Spotting the Red Flags of a Toxic Workplace

Great leaders know that the ball is always in their court. In this episode of the Talent Empowerment Podcast, Ehsan Fahmi, Client Success Director at The Talent Enterprise, shares her experience of working in a toxic environment and why she believes nobody should be a bystander.

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📌TALKING POINTS

(1:23) Don’t be a bystander

(3:05) Why do we study psychology and organizations and people?

(4:55) Dealing with difficult job experiences and toxic workplace cultures

(14:00) Figuring out if a place has a good workplace culture during the interview process

(18:17) The assessments that could help the employees the most

(34:08) Find ways to bring more kindness to the workplace

🌟ABOUT EHSAN FAHMI

Ehsan Fahmi is an accomplished organizational psychologist who is the Client Success Director at The Talent Enterprise. With a Master's Degree in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Exeter, Ehsan is an expert in talent management, talent assessment, and customer success. She has partnered with a diverse range of clients such as Dubai Airports, KONE, and L'Oreal to design assessment criteria and culture fit processes that are efficient and predictive.

🔗CONNECT WITH EHSAN

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ehsanfahmi/ 
• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/TTE_Consulting 

🔗CONNECT WITH TOM

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🎙️ABOUT THE PODCAST

Every Thursday on the Talent Empowerment Podcast, Tom Finn, the dynamic Co-Founder and CEO of LeggUP, ventures into the minds of trailblazing CEOs, HR executives, and talent development savants from various industries to dive deep into their career paths, dissect their strategies for growing people-first culture in their organizations, and uncover how they’re driving talent innovation.

Tom Finn:

Welcome, welcome to the Talent Empowerment Podcast. We're here to help you love your job. We unpack the tools and tactics of successful humans to guide you towards your own career empowerment. I am your host, Tom Finn, and on the show today, we have my new friend, Asan Fahmy. Asan, welcome to the show.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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Tom Finn:

Well, we are thrilled to have you on the show. And if you don't know Ehsan, let me take a moment to introduce you to her. She's an accomplished organizational psychologist who is also the client success director at an organization called the Talent Enterprise. She's got a master's degree in social and organizational psychology from the University of Exeter. And Asan is an expert in talent management, talent assessments, customer success. So she's all thing talent, which sort of lines up with the show. And she's partnered with a diverse range of clients in her past, such as Dubai Airports, KONE, and L'Oreal, for those of you that love brands. And she's designed assessment criteria, helped with culture fit and processes that make things more efficient and make things more predictive. One of the things that I'm really interested in is her favorite saying is, don't be a bystander, don't be a bystander. So let's start there, my friend. What do you mean by don't be a bystander?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Hello Tom. So, don't be a bystander is a very personal quote to me. And to me, it just means that you're not making the assumption that somebody else is gonna take action. And the ball is always in your court. no matter what it is, what situation you are in. Bystanders are typically people who just assume that somebody else is going to raise the question or going to take action. And I really encourage and I try to as much as I can. I'm not always successful, but I do try as much as I can to live by this and it's be proactive and be brave and take that action. no matter what that situation is, if you can help someone or if you can ask the question that everybody really wants to ask but they're afraid to. So that's really where it comes from. It comes from me.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I love the way you said that. Don't be a bystander really means take accountability and get in there, get involved, take some action, do something positive, help somebody else, really be active. Don't let indecision be your decision. Love it. Absolutely, absolutely love it. And so your background is in social and organizational psychology. You've got a little bit of a hint in there in your career of what you've done. Why does that matter? Why do we study psychology and organizations and people? What's important about that?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, so before I answer that question, I mean, just so you know, I don't think there's a lot of people who are born in this world knowing they wanna be in psychology out of their mother's womb. It just happened by accident for me. But I think that's the truth of where we are in the world of work. Nobody really, very rarely do we apply what we study. But I think the first time I ever understood what psychology was, was through this American soap opera, now the bold and the beautiful. And there was this one character who was a psychiatrist. who was just helping people and whatnot. And I remember turning to my mom and I said, I wanna do that, I think I'm a good listener. And that just started where that world of psychology is and what it meant. And I think stumbling upon that field of where I am today, which is all just by accident, opening random doors and thinking, okay, this is gonna work. It is important because human behavior is the code of what we do. industry no matter what your job is you're always serving a customer and that's something I read in a book actually so you're always going to be serving people and it's important to understand yourself and to understand others to be able to make changes and make recommendations especially in the world of consultancy So.

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Tom Finn:

Well, I love that. I had no idea that I had no idea that a soap, daily soap called the bold and the beautiful would inspire you to be a psychologist, would inspire you to go into-

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah. And let me just add as well. I think that was the initial inkling. But then I was part of a very difficult job experience. where I would say that I was working for a proper dictator type of personality. And that was my fresh graduate, you know, youth and so on. And I thought that was how it should be. And I think it did also help me want to understand psychology a bit more so that we can make changes in today's world as well.

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Tom Finn:

So let's talk about that experience, because I think a lot of us have experiences like that, where we go into organizations bright eyed and bushy tailed. We're ready to get to work. We're bringing our best self. And then we run into that, as you said, dictator type personality. What did that feel like for you?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

It wasn't pleasant. And I think at a young age, early, early 20s, you don't know what you're feeling. I mean, the term anxiety is something that is fairly, at the moment, it's prominent. It's way more prominent than before. But it wasn't good because all I knew was I was nervous a lot of the times. And I was being somebody I was not. And I was forced to be a person I was not. And it's because you have this very overpowering chairperson, you know, who was leading this organization. There was a lot of double standards, a lot of hypocrisy that was going on as well. People were definitely afraid. There was, you know, it was heavy on fear based and I remember when I had resigned because I was going to study psychology. It wasn't a positive reaction from that person. They basically just said... yeah don't come back tomorrow you know so it was it was really um it was it was definitely a defining moment because i was so young and i was that type of person that doesn't speak up a lot this is something that i've just you know been doing a lot more now as you as you grow older so it wasn't it was definitely not a pleasant experience this person is still around making a lot of impact, which to me is also very interesting. And it helped me also want to understand psychology and human behavior in a little bit more detail.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, and to get some context to the listeners, you're in Dubai. And was this experience in Dubai?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Correct, it was, yeah. About 10, 15 years ago, I would say. Yeah, it was about a while ago, but yeah, it was in Dubai.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, so I think this is sort of the toxic workplace culture that nobody really wants to talk about, right? We tend to do a couple of different things when we see bad behavior in bosses. We resign, that's an easy one. I quit, I'm out of here. I'm gonna go do something else. We stay and we change ourselves. and we adapt, right? We're human beings, we're pretty good at adapting, even in bad situations. And so we'll change ourselves and adapt. Or perhaps there's a third option, you speak up, you take on that personality, and that usually ends in you being removed from the company, right? Not at your will, if you take on that person. Because those type of dictator mindsets do not wanna be challenged. at all. Did you see that with those kind of three scenarios with your coworkers?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yes, but people, there were a few that resigned actually. The majority of people were adapting, but they weren't convinced. I mean, they were definitely, there was a lot of fear, a lot of fear going on. Very few people resigned. And I would say these are the people who specifically have a personality of speaking up, being bold, not being a bystander in this regard. And... And I would say there was a lot of negative impact to people who stayed because nobody talks about this as well, but the cost of being somebody you're not for a very long time is going to be a breakdown, eventually. And I think what really helps in this regard is just having somebody by you asking you how you are. for real, right? Like not, how are you doing today? It's how are you? What's going on? What can I do? Are you okay? Right? And most of the time, people are just pretending with that answer.

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Tom Finn:

So Ehsan, I got a question for you because you left, which kudos to you and thank you for doing that to preserve your own mental health. But then you went and studied psychology. So as you look back 15 years ago and now you have all this new information, all of this education, you're in a completely different place in your life. What would you say to the person 15 years ago who's who's kind of living it right now. Like what would you say to that person, was you 15 years ago, but now it's probably somebody else.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

I would say, I would definitely say that it's temporary. It, this situation does not define you, but you can learn so much about yourself when you go through such experiences early on. And... What I would definitely also say is just listen to yourself. There's always this voice inside you saying that this is not okay. And that's why we feel what we feel, right? When you're angry, you're angry because something inside, something inside you has been violated. There's a reason for it. If you're not, as long as you're not being destructive, of course, but there is a reason for it, right? So it's about listening, tuning in, understanding why it is that I feel this way. a little bit better, right? So self-discovery assessments or, you know, talking to people, coaching, just understanding who you are, what your talent is. The issue is, especially when we're graduates and we're, you know, we're just come out in the world of work, we're so hungry for experience. But what we should be doing is be hungry for the right experience, not just any experience off the back because I can't find anything else. It's just like in a partner, knowing yourself, knowing the target audience, the external party, and making an effort to bridge that gap. Of course, it's not going to be perfect and there will always be changes, but I think that's the thing with graduates is there's a lot of pressure from family. You need to find a job. We need you to start working now. That's what happened to me as well. So I was kind of also And all I knew was I was anxious and nervous a lot of the times, but I didn't even know anxiety existed. I just thought it's normal to feel butterflies. But I didn't know it's normal, not normal to feel it every single day when you come to work and dreading the world of work and so on. So, yeah, I would definitely say that's important to remember.

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Tom Finn:

So I think what I heard is, if you're coming into the world of work and you're fresh out of college or your educational institution, take your time to figure out what the right culture fit is for you in your first step in your career, because it will give you thoughts that will be with you your whole career. They could be wonderful thoughts. They could be ideas and productivity and health and wellness and spiritual moments and great teamwork and great leadership. They could also be abusive, anxiety setting, times where we don't understand who we are because we're in this organization that doesn't make any sense with a leader who doesn't understand how to talk to people appropriately. So you make a great point that you've got to really understand what you're walking into to the best of your ability. My goodness, we don't always have all the information, Asan, right? We don't always know exactly what that organization is going to look like when we get in there, but to the best of our ability we got to figure that out early on. It's a tough task. I don't think what you're saying is easy for everybody to figure out.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think it's definitely difficult and it's just asking the question over and over again to yourself and hopefully that brings you closer to the answer.

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Tom Finn:

How do you figure out through the interview process that a place is going to be a good place to work, or a great place to work, or oh boy, a really, really bad place to work? How do you figure that out as we're going through the process?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

So interestingly, you say that because with that experience that I had mentioned and a couple of more after it, I remember the manager that interviewed me said, in this environment, when I say jump, you say how high? And that in itself should have been a red flag, but I didn't think of it. I can't think of it.

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Tom Finn:

Correct. Yes, my friend, that is a red flag. If somebody says in this environment, when I say jump, you say how high you, you run from that job for all of you listening. Don't take that job.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, and interestingly, I didn't think of it this way. I thought of it as, oh, you know, I wonder what we're jumping towards. I wonder what the targets are, what are we trying to achieve, blah, blah.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

But this person, the good thing is this person was also who they were. And I think the most dangerous relationships with a manager is a manipulative one, because you don't know what's happening. Now, luckily for me, I've not just poor leaders and it was just obvious and that was who they were. So it was easy to figure out. But I would say, I mean just answering your question in an interview process is take your time, don't rush that process. They're not just interviewing you. for the job, but think of it as a two-sided approach where you also need to ask questions to understand whether it's fit for you as well. And sometimes jobs actually offer that opportunity. So the job that I'm in, I remember the first interview I had with them years ago, they actually offered to come and meet the colleagues, to come and have lunch with the team before even accepting the offer, so that you can get a feel of who they are and what they do, a little bit about the culture and what's really amazing is everybody in this company till now all have said the same answer as to why they've accepted the job and why are they still there it's because of the family or people related culture it's just obvious and it's very it's very prominent so I would say the same thing would apply in any recruitment process, it's not just always about the package, but just take your time, try and understand a little bit about what the company does. Connect to it also from a purpose perspective. Is it something, are they answering a question that you also want to achieve? But also the team that you're going to be working for, the manager, that is what really keeps people in the role. It's these elements more than the actual job itself or the package or the salary as well.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You've got to find a place where you fit in an organization. You can't just think about the Benjamins, which is important. We want to make money, and we want to be paid appropriately. And you should. But you also should not sacrifice that for everything else. because you will pay the price later. And I completely agree with you.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, exactly.

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Tom Finn:

So one of the things you do in your career is you study human behavior. That's kind of your thing. That's kind of your gig. And one of the ways to study human behavior is through a series of assessments and tools where you can sort of understand yourself and understand your company and those types of things. Most organizations have pulse surveys and annual employee experience surveys. engagement surveys, whatever you want to call them. And so I wonder from your perspective, what have you seen in this space of assessments that could help the employee the most?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

So I would say it's definitely around assessments that can bring out the person's behavior in the most natural way. You don't want, I mean the word assessments in itself, unfortunately, till now is still, people are still negative around it. They still have this mindset that it's a test, you know, there's a right and wrong. I need to put forward a personality that will make me desirable. And the idea here is to create assessments where people can just be themselves. And for example, right, for graduates, specifically for young talent where, you know, they're hungry for that experience and they want to be accepted, just creating these scenarios in a fun way for them not to look at it as these boring tests and assessments, but something that's more agile, gamified, you know, relevant. measure the skills that you that you're looking for. The other thing I would say is transparency. So don't hide what the criteria is, share it with people. You know a lot of employers right now are saying that the reason why we're assessing you is not to check whether you're fit or not fit but it's also to set you up for success. We want to ensure that whatever we provide in terms of the assessment space is also fair for people to just be themselves. and I think that's really important, you know, in this space. And I would say personality is a big thing, but the concept of the social favoritism is interesting because there are certain questions people struggle to give you an honest answer about. And I see that when I'm coaching, when I'm interviewing, you know, when I'm assessing, when you ask people about their biggest failures or their weaknesses, or unethical situations they've been in, they're very reluctant, they kind of try and give you that positive spin, and I think that means the question is just not working. We need to think about it in a different way.

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Tom Finn:

So help me understand cultural favoritism a little bit more, because that just sort of popped off the page to me. What does that mean? Can you dig down on that a little bit?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, I think, you know, when you... Like when you ask people, for example, have you ever been in a situation where you did something unethical at work or when you were in a situation where somebody, where your ethics were tested and what did that mean for you and you did something wrong, right? So in our culture, especially here in the Middle East, I'm not gonna stereotype, but I would say that reputation is a big thing here. Your name, your brand, what you say. So people rarely want to talk about these things. And for me, as a recruiter or as an interviewer or as an assessor, I find it the most interesting and the easiest way to be able to tell who you're talking to, right? It's about being honest and upfront about such matters and everybody's been in it, right? But people just don't really want to talk about it.

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Tom Finn:

Hmm. Do you think they don't want to talk about it because they don't want to admit that they did something wrong?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, you know, and it makes sense, and especially in selection and in recruitment, you know, that's something that's big. But you know what's interesting is employers are assessing elements such as accountability and assessing humility. This is a new thing that I'm also hearing a lot about and seeing is that they wanna assess these behaviors, which is not easy to assess, but it's very important, spaces. You want people to be grounded, to admit their failures, their wrongdoings, but what's critical is what have you done about it and how have you learned from that situation. And I'm seeing that more and more in the criteria of employers, especially when they're recruiting graduates. They're asking about accountability and how have you taken responsibility for this situation that has happened and I think that's really where we're going. And again, like I said, it's the best way to bring out somebody's natural self rather than kind of put a shield, like what I'm doing probably now.

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Tom Finn:

Well, I don't think you're putting up a shield right now. I think you're sharing your experiences and what you've been through and how that can impact others. And your educational background and then the way that you kind of look at the world I think is really important for other people to hear because this stuff isn't that easy. And we tend to gloss over it, many of us. And look, Asan, I'm a person that's done this too, where I've been in really tough situations and I've just... gritted my teeth and said, I'll get through it. I'll figure it out. I'll adapt, right? And then, my goodness, 10 years later, 12 years later, whatever, you wake up and you go, oh my gosh, I don't wanna go to work. I'm terrified of going to work. I don't like the people I work with. And it may be a combination of you changed and they changed or boss has changed, whatever it is, you're just not comfortable. and you gotta move on, get out of there.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Exactly.

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Tom Finn:

And I think that makes total sense how you sort of discuss this. I wanna stay on this idea of assessments though, because there's a lot of different assessments that we take here in the US. You're in Dubai, you've probably got some of the same, some different ones that you all use. But should people be afraid of assessments? Is this a gotcha moment in corporate roles where We say the nice thing on the surface, hey, take the assessment, we just want to learn about you and learn about your skills and see if you're humble. And then, ha ha, gotcha, let's figure out a way to get this person out of the company. Because I think that's sometimes how people feel.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, yeah, and I think it's a valid way that people, you know, it's a valid reason why people feel this way when you ask them about their experiences because shockingly some people have been in certain situations. In the work that we do, definitely I would say assessments is important and I would say that, you know, forget why you're being asked to be assessed. It's really for you Forget the employer who sent you the assessment. Think about it as just a mark in the map of where you are as of today. And what I want to also emphasize here is it's not written in stone. Some people are afraid of their results and their scores and what does a low score mean and a high score mean. And at the end of the day, I always see it as this is just simply an indication of where you are today. But it gives you... a lot of information about where you do want to go. And I would say that that's really the first step towards anything In terms of your goals your objectives It's just learning about yourself a little bit more and a little bit better And if you're not comfortable in taking assessments you as the end user have every right to ask Questions about where my reports will be who will see it. You know, how long will it be stored for? How are you going to use it? And if you're just not comfortable, you know, you can opt out And if you work for an organization where you are forced, then consider yourself blessed that you've seen it and now you can take action. And that's proof enough that you're working in an organization that may not be as transparent as you think. So of course, there's a lot of different assessments for sure. And what I would say for me is what I would always live by is the concept of your strengths. It's leading with your strengths, being who you are, and just doing the job that's more aligned to who you are, rather than working on things that's just not who you are. For example, I'm not a planner. and I'm never a planner. I've tried so hard to work on this skill, but it's down to my personality. I can't, I literally just cannot. It takes me a while to put a project plan together, compared to people who are just natural planners. It takes me a while to think about. how this is all gonna look like. I hate Gantt charts, I really don't like it. And that's just down to who I am. So does that mean I need to work in a job that I have to spew out project plans every minute? Not necessarily, there are ways that you can manage this as well.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, this is a great point and one that people ask all the time. It's should I work on my strengths and double down on my strengths, the things that I think I'm really good at or the assessment tells me I'm really good at, or should I go, Oh my gosh, look at those weaknesses. I've got to fix all of those weaknesses and I've got to do it really fast. I've got to, I've got to work on getting better at project management or Gantt charts or. whatever that thing is that we're missing. By the way, Asan, I'm like you. I am not great at charts and project management. It's just not my jam. It's not my jam.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, why are your books so small. I know, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Completely agree.

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Tom Finn:

I wanna talk to people, right? I'm with you on that one. But I have a co-founder in a company called LeggUP and my co-founder is a former project manager for a major builder, global builder of stadiums and huge hotels, like big, big capital intensive projects. He was one of the lead project managers. So when we built a company together, Guess what I was thinking? Hey, I'm not very good at this project management stuff, but I know who is. And we worked beautifully together for the last six years because his strength is my weakness. And quite frankly, his weakness is my strength as well. So when you're looking at building team, the way to think about this is understand who you are, what you bring to the table, double down on your strengths, then find people. that fill in those weaknesses for you on a team. You feel the same way?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, and the question I get a lot, especially from people who have never been through assessments before, is how do I know what I'm good at? And for me, it's not, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated. It's the feeling that when you come back home from work, when you're exhausted. that's an indication that you were not using your strengths that day. You were going against it. You were working on your weaknesses. Maybe you were just doing something that was really not who you were, but there are days you come home and you just feel like you are the king of the world. And when you think about the, the activities and the tasks of that day, it really means that you were operating from that space of strength. And that to me is the simplest way to know, If you are in that ideal role. Now having said that you can't always have these days, of course There's always days where it's great and not so great But at least it gives you an indication of what you are good at and what you may need to manage as well

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Tom Finn:

So I'm going to play devil's advocate here, or what I like to call the red team, and give an alternative view. So I hear you that your energy level could go up if you have a job that inspires you, and you feel good about what you're doing that day. And your energy level, conversely, could go down if you're doing the things that just kind of make you miserable, and you're in the wrong space. However, you do have to layer on top your personality profile, which could be, in its simplest form, introvert versus extrovert. So let me give you an example. Extrovert, that type of personality, will gain energy throughout the day by being around people and engaging in conversation, regardless of what the topic is. So an extrovert can be high energy at the end of the day I don't know, 12 people, whatever. An introvert is like a battery. An introvert wakes up in the morning and their battery is full. And there's only so much battery power in that charge. And every meeting or interaction that introvert has, a little bit of the battery goes down until they're on empty. So for me, the watch out and what you're saying is, if you're an introvert, and you could love your job, but you could feel a little tired at the end of the day, that could be a place where we're sending some mixed messaging. How do you blend that? You're an introvert, you're tired at the end of the day, can you still love your job?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

For sure. I mean, I think at the end of, like, I've seen, for example, I've seen people who are, you know, working from spreadsheets with, you know, large, large sheets with numbers and formulas, and they're smiling behind the screen. They're like loving it. They're having the best time of their lives. And I'm not saying that stereotypically these are the introverts, but what I'm saying is there's a job for everyone. of as well is, you know, if there's something you're just not good at, you don't need to change it because at the end of the day, personality is who you are and it should, it's mainly stable. What I would say is just put some things around it to manage it. If you just don't like talking to people, It could be the type of person you're around or maybe the job entails you to interact with large numbers of people, but I think this is where you have to just stick to being yourself as well. And there are ways to achieve results and get, you know... get your objectives and your goals by not having to fill that stereotypical question of I'm a leader, you know, everybody wants to be a leader, everybody wants to be a CEO, not necessarily. So I think, I think to answer your question, I think it really depends, but again, I would say it's just going back down to who you are and just trying to apply that as much as you can.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I love the way you said that. You just figure out who you are inside, double down on those things, and be the best version of yourself. What it really comes down to though, is mindset. What's your mindset? What are you bringing into work? How do you present yourself? And you do have to work on that. I will tell you, I've been in different places in my career where I haven't consciously thought about my mindset. You know, what do I do every morning? How do I think about the world? How can I be more positive today? You know, those things you can teach yourself, right?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a great question you asked because I was thinking about that as well today as well. Yeah. So I would say for me, at least for me personally, in terms of mindset is just find ways to bring more kindness to the workplace. And that is as simple as not making negative assumptions about people. Literally, try as much as you can not to believe that this person is out to get you. Nobody's out to get you. You know, we're just trying to live and breathe and, you know, we're trying really hard not to drown. So just assume that you're not that special, that people are after you. It sounds a little bit, I know it can be a little bit condescending, but it's true. about other people. I mean, and I think that mindset, if you think in this way and you apply that in your day-to-day, I really genuinely believe that things will also be unfolding in that manner. It's just not making these negative assumptions about people and situations and things and customers and clients and also being a bit kinder to yourself, right? No, we don't have our good days. There are always a lot of days we go into a meeting and it just didn't work out. But it's got nothing to do with you. A couple of other things I have in mind, but I would say the biggest thing is just how do we bring kindness more in the workplace?

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Tom Finn:

That is an easy way to think about the world. How do we bring more kindness into the workplace? How do we give more kindness to ourselves? It's a wonderful way to think about the world. And I hope people really take that and do think about it. How do we approach kindness for ourselves first and our workplace second, our family? It is really important to be a little gentler on ourselves, for sure.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

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Tom Finn:

So Ehsan, we've got to leave it there. But I want to find out if you were a tour guide for Dubai, what would you tell our US listeners as to why we should come over and visit?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

I would say it's a magical place to be purely because this is a city and also the country, the UAE has built itself from nothing in about 40, 50 years. You know... 40, 50 years ago, nobody even heard of what the UAE is. People think that Dubai is a country, and it's not. And for me, that is an inspiration in itself. However, I would say, like any big cities, Dubai is not unique to this, but like any big cities, just be mindful that you don't get swallowed by the fast moving world and wanting to be the best and the tallest and the highest and the coolest. because that will only also get you so far, but it's really truly a place where anything is possible. We can make it rain here by the way, literally, for environmental purposes of course, but it does rain in the summer as well.

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Tom Finn:

Well, I love it. I can't wait to go to Dubai. What a magical place. I love the way you articulated it in that manner. And we have had just a fantastic conversation. Love having you on the show, my friend. Where can people get in touch if they wanted to reach out and get to know you a little bit further?

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Definitely on LinkedIn. So I think that's the easiest way to get in touch with me. And yeah, I'll be happy to connect with people at any time.

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Tom Finn:

Okay, and we will put Ehsan's information in the show notes so that you can click on the link, get to her on LinkedIn and connect. Thank you for being on the show, my friend. Great conversation today.

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Ehsan Fahmi:

Thank you, thank you Tom, thank you for having me.

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Tom Finn:

And thank you for tuning into the Talent Empowerment Podcast. We hope you've unpacked a few tips and tricks to love your job. Get ready to dive back into all things career and happiness on the next episode. We'll see you then.

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