Time is limited, scarce and valuable. You value it most when it ends. This week was a tough lesson for me on that front. A dear friends passing was a key reminder on the finality of time. Roger Bayat my dear friend was fighting cancer with a smile on his face. Those who knew him can vouch for the fact that, no one can ever remember a "time" when they saw Roger "defeated", "upset", "or not smiling" pre or post cancer. He used to tell me, you have one life, you can either chose to be angry, or be happy. If you are happy then happy outcomes will follow you.

I had known Roger 17 Years 2 Months and 27 days(because the day after we first met he sent an email). We met via happenstance and he continued to be a driving force of wisdom, knowledge & advice for me all these years. Today I will share my key learnings over that time frame from one of the kindest human beings I have ever known.

Outcomes

In 2015 Roger and I started to look at new ventures or investing or building some thing together I asked him his motivation or his basic premise in wanting to do some thing new, what wold it be? what would it do? what would be different(via email)?

He replied back by saying that a lot of people find them selves trapped, what ever we end up doing should allow bellow to follow the principles below:

"""It's never too late to start over. If you weren't happy with yesterday, try something different today. Don't stay stuck. Do better"""

Over the years when I would go to him for professional advice, he would always turn around and tell me two things "you have more options than you think you have and do better"'

So as you think about your personal outcomes, I want to leave you with the advice my friend gave me that has stayed with me and stayed truer today than ever before.

One New Thing (that you may not know)

My dear friend Roger Bayat, helped launch one of Pakistans first Islamic Banks. Emirates Global Islamic Bank. It was also the first time when the Ruling Family of Sharjah took a commercial interest in an investment in Pakistan at the time. A fun fact is that when the directors were being finalized a typo "almost" resulted in the person creating the document as being listed/nominated as a director to be sent for approval. It didn't happen as Roger caught the error before the final submissions of names.

Boring Stuff that Scales

Over the years in our quest to build value together Roger and I sat down and listed some extremely boring ideas, with the merit to scale. Some of it was over email (pre whatsapp) so sharing some excerpts here. It's fascinating to see that so many of these can still be turned around into boring yet scalable businesses. To honor the memory of my dear friend, I will share some of the things we brain stormed about, in early 2008/09

1)Reverse Mentoring (Present Day Team Integration Activities/Internal Influencers)

“Reverse mentoring” as a practice has been used by hundreds of companies on numerous topics. Eight years ago, more than 500 executives at GE participate in a program to learn about the Internet and technology applications. Jack Welch spearheaded the effort, which went on to bring significant changes in the way that GE worked.

The idea is that managers can learn a thing or two about life outside the corner office. But companies say another outcome is reduced turnover among younger employees, who not only gain a sense of purpose but also a rare glimpse into the world of management and access to top-level brass by becoming their trainers.

2)CEO Thought Partnering (Present Day Executive Coach)

From an 8 day email back and forth TL;DR in 2008

RB) How many CEO friends do we have who are too proud, too busy, or too egotistical to take advice?

FS) Pretty much most of them?

RB)Whats The Solution?

FS)You tell me?

RB) OK. So we have to build a service/company that helps fix what is listed below, some thing I read and saved....

"Sometimes leaders are alone with specific ideas and concerns that they would like to consider confidentially. Working with a thought partner to further conceptualize and explore these ideas can assist CEOs in making high quality and timely decisions."

FS) What will be the actual service?

RB) Thats the easy part, we know the end state, what makes the CEO Happy and the board Happier?

• Meeting Board/Management Expectations

• Re-thinking senior leadership roles (time bound/outcome based)

• Assessing strategic alternatives (hard data/hard outcomes vs fluff)

• Considering specific acquisitions / divestitures / greenfield ideas (A framework vs seat of the pants)

• Considering cost reduction alternatives (manage cost vs burn the company to the ground)

FS) How will we operationalize this, who will build this? You have a Bank to run, Im in the middle of potential acquisition deal.

RB) I am glad you didn't ask what it will cost. Because you already know this is valuable. Have a few operators in mind, if we can set them up right, they can scale this. Every one wins, lets Skype on Sunday...? *yes skype was a thing...

Moral of the story, what was boring 2008-09 remains boring today too, but social media has added a layer to monetize it far better than possible previously. If you think you have a boring idea stored some where you should go dust it out and see if there is unit economics positivity that can be achieved today?

What you should be Reading

Roger gifted me many books over the years. But my most cherished book remains, How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This was not a birthday gift, or an occasion linked gift of any kind. I asked him why the generosity of a book on a random weekday.

He said to me " You have zero filters and an absolute lack of situational political astuteness, better me than some one else telling you this, best you read this book and we chat about it later."

I went and read the book and after a week when we met he asked me if his advice on the money? I told him it was 100%, as it was akin to telling some one you know very well to use deodorant. It's awkward but needed.

Monetize your time

An exchange over the phone about two weeks ago was me inquiring about his health etc and him updating me about all the projects he was involved with and how things needed to get to completion. Projects, ventures, places where he was involved as "good deed doer" I told him to slow down in the interest of his health. He responded by by telling me he's discovered a secret to feeling happier every day, I naturally inquired what? He told me he's trading experiences for time vs trading time for cash. 2 Days ago I actually understood what he meant when I got news of his passing.

He likely knew in his own heart that no one can take away the (shared)experiences yet all the cash in the world would likely go down to zero. The choice is ours how we monetize our time, by freeing it up and investing in shared experiences that matter or chasing to trade it for cash.

Made in Pakistan

So this one time I got a long intro email from some one I knew in Denmark, active in the business circles, who was introducing to me "Pakistan's Best Kept Secret" the intro was to one Mr. Roger Bayat. To this day I remember, that Roger, feeling charitable towards the introducer responded back to the email, as if he didn't know me and thanked the gentleman profusely for the connection and introduction. I asked him why he would do that. His response was, that this person led with intent, their intent was to connect two people who they thought would benefit from the introduction. Clearly they were right. So Roger told me its good to reward them for taking the time to continue to make these introductions as they would likely help other people in the future.

Pure gold. Made in Pakistan. Rogers ability to see past the moment and see into the future outcomes, of actions taken today.

One Last Thing

Rogers WhatsApp "About Msg"