What Happens when the Devil Emails at Midnight w/ Mita Mallick

welcome to the listen and speak podcast where we get into it not to break someone down but to build them up. I am your host, Jamal Marshall, creator of The Listen Method, executive coach working with leaders in HR and tech to reduce burnout by 10 times. Yes, anxiety, stress, addiction, all those things, all the things we've been doing this for over 16 plus years, but this ain't about me. We got a lot to cover here. This is about my guest, friend, and client, meet him a lec and this is about the book the devil emails at midnight welcome to the listen and speak sage wall street journals best-selling author and workplace strategist my friend and my awesome awesome colleague meet him alec how you doing i am doing great thank you for having me back repeat guest i'm so honored the first time was magic we've made a lot of fire together over the years. It's four years with each other. I think this one's going to be fun. We've had a lot of fun together, but we're going to have a lot of fun because this is fire. The first book, Reimagined Occlusion, which we covered, I think, over a year and a half ago. Wall Street bestseller. Bestseller in many different categories, but I don't want to talk too much about that because we want to focus on this new one. I got some questions for you before we really get into it because this book is a zinger okay well one thing i want to ask and jamal it's too late it's being published so if you want me to change anything it's too late i'm just kidding oh i want you to don't change a thing um but my the funny thing about the listener speak family is that they're very they're on to me like if it's something i don't ask a guest that i normally they're like you didn't ask them that in that episode i'm like they hold me accountable so do it. Yes. We heard your answer a while ago before our new people. I do want to know just to keep it a little light before we go heavy. Sure. Your favorite genre of music and how does it inform the way you do life both personally and professionally? Oh, my favorite genre, whatever my kids are listening to, which is generally top 10 because I love to do dance parties. I just did one this afternoon with my daughter who came home early from camp because there was a terrible rainstorm here. So she was out early. Yeah. Whatever my kids are listening to. I like to listen to. I love that. Now it's, it was Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Beyonce, you know, there's, it's all over, all over the place. And I want to backtrack to something you just said about your daughter coming home early. Just because I think that actually rolls right into a lot we're going to talk about in the book and dealing with certain work culture, certain environments, a lot of leaders, both middle managers, senior leaders, even C-suite leaders, and people on the, I don't want to say bottom line, but I will say middle to entry level, even have that flexibility or are afraid to exercise that flexibility because of the type of management that are under. That's why it's important for me to role model. I talk about my kids when I can and when relevant, right? Don't want to be sharing everything personal, but I do want people to know that I have children. My biggest mission in life is to raise kind and inclusive human beings and it's tough. It's not easy, but I also want people to know that things happen, like kids getting sick, dentist appointment, preschool play, whatever it is, right? If you can role model and tell people you're making time for those things, it enables other people to feel that they're empowered to do the same. I think this is one reason across many social media platforms, your content is so resonant, not just with women, but with men. You know, you have wives who are obviously moms who are wearing multiple hats, but dads are also wearing multiple hats. Dads as well. And caregiving in general, not just children, just like broader, as you know, as we've talked about. It makes people feel seen. Oh, thank you. I think that's why you have over 200K plus across platforms. People are like, oh, she gets me. So let's get into it. I appreciate that. No, I mean that from my heart. Yeah, thank you. You talk about modeling it. That's the thing that I love from you and something that I say we have in common. I love the fact that you and many other clients are like, you model what you preach. Like when you're on vacation, you're not online. you don't you have to you have to you don't check emails i'm like no i'm not doing these things i literally am taking time off for the body to replenish i need to recharge yeah so i love the fact that for your children not only are you modeling this to them you're also modeling this through them and showing them this this is just a decent way to do life because we only have what maybe 95 years here? Yes, maybe. If we're lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to talk about this book. And we're going to spill all the tea. The Devil Emails at Midnight. And one thing that many of the Listen and Speak family have heard me say, and you've heard me say it, obviously we've worked together for over four years now, is the very thing that bugs you the most is the problem you were created to solve. Now, there are multiple stories throughout these chapters about things that have bugged you. Yes. But I'll take me before we kind of get into some of the chapters to young Nita Malik, who is starting her professional career. We all started our professional career somewhere. And take me to the things that, you know, maybe when you still I call it career innocence that were bugging you, that inspired like, okay, this is the problem that I was created to solve. This is part of the reason I'm here. Yeah. I was a shiny, happy, incredibly optimistic penny walking into corporate America. And I had chased titles and trophies and A plus and extra credit all my life. My parents had instilled in me that education was the way for economic opportunity. And I walked into, Jamal, places in corporate thinking that would be enough. Like my work would be enough. And of course, we know that's not the case. And I did not expect places and spaces and people to react to me the way they did. That to me was a shock that I would be. And listen, it is the, as I say in the double emails at midnight, it's the bullies from the playgrounds and classrooms that followed me into conference rooms. Like I didn't realize that they had grown up and that they were going to follow me into corporate America, that that was not done and gone. And so I think that was sort of the biggest lesson for me. It was like, wow, I'm walking into systems and spaces and places that aren't built for someone like me. And I'm really driven by this idea that there's a lot of, I know you are too, there's a lot of things that are broken in our workplaces we can fix. And it's for my children, it's for all of our children. I just want them to experience something different in the world of work than I did. I want to go back to something that you and I talked about offline and also online, but the cultural component. Now, I think, you know, obviously we know scientifically that up until we're 25, our brains aren't fully formed. And so, you know, I think the one thing teenagers hate to hear, I hated to hear it. Oh, you're very impressionable from your parents. Yeah. I'm 15. I know everything. Right. Talking about, and I'm sure you're, you know, you're going to be in that space with your children. It's like, okay, let me just listen to mom, listen to dad. Talk about the indoctrination that were even fit culturally from the generation before us of you put your head down, you work hard because it has a lot to do with how you show. It does. No, I appreciate you inviting me to share that. I'm the proud daughter of Indian immigrant parents. And we've talked about private through my coaching with you. And then also publicly in audio rooms and webinars we've done is that so many of the gifts my immigrant parents gave me held me back in my career. And some of them actually became my superpowers. But one in general was my father, rest in peace, would always say, keep your head down, work hard, and you'll be recognized and stay out of trouble, which was hilarious because I was a kid who was scared of her own shadow. So you think, where does the stay out of trouble come from? But it is this idea of don't get involved in office politics. Mind your business. And it's not that my parents weren't helpful. They would give the shirt off their back if you needed it. That's not what it was. But it was like, mind your own business. Don't share the truth if it's going to hurt somebody, right? Really about putting other people's comfort in front of your own. And because they had been bullied a lot in their own lives, and particularly my father and his career, you didn't want to be a target, right? So to be invisible, because you just wanted to keep doing the good work, but not create attention in a way that could make you a target. And so that to me, I just thought goes back to the title trophies, A pluses. I'm like, oh, your hard work just speaks for yourself. I really thought that. I did not understand that I was entering this whole organization, this like entity, like this living, breathing thing that you had to interact with. I just thought I could go like this and do my work, do really well, get the A plus and go home. Okay you just said a few things I want to touch on And you see the running theme you know throughout the book And I love how you honored your parents especially your dad and saying they meant well They taught me only what they knew. Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of times we're handed only what, you know, our parents or our mentors or advisors know within the framework of how they've been treated, but also that don't ruffle any feathers. And so when I think of even a lot of things throughout the devil emails at night, a lot of these are learned responses. Yeah. Yeah, they are. And one theme that has run through my entire career, probably until the last like several years and, you know, me self-reflecting, us working together, is that we all have agency and choice. And because my parents were in survival mode. They left everyone and everything they knew behind in India. They didn't have a strong family network. Like, God forbid if something happens right now and I need something to pay my bills, I have people to call who will help me. My parents didn't have that. And so this idea that you would leave a good job, this idea that loyalty mattered, and we know now loyalty in the workplace is dead. I'm just going to say that, right? Like you would do right by your employer your employer is going to do right by you you're going to get the pension you're going to stay for that that doesn't exist anymore and so this idea because somebody's treating you badly that you would make a decision to leave that didn't that was not part of my dna or roadmap like you just can't do that yet you see me consistently do that in the book i do because at some point you start to realize that no you deserve better oh everything you're saying is It's called to me to just jump through different hoops. When you talk about these different ideas and these different narratives that we're being fed and how we respond, just the F word and not the word y'all are thinking. Listen to this big family, calm down. But I think of different recall meetings, whether I was working for a corporate, nonprofit, the government, and the family word. Oh, here we go. Family. And I know you're the daughter of proud Indian immigrants. I'm an FBA foundational black American, but obviously, you know, what my lineage traces back to. And so even people of color and I would even say our white counterparts, whoever people use that word and it means something, you know. And so when you hear that word and recall meetings or a corporate meeting or a gathering, it's like, oh, we're family. And so you kind of have the sense of lethal. You know, we talked about it. Lethal loyalty. Yeah. And how that indoctrination of it is like you deal with toxic behavior, you deal with behavior that you know in any other circumstance you wouldn't tolerate because, oh, we're family. And, oh, I'm here for the long haul. And family doesn't fire people the way they do or let people go within an hour and shut everything off. Like, there's just so many things that doesn't work for that analogy that is being weaponized. And it's so troublesome because you look at the market and where it is today. Nobody's job's secure. Nobody. And so you have to just come to an understanding that, you know, it's not that I don't want to enjoy my job. It's not that I don't want to give to my employer and make impact. But I also know that that idea that I'm going to be employed by this company for 30 years and as an uncle once did get a gold Rolex from AT&T. Yes, that used to happen after serving 35 years. I'm lucky if I get an oversized sweatshirt, which I get enough of for free and a tumbler and what other socks and nonsense, right? So it just, yeah, but employers still demand that same mentality of loyalty, but it just doesn't exist anymore. I like how you call that out and just also the call out of your family is not going to fire you. And so maybe I don't want to do a general sweep, but generally. Yeah, generally. Yeah. So for those listening, it's just. And I know that people listen, I mean, we're we're we're getting. Over 200 to 3000, 300,000 downloads, you know, every couple of months and so, which I'm super grateful for. Let's shatter that notion that when you step into a professional environment, whatever that may be. that you have to bring this sense of loyalty that you would bring to your blood relatives and understanding that lethal loyalty is dangerous because it'll leave you with resentment you said it there you go so i gotta move into this book because uh i don't want to do too many spoilers because i want y'all to go out and get it well can i also say you're one of like a handful of people who had an advanced copy to read and i appreciate you taking the time to read it and i I was really anxiously awaiting what you thought. Hey, what's up, everybody? I got a quick word for you. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast in 2026, don't wing it. I cannot tell you how many people I come across, whether it's in my neighborhood, at my gym, at my church, when I'm out doing keynoting, you name it, I'm there. Somebody says, yo, I need to start a podcast too. Even other business owners. Podcast Principles is a team that I trust. If you want to start a podcast, these are the guys. Here's the best part. Even if you don't want to launch a full podcast, they got to work around to still get you the benefit. They'll help you record and turn it into a bunch of high quality video clips that you can post anywhere. Think about branding, whether you're active on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, people still want to see you. They want to see you emote. And I know some of you are like, man, I'm not wanting to get on camera. Let me tell you, they make it easy. They will take your stuff and make you look the best thing since sliced bread. So you have very little work to do. For those of y'all that know me that have seen me outside of this podcast know I love being on camera. That's not everybody's gifting or everybody's calling. Even if you can't stand being on camera, I'm telling you, contact these people. One thing I wish I did when I started was the strategy, and that's where they come in. You don't want to do anything going forward without roadmapping it. We hear so much about, well, just do this, do that. You can't roadmap it. If you want to try, book a call with their team using this link below in the show notes. Take care. Grace and peace. Let's just say I love it. But for those who are going to go out and get this, this book is going to start a lot of trends because my good friend, Peter Malik, is really great at giving nicknames. And I think the nicknames would trip me out the most because it's not just the nickname, it's the meaning. Like almost at the beginning of every chapter, it's like, this is why this person has this name. These are their attributes. These are their characteristics. This is how it manifested itself while I was under their tenure and under their tutelage. so i i gotta talk about one of the uh earlier chapters um i'll say maybe midway throughout the book and it's the chapter of the white rabbit yes the white rabbit that chapter stuck out to me and that this archetype of a manager is so chaotic yeah and almost at every return. Not only did they create chaos for you, they created chaos for the whole staff. Everyone. Everyone. And in the midst of the chaos, they were also, even in the fallout of what they did, they were protected. They were. Absolutely. Since we have a global audience, as I know you do, it's a reference from Alice in Wonderland, which I know not everyone grew up with. There's a character called the White Rabbit who has an oversized clock. Classic Disney movie I've watched with my kids. And the White Rabbit's just running around always talking about how late they are. And so that was the white rabbit, the boss who had, I still remember, like this really large Marc Jacobs tote bag. I don't know the things that are seared into your memory. And she would just run around the floor, run in, run out. She was really good at creating fake emergencies, fake fire drills. Some of them she would create, but others would become a bottleneck, meaning management would send out a request for something that was needed. And then it's Wednesday and she forwards it to you and says, this is due by Friday. And we've all done this. You go down the email chain. You're like, she got this three weeks ago and sat on it. Never sent it to us. And she was one of those bosses, which you'll appreciate is the busyness badge. I'm too busy to go to the bathroom. Too busy to eat lunch. I'm too busy to, and that's how she derived her sense of self-worth. I'm really convinced of it, right? And a lot of what I had tried to do as I was thinking about the book and researching for it is this empathy that I've started to have for bad bosses over the last few years because I've been a bad boss and chances are so of you and it's misdirected, misguided individuals at a moment in time who are experiencing some kind of hurt or trauma. There's some things going on with them, which I know you help a lot of people work through and then you're lashing out. It's like the hurt people hurt people. or lashing out at people and who are the easiest people to lash out at, either your family or your team at work, especially if you're the boss, because what are they going to say to you? Okay, I want us to pause right there. I call it, and you know me well, yellow light. Let's put the hazards on because there are people who are leaders, senior leaders, middle managers, C-suite leaders who are listening to this podcast right now and just take some time to sit with that. And I want you to hear what Mita's saying. It's like she's not exonerating toxic leadership. She's taking the time to examine, one, examine self, but also examine the situation that she found herself in and say okay what going on with this boss What going on with this manager Because when I was reading the book and looked at some of the bottlenecks she created and all the chaos she created and all the last minute, okay, we need to have this meeting right now, or there's going to be a crazy fallout, and everyone has to be all hands on deck. This person, like you just said, derives their worth from always being busy? What is going on with them neurologically, psychologically? And what are they thinking? What have they come to the workplace with? And I want to pause there and also just affirm, you know, fellas, we don't throw on a pair of loafers. Ladies, you don't throw on a pair of heels and a suit and come through as this woman professional. You bring your full self, your memory, your belief system, your family history, your psychology, your biases. Each of us bring those things through the door with us. And so this is a great time just to pause and say, where do I fall on the lung of this? Am I deriving my worth from being busy? And then when I'm in a bad way, who am I lashing out on? What is the effect of this? What type of culture am I creating? And so I want you to also talk a little bit about the culture that she created within the team, you yourself, but also some of the teams you were managing, because this actually had a ripple effect. It did. It's a constant fire drills going off in a building, constant. Can you imagine that piercing sound? And then you become numb to it. Because usually when the fire drill happens or the fireball goes off, fire alarm, you're like, oh my God, there's a fire. Let me exit. Let me do what I've been taught to do and appropriately leave. I talk about when I was in elementary school, firefighters coming in and teaching you the stop, drop, and roll method. if you were to unfortunately get, you know, something happens, you get caught on fire. And that's what we were constantly doing, constantly doing. What ends up happening is that you can't, if everything is urgent, nothing is urgent. You cannot then try to figure out what is urgent versus important. And what's happening and what can happen to me in that situation is I was the middle management. I had her and then I had a team under me. so then my team is then like what's going on she's wreaking havoc and as i talk about in other parts of the double emails at midnight i don't want to be the gossiping boss so then you're stuck and you're like trying to manage up and managing up to a white rabbit is really difficult it's very very difficult because then you know you and and some days she would respond to this and other days she wouldn't it would be like okay white rabbit you said that these seven things are urgent and do on Friday? Do you remember that you said seven? And then you're sitting her down and looking her through them. She's like, oh, okay, it's actually only three. But that constant reprioritizing and constant managing up is what's absolutely exhausting. And then managing down, because if you are in a corporation and you want to stay there and you want to keep your job, there is a level of managing up and managing down where you cannot be gossiping and talking ill of your boss. And if you are, then you probably shouldn't be there. And that's tough. From one podcast host to another podcast host, and I know you used to host an amazing podcast. And you also have dropped a video series on etiquette within the workplace, how to communicate. Yes. Communicate these things. What are some of, and one thing I want to backtrack, one of the loves I have for this book, it's also very instructional. especially when you get towards the end it's not like you're just reading about all this i know it's not just a juicy netflix series it's a it's a business book it's a business book it's almost like a workbook where you can actually say well how do i tackle this like this is my real life situation in real time what am i to do with this so can you go through you know when you're talking about managing up and managing down because obviously as you know a lot of my clients are middle managers and yeah you're just going up like let's go through just a bit of a scenario like a real time exercise here. Who do you want to do? White Rabbit or someone else? We can go with, because I don't want to get too much away from my one shot to go get this book. I love, you're amazing Jamal, thank you. So with White Rabbit, it is one of these like, the person who constantly, everything's a fire drill. If you have that weekly team meeting to pull up the Google doc, to pull up the sheet and say, I'll say Mita, I won't say Jamal, Mita. I don't think you I'd wanted to review all the things you've sent and it's Wednesday. Here are all the things that you've sent that you said are due by Friday. Here are all the things that you said last week were due by Friday. Can we start to reprioritize what is urgent versus important? And what does that mean? Urgent means that if you don't complete this by six o'clock today, there is going to be a consequence to the business. There's an adverse reaction versus it's important and we can plan around it and we can take the time to execute it versus that's the difference between urgent and important. And so to be able to, particularly in the case of the white rabbit, there's someone who communicates all the time using all the channels, right? It's the boss who calls you, texts you, slacks you, FaceTime audios you, emails you about the same piece of information that, as you say, chaos, the frantic way of working. And one thing that you can do to manage up is to help create a communications framework for your team. Meaning that with my team, if they get a phone call from me, they only get a phone call when it's urgent. Something's happening with the business, restructuring, layoff, budget, someone's leaving. You get a phone call. I don't call people often. And when I call people, they know something's happening. Versus we have weekly standup. That's when we're going to be going over projects and status updates versus weekly one-on-ones where we're doing coaching and talking about projects and how do you see what I'm saying? Like there are different ways to communicate and you have to sometimes manage up to set up that framework for people. I love that. And I want folks who are listening to actually keep keen on that, but also get the book because there's a whole chapter actually dedicated to prioritization. And actually it's a theme in more than one chapter because with different manager types, yes, prioritization, Like one thing you've heard me say in my quotes, your urgency is not going to be my emergency. I love that. I love that. And how do you then actually, I call it bringing the receipts, like based on the company goals from the CEO, from the founder, this is what we are, what we need to prioritize. This is what's on paper for us to prioritize. from our project management Gantt chart. This is how we need to prioritize to actually put them in a position of, oh, okay. I think there's a fear. And you talk a lot about this in some of the latter chapters. I would say maybe around chapter eight, that fear of managing up because some people don't want to do this. They don't want to do it. What would you say is some practical application for those who they hear you talking right now or they're going to be getting the book and they're going to be reading this, but they're like, I could never do that. The flip for me was, we go back to, you asked me about my childhood and upbringing, and the politics was like, you're causing trouble, you're getting involved in things that aren't your business. Managing up is actually, I think of it now as like coaching your boss and it's a gift for them. I used to think bosses were like superhumans. They were gods, right? And then you become a boss and you're like, I'm still trying to figure out what my kids are going to have for dinner. I'm still trying to figure out all the things in my life, the running list of things I have to deal with. We forget things, right? And so to help your boss to manage up, to be like, did you remember you sent this? Did you remember you did this? And if you have a boss who's running a very large team, unfortunately, they're not going to remember everything you did. My biggest piece of advice, particularly around performance management time, is if I'm working for you, I'm going to make sure I'm going to send you a list of my top five wins and say, I know you're headed into the meeting tomorrow. I know we haven't done self-evals yet, however the process is, but I just wanted to remind you of the top five wins and how I've helped the team. And in most cases, the boss will be grateful. I will be. I'll say, thank you so much. And I'm better equipped to advocate for that person. And so managing up is actually helping and coaching your boss, but also helping yourself. And when you can manage up and your middle management, you're also helping your team. You're also helping your team because we say in my house, poo-poo trickles down, trickles down. So manage up. Manage up and manage down as well. LTS fam, don't miss that. Some of you guys who are senior leaders right now are middle managers. You might have just gave yourself a raise, a bonus, and put your team in a really good position. If you don't miss what she just said, don't miss that at all. I think especially for certain mentality types, they think, well, maybe that's bragging or maybe based on what we're handed, sometimes we don't advocate for ourselves because we're not able to. And the brain literally needs to unlearn what we learn so that we relearn how to, I call it, MPP, mentally power position ourselves. I love that. Those are the business. And most of us want to be helpful. So think of managing up as being helpful to your boss. You want to help your boss in most cases, right? You want to be helpful. So do that for them in whatever ways you can. That's managing up. A couple more things I want to tackle here because. Let's do it. Within this chapter with the right rabbit, there's a moment that you guys have. I'm going to get too much away. There many moments Quite a few moments The one where you know you put your foot down And I mean put it way down And there was some repercussion to that But you stood by it based on this is where I am. And these are my priorities. What brought that about? Oh, my God. But, you know, it's like people can only take so much. Right. Any relationship. And particularly at work. And it was a situation where she cried wolf so much that nobody knew when the wolf actually arrived, when it was something urgent. So the story, one of the many stories with this story that you're referencing is it's a Friday, summer Friday, and the CEO needs something urgently. It's urgent. It is true. And there will be consequences if we don't get the data to him in time for a customer. And nobody would show up for the meeting. She couldn't gather enough people in the meeting. And people were so disengaged and exhausted. It's almost like imagine being in a, I said this, imagine being in a building and the alarms are going off and you just become numb to it. That's happened when I've lived in like New York City apartment buildings, when the alarm is going off, it keeps going off and off. And they're like, oh, it's a mistake. There's no fire. And you just become numb to it. And that's what had happened. And so we're sitting here and it's encroaching on like four o'clock, five o'clock. And my parents were coming into town and my parent, my family is really important to me. And I just got up and I said, I have to leave. And she was just shocked. I'm like, I have to go meet my parents. They're coming for the weekend. And then what ends up happening is she ends up taking someone on my team to a chiropractor appointment. This person sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's, like continuing to work on this deck. I mean, it's just wild. It is absolutely wild. I go back and think about that time. But again, as you say, she was protected by other people who, you know, she, I would say it's true of most of us is our biggest fear is that we become irrelevant, either in our lives, at work. And so her relevancy was like, let me show that I have the power to put out these fires that aren't real. And there were leaders, one in particular, who really liked that, who liked that way of working. And so she was protected for quite some time until there was changes in management. And I know for those listening, like, you know, when you read the book, you'll see all the amazing stories there. These are some of the realities of what we're dealing with in workplace culture, which is one reason why I love working with leaders, because I'm always thinking, what's going on with that leader? What's going on with the C-suite? You know, because it's the culture there. in the sixth week with senior and upper management that has to change. So it does, like you say, trickle down to middle managers and down to their staff, their mentalities, but it's also their own psychology, their own belief system, how they show up, how they were raised. And there's a lot of learning to do. She learned that behavior. She did. And the person who was protecting her learned to actually see that as, because that's something they can benefit from. Yes. And so this is one of the main reasons I do the work that I do. But I love the fact that your value system was put on something that has eternal weight. It's like my parents are coming into town. And I think. I mean, that's probably the only thing. My parents, I didn't have kids at the time, but yeah, that was it. My parents, husband. Yeah. Nothing else is going to top that. That's it. So for those who are hearing this, just remember time is our one non-renewable resource. What we do with it is up to us. and this is not easy, not just even by listening to a podcast. You know, Mita, I will say, has done the work. I've worked with her for four years. I've watched her do the work. And I've worked with other leaders who have done the work. It is something that needs to be worked out from the inside out, and it takes time. These things don't go away overnight. It does. It does. I want to go in a different direction because I'm thinking about one, not just this type of manager, but a lot of the different archetypes that you mentioned. And we talked earlier when we started about just being indoctrinated since we were children. There's a cultural indoctrination. There's a local or I say locality indoctrination just by how we're nurtured, the things around us. And I would say also spiritual. I've worked with leaders, you know, a lot of people in government and corporate, even who run their own business, are former military. So you think you have a service based mentality. You what? You just get it done. You know, and we're both people of faith. And I want to just ask like some of your advice to that person, the military person, sometimes the nonprofit person, even though we're we talking mostly about in the corporate space, the business. But or the faith based person thinks I just they're indoctrinated to just get it done and just power through. what are some practical steps for them because this is all they know and it's almost like to have boundaries is like there's a false guilt that colors every decision that they make and people are able to exploit that because of that service yeah you can't be in service to others if you're not serving yourself and we've talked about this a lot it's like i'm not an uber app i'm not on demand available 24 7 although i've treated myself a lot that ways and i think particularly what's happening in tech, particularly with the race to embrace and scale AI, it's going to be more and more important for leaders to understand the foundation of good, great leadership is taking care of yourself, full stop. It is not normal to be emailing at midnight. This is the backlash to anti, this is like anti-hustle culture, right? I'm asleep at midnight. I'm not embarrassed to say that I'm asleep, right? Even your iPhone needs to charge. We cannot compete with AI agents. And so you want to be in service of others. And I think that's wonderful. It's such a wonderful mission. But you have to have boundaries, as you've taught me, we've worked on. You set the boundaries and then you keep them. And that is so that you can. I mean, things that are we embarrassed to say, you need a good night's sleep. You need to eat well. You've taught me to get out, get into nature. I've always been exercising, but like getting out in the world. Like you need to be offline and disconnected from all the technology to recharge. And I'm not talking about vacation. I'm talking about during the day. You need blocks to do this so you can show up and work. Well, that's going to be clipped. Ah! I would say that is going to be, there's been a lot of mic drop moments during this time, our time together with that was the mic drop moment right there. And I think of, you know, you're big into your physical fitness, but anyone who's hired a personal trainer, a lot of times we're thinking they're going to just give me like the eight tips to get my brick house body. What's the first question to ask you? How much sleep do you get? I'm always blown away by that. That is the first question. Foundations. And I'm sure you've seen the Microsoft study. There's many studies, more and more people logging on after 8 p.m. for hours, that second shift that people are doing. And not because it's a once in a while, let me catch up. It's like you're working again, another shift from home, like till midnight or past that. It's not sustainable. I love the call out you gave. As we all know, AI is a freight train that is not going anywhere. It's not. Nope. And, you know, working with leaders in tech and in different industries, innovation for AI is almost outpacing our humanity. And so I really am keen on your exhortation to take a step back because there is a human component to innovation that AI cannot accomplish. Absolutely. And you can only compete by being human. Do not outsource your brain to AI. How are you going to compete against? I'm going to compete against AI agents by being Meta Malik and staying human. That's how I'm going to compete. And this is what makes you one of the best workplace strategists in the business. Oh, thank you, Jamal. Tell our family here and tell our listeners where they can get this book, because y'all gotta get this book. Double Eagles at Midnight? What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses? You can find it on Amazon. You can find it at Barnes & Noble as your independent local bookseller. And I love meeting people on LinkedIn. That's how Jamal and I met four years ago through LinkedIn's first ever creator U.S. accelerator program. And you can find me on meetamalek.com. Mita, thank you so much. All of those things will be in the show notes. Make sure you tap into those show notes. Make sure you go out and get this book. Y'all know I don't just put my name on anything. Get this book, y'all. Mita, thanks so much for coming. Thank you for having me. God bless you, friend. Hey, if you're listening to this and thinking, I should be creating content in 2026, let me tell you this. The creator economy is huge. It boomed in 2020, and it's growing even larger and larger. Don't let what they say about the economy fool you. Trust me. The creator economy is huge. Start with podcast principles. If you want to start a podcast, these are the guys. And if you don't, they got to work around and still get you content. One recording session turned into 12 days of content. Link to book a call. That is right down in the show notes. We're at the end of our show. I just want to thank you for coming to take the time to get into it with us over here at Listen Then Speak. We do want to ask that you would feel free to visit the website at www.listenthenspeak.com. Drop us off some feedback. And if you also want to be a guest on the show, feel free to email me at jmarsh1218 at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. I want to leave my guest with one thing. What is one thing that can help each of us to listen then speak and broach topics with our fellow man in a manner that is mutually beneficial? Feel free to join us next week. Take care, everyone. Grace and peace.