Unveiling Leadership Secrets: A Journey with Elisa Viaud

[00:00:00] I don't believe that we can build meaningful, something working nine to five. Let's be honest, it's not possible at least first couple of years. And I believe there's two approach intensity and consistency. Intensity is let's do a big upside and let's say, let's put a bandaid on something. Consistency is, are you hydrated?

[00:00:23] How many cups of glasses of water you have? How are you taking care of your nutrition? How many times per week you exercise? Hi everyone. Today we are chatting with high performance coach, Elisa Vyad. Elisa worked in talent acquisition in the early days of Uber and Tesla. In this conversation, she shares her journey from Kiev to Paris to now Amsterdam, and she shares what makes a good hire in the advice she gives to founders who want to strike a good balance between driving high performance and ensuring the wellbeing of their teams.

[00:00:53] Let's dive right in. Elisa, welcome to Innovators Can Laugh. How are you doing today? Hi, Eric. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. How about about you? I'm doing fantastic. I think I've got better weather here in Bucharest than over there where you're at. But it's nice compared to the past two weeks, as you've said.

[00:01:12] But anyway, my first question for you, Elisa, is as a kid, what did you consider was rich when you were growing up? I grew up in the country, which doesn't exist anymore. Do you know? Called USSR. I was seven when USSR ceased to exist. And my both parents was Soviet engineers, Soviet engineers. They had a large collection of books.

[00:01:37] And I believe that being rich, it's going to any bookstore and buying any book I wanted at any point of time. So with my first salary, I went to the huge bookstore, more than one. And I bought the book of introduction to psychology and Rubinstein was the author. And I cherish this book as the first book I bought on my own money and also CDs and music.

[00:02:05] So that for me was Of the ability to choose what I want, the content I wanted to consume. Yeah, I love that. And actually that's quite true. When you go somewhere and you have the ability to paper something that you want, that is a rich feeling. And I, it took a while for me to have that feeling over the years, but finally when I did, it was a fantastic feeling.

[00:02:26] And so your mom and dad, big into books. Obviously, what was some of the best advice that they ever gave you? It's best and the worst advice I think, which I realized later in the second part of my life. My dad always told me, if you want to do something, try to learn from the best. Meaning if you want to learn how to bake a cake, find a person who does it very well.

[00:02:51] If you, and I applied this advice when I wanted to learn about recruitment and talent acquisition. Of course, I wanted to work with the best executive search firms in the world. It's known top five for big five, Conceri, Spencer Stewart, Egan Zender, Hunter Struggle and Russell Reynolds. So I worked for two and it was a goal.

[00:03:13] I wanted to learn with the best and why it was not so good advice because excellence and perfectionism can make us quite violent. towards ourselves and others. That's what I learned after many years of studying psychology and now I'm working with people who are pushing themselves to be perfect, uh, which is, of course, verbal is now unattainable.

[00:03:37] So now I believe in good enough. No, I completely agree with that. Sometimes when you put yourself and you're striving for perfection or striving to get the most out of you, it can literally beat yourself up and you can never attain it. I mean, you can attain excellence, but you can never attain perfection.

[00:03:54] But if you can get excellence, then you're. Probably ahead of then, you know, more than 99 percent of the people out there by doing this. Now, you said you came from a country that no longer exists. So where did you start your career? What country and then what company? When I started my career, USSR collapsed.

[00:04:11] So I was seven, 1991. It's a known fact. And when I started my career, it was Ukraine, Kyiv. I studied psychology, but clearly at my early twenties, being a psychologist or therapist or whatever. required personal experience and a couple of gray hair was the, yeah, it required a little bit more time. You didn't have that at the age of 20.

[00:04:33] You didn't have any gray hair, Lisa? Unfortunately, I wish I could. Well, I needed to leave and learn and do my own ride. Right. So I started in the discipline, which was as close as I saw to psychology, organizational psychology, which I was so wrong, recruitment and HR. So I joined recruitment agency. Local one.

[00:04:54] Then I went to the international one and mainly worked in talent acquisition, which then brought me later to Paris, France, where I completed a additional master in organizational psychology and human resource management. And I continued my journey in France in consultancy and executive search firms.

[00:05:15] All right. How long were you in France? So I came to France in my early twenties. It was 2007, 2008, I believe, right? I barely spoke French, so I had to very quickly learn French, pass the exam, enter university, do the master program, and found myself with quite different demographic because people whom I studied with, they were already, they were still students, so they, they didn't work before.

[00:05:43] They did a couple of internships while I came after working for already a couple of years, and I felt a little bit that outlier ish person who is a little bit different. Moreover, I was already married. And I remember all the evenings and soirees we made, girls would ask me, like, how is it to be married?

[00:06:02] And I would say, your parents are married. You can ask them. You probably think how it is. It was quite funny to find myself back again in my teenage years and going out and have fun up until midnight, sometimes even later at university. Okay. So you picked up the language. Was it easy for you to pick up the language?

[00:06:22] And if so, like, is there any tips that you recommend? Cause I'm trying to pick up Romanian here and I've been here three years and I still don't have a good grasp of the language. Fairly easy. And I believe this is another advice my father gave me. If you smart enough, you can do anything, which later. I put a name on this concept introduced by Carol Dweck called Growth Mindset.

[00:06:45] If you want something and you're really motivated, you can acquire it. So I remember I was very motivated living in a country where I couldn't go to a boulangerie and order. My usually, my usual two croissant and two baguette, because simply I didn't know if baguette is masculine or feminine gender, so I would always go for two.

[00:07:06] It's much easier. Baguette ou une baguette, it's obviously une baguette, but if you say the name of the baguette, it's much easier to avoid the embarrassment of not knowing the easy gender. So anyway, I picked up pretty fast, but worked hard, and I came from the family of hard working people. My boss's parents are engineers and they taught me every day you need to read 150 pages of, of any books.

[00:07:29] This story, unfortunately, didn't last long because they became religious. I shared it in another podcast, but anyway, I had good at bringing up to eight years old and they, they gave me good foundations of. Learning, they, they taught me how to learn on my own, how to think on your own, how to learn on your own.

[00:07:47] Probably the best gift that any parents can probably give their child is just also, I would say also that curiosity to keep learning as well. Okay. How did you find yourself into the Netherlands where you are now, Elisa? 2015, I spent four months in Dubai working remotely. Wasn't between jobs then. And I received an email.

[00:08:09] No, it was in Paris before I was going back home after work quite late. And I was riding home with Uber and I opened my LinkedIn message and it was message from Uber asking me if I would be interested to come to Amsterdam and help them to build European headquarter. I started on the acquisition partner and specifically focusing on public policy folks and the legal part, which I believe is the most important for the company because disruptive way Uber started in Europe in 2015 was way more, I'll say ask for forgiveness rather than for permission.

[00:08:46] And of course, public policy folks were shaping the legislation in Europe about the right sharing and the legal professionals were playing. Um, Very important role when it came to regulatory part and litigation. We all know the story of UberPOP 2015, 2016, and a couple of bumps in the road, um, back in that time.

[00:09:09] So yeah, I came with Uber, never visited Amsterdam before. And I remember thinking when somebody offers you a place on the rocket ship, don't ask when, where is it raining? Is it sunny right there? Just go and figure it out. So that's what I did. Well, there was quite a few problems back then. I remember reading stories of taxi drivers getting in fights with Uber drivers back in the day, having to pay.

[00:09:34] Okay. This opportunity fell in your lap. You're in Paris, probably the most beautiful city in the world. You're married. Okay. That decision, what was your thought process? Did you take a while to think about it or did you know in your heart at that moment that, yeah, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make this leap and go take this job and move to another country?

[00:09:54] My first reaction was, of course not, I'm not going to move to Amsterdam since I see Eiffel Tower from my window, I enjoy my life in Paris, I'm married, my husband is French and he just started his own venture in our living room, he's building his own startup, so I shared with him as a matter of fact, like, of course I'm not going to go, right, I'm not even going to take the interview, he looked at me and said, I'm No, you will take the interview and if you need, you will call and we will figure it out, which I, what I did, and it was scary.

[00:10:23] I then spent three months in Dubai thinking about it and receiving calls and I thought, hmm, between Amsterdam and Dubai, I prefer Dubai. But after three weeks, I realized that I don't, I need to see the change of the weather and different type of. People are a little bit more diversity, although the bias also, of course, but not as much as I expected.

[00:10:43] And first, I didn't believe in it much because 1, interviews. And then when I received a job offer with significant shares, I said, OK, maybe I need to seriously consider. In September, I joined the company. It's September, beginning of October, 2015. Yes. And that's his history now. It was the ride which gave me lots of knowledge and quite a few good friends.

[00:11:09] Okay. So six interviews for somebody who is a psychologist. Is that the norm for somebody coming into a company? Cause that seems like that's a lot. Back at the time I was educated and graduated from the master of psychology, but I didn't even consider myself a psychology. I was HR professional. So me being psychologist and fully embracing my education, knowledge, and it came much later.

[00:11:37] It came 10 years after. So back at that time, I was just a HR lady who wanted to make a difference and came from big houses like Gordon Farrington, Spencer Stewart, which knew how the good look like, which knew how to white, how to wear white gloves and have an approach to executive candidates. and high level senior folks who needed slightly different approach rather than pray, post and pray, you know, the, the advertisement online, and then going through numerous applications, it was mostly a cherry picking, I call it like this, head hunting, speaking with people.

[00:12:15] I remember I relocated somebody from Kenya, from Washington, DC to Kenya. With all the back and forth and all the logistical parts of visa worker meet and everything and hired people all over Europe, Middle East and Africa region. And that required, as I said, this wide law approach, understanding people's difficulties to leave high paid job and convince them to join this disruptive company back in 2015, very few people knew about, especially outside of United States.

[00:12:48] What were some of the, I guess, tactics that you use and maybe tactics is not the right word, but how did you make the pitch? How did you make this, this seem more attractive, uh, for people that were already in established companies and in senior level positions with these companies? First of all, I really, really believed in company's mission, making transportation as reliable as running water.

[00:13:12] Back at that time, it was the, the mission of the company before the rebranding. I was passionate about how easily we can change the car ownership and reduce number of cars and roads. And I believe it myself. Of course, Uber provided excellent trainings and talking points. And I think I never was surrounded ever since in my career by so many smart people.

[00:13:38] And I love this feeling of being the, not the smartest person in the room. For me, that's the moment, the room where I know I will grow because I'm not the smartest person in the room. There were always smarter people, more experienced people who saw differently. And I really enjoyed to be In places and meetings and in projects together with people who, who really taught me a lot from home, I learn.

[00:14:04] And hopefully I also shared my part of perspective and wisdom. Do you feel like the mission of a company that for a person to give their best, their a hundred percent skills and talent. And heart that they really need to believe in the mission of a company, because that's what you first led off with, you know, how to attract somebody.

[00:14:25] And you, you right away said, I believed in the mission. I think it is important, especially for younger generation, the millennials and folks who enter in the world of work today, and they're looking for purpose. They just don't, they don't want just come to work every day. It needs to be a bigger picture and bigger passion, purpose, and impact.

[00:14:48] And back at that time, Obero was that company. I remember in 2016, the company had only 4, 000 employees. In 2017, we doubled the size and we were 11, 000 people. And the recruitment was very important part of the company's success and growth because we. We knew that the quality of people we will attract will immediately impact the success and hyper growth of the company.

[00:15:16] And I can tell you that Uber really, really hired amazing people. That amazing that I still have friends whom I met back at the time, early days. I don't know how it is now. And I can tell you with this people, I can go to. Hikes, I can start the business. Two of them became my witnesses in my second marriage and we're still very close friends.

[00:15:39] So I believe there was something very bonding about the mission of the company, about the desire to change the world. Maybe a little bit utopic. I'm now 39 and I look back and I done this twice, then a Tesla and as American company. But I really believed in the company mission and it was. a fuel. It was a driver to work numerous hours, sometimes come back to the office on Saturday morning, sometimes even on Sunday, stay late evenings because there was a real, true purpose behind every single call, every single email.

[00:16:13] And I, I believed in it. That you looked for that, that I gave you the cue that this is a quality person and that we want in this organization. There are quite a few. So people who are there highly educated and went into the places where they had a mix of entrepreneurial experiences and also good corporate.

[00:16:39] So what we call good corporate is companies which. Uh, on the front run in the industry, the places which know how the good look like they call them academia companies, like, let's think about big multinationals, which succeeded, but one of this won't be enough because we also want the people who would.

[00:17:01] Think on their feet and have different entrepreneurial mindset. And there's very, very few people in the world, because one thing is to come to big company and fit in and do what is required. And another, another thing is land in Nairobi and launch the city with your phone and computer and have the money and supply running in next two, three months, meaning hiring drivers who will be.

[00:17:25] Driving across the city, advertise and make people aware that now they can push the button and request the right, this requires very different skillset, but one being this structurally and systematically educated, how they would look like process wise, and also being foolish sometimes. Risk taking person that this combination where it will be very rare.

[00:17:50] And then another thing is being able to problem solve. So in one of the first interviews, I will always ask, okay, I reach out to you. You didn't apply. We now having this conversation. What do you think is Uber's biggest challenge now? I wanted to understand if the person did. His or her homework before.

[00:18:09] And when people will tell me, yeah, you probably want to grow, but in the same time you have this regulatory problems and you need to overcome the competition with the taxi drivers and there's a lot of, okay, that means that there is this hint of critical thinking the person have done his or her homework.

[00:18:25] Yeah. What you're, what you described reminded me of a recent conversation I had with one of the, one of my guests and it just so happens he worked for Uber. And he was launched into Austria to basically open up Austria for the Uber lifts or the Uber scooter. And he came from exactly how you describe these big corporations where he had a lot of success.

[00:18:48] I think one of them was a Procter and Gamble and the other one was Boston in consulting group. I think, you know, whom you're talking about, Misha Fisher, Michael Fisher. Yeah, that's him. Yeah. Yeah. Michael Fisher. And you know, he, he's wonderful. He was a guest on the pod. He was at the cocktail party that I threw in Amsterdam.

[00:19:06] The one that you missed. But he gave this story about he opened up Austria, and I think within the first week, he had his fleet of scooters that were hacked by hackers who are using the scooters, computers and power to mine bitcoins. And it was just this crazy story. But the description of this person of Michael was like the exact person that you're describing.

[00:19:29] Oh, I can share with you many stories. I remember in somewhere in Asia, we detected that there will be a group of people putting phones in their rucksacks and making fake rides and charging money. And then how it was, uh, uncovered that it was a fraud because we noticed that there was regular stop every two minutes.

[00:19:49] What, what, what kind of like, Oh, maybe they're riding Metro with the back, back full of phones stolen or hacks. I don't remember how. And that there was a special team with brilliant individuals who were looking into all possible pros with the platform. So many, many stories like this. Indeed. And sometimes the car, which is still the case, sometimes you request the right.

[00:20:14] The car arrives and you look at the plate on the app and you look at the plate on the car, it doesn't match. So I usually, but I'm still a former Uber employee. I still believe in the company and I'm a shareholder. I still have all my shares. I usually ask, how is this so possible that the plate is not match?

[00:20:30] It's like, Oh, I'm driving. That's the car. I'm just a friend. I said, well, I will cancel the ride because this is not right. I will immediately make a report because this is wrong. This is a fraud and this is not safe for people. And I will be responsible to actually plug it. That's my personal attachment to the company and, uh, I want the company to succeed.

[00:20:50] Wow. It's crazy the, the, the, the types of frauds that are trying to be committed out there, huh? Okay. All right. So you're, you're loving this company. You believe in the mission. You said that two of the people were witnesses in your second marriage. Why did you leave to go find your own? I would, I call it a boutique consultation firm.

[00:21:10] How would you describe the organization? Before I described before I started my boutique firm, I left because I had a burnout and I have been quite open about this. There's nothing to be ashamed of. I learned a lot about my own boundaries and limits I wanted to put, which I couldn't up until my body told me, no, we're not going to go to work today.

[00:21:32] And unfortunately not tomorrow. And it took me quite a few months to recover. And I also learned that sometimes skipping gym, not exercising, drinking on Friday night, a couple of glasses of wine and having fun, this is not enough for sustainable continuance of career. So I took some time and Tesla reached out and my first question was, how is the work life balance, how is, and remember also there was the time when End of 2016, when over wasn't a sort of storm of the cultural issues, Travis Kalanick was fired and there were quite a few claims of sexual harassment and quite a few.

[00:22:13] Yeah, unorthodox behavior within the company and nothing like this I've seen in Amsterdam office, but yet it kind of reflected all the cultural turn, which was probably needed to be corrected, which hopefully was, and that was a time for me to also, yeah. Let go and focus on my next steps, maybe too soon because I believe one year it over counts as seven years somewhere else, especially early days, 2015.

[00:22:42] So I stayed a little bit over one year. And then when Tesla reached out, I was headhunted and I saw that might be the right move, so I joined Tesla and stayed there for almost four years. Okay. Well, the one question you have for them was about the work life balance. And I guess the question I have for you is.

[00:22:59] Now that you advise companies on organizational hierarchy and well being for employees, I mean, what is your advice for For these companies and these founders, because when you're at a startup, you know, there's a lot of work, everything is very, very fast paced and you're often working, you know, 60, 70 plus hours a week, trying to meet deadlines.

[00:23:20] What is, what is your advice to them on how they can strike a balance between being fast paced in a demeaning environment, but also ensuring the wellbeing of the teams and employees at that company? Yeah, I don't believe that we can build meaningful something working nine to five. Let's be honest. It's not possible, at least first couple of years.

[00:23:42] And I believe there's two approach intensity and consistency. Intensity is let's do a big upside and that's it. Let's put a bandaid on something. Consistency is are you hydrated? How many cups of glasses of water you have? How are you taking care of your nutrition? How many times per week you exercise in with the solid base of small things, which often keeps us going much further, we can go much, much more, much longer than one offsite.

[00:24:13] When we offered people a massive amount of drinks and fun and dancing every time I meet the founder who told me. Uh, I need to raise series B or series A. I usually ask, how well do you sleep? What do you eat? Do you smoke? How much alcohol you consume? And how I think that home relationship wise, because if you're fighting with your partner or you're on the brink of a divorce, you are not going to raise series B.

[00:24:40] Let's be honest about this. Let's first put things under control, which responsible for your cognitive abilities, your capacity to concentrate and critically think. And then we will talk about massive workshops and some sort of people often you asking for like this mysterious tools. Can you help my team to excel and be this top performers?

[00:25:03] Yeah. Let's talk about how you as a leader. Showing the example. And if you smoke in two packs of cigarettes, and if you drink in every night after 6 PM, well, no wonder your capacity to concentrate and brain fog in the morning will not allow you to make clear judgments and sink on your feet when we all live in certain worlds and uncertain in the situations where you need to anticipate before.

[00:25:29] There's moving pieces, which you're not even aware of. Yes. I love your comment. I love all of this, but your comment about if you're building something like the first two years, you can't do it nine to five. And I think for a lot of people who've never been an entrepreneur or tried to build any, build anything, they don't understand that why entrepreneurs are working all the time and the evenings on the weekends, you know, early in the mornings, whenever they get a chance, because.

[00:25:52] It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work, and that's not even going to, that's not even a hundred percent that you're going to be successful. So I definitely love that what you said there, because sometimes some of us have partners who are really good at what they do. They work for big corporations, but they just work nine to five.

[00:26:09] And so they don't understand why you're on your laptop in the evenings or working on the weekends. Um, but for those who are trying to build something, they understand, are you working harder now that Uber? Because it sounds like. You burned out when you were at Uber and you were working a lot. Like, how is your work life balance right now, Elisa?

[00:26:29] It is better because I also realized that I don't need to be at the office every day. I have a place, I have a studio where I'm providing psychotherapy for couples and individual clients. And this work gives me more energy than takes away from me. Also, I'm a highly sensitive person. It's a famous concept called HSV.

[00:26:51] I am quickly getting overwhelmed in noisy places like open space. And I'm very quickly getting tired after being with lots of, lots of people. So I need some, some time to recharge my batteries and working now on my own. I sometimes work Saturday morning and Sunday morning because I have clients who prefer to have session when the work, the work week is over and they can have this clear mind and think about things, sometimes I'm spending three days in Bordeaux on the client's side and having three dinners in a row.

[00:27:24] And then I will need to participate of course. So I think I work more, but a little bit most like smarter because it's not. Nine to seven. It is from nine to 12. Then I go to the gym, then I have a yoga session, then I'm listening podcast while circling to another meetings that, so it's rather than blocks nine to five or nine to seven, I just have this interlaced activities in my day where I have zero capability to go to the yoga session at 3:00 PM on Monday.

[00:27:57] Because then I know that I'm working till seven and eight with the client based in DC. You've mentioned there was a couple of psychologists and authors in the past that you greatly admired. Have you met any founders that are really good leaders and are able to strike a good balance between motivating people, but then also in trying to ensure that everybody on their team is also taking care of themselves?

[00:28:21] Yes. And I immediately, I usually ask when somebody is calling me. In and say, can you please do something with my team because they, they, they need this and that it immediately transparent to me if the leader is self aware and have done the work, like we're saying in English, doing the work it, it refers to doing the work on themselves.

[00:28:42] It's, I usually ask, have you been in therapy yourself or in any sort of. Coaching or self development program, because when people know strategically about their dark side, about their strengths and weaknesses, then can understand better about diversity in their team, about how people think, how people work.

[00:29:05] And it doesn't become detrimental in a way. Oh, um, everybody should be at the office at nine or people need to think in the same way. And there's more tolerance towards this. So. And if it's not the case, I often start with the founder. I'm using different tools nowadays to uncover these things pretty, pretty fast, like Hogan assessment, which is widely used.

[00:29:27] And according to Adam Grant, who is the organizational psychologist, who is doing lots of research and publishing numerous books, he believes that it's one of the most accurate, valid, Predictive behavioral test, which will give us a glimpse of on leadership derailers. What can happen to a leader when he or she, all of us, by the way, when we're not regulated, when we are either hungry or tired or didn't sleep enough?

[00:29:54] What is the worst behavior can can show up when we in autopilot? So I usually start with the leader and yes, to respond to your question, I've seen the difference of leaders who've been doing certain work on themselves, how they manage their teams, how they taking into account the diversity and different cognitive diversity in their team.

[00:30:15] And it makes a huge difference. Okay. Now that you've gone into entrepreneurship, since you're an entrepreneur yourself now, Elisa, has there been a time in the past couple of years that you. That you failed miserably, either it was with a client or maybe something in your business. Of course. And it's not once or twice.

[00:30:35] It can happen quite often. I'm a human being. Um, I'm a live person. And luckily in my line of work, I am by law and by ethical standards, I have an obligation to have a supervision. I have also in provision group once a month with my peers and colleagues. I also follow my own therapy and I'm also coached on a weekly basis by more experienced coach.

[00:31:02] For me, if I'm not buying in, in the work myself, I can't reach it to others. And I believe I can bring my clients as far as I want myself. And this is a very big topic for me. So whenever I'm advising my clients. After they're speaking to me, like maybe you need to speak with a couple of other psychologists or therapists and see and compare and see where there's click.

[00:31:24] Always ask if they're on, on, on their own in therapy, in coaching and in supervision. If one of these three Is that Matt? Well, most often it's people who will sell snake oil because nowadays it triggers me when I see somebody being in HR and all of a sudden one day, one day to another, Oh, I'm advisor now.

[00:31:46] And I'm a coach based on which credentials based on which tools and especially how, how, how do you make sure you make a difference and not just giving people advice because it's quite a different. Approach, I believe to help people to change and it requires significant. Uh, I know, but ground practice, it's quite a serious line of work rather than just telling people what to do.

[00:32:11] Last question for you, before we get into the rapid fire questions, if you had a magic wand and you could wave it so that all of the founders that you work with or business, you know, leaders, entrepreneurs, whoever, so that they could begin to live life more fully. What would you do? I would put a massive billboards all around big cities, and I would say, get a therapy.

[00:32:36] Not because something is wrong with you, not because you've suffered from childhood trauma, although I believe we all have been children of other parents, and we've all been through something which impacted us as human beings. I would just encourage them, get to know your patterns, get to know yourself, and most importantly, when you're driving, use rear view mirrors.

[00:32:58] Make sure that you're receiving the reflection from somebody who is not your employee, who is not your HR partner, because people like what I can tell CEO and founder without being his or her employee. will be very different from what somebody can tell. Like, look, I'm noticing this pattern. How is it for you to hear this?

[00:33:17] If this is happening between you and me, I bet you do this with your leadership team. I bet you do this with other people in your life. How is it for you to hear? I'm reflecting to you something which probably not pleasant to hear. Let's work on this. I would probably be very uncomfortable saying this, if I was reporting to this person or being paid by the company as an employee.

[00:33:39] Okay. Good advice. I like it. I like it. Okay. I've got a few rapid fire questions. Just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready? Yep. What is the most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days, Elisa? I took a tango lesson because it's been a long time dream. I wanted to learn and I went on my own completely unprepared and it went well.

[00:34:02] And I felt. Like I was sucking the date because it's quite a rocket science actually to feel the partner, to move, to know which leg will go first. And it made me feel again, incompetent and I liked the feeling, but it's so beautiful. So yeah, that was uncomfortable and I liked this feeling of not being in control.

[00:34:21] And being the learner again. Yeah. I think I remember hearing somewhere that the dance floor is the only place, especially when it comes to tango, where the man is in control. It is indeed. And the woman needs to follow. And if you can't be attuned to the movements, to the breeze, it's difficult to actually So yes, it requires a lot of focus and concentration and being this hyper sensitive to other person, which I believe can teach us a lot about interpersonal sensitivity and interpersonal relationship.

[00:34:52] We all have, no matter where we, what we do, uh, especially in a workplace. All right. What is an unusual food or drink that you like? Unusual food or drink? Okay. I got into peanut butter recently and I realized there's a lot of protein and I've Add peanut butter pretty much everywhere into my yogurt into my protein shake and yesterday I told the friends like I noticed 250 grams jar was over in a week.

[00:35:22] Like what's going on? Yeah. People laughing at me and these are peanut butter. It's been quite a few weeks. I'm now into peanut butter. Hey, I love peanut butter. All Americans love peanut butter. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich last night because we didn't have chocolate and before bed, I just made it with one slice.

[00:35:38] I make my, my son peanut butter and jelly sandwich probably once or twice a week for his lunch. And I feel like the Romanian kids are so deprived because they're missing out on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And it should be, you know, it should be a crime not to give PB and J sandwiches to kids because it is the best food.

[00:35:57] And the most enjoyable food, it's healthy. There's full of protein and healthy fats. Why not? And I think it also gives me a feeling of not being hungry and then jumping on my bicycle. You know how it is in Amsterdam. Cycling through the rain for two hours. Well, I'm exaggerating. Usually it's 40 minutes.

[00:36:14] Listening to podcast and just feeling great. Right? Yeah. Peanut butter in the morning. I love peanut butter. That's right. All right. All right. Last question for you. Okay. Last one here. What is a favorite TV show? You can watch again and again, Elisa. Okay. I will be honest. I watch it three times, all nine seasons.

[00:36:32] Suits. Oh, yes. Netflix. RV. Yeah. RV. Hector and Mike Ross. I just love it because I hired a lot of lawyers in my career. I have a lot of friends who are lawyers. I at certain point wanted to be a lawyer and I just admire how we did a conversation, sign dialogues, and how sometimes the twists and turns in the corporate life bring them to biggest lesson of humility, empathy, and how characters are changing over time.

[00:36:59] So suits, yes, that's my number one. That's one of my favorite shows too. I mean, the wardrobe, right? And everybody was good looking for a while. I had a crush on one of the characters. It was the attorney that worked for lit. Anyway, we love that show. One of my favorite, was it Katrina? I think maybe that was her.

[00:37:16] Yeah, I think it was Katrina. Yeah. Anyway, there's a lot of good looking people on the show. So I think everybody had a crush on somebody that was a character in the show. Yeah. Okay. If I look at your phone's wallpaper, is it a wallpaper of Harvey? Well, no, not to this point, but whenever I'm tired and I don't want to pay attention to something new and really get into the plot, I just put Suits in the background while I'm cooking.

[00:37:40] And I'm really sorely enjoying it, even if it's false times. Oh yeah. And the music's good too. Sometimes I go to YouTube and I just look at like Suits playlists and I'll play the music. Also, Spotify has a lot of by season now. So I advise you to just dive into it and music is amazing. Yes. There's a lot of favorite songs now coming.

[00:38:00] Yeah. It's fantastic. All right. This is Elise Viag from Embrace Uniqueness. I will put links into her website and her LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Elisa, this was a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on Innovators Cloud. Thank you for having me and thank you for giving me an opportunity to laugh about peanut butter suit and other things.

[00:38:19] Yes. What a good discussion. Thank you. My pleasure. All right. So everybody listening, we'll be back next week with another entrepreneur here in Europe. And if you enjoy this, please tell others about it and subscribe here on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. All right. Thank you everyone. If you're new to the show, I typically just interview European startup founders, but I've gotten to know Elisa the past couple of years and was curious what kind of work she does with startups, what she said about getting therapy as something she wishes more people would do.

[00:38:48] I actually agree with her. Therapy can help you understand how you think and reveal aspects about yourself. If you enjoyed this, I'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe to our show and tell others about it. And feel free to send me a note on LinkedIn and let me know you're listening. That would make my day.

[00:39:03] Thanks.

[00:39:04] ​