Masachs Boungou | Turning the Pain and Personal History into Meaning and Purpose

Srini Rao

Massachs welcome to the unmistakable creative thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Masachs Bongou

Thank you so much for having me and for giving me this opportunity.

Srini Rao

It is my pleasure to have you here. So I found out about you through way of a friend and former guest, Nikki Groom. And when she told me a little bit about your story and everything that you had been through, I thought, yeah, this is kind of a no brainer. I definitely want to have you as a guest. Um, so given kind of the background and what I do know about you, I wanted to start by asking you where in the world were you born and raised and how did that impact, uh, the choices that you've ended up making with your life in your career.

Masachs Bongou

Once again I want to say thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to be on your platform. So actually I was born and raised in the public of the Congo, which happens to be a French colony. So that's where I was born and raised. And then when I was 12 years old, civil war ravaged my town.

I left with my mother and youngest brother heading for my grandfather's village. So the village that was our safe haven became nothing. It placed filled with loss and pain when one morning those who were supposed to protect us invaded the village with the tanks and burnt houses and looted goods.

And then we were forced to flee and live in the forest for over a year in the huts made of branches and palm leaves and without any decent food. So that, you know, this piece of my personal history has influenced me a lot and has kind of given me the...

the tenacity to be where I am today. Yeah, so my mother, you know, did not finish high school, and then she emphasized to me the power of personal history and of course education, what education can do for someone like me and how I can empower myself through education.

So I think that's what I can say. It's been a long journey.

Srini Rao

You know, I think it's one thing for us to hear you tell us that story and see the images that we do that, you know, we get through media. But I think it's an entirely different thing to viscerally understand that. I mean, when you're that young and you see, you know, this village that you've grown up in being, you know, attacked and destroyed in the middle of a civil war, what do we as people who...

experience what you experience only through media, not see what are the parts of this that we actually don't understand.

Masachs Bongou

Oh, one thing. So I did not really grow up in the village. I grew up in the third town, or the public of the Congo, Dolisie. But from time to time, I had to go back to my grandfather's village before the Civil War. So to some extent, I think it was during vacations that I could go to my grandfather's village. Yeah, to get back to your question, I think.

uh... the difference is huge you know first of all i uh... you don't kind of a living you know you just to see the experience of full media for tv uh... but it also leave the you know really first-team first-hand experience to be the event and which has a uh... a lot of a running uh... ramifications a lot of uh... consequences if someone

is not quite strong enough, mentally strong enough. So it can be psychology, social, and of course, economy as well. So I think, and also, that's maybe the dark side of going through this experience. But also the...

The bright side is that, as I said, it gives you the tenacity to create a sustainable value in the world that we live in. And then to say to yourself, if I have survived this experience, I don't see what else can destroy me. What else I cannot survive? What else I cannot survive and also thrive and prosper in life.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So when you know, I think the United States, I mean, the last time there was a civil war, obviously, was the civil war in the United States. And, you know, to see a civil war on TV, what does that do not only to a country, but also to families, to relationships, to the society? Like, what is the byproduct of that? What impact does that end up having on the country at large? Because the only thing I think I know about Congo is literally that Congo has been in a civil war.

Masachs Bongou

Yes, I think maybe two things I needed to clarify. First is that there are two Congos. There is a Democratic Republic of the Congo and a Republic of the Congo. So the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that's where usually there is an ongoing, I can say, civil war.

Masachs Bongou

different parts of the country. And then there is the public of the Congo. So we had a couple of civil wars. I think the first one, or the biggest one, was in 1997 and then in 1999. And then also I think...

to a thousand in some parts. So I think what this kind of experience is due to family, to people, to individuals is very terrible. People lose their family members, they lose their economic leverage, they become poor, and of course sometimes they get...

stagnate, they cannot thrive anymore because of the trauma that experiences can leave on them. So for example, my great aunt, when we're living in my town, when the civil war happened, the day that it was happening, my great aunt did not want to leave.

She said, I have no place else to go. This is my home, this is my city, and I cannot live. And my father tried to convince her, let's go, we don't know what will happen after, but she did not want to. So a year after, when we came back, after the civil war.

when we came back to the town, we did not find her. Actually today we don't know what happened to her. We did not find her body. We could not bury her. So, you know, these kind of experiences are very sometimes difficult to talk about. And that's the reason why I was able to write a memoir of my journey.

Masachs Bongou

entitled The Power of a Person in History that kind of talks about my experience to win the Civil War and also my experience here in America, how I did use that experience to be who I am and of course education as well. So the consequences of that experience are terrible.

Srini Rao

down.

Masachs Bongou

And also it depends on how people make sense of that experience. Okay, how really, because it really matter a lot how we do make sense of what has happened to us and what kind of stories that we frame around those events. And that's very fascinating for me and that's the reason why I went on to write a dissertation on how...

sub-Saharan African immigrants who survived civil wars and genocide used such experiences to fuel the entrepreneurial drive, business leadership and success in America. So it was very fascinating to find out what they have been doing.

Srini Rao

Now, what is what is an average day of your life like in that environment? Is it do you wake up just with this perpetual sense that you know, at any moment, chaos could erupt or even describe an average day in this environment when you're in a civil war.

Masachs Bongou

When I was or now?

Srini Rao

There. Well, when you were there. Yeah.

Masachs Bongou

Are you asking recently or when the civil war happened?

Srini Rao

No, no, no. When this was happening, what was an average? Yeah, both actually. Tell me what an average day in the environment that you grew up and was like.

Masachs Bongou

Thank you.

Masachs Bongou

I think when this was happening it was it was I think terrible. You know you have the sense that life you know life is no the there is no value anymore in life. Life is insignificant because you see

you know sometimes how people become hopeless, desperate. People just rely on faith, on God, that God can, you know, help them to hold on, to move ahead. So every single morning when you wake up, you know, you wake up with a sense of gratitude, in the sense of resilience, in the sense, with the sense of tenacity that, you know, things will look good.

all right so and that's the reason why we left my town we went to my grandfather's village and which was a safer place at that moment but a couple of months later uh... you know the village was invaded by people who were supposed to protect us and then we went to the forest so in the forest it's a new life so you leave uh... you don't have a uh...

a house, a house is made of branches, palm leaves, palm leaves as a roof. But also the beauty of this experience is that it kind of teaches you the significance of life. It kind of teaches you the sense of empathy, the sense of preserving life.

there is nothing more than life and with life everything is possible. So, yeah, I think that's kind of what you do, you wake up when this happens.

Srini Rao

Now, while you're in this environment, you emphasize the importance of education. What is it? Did you go to school or are you just trying to survive?

Masachs Bongou

Oh no, at the time my classroom education ceased. There was no school anymore. You know, teachers could not be found. So my education was replaced by, you know, daily wisdom, by daily upbringing. You know, you go to fishing.

adults tell you some stories, you know, how to survive, how to thrive. So, and as young as I was at that time, you also enjoy the nature because you sleep with birds on the top of your roof so you can hear them sing, you know.

So it was also a good experience to some extent. You value the nature, the nature kind of opens its beauty to you. And life becomes, I can say, less maybe, less tense, less depressing, which is a little bit...

paradoxical because you know you are living this experience, this horrible experience and at the same time you are valuing, you are embracing life, you are seeing the beauty.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, I mean, that makes me wonder because I think anybody listening to this, if they had gone through what you went through, I don't think any of them would be able to describe it this way and say this. Now, is this something you only feel in retrospect or was this something you felt at that time as well?

Masachs Bongou

Yes, I think so. I think it is something that I felt at that time So Let me tell you this Anecdote, okay when I was When we played And you know me my mother my youngest brother at that time. I think he was one years old

So when we fled, we walked through forests and savannas in longer distances, days in and days out. Sometimes we could not rest. So one day, we walked so long, and my feet were swollen. And I could not walk anymore.

So I found myself, me and my mother in this forest. There was nobody else but us. And then I wanted to rest and my mom told me, yes, let's rest. And she looked at my feet. Oh my goodness. They were swollen. There was a liquid coming out from my feet.

And then she put some ointment on my feet. And then after we rested for a couple of minutes, she told me, now we have to resume to work. And I said, I cannot work. She said, listen.

The sun is going down now, which means that the night is coming very soon. So we cannot stay here. If we stay here, nobody else will come for our rescue. So you have to be your own rescuer. You have to save yourself. No matter how much pain you have, you have to walk. You have to walk.

Masachs Bongou

So, with those words of encouragement, my faith was refueled. And then I walked, despite the pain that I had on my feet. And then, as I was walking, I was listening to... There was a voice in my head telling me, carry.

Carry your load to your destination. You are the only one who can make it. There is no one else.

Masachs Bongou

Yep.

Srini Rao

Beautiful. So, how do you go from being in the midst of all of this to coming to the United States?

Masachs Bongou

As I said before, I think the power of education, my mom dropped out of school when she was pregnant to me and she emphasized to me the power of education besides the power of personal history.

Masachs Bongou

uh... e i wanted to learn it to speak english about listening to uh... to divorce of america and if you know that the broadcasted for subamerica they had a lot of people at that time program in english if that was a teaching the people how to speak english and i think it was on weekends so sometimes i could just you know to honor the program and listen to the program and uh... and that's where i started to learn to speak english

And then later on when I got to my baccalaureate, I left another city where I was studying and I went to Brasovia, the capital of the Republic of the Congo. And that's where I found out about Fulbright because in Brasovia there was a U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Embassy had at that time...

They called it at that time Villa Washington, which was a cultural center. So people could come and learn to speak English. They also invited guest speakers to come and talk about different issues, different topics. So that's where I found out about the Fulubwati scholarship. And there were a couple of criteria.

Masachs Bongou

to get the fellowship. So one of them was that you needed to get your bachelor's degree and after you get your bachelor's degree, excuse me, and you take TOEFL exams, GRE exams, you write a research project telling the reason why you have to come and be a student in America.

So that's what I did. I found out it was a great opportunity for me, for someone who had such a background. You know, the civil war affected my family in many respects, economically speaking, so we did not have any means anymore. And then I said to myself, if I really need to...

further my education, I need really to have a merit-based scholarship, which was a Fulbright Fellowship. That's how I ended up applying for Fulbright Fellowship. The first time I did, I didn't succeed, so I failed. And then the next time, I succeeded, and then I came to America.

to study to do my dual masters degree, one in international studies and another one in conflict studies. And then after that I went back home and then I came back to the US to do my PhD. So that's how I ended up to be here to understand or to grasp again the power of international education and what it can do.

not only for people coming to study in America, but also how a language, such an English, it can be a language of mutual understanding, a language that can open new doors not only for countries, but also for people, for individuals.

Srini Rao

Mm hmm. Yeah. So one thing that makes me wonder is where this sort of, you know, amazing, the sort of relentless resourcefulness comes from, because there are people who have so much more than you did, in that situation, who don't accomplish anywhere as near as much, or feel like they don't have enough to accomplish what they want to accomplish. Why is that? Like, why is it that somebody like you

who can go through something this difficult, this challenging, can be so resourceful that you get yourself a Fulbright, and yet somebody who has far more advantages than you do doesn't even come close to something like a Fulbright.

Masachs Bongou

I think it depends on many factors, on many, as I said, many factors and these factors or these things can be external or internal. And to me, to the best of my knowledge, and I have become very convinced about this, if

Masachs Bongou

personal history, which gives you a center of gravity. I don't see how come you can succeed, you can prosper, you can thrive in this world. Because when you have that sense of history, you find out two things for yourself. First, you know what to avoid doing. Second,

Second, which is to me the most important thing, you develop an inward drive and the tenacity to carry out what you do. So we are living in a very challenging world today. The world is filled with so many challenges and crises.

and if we don't have that sense of personal history, I'm not quite sure how we can create a sustainable value in the world we live in. And also to me, it's kind of delusional that we people think that or believe that history or personal history is a kind of a

history is the past. It is not the past. I don't believe it. It is not at all. It is who we are. Because our personal history actively lives within each of us. So for example, if we acknowledge, okay, I'm going to take this, you know, macro example. I'm going to take

If we acknowledge the present day of America is shaped by the American Revolution, by the speech of Patrick Henry that he gave, I guess, in 1775, give me liberty or give me death.

Masachs Bongou

So we surely can acknowledge that the past history is not a past. Because the America that we do see today was shaped by its history, even the innovation that we do see today. And that sense of history is still making America what it is.

and it is the same thing for human beings. So I think you know people need to see you know how they can keep that sense of history. And to keep that sense of history you need to be able to make sense of what has happened to you. And that's the reason why I have developed based on my dissertation research what I call

personal history telling a map. So in that map I kind of explain there are two pathways that a person can take to make sense of a tragedy, of a crisis after it has happened. So one pathway is what I call anti-optimistic meaning making and that pathway usually leads to what I call swamp for negative meaning making. And then we have another pathway

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Masachs Bongou

which is optimistic meaning making. And there are kind of four questions that you ask yourself. A person can ask to make sense. So first is what was or is the event? Which leads to the second question. What optimistic words do I assign to it? To that event, to that tragedy, to that crisis. And...

It transitions to the third question, what story or plot do I tell myself? And finally, what strengths, behaviors, attitudes can I draw from it? So when this map, I try to explain it in more details during my workshop.

So I think it's very important to be able to understand, to appreciate, and to make sense of what has happened to us. And every day we try to make sense.

Masachs Bongou

to anything that we go through. Every day we do it. But sometimes we do it subconsciously, with that knowing how we make sense of things around us, of things that have happened to us.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny because I have I clipped this personal history wrap a telling map right from your YouTube, just so I can have it in front of me during our conversation. Let's let's actually look at this through the lens of sort of, you know, an everyday event that maybe people are experiencing. You know, maybe it's the loss of a parent, maybe it's the loss of a job. Let's use something that people can relate to. Let's go through a practical example. You know, we're potentially about to head into a recession. You know, COVID caused people to lose their jobs. Let's start with a job.

Let's look at the job loss as one of the examples of how we could use this framework to actually use it and get strengths from it. So obviously the event is clear. So that next question, what optimistic words do I assign to it? I think that, you know, when you ask somebody like, what's great about having lost this job, their first response is not going to be I have anything optimistic there to say about this, they're gonna be like, this sucks. Like, how am I going to make money? How am I going to pay rent? Naturally.

Masachs Bongou

Hmm.

Masachs Bongou

Yeah.

Srini Rao

you know, you fall into sort of rumination patterns or you freak like the natural response, I think, to crisis is panic. So how do we go from that sort of, you know, almost immediate temptation to freak out to what you're talking about to getting ourselves to ask these questions? And from what I understand from what you told me, it doesn't sound like this is a, you know, I'm going to go through these questions one time and everything is going to be great.

Masachs Bongou

Mm-hmm.

Masachs Bongou

Hmm?

Masachs Bongou

Hmm.

Masachs Bongou

No, not at all. I don't think so. I think, you know, how first your reaction or how first your response to the crisis can be a panic. So we can panic. We can say, you know, this is not good for me, this is not good for my family, etc. And that's a normal reaction.

That's a totally normal reaction, even myself sometimes I do it. But the critical aspect of all of this is that you have to pause. You have to take a break. You have to zoom in and zoom out of the event. And then you have to ask yourself those kind of questions. If you choose...

I can say entire optimistic, meaning making, what it will bring to you, what it will make of you. So you need to really understand the mechanism of sense making the event. And in my workshop...

I really go into details. It's very practical. And as I mentioned, my workshop is developed based on my dissertation research, which means that I have come up with the idea based on what I have heard from people who are successful in the business industry. You know, entrepreneurs who went through horrible experiences.

and how they have been able to develop certain strengths from that experience. And that's what I have been able to create in a more clear way, in a more...

Masachs Bongou

illustrative of a way.

Srini Rao

So then let's talk about the next question, which is the story and the plot. How do you take those words that we use to describe this, you know, optimistically and construct a story that serves us as opposed to one that sabotages us?

Masachs Bongou

Can I set one more time please?

Srini Rao

Yeah, so we talked about, you know, the optimistic words that we assign to it, say something like losing a job. How do you take that now the words that you've assigned to it and basically write a story that you tell yourself that actually empowers you?

Masachs Bongou

I think there are a few techniques that I usually share with people. I kind of help people to come up with their own stories. So I'm not kind of giving them how you create your own story. So I facilitate the process of creating a story that can be as a compass for them.

can be as a gravity bucket for them. So for example, if you want me to mention this, you know, when I was doing my dissertation research and I did ask my interviewees such a question, so almost all of them

Srini Rao

Yeah, please.

Masachs Bongou

If I have survived the worst, I do not see what else I cannot survive. So you can see that just saying that, that becomes that person, personal plot, that person, personal story.

because you have to come up with a story that empowers you, the story that will serve you as a resource, as a strategic resource, as an educational resource. So, as long as you don't come up with that, you can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything.

kind of a story, it becomes difficult for you to break the chain. So you need really to come up with a story. And let's not forget that we as human beings are part of stories, how our lives are stories. Either we acknowledge it or not, they are full of stories. Stories empower stories in act, action.

And it's up to us to see how we can create those kind of stories based on what we have went through.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So let's take that and talk about sort of drawing strengths from these. Because I think that there's no question that when you go through an adverse experience, you often, you know, gain sort of strengths that you can't. And I think that one thing that at least in my personal experience I've learned is that the, you know, people say, oh yeah, how do you develop a tolerance for adversity? And I always say you go through adversity.

because reading about it, you can have all the strategies in the world to heal a heartbreak to get over the loss of a job to do all these things. And the funny thing is the moment those things happen to you, everything you know doesn't serve you in the moment. It's only when you come out the other side I've learned and then the next time it happens, it doesn't beat you up as much.

Masachs Bongou

Okay.

Masachs Bongou

Yes, yes, I think, I think, you know, what you have just said, it's, it's

It's a normal process, you know, and I believe that it's not when you are really on the other side of the event that you develop, you understand the depth of what has happened to you. So there are two things, okay. As you talked about the strengths.

Masachs Bongou

When such a tragedy or such a crisis happens, you lose your job, there are kind of two things that can happen to you. One is that you freeze, you can freeze, which means that you can develop what they call today resilience, but you do not thrive.

the resilience that you develop is the mechanism to cope with that kind of that kind of uh... that kind of event that kind of uh... tragedy and you get to stack there you stagnate so there is no room of innovation you get really stuck and i have seen this not only from my own experience but also from where i am coming from you know my town

was devastated by civil war. I have seen people, you know, after the civil war, after many years they have become kind of immune to such experience, but they do not thrive. So such experience has kind of put them on, you know, on the knees.

I don't know if I am making sense when I went to the toilet. Yes. So, so, and it doesn't just mean that when you are on the other side of the event that you will, you know, thrive, it requires another level of, you know, thriving, of prospering. Okay. And that's where comes, I think, I believe, excuse me.

Srini Rao

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Masachs Bongou

the inward drive because you have to develop that inward drive you have to develop that tenacity you have to and uh... i we can talk about this uh... we can say you know two people who have gone through the same experience one uh... you know went to become a very successful uh...

human being and another one, another talk. So it just depends on, I think, the way that we react to the situation, the way that we respond, and of course, how we are wired, because I believe that I'm not going to try to be controversial here, but I think

human beings are not equal. Equal not in terms of justice but equal in terms of how they handle problems that happen to them. There is no equality there. Some people handle it well and later on they become successful. Some people don't and later on they don't become successful in any area of their life.

So and that's why it's very important to understand yourself how you are wired And in my workshop, you know, it's um, it's a two-day workshop. So I go through all of those Those are things Because if you want really to also to become a leader, especially with you know business leadership, uh, excuse me business leaders or uh

uh... managers uh... so they really needed to understand uh... the personality and beyond the personality what kind of a strength they do have and how they can mobilize the people who work with them around those strengths they do have

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what have you seen in this work, you know, in your workshops, having been the result, you know, in other people's lives? I mean, obviously, it's very clear what an impact this has had on yours. And obviously, context matters here, because, you know, it's not apples and oranges. You're coming from the coming to this perspective from having survived a civil war in a country that, you know, is far more, you know.

Masachs Bongou

No.

Srini Rao

poverty stricken than the United States, you know, where people have less resources. I mean, you've gone through far more suffering than the average person. And what I realized is suffering is relative. So how has this changed the lives of the people who have experienced this, you know, on a day to day basis?

Masachs Bongou

Oh, quite a lot. I think as I said, context matters and of course circumstance matters. I think, and of course how you were maybe to some extent brought up as well.

So in my workshops, usually I work with business leaders or corporate managers, and of course aspiring entrepreneurs, because I think part of the misleading aspect of entrepreneurship or business is that we have a tendency to believe...

everything is about money. If you don't have money, you cannot be an entrepreneur, you cannot invest, you cannot be a successful entrepreneur. And to me, I think the money is important, but also there is another aspect of that, which is...

you yourself as a human being, you know, the drive that you have, the tenacity that you develop to carry out what you do. That's what matters the most. It's not money. Today you can lose money, but if you do not have such a drive, I don't see how you can keep doing what you are doing. So there has to be something inside you. You have to find it. You have to search inside you and find what you are doing.

makes you come alive. And if you do not find it, I don't quite see how successful you can be. And success here also can be relative, but how you can excel in what you can do. So I believe, as I said, history is not the past. History is what we are. We really,

Masachs Bongou

in a sense, I think we take history for granted. So the another anecdote I'm going to tell you is that when I was writing my book, that I have just published a month ago before my graduation, where I was a keynote speaker,

So I called my mom when I was writing my book because some of the places that we went during the tragedy, Civil War, I could no longer clearly remember the names of those places. So I had to call my mom to ask her to...

to remind me the names of those places. And she was a little bit, she was surprised to see me or to hear me ask her those, you know, that experience. And she asked me, why are you asking me these things? And the reason why she did ask me those kind of questions is, was that we never talked about the civil war.

at home, never at all. Since it happened, we never talked about it. My mom did not, until today, has not told me how she experienced that event in her own words, never at all. So you can see that there are certain crisis that people are not quite able to talk about. So it's kind of a, you know...

stuck in them and then it becomes a little bit difficult for them to talk about it. And it's also the same thing that what happened to the Jewish community, the Holocaust. So the generation that lived through that event...

Masachs Bongou

did not have so much courage to tell about what will happen. It was the next generation mostly that came and tried to document the Holocaust. So I believe that we, the more we are aware of our history, where we are coming from, the more we can be able to find how we place in this world.

how much impact that we wanted to live in this world. By the less we are aware of how personal history, it becomes a little bit difficult to create a sustainable value in the world. And I do believe that...

Each of us has a personal history of a tragedy. I do believe it. And you know, some people create a great value out of it and others don't. And that's why I think leaders should be quite able to be able to translate the past personal tragedy into business leadership.

success and money and that's what I try to help through my workshop.

Srini Rao

Well, this has been incredible. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Masachs Bongou

I didn't hear the last part.

Srini Rao

What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Masachs Bongou

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Srini Rao

Unmistakable, yes.

Masachs Bongou

mistake.

Masachs Bongou

Oh, it's a hard question. Don't you think so? Don't you think that we cannot make mistakes in our lives? Do you think that?

Srini Rao

Well, I mean, I've written a book about it and I've asked a thousand people but you know.

Srini Rao

Oh, okay. So I think that it's funny because there are a number of people who, and I noticed this in particular with people who were English isn't their first language. They, they assume. So I guess let me define how I define unmistakable for you because you know, obviously if you have a brand called unmistakable creative, you need a definition for it. So the way that I define unmistakable is that whatever is unmistakable is something that nobody else could do but you it's uniquely yours. And it's so distinctive that nobody could replicate it.

Masachs Bongou

Okay.

Masachs Bongou

Okay, okay, I got you. And so now what was your question? If you can...

Srini Rao

What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Masachs Bongou

Uh...

Masachs Bongou

the person's capacity to be a way of his or her personal history. I think, I believe that personal history is what gives us the tenacity in what drives.

If you don't have such a drive, if you don't have such an inward drive, if you don't have the tenacity to be really what you want to be, and to be unique, I don't see how you can be unmistakable. I don't really see it. Because I think...

Srini Rao

Amazing.

Masachs Bongou

I usually say, and I have said it here, history is not the past. It is who we are because history invokes inspirations that shape our present and future conditions. History. And because of it, we have the inward drive and the tenacity. Those are two things.

are definitely what can set you on the road of being unique in what you do. No matter how many times you may encounter defeats, as Maya Angelou said, I may encounter many defeats. I quote.

but I will not be defeated. So you need to have that in a word drive, that tenacity. No matter how many times you can be knocked down, but you know, you can see the light, you can see what is possible, you can see what is honorable and how you can execute it.

Srini Rao

Incredible. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work and everything you're up to?

Masachs Bongou

Sure, people can visit my website www.drmazashi.com. They can reach out to me. There is a section that I have created where people can reach out to me, not only to learn more about my work, but of course if they would love me to come to conduct a two-day workshop or speaking engagement. So I am...

available, I am open to any of those inquiries.

Srini Rao

amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. Awesome.