Shafqat Huq
And so that's why, a lot of what I do now is in kind of the project management or, customer facing roles where, you know, I'm going to take these features that have been built and come up with the real life applications for, the, the clients that I have on the body or wherever I may be.

00:24:13:03 - 00:24:14:00
Shafqat Huq
So.

00:24:14:02 - 00:24:40:05
Mike O'Neill
Gotcha. You know, before we wrap up, I've got a question for the leaders in the audience. And that is, why do people choose to follow your lead? Is it out of obligation, or do they truly believe in your vision? Leadership thrives on clarity and competence. It's not just about owning authority, it's about creating practical solutions that drive real bottom line results.

00:24:40:07 - 00:25:12:19
Mike O'Neill
As an executive coach, I specialize in helping leaders achieve bottom line impact and become inspiring figures who people want to follow. At Bench Builders, we inspire excellence in leadership by providing personalized strategies to harness the fortune 500 insights that I've been able to gain. We're here to help you achieve significant progress towards your goals. So my challenge to our listeners lead in a way that draws people to your vision, not because they have to, but because they are inspired to.

00:25:12:21 - 00:25:24:12
Mike O'Neill
So visit bench-builders.com to learn more about how we could support your leadership journey. Share your insights as expected, have been invaluable. Thank you for joining us.

00:25:24:14 - 00:25:26:21
Shafqat Huq
Thank you. I appreciate that.

00:25:26:23 - 00:25:33:21
Mike O'Neill
Now, Sean, if listeners want to reach out and field to questions for you. How can I best do that?

00:25:33:23 - 00:25:44:12
Shafqat Huq
Yes. So easiest way to reach me. It would be there, through my website, ShafqatHuq.com or on LinkedIn. Yep. Very easily. Found there.

00:25:44:18 - 00:25:50:01
Mike O'Neill
So do me a favor. Spell out the website name, please.

00:25:50:03 - 00:26:05:06
Shafqat Huq
So that's going to be s h a f q a t h u kgw.com. And the links to all my socials are actually right there at the at the top of that. So once you go to the website, it's very easy to find me on LinkedIn Facebook, Instagram.

00:26:05:08 - 00:26:14:09
Mike O'Neill
So if you're scrambling for a paper, a pen or pencil, don't worry about we're going to have that in the show. Notes. But want to make sure we got that off. Thank you.

00:26:14:11 - 00:26:16:23
Shafqat Huq
Yep. Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate you having me on here.

00:26:17:00 - 00:26:30:01
Mike O'Neill
I want to also give a big thank you to our subscribers for joining us, and I hope that today's discussion has provided you with some insights that will help you get unstuck and on target.

00:26:30:18 - 00:26:34:18
Shafqat Huq
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck and on Target.

00:26:34:20 - 00:26:55:08
Shafqat Huq
I hope you gain insights to help you lead with competence and drive your organization forward. Remember it, Bench builders. We're committed to your success, your leadership excellence, and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episode.

00:26:55:17 - 00:26:59:17
Shafqat Huq
This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others.

00:26:59:16 - 00:27:03:04
Shafqat Huq
Who do you know? Who needs to hear what we talked about today?

00:27:03:13 - 00:27:10:18
Shafqat Huq
Until next time, I encourage you to stay. Focus on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path.