Overcoming Career Plateaus with Uma Subramanian | Ep. 57

Speaker A: I used to look like a 15 or 16 year old then, even though I was not like, I'm people, when they would see me in the Microsoft corridors or buildings, they would think I'm somebody's daughter or sibling that came into the building. And suddenly one day when they see me in a meeting, they're like, oh my gosh, do you work here?

Speaker B: Hey friends, this is podcast ruined by Software Engineer. On, um, this episode, I get to talk to Uma Sobermanian, founder and CEO of Limitless Leaders. Limitless Leaders offers personalized coaching programs to individuals willing to overcome their career plateau. If you enjoy podcast reviewed by a software engineer, don't forget to hit the follow button on your podcast app so you don't miss out on the new episodes. And you can pick up podcast merch@perry2.com shop. Enjoy the episode. Welcome back to another episode of podcast written by a software engineer. I'm your host, Perry, and today with me is Uma Subramanian, founder and CEO of the Limitless Leaders. Uma, how are you today?

Speaker A: I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much, Peri. It's an honor to be here.

Speaker B: I think honor, you're overselling it a little bit. But no, honestly, I can say likewise in terms of like having guests on the show that has so many different perspective in tech. You spend decades if not at big tech. But really, like before I jump into everything that you talk about, who is Uma and what is the Limitless Leaders?

Speaker A: So I'm working as a leadership coach. I founded Limitless Leaders. We help tech professionals become sought after leaders. And before that, I've spent, as you said, two decades at Microsoft, um, and almost a year at a tech startup. And I came from New Delhi, India in 2001 to Seattle to work at Microsoft and had a blast, um, working there. Will probably talk about some of my journey, but really excited. We are actually helping people thrive in leadership roles. We are seeing changes, we are seeing results and it's really exciting.

Speaker B: And um, no, I could even just feel it because I think the way you were talking about, like, of course there's some of the keywords. I said like sought after leaders, right? Like there are people who don't know that they are sought after leaders. You know what I mean? Like a lot of the Uncover Ring is like this discovery journey. So we're gonna jump into that. Just a second. Even just you were saying like, in terms of like results, right? Like something some people do. I mean, like, if you want to be very objective and superficial, be like you could live for the results. But some people obviously like they don't perceive it that way. Right. They could have major impact to everything around them. But like if they don't get told what the results are, they'll never find out that hey, how great they are at the end of day. So I think like even you just leading into a lot of that, of maybe your experience of like seeing all that yourself, I think that's going to be a fun part to the journey. But even one thing that you mentioned even earlier when you say um, where you're from, where you grew up, basically New Delhi, I've been very fortunate. I've passed by there recently. It was the first time in my life where I actually like had a connection in New Delhi. And it was just quite great experience. But I think what I'm always interested is I think about like the influences of people like growing up for example, right? Some people grow up, some people are like the biggest tech nerds nowadays and they only talk about tech. But then you think about it like they grew up in an environment that had like zero tech for example. And that makes a great like perspective contrast in terms of who they are. So my question probably to you is that what was it like growing up in New Delhi? I guess like was it already very techy? Did you have a lot of like relatives doing in tech or like what did that, I guess landscape look like?

Speaker A: So yeah, so we're talking about like you know, uh, late 1990s early. I mean in 2001 I came to Microsoft. So at that time, honestly like when I um, I um, did chemistry honors. So for my you know, college, like after doing my 12th grade, I actually um, just because I scored the highest in my school in chemistry, I ended up choosing chemistry honors and I did bachelor's in chemistry, um, had no inclination to do anything really with chemistry. So I knew when I signed up for um, bachelor's in science that I will also be doing computer computers. And so I signed up for um, there's an in India even, I think it's there even right now. But there is a very popular um, program that you can do on the side with ah, you know, a full time college degree. Um, it's a school called niit. Um, I ended up signing up there and signed up for a three year program. It was just obvious like by that time like when I got into um, College like finished 12th grade, it was very obvious. Like everyone, it was either engineering or medical, like that's kind of what everyone was doing. So we were surrounded by that. Um, and my um, you also asked about, you know, what influenced you. So my, I kind of followed my sister, my eldest sister. She was my role model. I looked up to her. She had followed similar path. She did you know, bachelor's and then on the side she also did this three, you know, this computer uh, um, programming and computer uh, science type program on the side. So uh, and she got into a job very quickly and she was you know, doing really well, thriving and I really looked up to her and I still do. And so that was just a natural path for me. So I signed up for my bachelor's in science was a full time program and then in the evenings it'll be a three hour um, you know, course that you go somewhere else and you do an in person, you know, computer science programming. And the way uh, they teach you in that program is you, they kind of teach you from like every single programming language, every single like database. Like you're back in front end like everything you, you know, when you come out of that program, um, in three years you have a year of internship. The third year is internship where you actually go and work. It's called a graduate of NIIT program. So you come out of it and you kind of know C C, Java, I mean Java, um, and pretty much like SQL. Every single concept that you need to know. So that's kind of what I learned. Uh, so I went through that program, I got out of chemistry honors and the computer science, computer programming type of this um, diploma program on the side. And when I graduated uh, from these, um, my sister was already um, at Microsoft in Seattle and she was able to uh, again help me out by forwarding my resume. And long story short, you know, Visa. I mean obviously you have to wait for Visa and all of that. But everything worked out and in 2001 um, I was here at Microsoft, um, working as a programmer writer. So the role that I got into um, is called programmer writer, which means you are 50% programming, you're 50% technical writer. Um, but for writing for developer audience, my role was actually to build um, code samples and write technical documentation for developer audience that's building applications on top of Microsoft platforms, so using Microsoft APIs and developer tools. Um, and so that was what I came in to build and I just loved it. I evolved my role as you know, years went by, um, excelled every year and just had a blast.

Speaker B: There's so many things great to call out. The least interesting thing is Visa talk. I talk about Visa talk all the Time I'm Canadian and working in the States is visa talk. I'm Canadian, I've worked in the uk and it's always about visa talk at the end. That's the least sexy thing. We're not going to jump too much into the visa talk, but what we can jump into is even just at the beginning when you're saying, like, different, for me, how I see this is different region has, like, different, I guess, like, influences. What, uh, I mean by that is that when I grew up in Montreal, Canada, the influence of going into what program in university, everybody was either going to the business, like business schools, very, very popular people going to that, or people into psych, like psychiatry. That was the other one. That's like very big. And then medical was the third one that, like, no matter who you knew at what school, whatever, somebody's going into business, psychiatry or of course, like medical. Medical school and all that kind of funny st. I mean, even when you're mentioning like, the part of, like, maybe the flavor of your surrounding was more like engineering centric and medical centric, like, those are good positive influence already from just like, physically being there. Like, it's hard to take for granted. But that's one thing that, you know, when people are very proud of, like the Bay areas, because everybody thinks that way, you kind of have a similar, you know, environment.

Speaker A: Yes. And definitely I will also call out that there was no stigma of girls, you know, doing engineering or getting into stem. I mean, absolutely. Like, I didn't grow up with that. So it was very normal and common for, you know, all genders to jump into, um, you know, these types of programs in, you know, engine, whether it's engineering or computer science or the kind of the diploma program I did, you know, we would see everyone. So, yeah, I definitely didn't, like once, only after I came here, I now see I have a daughter as well. And now I see definitely there is a stigma with, you know, women in stem. But that was definitely not something I experienced or felt, um, in my early years back there.

Speaker B: Yeah, and that's such a great point to call out because I feel like nowadays, like, sure, we definitely put a lot of importance on that today, and deservedly so. It was just so interesting that, like, when we talk about, oh, the next second person to you is all like, whether it's women in STEM or just STEM in general has always been. It's like decades. Like we're just some other parts of the world are just chasing that today, which is always just like a person. I'M not saying that people are behind. I'm just saying that like there's a lot of stuff. Exactly. And that's why I was just saying that like even the first thing you mentioned that is always quite fun. And of course like going through this like chem journey and then getting into more like the, I guess like computer sciencey bits of it of doing that. At the same time, not only is that incredibly impressive, don't get me wrong, that's insanely a lot of work that you put in. Which is something that I keep on saying that hard work is always the fun part about all this. Um, I kind of did something similar. Well, I mean like not the hard work part. I lived through my university. What I did similar was that I did, uh, what is it, Health sciences on my first semester. So when you talk about like biochem and like just biology and all that kind of stuff. Oh my God, I hated those. I hated biochem so much with like, oh, and of course you got to give a shout out to relatives. Like I'm keeping on saying that a lot of people have really great relatives that do great stuff and sometimes your other siblings will just ignore that, sometimes just not following that path and then it'll just be like, uh, whatever. But then like as you were saying, like you were able to recognize good influence and be able to take that with you in terms of, oh yeah, that's a good guiding light. That's something that, like it's not impossible to achieve. Something that makes sense at the end of the day. Um, and then of course that's a legal. Guided you into. Hey, let's talk about a bit more of the techie stuff. Because of course a tech podcast at the end of the day, um, maybe even before I jump too much into that section, that how it led you from like studying tech and all that kind of stuff. Do you remember what was the first computer you had? Just because I came out saying that everybody gets one at different age at different time, whatever that beast was back then. Um, do you remember what was yours?

Speaker A: Definitely Windows. I remember dos. Like, I don't know if you know dos, but starting with dos, I mean, that's what I remember. Um, but I don't remember like anything beyond that. Like I remember, you know, even when my journey with computers started. When, of course, my first year of college, when I, you know, joined that, uh, three year, uh, GN IIT program. Um, and that's where I was exposed to, um, computers. Um, and I think maybe at school too, even in my high school, like we had one, um, you know, a small computer lab and we would use it. I think I probably used it there. I definitely didn't have one at home at that point. Um, but when I started, um, with um, this three year program in my college, I'm positive that I had a computer at home, but I just cannot remember anything beyond that. It definitely was Windows.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: You know, kind of a DOS type of machine. Something like that. Yeah. Not, not, uh, nothing else jumps out. Yeah.

Speaker B: And I can say every time I think about this question, because I do ask this question a lot. It's not like I think it's always been a visual thing. Right. I know it's an audio podcast, but I feel like for all of us, whenever we think about our first machine, there's always an image that shows up. Whether the keyboard was attach the actual like, computer or not. That's always a fun question. But then like, maybe. Okay, this is a really dumb question because of course we're gonna jump to another topic on that. But like, was there a lot of like, just because you were saying when you talk about public computers, there's always like guardrails. I feel like there's always something that like, oh, you're not allowed to go into this folder. Not allowed to go into that folder. Because of course, like I grew up, uh, in an environment where we had personal, uh, my dad was a techie person. He would bring a lot of different pieces and build like a really Frankenstein, like PC at home. And I remember like at first Window was like Windows 95 or something. I physically remember the.

Speaker A: Oh, yes. Yeah, but definitely Windows 95. I remember too. Yeah. Started with Windows 95. Yes.

Speaker B: It's beautiful. Everything like. So basically, uh, what I was trying to say was that if you put that context into a public setting, whether it's a school lab or whether it's like in a classroom. Do you think any special about that kind of like setup in terms of they intentionally locked a folder or you needed a password to log in? Was there anything crazy fun like that?

Speaker A: Uh, oh, I'm sure I had like password issues. That still happens to me all the time. Um, we used to also transmit, um, like funny messages between the consoles in the classroom. Like I remember those types of things. Yeah. I haven't gone back to those days in a long time. So. Thank you for this conversation. It's bringing back a lot of memories.

Speaker B: No, trust me, we still send really funny messages until today. It's not something that we've forgotten over the Years go to any website right now, Just open it. You'll definitely see some fun stuff in there. So I'm glad that was mentioned for sure. Um, but then obviously that eventually when we talk about coding, everybody does, I guess, like the first for loop. I, I remember my first for loop for. Weirdly it was Java. It wasn't. It wasn't even C. It wasn't even C. We did have C and C because I did comps at the end of the day at McGill University. But, um, my first for loop was in Java. Do you remember what was the first like exposure in that case of like, oh, wow, you could write stuff like this.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And again, I remember that program. They taught us C, C, Java, everything. So we kind um, of started with object oriented programming. I probably think it was C first. Um, yeah. Cannot remember the exact order in which we learned. Um, so that program is very different from getting an engineering degree where there is a lot of. In our computer science degree. This one is more practical and hands on. And they teach you what will you, um, like actually get a job and you know, um, build something? So was hands on. So I learned, um, to. To program in several different, uh, languages. Definitely the, you know, the Fibonacci series and you know, finding like all the. Although, you know, writing those, um, for loops and all, that definitely was the fun part. I remember those. You cannot forget those times for sure.

Speaker B: I love this part where the craziest thing I remember this very, very clearly is that if you try to do like factorial in Java or something and you do like, what's the factorial of 4 million? Your computer just explodes and break or whatever. Obviously it's an extremely huge number and it doesn't compute. It the one language that this professor shout out to Prakash, um, he shows us what is it? Scheme, I think, um, it's one of those very researchy, don't get me wrong, a lot of people still do it. You could do like factorial, like 5 million and it'll give you a number. I remember it was something insane. And like, to be fair, I don't know how you could check if it's correct or not. Maybe it was just like complete, like gibberish. But there were just some of these languages like scheme and like OCaml and all these like very like functional programming languages that are just surprising. Anyways, that's like us talking about nerdy stuff in school. That's always been part of that conversation, especially for podcasts like this. I think like the other fun part of That I came out saying that, like, I definitely was going to ask you, like, what is a programmer writer? The moment you said that, I've always been like, is it? But then like you already described a little bit. So a couple minutes ago you were already describing like it was programming, but also being able to like communicate how you could use this code to build stuff. And like, the more you mention about that, modern devrel is probably like developer relationship managers mostly. Like, it just screams to me that it's same thing. Like the precursor to modern devrel is what you were just describing.

Speaker A: This is part of DevRel. Yeah, I mean, what, what I did kind of, um, comes under the developer relations umbrella. Like that's, that's where I've spent my two decades.

Speaker B: Yeah, this preemptive thing. So basically we went from like, you, you grew up in an environment obviously with very, very good influence and like with opportunistic education, which is something that a lot of people sought after. And then you got this opportunity at Microsoft. Are you saying. So that was the first, Was it the first time you been to America at that point? Have you been.

Speaker A: Oh, yes. No. Uh, I mean, I came. So they flew me in for an interview, which was awesome. So I came first just for an interview trip. Um, and two, or actually three teams interviewed me. Two teams from Visual Studio and one from Microsoft Office. Um, and I think, interestingly, what happened in the interview was I think I did really well, but I also, they, um, hiring managers, the hiring teams got a little bit of doubt that maybe Uma is really interested in programming and not so much writing. And so there was a little bit of hesitation. Um, and so I went back in a couple of weeks after the interview and then we didn't get a quick response and we were like, ah, you know, what's happening here? And then my sister was able to. Because she was already at Microsoft, one of the hiring managers actually reached out to her and just, you know, checked in with her saying, hey, do you think Uma is. Does she understand the role? Is she, um, really interested in programming writing or is it just, you know, she's, um, interested only in programming because the role is going to require her to write as well. And my sister was able to clarify that. Oh, I think she really understands this. And yes, she'll be. She's interested in both. And so then that team was able to, um, offer me a position and then I had to wait for Visa and ended, uh, up coming in 2001.

Speaker B: I mean, like, yeah, that clarification itself is so helpful. Because the thing is like a lot of these like behind the scenes stuff, not many people get to visualize it even today. Like for people who are talking about any roles, how are decisions made behind the scene and everything? A lot of times, okay, it also happens where like you interview for a role and by the time you start it's a completely different role. At least on your end, like as you're saying, because this is just the beginning of the journey. Because we're gonna get to the point where how all that, like you didn't come out straight out gay with all these like, qualities of understanding your role 100%, being able to express it to other people, being able to lead other people into following this path of sharing knowledge and also, you know, good practices more than anything. So I think what was the hardest part between that in the sense of like one of them is fairly like technical in terms of understanding, like how to write the code, but the other one is that uh, like I know great programmers who just can't explain anything.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So I think, um, and that's the thing, right? So when I came here also, um, I think one of the things to understand is this was 2001, like you know, very early on and there were um, lot of, lot of diversity in like software engineering and program management and all that at Microsoft. And I was always in the engineering teams, like product teams throughout my career in the Microsoft Office 365 organization my entire 20 years. Um, and so I was surrounded by you know, all kinds of like diverse individuals and product program management, product management and software engineering and other disciplines. But in the role that I was in, um, there was not a lot of diversity like compared to other roles, um, just because of the nature of work. Right. It also requires you have a, you're able to write and communicate effectively. Um, so there was not a lot of diversity. So I think uh, for me, when I came in, I kind of knew that if, if I'm gonna, you know, succeed in this role, I really need to uh, get good at um, writing and being able to communicate um, to a technical like developer audience. The, the technical strength like my ability to code and program and think like a programmer really helped because I came in with basically. I mean, I would even say maybe I was overqualified in that space for the role that I was in in terms of my ability to program and code and build, um, samples so that I made that intentional decision that I'm going to really invest in building my ability to write. And that really helped Me, um, you know, so I um, just invested in different things very early on, you know, different courses, like whatever was available. It was not like there was a lot available to be honest, um, to in terms of you know, technical writing. But whatever resources was available, I use those. Um, and also used the resources within uh, Microsoft that was available to ramp up and kind of very quickly, very early on establish um, myself that I can write really well. And so yeah, once I was able to do that then it was the role itself was always very easy for me honestly to say that. So um, it was, you know, and because of which I was able to always take side projects, drive cross group initiatives and that's ah, very like even in the first couple of months, like within the first two months I actually uh, in addition to writing my very first article like MSDN article and publishing that which was about integrating Excel with BizTalk Server. I don't know if people even know BizTalk Server, but that was my very first technical article. Um, once I, you know I was working on that and I published that within the first couple of months or first few weeks. And then uh, we saw a need in the organization that there was a tool. You know, um, my skip level manager at that time, um, had this idea for a tool that we could all use in the organization that our engineering organization did not have the bandwidth to build. And so I took that idea and um, pulled in two other um, folks from the organization and we actually built a real like full fledged engineering tool um, that would help the entire organization for maybe three or four years. Um, you know, and so those are the kinds of things that allowed me to do like my ability to code, my ability to um, do these types of things really helped me like it put me on the track like right from the beginning, you know, within two months I was able to show that hey, I can write and do this, you know, do my basic job that I was hired to do but also always be able to um, you know, think big and come up with tool ideas or um. Then we also got into community. Like I was also one of the people that really focused on customer connection. So I started a virtual team within our organization for um, connecting with customers and understanding their needs. You know there was many um, times a lot of complaints about documentation and samples and all that. So we were uh, we created a we team to go listen in forums and engage in forums and all that. So that was again one initiative very early on I was able to lead. And so those types of things really Set me, you know, um, up for success in my role, and then it just took off from there.

Speaker B: No, I think those are the stuff where it's like, it's not a temporary learning skill, I guess. It's stuff that, like, you could apply to your current project and your project could last you, you know, a year, two years or whatever. But then, like, after that project, it's still with you knowing how to talk to so many different stakeholders and so many different parties, like, talking to customers. Even that itself, um, is already, like, a thing that you'll remember for the rest of your life, if anything. So I feel like the way I was kind of describing the. How you. How you were kind of like you had so many different, I guess, like, projects left and right flying around. But I wouldn't call that, like, chaos at all because it seemed very focused regardless of, like, what project was. So I think, like, that was one of the interesting part where it's like, not everybody gets the opportunity to have all these problems, but then once you figure out your rhythm and even if you put the extra work to be better at it. Because, uh, one of the question I did have for myself when I was. When you were talking about all that was basically like, I know this is not supposed to be a literature course or anything. What was the writing style you kind of, like, embrace when you're trying to, like, write articles? Was there, like, a tone where it's, like, very direct, where it's like, step by step, 1, 2, 3, doing that? Or was it more like, oh, let me hand hold you a little bit and, like, give you a bit of, like, colorful? I don't know. Like, uh, Dan Brown does this where he just grabs, like, a wall way too long, for example. Like, he spends, like, three pages on, like, what a wall looks like. Um, I don't know what. Where you fit in this, like, range of, like.

Speaker A: And I think, to be honest, like, initially when I started, I just kind of, um, mirrored what everyone else was doing and, you know, built it from there. Uh, but definitely mine was more really putting myself in developer shoes. I don't write anything unless I build it first. Like, I myself build an application or whatever it is that I'm expecting the developer to walk through the documentation and build. So that's really how I think and work. Um, so that was the first thing. So if I'm teaching you how to build an application on Excel, for example, I would build a sample first, I would build it, understand how it works, and then I would guide you step by Step that's kind. And then I also like to um, have the little bit of the background information that's needed, the arch, the technical architecture, things like that. So I think yeah, my um, I was definitely one of the uh, writers you know in my you know, um, organization that was um, very comprehensive, very um, developer oriented, you know in that and those types of things um, helped as well. But I would say that was my style. But in terms of like you know, uh, being very conversational or anything like that, I don't think that was the style of MSGN at that time when we started. So definitely I would say it was more just to the point, you know, hey, this is how you do it and this is, you know, I'll uh, walk you through this kind of a style. Not so much, you know, using um, using a conversational tone like a blog or whatever. I mean that was not the style initially. Although we later on got into blogs. I actually published um, in my team we published a blog. It was all just pictures. It uh, was SharePoint in pictures. It was called SharePoint in pictures and it was just all about like how to developer facing SharePoint, developer facing blog. That would explain, explain SharePoint development in pictures. So we did some creative stuff like that later on. Um, but I think my definitely if I look back um, most of the actual technical documentation that I created was more direct and um, to the point.

Speaker B: And of course it evolved. We were talking about like many, many, many years ago. Exactly writing styles over here. So I'm sure it evolves over a thing. And like some of the key high highlights that you definitely mentioned is like the moment you said putting yourself in like the developer shoes or the reader's shoes. It's something that you apply till today. You apply this, I apply this, that whoever you talk to, it makes the conversation a lot easier. If you're talking to product, think like a product. If you're talking to a business stakeholder, think like a business stakeholder. It makes your life so much, it's not obvious. That's the one thing is that like we're seeing it now and the thing is like I'm so glad you brought it up because like if it's not obvious is think about who you're talking to and it'll make your life a lot easier. Um, this is the last tangent before we jump into the uh, meat of how it brings us today and all the limits of leaders features that we have. Did you have access to the source code of Excel or any of the applications that you were using with while writing all that? I'm assuming.

Speaker A: Yes, but like 100% yes.

Speaker B: It wasn't obvious to me but I mean I think I did speak to another guest who did work on a different part of Microsoft time and was like oh yeah, definitely you could just navigate, get the whole code base. And it's like they're also saying that like the releases were probably just once a year. So it's not like a CICD thing. So you really have to like get on the right schedule and you cannot miss the schedule. I remember this like very clear. You could not miss a release schedule. It was quite interesting. I'm sure, I'm sure it was similar when.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, definitely.

Speaker B: Oh, maybe this is the last point before uh, we jump into limits. Leader is basically when we talk about going from I guess like you were basically in the midst of like programming writing but then like eventually like there's maybe less and less programming and more and more, more like dev railing and more that space of like writing and everything. I guess like maybe for from your perspective of spending of course like over 20 years uh, uh, at Microsoft doing this and seeing it from the inside out and also from the outside in is what is developer relationship like? I know we've spoken about so many topics that touches it but maybe from your perspective in terms of helping the next generation quotation mark understanding like oh yeah, the predecessor of that was everything that we described maybe today. What would you consider or what would you describe developer relations as?

Speaker A: It's empowering developers to, you know, empowering developers to succeed in what they're um, what they want to do with the products, APIs, tools that you're building. I think that's what it is. Um, and for me like my role slowly evolved into you know, more and more of developer community. So I started with um, programming writing and then as I said I became a manager. I was managed the SharePoint developer program um, or writing team, um for many years. And then after that um, I actually took on a role for a couple of years full time coding and building Showcase applications for Microsoft 365. Um, and so that was all about building showcase applications. So these um, applications can be demoed at big conferences, um, you know by executives. Like that was kind of that team. So I was there for a couple of years. So that was full time coding. It was super fun. We did. That was also the time that um, I also had to move from you know, traditional like C Sharp and you know Windows type of programming to Angular and you know, Web 2.0 and also mobile development. Like I've also built um you know uh, mobile app in Swift and Objective C. Actually one of them ended up um getting me a patent which is I'm also like super excited about. So yeah, just a lot of like interesting stuff happened along the way and then finally um I ended up in a role where um, it was an internal facing role for the first time. Um and this was about um evangelizing our um AI platform that we wanted every uh Microsoft, you know developer engineer, um product team to build on. And so that was an internal developer relations, developer evangelism type of role that I got myself into. And I was responsible for um, you know launching a developer portal that will help these developers um successfully build on the AI platform as well as building a community and really evangelizing and um, getting you know creating awareness uh across the company. So that was um, I think my whole journey like that evolved from um, just traditional like content to community and uh, those types of roles and really that's really what I see as you know developer relations as well. There's a huge developer relationship organization for um, uh with Visual Studio and um the productivity tools in the organization and I don't know what those names M are now because they keep changing. Um but really the idea is um if you want developers to build on your platform you have to create fans. I think that's really how I would think of uh, what the group does and you know you offer value, you help them succeed. You go really activate the developer community and build relationships and then get them to build on your platform. I mean that's really what the goal of developer relations is. And um, I've you know seen that play out. We've done that as well. Like we would go to conference like in my role as a programmer writer like every year I would go to or there was a couple of like you know I think it was called Teched. And then there was a developer specific conference which I uh think Microsoft Developer Conference I think that was what it was called at that time. So I used to go to these conferences every year and talk to developers, you know, do demos or help them with hands on labs, things like that, you know, um, maybe do a demo. So all those kinds of things. Um, I was always you know involved in that. My teams were involved in that. Um but I also see that you know definitely um evolving and there's just um so much now that's developers can do with Microsoft platforms. So there is a lot going on

Speaker B: for sure that's what developer relations is at the end of the day is that like you're building stuff for the developers, mostly for the developers for some products. And of course like being able to create this relation is so hard. It's so, so, so hard to be able to have user understand how it's built, why you're using it, how you can make it better, all that kind of stuff. So I like how you summarize really what your experience of working in that, I guess like pillar that domain kind of looked like at um, the beginning of the episode. I was like there's so many perspectives that you got to see, right? You got to see from the perspective of somebody building it, got to see from person of using it. You also got to see a person of technically in quotation marks selling it. Whether it actually costed something or zero, it's really selling that product at the end. And I like the, I obviously love the part where you're saying like the AI stuff of sharing that. I don't know if that was like Cortana related or not. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But even the internal part, uh, you were saying that like it's more like an internal facing role. But as far as I know that's still like tens and tens and tens of thousands of people um, looking into all that. So um, I know a lot of public projects, open source projects that have way less eyeballs on it than what you were doing. So it was just really fun to hear.

Speaker A: Yeah, this AI platform is huge, like beyond like what we would think of like one platform. It's huge. Um, several thousand engineers all over the world building the platform and this is what actually um, Cortana, Windows Office and like any Microsoft product that uses some kind of AI feature which now you know, everything is using AI. So all of those features are built on this platform. So it's kind of the backbone of um, many of the products and features you interact with.

Speaker B: It brings us to today where you're very proud, very extremely proud of Limitless Leaders, which is something that like of course I got the chance to see a little bit. I absolutely love hearing about it. But maybe just as a very high level cover to be like what is Limitless Leaders? And of course we're going to talk about like maybe the name and how we got there, but even just in general for anybody listening, I guess what is Limitless Leaders?

Speaker A: Yeah, so maybe I'll take an example and say what happens. So let's say a product manager or a technical program manager A software engineering manager doesn't matter. You want to either get to your next senior role or you want to, you know, you just got into, let's say a new management role or you just got into some cross functional strategic initiative and you're working with a lot of stakeholders and you just got into something new where you feel like, hey, now I need a little bit of help, a guide to help me with that. So some of these, um, situations kind of, um, spur that in my clients and then they'll, you know, come and find me and then we start working together. And what happens in the, you know, in that journey is they get to elevate on four levels. Uh, one is their strategic impact. So, you know, how can they add more value? How can they create more value within their organization or within even like, you know, maybe outside as well. And so that's one aspect. And we, you know, there's work that goes on there too. Um, and my clients usually have the ideas, you know, they, they have the ideas. It's just that when we work together, you know, we focus on that and we make sure that they're actually, um, elevating their impact. So that is the first pillar. The second pillar is, um, helping them communicate with clarity and impact. So working on, you know, storytelling skills, um, high impact meetings. How do you kick off a meeting and within 90 seconds you are already setting the stage that you're a leader, that you can, you know, you're decisive, you make the, the goal of the meeting, the purpose of the meeting really clear and you bring people on board, you also build trust. So kind of those types of things. So again, the second framework, I mean the second pillar is all about communication. So we make sure and also helping them communicate their value and impact more clearly. Many of my clients struggle, um, with that a little bit. Uh, you know, sometimes they don't feel comfortable sharing their value. Right? Communicating the value. They feel like, oh, it's bragging, you know, or it sounds like self promotion. I don't want to do that. I'm not comfortable comfortable or I'm an introvert. So there's, you know, sometimes those types of things goes on as well. So we make sure that they are um, one, upgrading their mindset towards communicating as well as they are learning strategies and frameworks. So when they show up, they're showing up powerfully communicating the impact clearly and you know, creating and positioning themselves well for, you know, wherever they need to go. So that's kind of the second pillar. And then the third pillar is building their Personal brand, A, uh, very unique leadership brand with the niche for themselves. So they, um, are known uniquely for who they are and what value they bring. So a lot of work goes on there as well. And, um, we work, um, on the leadership brand, um, to the point that others are able to articulate their brand. Not just, you know, you communicate your brand, but then you, um, also make sure that others are articulating it well and then so that you're perceived in the way that you want to be perceived. Um, that's one of the things we, um, really focus on. And then the fourth pillar is making sure that you have a trusted circle of people and network that, you know, whether it's, um, sponsors, mentors, um, coaches, I mean, whoever, you know, um, supporters, backers. So that you're continuously learning and growing. You have, you know, people opening doors for you, and you can lean on people in, you know, when. In times of need. So that's kind of what I help with. And what happens is, as we work on these things, um, something changes. Typically, some of my clients, when they come to me, they will tell me, hey, I'm not seen, you know, or I'm like. I'm like, doing all these things and doing amazing work. I get some recognition, I get some results, but somehow I'm not able to unlock that higher level or some. Somehow I'm, you know, somebody else is getting that or those types of things happen sometimes with my clients. And the moment we start doing this work on these four pillars and they are elevating their impact, they are communicating that, and they're building their brand and articulating it clearly and also building relationships very quickly. Like within a few weeks, things just suddenly started change. And I have several stories of, you know, um, then, you know, people getting invited into different opportunities. Um, what hap. What starts happening is then these people, you know, or my clients don't need to then chase after opportunities or wait for recognition or whatever. Just those things just start coming. And, um, you know, and. And yeah, without, uh, having to apply for things, you're getting, you know, invited. An opportunity comes in, they're saying, oh, this person would be the best bet. And you're just pulled into it rather than having to go chase after things. So that's kind of, um, what I'm seeing and what I help with. And it seems to work. Um, and, you know, we are, um. It's. It's pretty, um, exciting and, uh, growing.

Speaker B: Everything that you mentioned, there's parts of it like, oh, I totally relate to this part and there's totally this part that I want more and everything the way that you captured all of it and put that into this framework of being, being a limitless leader, that's really the framework of why this all came together. And like, even before I jump into all that, like, was, was that actually why it's called Limitless Leaders or, or was there another story of like how the name kept together?

Speaker A: Yes, that, that's another story. But, but it is to me. This framework definitely fits that limitless leadership kind of mindset for sure, 100%.

Speaker B: I think one thing that is actually really fun is that like we got this opportunity to, to, to hear you break down all of these because like there's a difference between learning guitar on your own versus learning guitar with somebody pointing out what exactly which direction you should go into what you should improve. So like if we have these like quick fire like questions, they might not be quick fire but like related to these, um, I guess like different powers that we're talking about. Like the strategic impact, which is one of them. The other one I'll be able to communicate with high purpose or like focus goals. That's another way. And then we're talking about like building a brand. And also like when we talk about being, you know, having a trusting circle around you and everything, maybe the quick fire questions when we talk about strategic impact real quickly is basically what does that even mean? I mean like obviously Perry has a definition. It sounds like a stupid question or anything, but like I know at least on my play when we talk about strategic impacts that uh, like in a day I obviously have like maybe 10 or 15 or 20 things to do. And the thing is like they don't have the same impact. I could spend honestly so much time on the first five items, but those are just so not impact that you could have spent half the time on maybe like some two other points. So maybe from your perspective of like when you work with different people and I uh, like how you called it, like kind of mid level people that are aware where they are, they're, they're present in their role and they know what, what's happening. What is your take on like strategic or like how to make strategic decisions maybe? That's probably the question I'm asking.

Speaker A: So again, um, it starts with organizational awareness, right? You need to know what the organizational needs, what the customer needs are so really understanding that first. I mean that's the first thing. So you need to listen, you need to go soak up, you know, everything that you can about um, what's keeping the senior leaders up at night? What, you know, where, you know, where does, where does our company need to go or organization or team needs to go? Um, and really having that, that uh, is kind of the first thing I would say to be able to elevate your impact. Once you understand that, then you're just open to opportunities. You're just open to ideas, open to opportunities. When things come up, you're not. Like, one thing that really helped for me, Perry, in my career is I never boxed myself into my role. So I never thought, okay, I am this Excel programmer writer or SharePoint manager, like, you know, developer content team manager. So this is what I can do. Like, never that. Like, I always, I did my, uh, of course I knew that, okay, that was my primary responsibility. I have to do that. But I looked across and said, okay, my organization, like, what do we need? And that's how, you know, within the first two months when that opportunity came up to build this tool, I was, you know, I was very young, like new to the country. Everything was new. Um, but within, you know, two months or whatever, I was able to jump in and seize that opportunity because I knew, I figured out that, you know, it was my skip level that came and, you know, kind of pitched that idea. I jumped in and said, yes, I would, you know, jump in and do that. There were so many senior people, uh, one thing that is kind of funny and I would, I don't know if it's, um, will resonate with the audience here, but I used to look like literally like a 15 or 16, 16 year old then, like, even though I was not like, I'm very short, I'm 4, 10 in height, um, and when I came in, I was um, very, you know, like also looked like literally a 15, 16. So people, when they would see me in the Microsoft, like corridors or buildings, they would think I'm somebody's daughter or sibling that came into the building. And suddenly one day when they see me in a meeting, they're like, oh my gosh, do you work here? So that's really what would happen. So with that kind of, um, you know, just two months into a new country, new role, um, all of that, um, but being able to, you know, when a skip level pitches an idea, I was able to jump in. So those are the types of things now I teach and encourage and try to instill in others that I mentor and coach as well is, you know, we don't have to limit ourselves to what is in front of us. Our role Our title, um, we can go after big things. So that journey started like that for me. And then when I was even a SharePoint like content team manager I was not just limited to making waves in the SharePoint area. I mean I would do that for entire Microsoft organization. I would come up with big bold initiatives that could go across my peer teams as well. And many of those initiatives like even creating showcase code samples for um these build conference and all these huge conferences I would actually drive those initiatives across even outside of my team. So I would actually make these big bold initiatives. And then um, when I was in this last team where I talked about this internal AI platform that I was responsible for evangelizing, um there was an opportunity to um, just create a half a day event. And we you know my manager just casually said hey let's create a half a day um you know event and bring some developers and maybe you know um, educate them on the platform, evangelize the platform. And I went back and created a company wide conference across the world. So you know we actually that conference then became global and we would have that you know in every um like in Ireland, in China, in India and all of that as well along with in United States and really grew big until I was there like you know for many years after that, like four or five years we were continuously doing that conference um, until I left and I think it's still happening. Um, but the idea is, what I'm saying is that's kind of when you know a great example of elevating your impact. Like yes you can, you know the opportunity comes and yes you can do a half a day event but you can also make it into a multi day um kind of you know um company wide conference and elevate your impact like that. Those are the types of things that um I now coach and mentor and you know make help people think bigger and help people um, also make sure that that was very strategic. The reason when I pitched you know from the half a day went to the conference I didn't have any issues with getting buy in or approval. Um and it was a like very expensive huge initiative by the way. I mean doing a company wide conference for you know in across multiple uh m uh countries. But the reason it was you know there was no issues, it was approved because I knew that it was so strategically aligned with what the organization wanted like ev. I know from Satya, like everyone wanted the entire uh product teams within Microsoft to build on that platform. But every group in Microsoft, I mean as in any other Big organization, you know, we operate in silos and it's really hard. I mean there is a certain way everyone's already building these features. And so when a, uh, new, you know, when everyone's asked to go into this one centralized platform, it's not easy to make that move. So that's why, you know, there was a need for my team and we were, what we were trying to do. Um, and so I knew that for my senior leaders, um, this is very strategic and it's good, you know, everyone's going to say yes because this is what is needed. And really, um, after just the first instance of that conference, like hugely successful, we had um, you know, people, the number of people that registered, like I think two and a half times more people showed up, you know, to the conference. And it was just um, an outstanding success from year one and became an annual event. Um, and what uh, it resulted in was, um, it put the AI platform on the map. Like literally one senior leader came up to me after that when that conference was happening the very first year and he said, uma, like you put the AI platform on the map like across the company. So that's the kind of impact you can have, right? Like if I had limited myself and said, oh, um, this is my role and you know, this is the half a day event I'm going to do. Okay, let me just do that. Like, I would not have experienced or been able to create what I could create. But it's these types of things where you just, you know, let go of those limiting, uh, you know, limits that we have set or limits that are set externally and you really align with the strategic, the strategic needs of the company and um, think big and come up with ideas and seize those opportunities. You can do amazing things. So that's uh, one example that comes to mind.

Speaker B: No, it's a great example, if any. It's a great story that really amplifies in the sense of like there's obviously the strategic part. You're seeing like the impact and not limiting yourself to a box. Like it's words that like, I hope everybody could resonate with. And it's pretty very straightforward. Don't get me wrong, the feat itself is not straightforward. Like Mission Accomplished was a great feed. It was definitely not straightforward, but like, hopefully the understanding behind what you're saying, um, the strategic part, but also like strategic effort. Right? You knew what effort was required to put where. And that's probably just the highlight. Knowing where to put your effort to have strong impact. Because I keep on Saying that like something, some things could be high impact and high effort. It might not always be the best thing to do at the end of the day. But hey, if you guys want to hear more about that, there's limitless leaders that could help you with so much more about it. The other points I want to do some quick fire questions is like, I geek out about this kind of stuff because, like, you are forced to communicate with other people regardless if you wanted or don't want to. Of course, there's maybe one role in 10 where you can really just silo yourself and just build stuff and like everybody leaves you alone. But chances are you do need to communicate with other people. So maybe even the second pillar of like when we're talking about the, um, I guess like high impact communication, whether it's a meeting, whether it's anything like that. I think like a lot of my questions for, I mean, I express with some of these that if I want to have a point come across in a meeting, I have very, very structured ways. At the beginning of the meeting. I just tell you, if we come out of this conversation, this meeting, and we still have not answered these questions, which I show, I have a list of questions every time. It's like, if we have not answered a single one of these questions, this meeting has been useless. I will be very explicit about that. But that's Perry's way of doing things. So maybe my question too is that Perry, uh, has a framework. I don't know if many people has a framework, but what would you think about in terms of like, helping other people out? Do you suggest frameworks? Do you, or do you suggest another way to communicate? Do you suggest like just being yourself? Sometimes people say that as a guide. But like, what is your take on like being an effective communicator?

Speaker A: Yeah. So for me, it actually comes down to two things. One is the mindset. Like, I really see that it's if I just teach the strategy right, which is the frameworks, um, it's not enough if there are things that is preventing us from speaking up or holding us back. No matter how many frameworks I learn, I will not be able to confidently go and use those frameworks and strategies. So we focus on mindset, um, to make sure that, uh, we have a, um, good state of mind before we get into the room. So that's kind of one aspect of it and then the other aspect is the strategy. So yes, definitely, I, you know, teach frameworks. That's kind of my thing. I have a framework for everything. So a framework for how to kick off meetings, how to wrap up meetings, how to, you know, do different, uh, types of, um, meetings. You know, if you're pitching an idea, if you want to get a buy in, if you're, uh, talking to a difficult, um, stakeholder. So kind of different, um, frameworks and strategies to use. And I think when you apply both the mindset piece and the strategy piece, um, it all comes together, right? And uh, people are able to successfully apply it. In our programs, we also create an environment for practice and feedback. So they're actively getting live feedback, they're practicing. We meet every week. So it's kind of in a group setting, in a small group setting with my other clients. So they also get, you know, peer feedback, feedback from me. They get an environment to practice. So it's kind of, um, you know, makes it real for them. So when they're going and really applying it, they've already had some practice because

Speaker B: it's daunting at the end of it. No matter what you do at the end, it's daunting. You'll never get it right on for. Sorry, maybe, maybe some people do, but like, most of the time you won't get on the first try. And that's why it's super helpful. But this leads into obviously, like, we're going through the part where we're talking about building a brand. Because everything you end up doing, whether you can, you're communicating or making strategic decisions to like, build something, stuff, it ends up building your brand at the end of the day. And for me, like, I know people who don't want a brand. They'll be like, what. What do you mean, brand? Like, what does that even mean to begin with? But as we were saying, like, there is usefulness to a brand. As in, like, whether you want or don't want it. Like, think about going to class. There's always that every kid has something. It's that that kid that does xyz or that person that is xyz. So maybe like in this professional setting of like when we talk about being a leader of um, or being. Having your own identity, like, what is, I guess, like your take on building a brand? Like, what does that mean in essence of like, what's the benefit of having a brand?

Speaker A: So my answer to this is we all have a brand. Like, no matter whether we are intentionally developing it or not, we all have a brand. Like, when you know, how you show up, how you're presenting yourself, the value you bring. I mean, based on that, people Have a perception of you. That's your brand. You know, when you're not in a room, how people describe you. I mean, that's your brand. Right? And people are doing that. Like, no, you know, and the way, um. And the thing that we are saying is, hey, since there is always a brand that's getting created, like people are perceiving us in a certain way, let's intentionally design it so that. And craft it so that the brand that I want to project and the. And the real who like that, that I am, like, it's all aligned. And the way people see it is also the same. So it's kind of what we're doing is building an authentic brand and communicating it clearly. So the true, you know, Uma and the projection, as well as what other people are perceiving, it's all identical and the same. And the one that is what we want, um, you know, people to see as well. So that's kind of the work that we do do. Um, what I see is people, um, have, you know, um, good, like, values. They have strengths, but sometimes they are not communicated. And the people see only the things that, um. Or sometimes the weaknesses or, you know, like, the people just end up seeing slightly differently. And then you're thinking, hey, I'm doing all this work, but I'm not getting recognized. And then. But with something else that I'm doing, which is causing, uh, a different perception in, you know, in other people. And so they are looking at you differently. And so there is a gap. So that's the gap we try to address by creating, uh, a leadership brand and then articulating it very clearly.

Speaker B: Yeah. And of course, it ties to the other part of, like, when I'm talking about this brand is. Yeah. You can't run away from it. So the whole point is that, like, if people talk about, oh, I don't fit in my own brand, or I'm not comfortable in my own brand, or some people think, uh, about, like, this imposter syndrome, as somebody would call it. This is really just that topic that Uma was just talking about in terms of, like, hey, it's your brand. That's your brand. You could embrace it. There's no reason why you're gonna live the rest of your life without embracing that brand. But, um, but even when we. Even when we talk about, like, the trusted circle part, this is the part where we're talking about, like, my question here. I'm. I may know the answer. I probably don't. But, like, trusted circles, we talk about People that of course, when you work with some people, like you do have people that work closely with. But even like further away, your impact affects other people that like, unintentionally, they would trust you more even though you weren't directly talking to them. So now my question here is probably more like a trusted circle, I guess. Do you find one or do you build one?

Speaker A: You build one. I build one. So I. Actually, my journey in this area started when I was a teenager. When I was, you know, I talked about doing that chemistry and the uh, GNIT program with the computers. Um, actually at that time I stumbled upon Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Uh, I don't know if you know that book. So that book changed my life. And um, I realized that success is something, you know, you create with your mind. And so that's really kind of the, you know, um, on the uh, foundation of like everything that I did after that. So I kind of knew that there's, you know, I don't have to rely so much on the external circumstances or be defined by them. I can create my life and design my life. So I think I, I'm very grateful it happened so early on in my life, um, and I realized it. But that's kind of, um, put me in this path of knowing that I have to intentionally create some of these things. In fact, there is a chapter in that book, um, called Masterminds, where the author Napoleon Hill, talks about the importance of having other people, like, you know, having a mastermind group, bringing in other experts and learning from them continuously. So I think subconsciously, like that started my journey. I don't think I made that connection explicitly as I started my career. Um, but over the course of the years, you know, when uh, I never, like. I'm very different in that, that I don't like to um, struggle and I don't. I don't like to like, you know, figure things out. Um, like just by. I mean I like to have multiple resources. People like rely on experts, have that so that I can fast track. Like, I'm very fast moving person. So I like, you know, anything, like any project, any initiative I come up with, I have to like launch it like, you know, immediately. I have to go deliver this, see results quickly. So that's how I'm wired. Um, and I. So because of that, I don't like to, you know, go alone because I know that's not the fastest path. So I always try to find, uh, mentors, people, uh, you know, training courses, resources. I'm also an obsessive like um, an obsessed kind of self growth and learning kind of person. So I'll sign up for courses, I'll do those types of things as well. So um, what that led me to give you an example. Like for example when I um, wanted to shift from um, C sharp type of programming to Angular and then to mobile development, I actually found a mentor to guide me with that. Right. And just for a few months that was for that season of life I found. I asked one of the, my, I had another mentor, long term, um, mentor. I asked him and he put me in touch with one of his direct reports, Ryan and Ryan was my mentor for the next, you know, whatever, six to eight months while I was making that transition into web, uh, 2.0, uh frameworks. And then same thing happened when I um, wanted to do this company wide confidence. Of course I have no marketing background. I'm not you know, have we. I've been in the product team and never had any like experience you know, creating conferences at that scale. So I again through using, use my network and found a mentor, um, uh, program manager, uh, that was actually doing a company wide conference four years before that. Right. So and then of course when I asked him he said yes, I would help you and kind of he was my mentor for the next couple of years and really helped me be successful in this whole conference endeavor. So that's kind of like one thing that you know, that's how I think. So I um, really want to have people around me um, that can, that I can learn from that you know, can prevent me from making some of the same mistakes that they might have done before. Um, I also continuously learn and um, you know, read books and do courses and all that. Even now like um, I'm new to business. You know, I've been just last few years I've been um, I launched a business and everything is new. I have a set of amazing like business mentors and coaches and leadership coaches and all that. So again that's, that's my model. Right. And the thing that I want to say to, to your audience is just because I operate that way it's. I have had the least amount of stress, you know, had the highest amounts of impact in my role, um, and um, with the least amount of stress and just total like every day I wake up, I make energized, excited. Um, and if something happens, right. I mean I'm human things happen. If, if something happens I have, I can immediately go to someone and you know, immediately bounce back. So that's also something that's been super helpful. So having this trusted circle. Yes, I design it intentionally right now based on the important areas for my business. I have people, um, that I've invested in that are supporting me in different, you know, ways. And that's really the reason that every day I can wake up and, you know, be pumped up to, um, work on the business, um, deliver amazing results for my clients and go on with energy and excitement every day.

Speaker B: No, I think this is great because even before asking the question, like, I know I didn't specify the trusting circle of is it you trusting other people or other people trusting you? But even without mentioning it, is that, like, the way you encompass what you could notice from surroundings, that it's not one way or the other, it's both. Like, it's. It's a conversation. It's not a dialogue at the end of the day.

Speaker A: So it's both, actually. So one aspect of it is you master relationships, and you, you know, have a set of people where, you know, you can build trust and earn trust with them. And of course, the other side is the trusted circle idea for me is actually express external. It's for me to have entrusted circle around me to, um, make sure that, you know, I have people that I can trust. And, um, of course they have to try. I mean, they, you know, in some cases, they also trust me back. But I have some case. I know some mentors, for example, that probably don't even know me. Like, I follow them, I learn from them, but they don't know me. So it's. It's possible to have, uh, members like that in your trusted circle that don't know you. Um, but I think it's. It's definitely, um, both ways.

Speaker B: No, that's incredible. It's whatever shape you wanted. A trusted circle, trusted hexagon, whatever you want. That's really just the best way of looking at all this. But of course, like, these topics, I keep on saying that, like, I, I geek out on these topics because, like, if you think about it, I. I work in tech, and a lot of people work in tech, and you don't get so many opportunities to talk about this kind of stuff at work, right? When you talk about work, talk about meetings, you talk about when's the deadline, how do we work with qa, like, get the designs. And whenever I do get this opportunity, I try to, like, guess, like, provoke these conversations. But, like, don't get me wrong, I get the opportunity to be on this show because I get to talk to so many great people about this. But one thing I could tell people is like, just prompt these conversations. Like, I mean like, I don't know if you get paid more or less by prompting these conversations, but just do it. It's always fun. And one thing that I always think about is that like if you can't prompt it at work or if you can't find the right people, whatever. I mean, think about programs like Limitless Leaders. Think about programs like that where it's like the whole purpose of it is that it's there. People have gone through the same experience. We haven't gone through to able to. Whether you want to call it level up or just like look at it from a different perspective. That's one way of why I keep on saying that when we just covered these like different pillars of like strategic impact and all these like trusted circles, not only is it available through a platform like what UMA is working on, but also, if I got that correctly, you do have a book coming out soon. I do want to mention this. I don't know if you have a name yet or not, but the thing is like what we just spoke about, it's. I was going to use the word addicting, but it's more like it's informational if anything. So you found a way that you're going to put all this in a book? Like what can you share so far? Do you even have a name to it? Or what was the content like? What was, what was the great idea behind that? I think it's, it's exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah. The book will come early 2026. Um, but I mean the working title is the Sought After Leader. I don't if that would be the final title. So it's definitely the Sought After Leader. So what I have seen, Perry, is as I said, there is a, ah, formula that if we apply that we can actually um, you know, become the type of person that is sought after, highly relevant, you know, in demand in today's market. Um, you know, seen, heard, uh, understood, ah, recognized for the value that they bring and is kind of, you know, sought after, pulled in for opportunities. Doors are opening for you. And the book actually summarizes that formula and explains that like this is really what I'm helping my clients with. And the book is um, again another like way I'm communicating that, um, you know, in that um, that whole process and the different frameworks, so full of frameworks. Exciting, um, stuff. I'm really pumped up. I think the book also definitely an impulse decision to write the book just suddenly jumped in, um, and decided to write it. But I think it's been the best thing that I've um, done this year or I, I'm like doing this year is deciding to write the book because it's given me so much clarity, uh, for myself and um, really given me a way to, you know, make this message reach even more audience, hopefully.

Speaker B: No, I mean even what we just spoke about as a preview. So we'll have you back on the show when the book comes out and all that kind of stuff. But the cool thing about it is that like, when we talk about unlocking um, your potential of being a leader, you know what I mean? Like, these are stuff that like, it's, it's, it sounds crazy, but you have it. Whoever you are, you have it if you want it, basically, which is kind of the fun part. And we're talking about like what does success mean for a leader at the end of the day? You know what I mean? Like, these are the topics of like achieving, even just achieving like work, life, balance. Those are all like different keywords that like, hey, people talk about this stuff. Go read it, Go, go chase after that, find the piece of like, oh, these people make it sound very easy of like controlling uh, their schedule, controlling the meeting, all that kind of stuff. Where does that come from? I feel like that's just a perfect like segue into whether it's like follow up with Uma stuff but follow up with any kind of, of people that want to talk about this. I think that's the best remedy to figure out the next step on a lot of that. So one thing I do want to mention is we all, we all love tools to help our day to day. This is me, like at the basic core level, you don't need a PhD to answer these kind of questions. But maybe from Uma's perspective, what are some call out, I guess like apps or like call out tools that. What tools are used to manage your life? It's a weird question. I asked this quite often where it's like top three favorite apps or whatever. But what is your. It doesn't have to be top three. It could be whatever your favorite topics are.

Speaker A: So thankfully for me when I launched um, Limitless leaders is when ChatGPT came out. Like right when I think I decided to um, post my first post on LinkedIn about the company ChatGPT, uh, came out. So I think um, ChatGPT has been ChatGPT plus like all related AI tools, uh, similar tools have been amazing in that um, many aspects of what I do for the business. You know, we use, we leverage the AI tools, um, even like, you know, things like descript for videos. Um, there's a bunch of tools I use. Um, and then also I'm big into community because I have a background in community. So I use a platform called Swarm for our client community. It's a video based platform so clients can come and um, of course, you know, record videos very easily in the platform. It's a, the primary mode of communication in the video is short videos. Um, but the, but because we also focus on communication in our programs, my clients can, you know, if they're going to a meeting or an interview, they can actually come into the platform, have a private space for themselves where they can record and see themselves, um, you know, practice and answering a question and see themselves answering it. So I love that platform as well. It's called Swarm. Um, and uh, what, what would be another one is what I'm thinking. Um, oh, I like uh, Hero fm. Um, that's a private podcasting, um, tool. Again, um, pretty new. I'm actually playing with it right now. I'm trying to record a private podcast. Um, so that's another one that I like. Um, I think I'm, I'm starting to like, I would say because I'm very new and very new to that platform, but that's um, again integrated with SMS and all of that. So it's um, kind of like a platform that very easily you can record a private podcast. And like, like you know, if you do a public podcast which you have experience with, you have to go through some hoops of like getting it approved in Apple and all that here. Um, you can actually just you know, um, publish and the private podcast will be published on Apple and Spotify and all major platforms, platforms. But the only thing is it's not public. So you have to have your clients text you a word and then if they do that they get subscribed to a private podcast and they can listen. So I'm excited about it. That's my newest, you know, thing that I'm playing with. So hoping to release a private podcast soon for my clients. Um, yeah, I think those are some of the tools that come up. But again, you know, we use canva. Like canva is another um, one of my favorites right now. I'm big into um, like I, you talked about also, you know, we talked about strategic impact and all that. So I actually don't like to spend a lot of time doing things that you know, either another person or another tool can do. So I, I mean that's kind of how my brain works. So I would either delegate it to a tool or a person. And you know, I, I only do things that only I can do. Like that's my motto and I've always had a team of people with me as well since I launched the company. And um, it's been, I mean that's kind of just how I think. But in terms of tools that you asked, yeah, these are some of the tools that definitely come to mind. Um, we are highly into like I sign up for different tools and you know, use them like without like, you know, even thinking too much. Like I'm like, okay, this, this tool sounds promising, let me try it. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But um, we get a lot of success from um, using tools in automation.

Speaker B: I, I've never regretted asking this question. I've asked this question many times and like, even, even the way you, you describe why some of these tools are great. I think some people love listing like Slack is great, but they don't really explain why it's great. Don't get me wrong, I love Slack. I only use Slack. I mean of course I use Slack anyways but like the examples I use you gave is I absolutely love it when you talk about the script like for the people who don't do media stuff, like it's a great tool to like transcribe stuff and do all that. And then like when you go a little bit deeper of talking about these like maybe newer tools of like Hero FM and like Canva I think is getting quite popular for a lot of people just doing like random mock designs for like T shirts or something and even Swarm. I've definitely heard it left and right. But the fact that you're able to share a lot of that, I think it just shows how people like embrace tools. Embrace, embrace, sorry, technology for you know, what we do every day at the end of the day. So thank you so much for sharing that. And of course the important part is where could people find Umo? What platform are you? What's the best way to follow a lot of your upcoming things or even your current things with limitless leaders.

Speaker A: I'm on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best place and then we have a website as well, thelimitlessleaders.com uh, people can go check it out. But mostly I would say LinkedIn is probably the best. But I'm pretty active on a daily basis there.

Speaker B: And of course all that is going to be linked in the description below, so definitely check them out. But it wasn't fair. Honestly. This whole episode was just back to back. Not only good stories but good lesson, good tips. Uma, I just want to say on my end and obviously on everybody's end, thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker A: Thanks a ton. This was definitely super fun way to start my day and uh, looking forward to maybe coming back again once the book is uh, out.

Speaker B: Until then though, I will catch you all on the next episode and definitely follow with everything that Uma is doing next. So I'll catch you on the next one. See you. Bye. And that was Uma Sabramanian, Founder and CEO of Limitless Leaders. All the links are shared in the description notes below. Go check them out. If you would like to be on Podcast written by Software Engineer, reach out to us. Just email contactaretsu.com can't wait to have you on the show. Once again, thank you so much for listening to Podcast written by Software Engineer. Don't forget to hit the Follow button on your podcast app and leave us a review on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It's completely free and if you want to tell your friends about podcast written by a software engineer, that's totally cool as well. Anyways, I'm parents who you've been listening to podcasts proven by Software Engineer.