The Story
My first job was cleaning offices in an investment bank. Evening shift, 6 PM to 10 PM. UGB Tower, in the Diplomatic Area. I was trying to earn enough to buy myself clothes and have some pocket money. Money was tight. My dream of studying in America stayed exactly that, a dream, because we could not afford it.
One night, I got up the courage to talk to one of the professionals working late. I asked him whether I should study Accounting or Business Management. What he said changed everything: Regardless of what you study, make the best out of it. You will decide your future, not your degree. Later, when I went to clean his office, I picked up his business card. Financial Controller of the bank. He never knew he was mentoring the cleaner. He just treated me like a person worth talking to.
Years later, I would walk into that same building to meet my external auditors. I served as Chief Financial Officer of a dual-listed investment bank for more than eleven years. Then, on 4 December 2015, I left.
Not unhappy. Not burned out. Not forced out.
I was simply done. Somewhere inside me, a door had already closed, quietly, without fanfare, and I had been waiting for the right moment to acknowledge it out loud.
In the decade since, I have published 23 books, spoken at Googleplex, trekked to Everest Base Camp, taken on the Seven Summits Challenge, and created the Peak Leadership Model on a borrowed A4 sheet in a café in Muscat. I am pursuing my PhD at Kathmandu University, researching leadership under extreme conditions.
I live in Bahrain. I am still climbing.
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