SDS 278: Your Core Strength

Kirill: Welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast ladies and gentlemen, super excited to have you on the show and I’ve got my dear friend here Hadelin.

Hadelin: Hi guys, how are you doing? So excited to be back on the podcast.

Kirill: So as you are aware our series of episodes about data science in different industries has come to a conclusion. We’ve covered off quite a few, over a dozen industries and so that’s here [inaudible 00:00:33]. And I was thinking what else should we do? And right now we’re together with Hadelin for a week. So we decided to record a series of episodes where we’ll be just chatting about life with Hadelin.

Hadelin: Life and important things which can change your life actually.

Kirill: True, true. But first things first. For those of you who don’t know me or Hadelin, just quick recap. So Hadelin and I create courses online. We’ve created a lot of courses, reached over almost a million students now. And one other thing important thing to note is that we also founded a AI consulting firm, Bluelife.ai where we are business partners and we help empower businesses to make massive profits through the power of artificial intelligence with no upfront costs.

Hadelin: That’s right. You heard it. No upfront cost, meaning that customers will take absolutely no risk when working with us.

Kirill: Okay. So that was that for the little shameless plot for Bluelife. And what we are talking today about is an interesting concept. So your core strength. We were driving just recently, right now we’re in Slovenia, sitting in front of an amazing view of some mountains. We’re actually in the mountains. We’re in the mountains. Yeah. So to the point of being here is we needed a week away from the world, from everything, from people just to brainstorm business ideas and come up with, what are we, how are we going to strategize our businesses and what are we going to do forward?

Hadelin: Yes. And this is something that entrepreneurs do from time to time. Because you always have your thoughts everywhere and sometimes it’s good to relax and sit in a place where you can disconnect from the world and really focus on the essential. And speaking of the, these entrepreneurs, for example, we know that Bill Gates sometimes well goes into the mountain just to think.

Kirill: For like a week every year.

Hadelin: Exactly, yes.

Kirill: So yeah, we’re doing that and it’s been, it’s been great. The brainstorming’s being epic. But we were driving here a while ago, like a few days ago, last week on Thursday, I think Thursday we got here. So we were driving here from Paris to Ljubljana and we stopped by Salzburg in Germany. Yes. Had a nice dinner there. Hadelin had pizza, I got a salad and we got to talking and we got to this one conversation about core strengths. Not, not really sure how we got to it, but it was such a breakthrough for us.

Hadelin: Exactly. We really had the feeling that it was a breakthrough because identifying your core strengths can really change your life because indeed, one of the success habits, you know, by reading all these books, you get to understand what are good habits for growth or success is to identify your core strengths. Because once you identify your core strength, you can have the maximum impact at what you’re doing and then you can just outsource your weaknesses or other skills that you’re not necessarily good at. So, yes, and for the first time, and it’s crazy because we’ve been knowing each other for almost three years, and for the first time we identified our core strengths, it was about time. And, all right, so what are these core strengths?

Kirill: Yeah. So we have identified that… Should we start with yours or with mine?

Hadelin: Let’s start with yours.

Kirill: Okay. So for me, my core strength is, what do we call it,

Hadelin: We call it the triple B.

Kirill: The boom, boom, boom. Basically. It’s a way sometimes to get into this state when I see an opportunity to impact someone’s life and like inspire them and get them out of a transfixed mindset that they’ve been in for a very long time where they don’t believe in themselves or they think that something is impossible or they don’t know how to do something because they’re thinking inside the box. I just somehow I get into this state and I, and I just like lay out a whole speech on how they could do things, like what they can accomplish, how they can do things differently.

Kirill: Recently we were talking to the team at Bluelife and they were stuck on this one project in the energy space. And like I just, I was kind of holding back, holding back and then at some point I just unleashed and I told them, you know, like, we can, all you have to do is just go and find your energy experts. You’re going to find the best top energy experts in Paris. You can read books, you can attend conferences, you can network with people. You can just like watch videos and I don’t know, like go find a person that works in this space, can get out for a coffee and consult. You really need to become experts in the energy space. And I completely changed their mindset. Would you agree on this?

Hadelin: Oh, totally. This was powerful. I wanted to say no word when you actually spoke to the team. Yeah, it’s amazing. You’re like a super inspiring, a great coach. You, it’s like you have the power to unleash their power within, you know, and because indeed they kind of lost a bit of hope in the project, we were at a difficult time and you managed to really reset their state towards the being hopeful and believing in it. So you actually anchored into them the power of belief. You gave them some options and possibilities. You make them believe that it was possible, that it’s there and that they can grab it and that it’s worth it. And that was a super inspiring speech. So I think you have an amazing talent at doing this.

Kirill: Thank you. Thank you. And like I’ve, I’ve done this many times and I haven’t ever identified it as actually a talent. But after that conversation, like I’m thinking, obviously I need to focus on that more because that’s, that’s where I have a huge leverage because somehow I am, I don’t know even why I’ve never studied it. I’ve never learned how to do it, somehow when I get into the state, it just happens. And so that’s mine. And now let’s talk about yours. So Hadelin has this talent, which we, which has a French name, but there is no actual English translation. We’ve been looking for a translation for like three days now. And there is no actual English word. And so in French it’s called “habile”, H. A. B. I. L. E. What does habile mean?

Hadelin: That’s right. So habile yes, indeed. There is no English translation for this. So let’s just explain this through examples. So habile, well first if we had to give a definition to this, it would be, you know, I’m kind of a skillful, having skillful thought about how you can get out of a situation or how you can turn a situation that looks bad into a good situation.

Kirill: And in a very tactful way.

Hadelin: Yes. With words, mostly not really with actions or with behavior but with words. Right. So I’ll give some examples. For example, well, I was in the US, I lived in the US and I drove a car all the time there because, you know, in the US you have to drive a lot. And five times I was pulled over by a cop because you know how I am in a car, you know, I’m very observative of the environment around me. We talked about it in our one-to-one with Kirill in 2018. So I like to observe the environment. I like to admire it, look at the trees for example, and sometimes the speed can go a little bit over the limit. And, so I got pulled over for this reason, a speed limit, but don’t do it in your car of course. And each time I got pulled over, there was a cop talking to me saying, hey, you deserve a fine. You went over the limit. That’s not good. And it turns out that, four times out of five, I got away with this. I got away with this. Well, you know, by just talking to the policeman without inventing like a false excuse, but by just, you know, getting away with this, with some kind of the right words.

Hadelin: I don’t remember what I said exactly, but, yeah, it is what happened. Maybe it is something else. Maybe it is due to the fact that I was a bit young and, I looked very innocent. You know, sometimes that works. But, yes, it is what it is. Four times out of five, I managed to get away with this. And actually we were in a car actually…

Kirill: The following day after we discussed this.

Hadelin: Yes. And we actually got pulled over by a cop

Kirill: Yeah, in Austria.

Hadelin: Yeah. In Austria, yeah. We got pulled over by a cop and and yes, we kind of get away with it.

Kirill: It was so funny. I was driving and this cop pull us over and I’m talking to him and I have no idea what to say. And I thought it was 80 and I was going under 80, but it was actually 50 in that area and I think I was going 68 or something like that, kilometers per hour. And, and the cops said how are going and you know, the usual stuff. And and at some point, like I’m talking to him and I can feel it. The policeman is getting more frustrated and like, I don’t know what to say. And just at some point I just said, okay, officer please talk to Hadelin, over here my friend. And from there the conversation changed drastically.

Hadelin: Yes, indeed. So I started talking to the cop and indeed the cop starts to smile, starts to wish us good holidays, starts to ask questions where we’re from. And I don’t know exactly what I told him, but, I guess I said words that, kind of resonated into the cops mind. I don’t know what happened. It’s really hard to explain, but, indeed, we got away with this.

Kirill: We, got like a 20 euro fine.

Hadelin: Yeah, 20 euros fine, whereas it’s 60 euros for that tind of offense, yes. In Austria, yes.

Kirill: In Austria. In Australia is like a 260.

Hadelin: Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was good. And it’s funny because we got pulled over by this cup right after discussing it, like the night before I gave you this example about the five cops pulling me over in the US and then like less than 12 hours later we get pulled over by a cop. How crazy was that?

Kirill: Yeah, that was insane. Yes. It was really cool to witness because I was sitting there and the policeman was talking over me to you because he was sitting in the passenger seat and at some point like he forgot I was in the car. That’s how… I don’t know, what connection you guys built. Remember that he was telling you, please tell your Australian… In English, he was telling you. Please tell your Australian friend that there’s driving limits in Austria and we need to respect them. I’m sitting right there. I can understand what you’re saying. Oh my God, it was so funny.

Hadelin: But, yeah, there you go. That’s what habile is about. It’s about turning a bad situation. Yeah. We get pulled over by, by a cop. We’re about to get a huge fine into a good situation where you have a big discount on the fine or you don’t get the fine or you get to sympathize with the cop. So that’s what habile is about.

Kirill: But I think is a bit more than that even. It’s also knowing that about yourself and navigating situations easily. Like even going into situations that other people would find extremely stressful or extremely impossible to navigate where everybody’s happy but going through them and everybody ends up happy at the end. So my mom actually has an explanation… Like in Russian, the way we call this skill, there’s also no word for it, but it’s like in Russia we say “пробираться между струйками дождя”, it means if it’s raining and you go outside and you walk in between the raindrops so you don’t get wet, you manage to navigate.

Hadelin: Yeah, that’s a good analogy. Yes. That’s exactly what it is. Yeah.

Kirill: Yeah. And so it was really cool that like we’ve been, we’ve known each other for three years and been using these like powers here and there, but unconsciously and to like benefit. And I’ve always wanted to learn from Hadelin, how he does it and I wanted to learn more of that. But now having the like a session, we realize these are really extreme talents that we have. And even though we can learn from each other a little bit, we will never get as good as one another in that space. So it’s better just to identify a situation where each talent is applicable and put the right one of us in that situation.

Hadelin: And in business, in our business. Because the good thing about this is that now we know when we’ll apply, either being habile or being inspiring coach and in the execution and our business situations. For example, when we are dealing with a difficult situation with a client, well maybe we’ll use more habile and, and when the team needs a little bit of inspiration, well we’ll use Kirill’s skill in inspiration. So yes, I really recommend you guys to identify this in your team or with your business partner being aware of them because this can really make a huge change in your business and even in your life,

Kirill: Exactly. Even like for yourself, identify your core talent. That’s the reason why I wanted to share this because it was so empowering to us and insightful that if you sit down and look back at your life or even past couple of years, what is something that you really good at, that you’ve been doing and that nobody else around you can do? Or that you find intuitive or you don’t even notice you do it, whereas other people are very inspired by it and they want to learn from you and they comment you on that thing that you do. And maybe that is your core talent and you can find ways to leverage it because it’s something that comes naturally to you, it’s not going to cost you any extra mental energy effort to apply it. So you just need to find situations where you can apply more and more and gain that extra advantage when you’re doing so.

Hadelin: That’s right.

Kirill: So yeah, that’s our little breakthrough or big massive actually breakthrough.

Hadelin: I think it’s massive.

Kirill: Yes. And some inspirations, comments, hopefully you can find your personal core strength.

Hadelin: Absolutely.

Kirill: All right guys. We’ll continue this series next week and until then, happy analyzing.

Hadelin: Happy analyzing.