Hey, and welcome back to Resilience, Unravelled. I've just had a very quick chat with my next guest, Aziz Musa, and he's got me absolutely fascinated already. I mean, when you hear the accent and you hear the country he's from, your head's going to spin. Is that right? Aziz, welcome.
Aziz:Hello, Russell. And thank you.
Russell:That's a deep, sexy, voice. Now, where are you from?
Aziz:So, I was born in Blackpool. I spent most of my life in Blackpool and before moving to Dubai, I had actually quite a deep northern accent and all of that.
Russell:You can hear a little.
Aziz:Well, I had to soften it know, because when I moved to Dubai, people literally couldn't understand me on the phones, so I had to soften it out and then I sort of kept this more neutral. But if you're from the UK, you can definitely detect a northern twang in there, I'm sure.
Russell:Well, I'm the same. People say I have lost my accent and people ask me in this part of the world where I am now, where was I born? And I'm mortally offended because I was born here. Can you not tell it’s an indictment when people from your own place don't know that you were born there? Well, look, it's a joy all the same.
Aziz:I was going to say, is it the same with when you're with your friends, you go straight into your Newcastle accent? I'm like that. With my brothers, we immediately fly into Northern.
Russell:Yeah, great. Well, you and I have got a massive lag on this, so because you're in Egypt, I understand. Well, look, let's delve into things. You've already teased me with a link to Dubai and I used to live in Dubai as well. So why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do.
Aziz:Sure. So, I own a digital marketing agency called Kush Digital. It was formerly called Sudan Digital. My background is really business. My father was, like yourself, a doctor, and would have loved me to have become a doctor. Sadly, I just didn't have the intellect that doctors need to be able to study for that length of time. And business was something I was really passionate about. And I moved to Sudan in 2017. And before moving to Sudan in Africa, I was the CEO of a publicly listed company in the UK called Blackbird Plc. And I worked for many big companies, I'm sure your listeners will have heard of Lastminute.com and Travelocity and companies like that Moonpig.com. So really my background is all in business and I'd spent a good number of years as the CEO of a public company and felt wholly disinterested with the work that I was doing.
Aziz:I really felt like I was working for myself and for shareholders and really didn't feel like I was having an impact on the world or an impact, at least in a positive way, on the people around me. And so, I made what was a really difficult decision at the time to move to a third world country, Sudan. Sudan is where my family is from. I'd been there every year on holiday and my objective really was to go there and to start a social enterprise. Sudan, for those of you listeners who don't know much about Sudan, is directly south of Egypt. It had, until recently, been under 30 years of international sanctions. There was essentially no digital economy there at all. And so, my idea was pretty simple. I'm going to go there, start a social enterprise, build digital capabilities in the country, and hopefully start to make an impact on people's lives.
03:40
Russell Wow.
Aziz 3:40
So that's kind of what took me to Sudan. And there I started Sudan Digital. I had no ambition whatsoever to build a successful company, but through doing the right thing, that's what we ended up doing. We ended up being the biggest digital agency in the region, international clients like Hyundai and Emirates and alike. But more importantly than that, for me, I trained and mentored 4000 different people in Sudan, and they had started hundreds of start-ups. And the thing that what that really means is that when a young man is starting a start-up and bringing just a small amount of money into his household in Sudan, that's the difference between people eating and not eating. And so that's really where I got the satisfaction from. And then I found myself in Egypt, because on the 15 April, the last of the disasters that we expected to happen, which was a civil war.
Aziz:And it happened quite literally in front of my house and in front of our office. And that was an experience that I don't think I'll ever forget.
Russell:Wow. And I'm guessing that's a civil war that ended up with South Sudan. Is that how that worked? Was that different?
Aziz:Yeah, that was different. So that was in the early part of the 2000s, South Sudan became its own country, I think, in 2010. This was a war between two generals. And it happened in the capital city, Khartoum, of course.
Russell:Yeah, I remember. Yes, because that's right, it was famously a battle between two armies, basically within the same country, wasn't it?
Aziz:Yeah.
Russell:One was very good at one sort of skirmish, and one was good at the other and they just took each other on for some reason. So, has that been resolved?
Aziz:No, that's ongoing. People are sadly dying on a daily basis. The country is in just an extraordinary bad position. People are still trying to flee into other countries. Food, water, electricity are very difficult to come across. So, it's still very much a live yeah. You know, I find it really sad, especially nowadays. I'm not sure when you publish these podcasts but looking at what's going on in Gaza and Israel and seeing the commentary of people who have never really experienced war, talking about war as though it's movement of a chess piece on a chessboard. It's really saddening. I think that if everyone experienced that for a day, no one would go to war again.
Russell:Well, what is it like? Tell us. Unpack it for us.
Aziz:For us it wasn't unexpected. When you move to a third world country, you have to build your tolerance to lots of things. And one of the things that you have to do is you have to try and get pretty good at predicting the future. And one of the things that was quite clear is that a war was coming. It still was a shock. It was during Ramadan. In Ramadan, in the mornings, you're always asleep. You don't really get up until in the early afternoon. But on the Saturday, the 15 April, I was awoken by antiaircraft fire. And it's one of those sounds that you don't need to be in the army to know what antiaircraft fire sounds like. And it's not a sound, it's more of a vibration. It kind of pounds at your chest, like being in a club next to a big speaker.
0Aziz 7:08
And then what happened immediately afterwards was that I went onto the roof of a building, looked out and saw a scene from a movie, really, which was just thousands of cars and people all going in one direction along the main road. And having to try and assimilate all of that information and then make sensible decisions for my family, for my kids, and then for my employees was the challenge for the next few days after that. To be honest, Russell, it was a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. I guess it's a strange thing to say, but we expected there to be a war, but there are just sights and smells and things that you can't quite imagine until they happen. And however much you've contingency planned for these eventualities, the reality is actually kind of different. I think that the smells are the things that are most vivid.
Aziz:The smell of rotting corpses and artillery and things like that, and then the sounds burning as well. Yeah, it was a really challenging moment in time. But I think what I found more interesting is the period afterward. I think in the period afterward, up until now, it's almost like things are clearer and easier to deal with. I think that there's one of those things that yeah, priorities, but also the small things just don't matter anymore. They just don't have that impact that they used to. I think that's one of those things. I remember a quote from Peaky Blinders, I'm not sure if you've ever seen that. And one of the women said, I've died already, so I can't die again. And then she goes on and lives her life. So yeah, it was a real challenge. It was a real challenge. But it's wrong to say that it was enjoyable because it wasn't, but it was beneficial.
Aziz:I will say that psychologically, it's been beneficial for me. Others have, it's been the opposite impact to them.
Russell:So, just to roll back, if I may. So, you're obviously sitting in the middle of this conflict and you obviously have to look after yourself and your family or significant partners or whatever it is. And I'm guessing if you're running a business, you're going to take some people with you and leave other people behind. So that must be heart ending. So, what's that process to get out? How did you get out? Why Egypt and how did you get there?
Aziz:So I'll start with why Egypt? So, actually, in the January of this year, we'd sat down as a management team and said, OK, obviously something's going to happen in Sudan. We need a contingency plan and we should set up a second office. Where should that be? And the first choice was Dubai, because that's where most of our client base is. And then we thought, well, it may be that the airport gets closed, so let's try and find somewhere that's landlocked, somewhere that we can go buy land. And Egypt was the obvious place because we already had some space for ourselves in Egypt.So that plan was there, including the people that we would need to take with us. And I'd spent a good two weeks just focusing on the minute details of exactly how that would work. And this is in January, so four months before the war.
Aziz:And I'd missed some really obvious things, like women in Sudan don't travel without their parents. So, you can have all of these things on the list of who you're going to take with you. But when push comes to shove, we actually only managed to get half of the people out that we wanted to get out on the first day of the war. We all have contacts with various people in the army, and so the general mood was that this would last two or three days. And even the British Consulate, they had similar sentiment. When I was asking, is there an evacuation plan? They were like, not yet. We think that this will die out. After the third day, you see, what had been happening is, at the end of every evening, I'd go up to the roof and I'd literally watch the war unfold, who was fighting from where and where?
Aziz:And the rebels, the general sentiment was that they were weak, they were limited in number and they wouldn't last long. And that just wasn't at all what I was seeing on the ground. So, by the end of the third day, I said to my wife, we are leaving. Whatever happens, we've got to go now. And there was a lot of resistance from her, her parents, her family. And I spent probably a good 24 hours on the phone convincing people to leave, which now seems ridiculous because by the way, all of their homes have been looted and ransacked and they're bases for rebels and things like that, but it's their home.
Aziz:It is, it really is. Yeah. And so, on the Thursday morning, we set off and it was harrowing because you're going through military checkpoints almost every 150 meters. And then we finally got onto the main road, which would take us out of Khartoum. And I remember as were driving down that road, suddenly I heard two cracks of a Kalashnikov and you get used to that sound. And I thought, oh, my God, they shot us. And then I turned around, there was a car behind us, and they'd shot the car behind us, directly behind us. And then about 150 meters along the road was a military checkpoint from the rebels. And they stopped and he came, and he peered into the we rolled down the window, he put his head into the car and his Kalashnikov as well, which was there for your listeners, like three inches from my face.
Aziz:And he said in Arabic, what rank are you? What army rank are you? I said, well, I'm not in the army, I don't have an army rank. He said, Right, well, get up and show me what's in the boot of your car. And so just that moment, that process was kind of like a seminal moment. I remember looking at and he couldn't have been more than 17 years old, he was a child, but it's surprising how manly children look with the Kalashnikov and so eventually we did manage to get to the border. We got to the border. The land crossing is for lorries and goods, it's not designed for people. And so, when we got there was three cars, two of which were our cars and one bus. And the people there were saying, this is the busiest day we've ever had. You're going to have to sleep here at the crossing and tomorrow we'll get you over. I remember looking at the lieutenant and saying to him, you know, that what's coming behind me is multiples of what's arrived today, right? They're like, no, it should be fine. Three days later, 150 buses were at that same place. It actually became a refugee camp. And so, thank God we managed to get out early. That helped us in almost everything. Setting up our life in Aswan setting up the business and everything. It's been a lot easier because we left early. We've been able to evacuate other people from our team as well, which has been helpful, but there's still people there that we're trying to evacuate, even to this day.
Russell:Wow. It's interesting because you made a reference to this slightly early on that some people go through these events and they come out okay. Some come out broken and some come out I'm not going to say stronger but enhanced in some sort of way shape. So, it sounds like you're a latter. So, I wonder if you can talk us through whether this has been a deliberate process or this is just something you found in yourself.
Aziz:I can't say that the process has been deliberate, but the steps throughout the process have been deliberate. So, I have never shied away from difficult decisions or difficult situations. And so, I'll give you two examples of that. One in business and then one in sport, both from myself. So, the first one was when I was the CEO of a Plc. I had gone to do some fundraising, as one does, to try and continue the endeavours that we're going through. And we had aimed to raise a certain figure, and we had only been able to raise a third of that figure. And again, much like in Sudan, I had written down a plan B. If that doesn't happen, then this is what will. And that plan B involved sitting down and literally making redundant 50% of the organization. And so, I didn't hesitate in doing that because in my mind, I'm not making half the company redundant, I'm saving half the company's jobs.
Aziz:So that was how I kind of rationalized it in my mind. And I think a lot of things are to do with a higher purpose, right? And not necessarily yourself having a higher purpose but having some sort of higher belief. So, dealing with Sudan, for example, I always felt like I was doing good for the people of Sudan, and that was more important than me feeling uncomfortable because of a twelve-hour power cut. In those situations, having faith and having faith in sort of a higher purpose has been helpful. So, in a sport example, I'm into boxing, so I'm a boxer and I love boxing. And I've had a few fights, and one of them was super heavyweight. Okay, you can't see it, I guess, because I'm six foot five, so I'm kind of a big guy. And so, it was a year ago, we do an event called Spartans White Collar Boxing.
Aziz:Our client is Spartans. We run the event and all of the content. And I happened to be boxing. I wasn't supposed to be boxing in the event, but there aren't many heavyweight weights, and one of the heavyweights dropped out with like three-week’s notice. And I said, yeah, I'll step in because this other guy, he's been through a whole twelve-week process, and it'll be devastating for him not to box. And so, in my mind, I was like, yeah, I'm going to do it should be fine. And I got knocked out in the first round in front of 600 people that I knew. And the emotional pain, the physical pain dissipates quite quickly. The emotional pain, though, of being that roundly destroyed in a boxing ring in front of so many people that, you know, I mean, it's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
Aziz:I remember getting out of the ring and then going out to get dressed and sitting in the changing room, like with my head in my hands thinking, God, how am I going to go back out there? I'm not going to go out there. And then I clearly remember having the thought a normal person wouldn't go out there. So, you go out and so I got up and I just went in and it was embarrassing. I can't get away from. It was a really embarrassing moment. But you did it.
Russell:You stepped up, though, to start with. That's the point.
Aziz:Yeah. And I think that's the key, is that the difference between those who have left the war broken and those who have left the war stronger, I think, is the willingness to accept the reality that's in front of them and move forward anyway. And that move forward anyway. I think that mindset is the thing that really helped me through sort of all of those tribulations if you like.
Russell:Yeah, I remember hearing a quote, something about being scared and having to do something. So, you may as well go forward and do it because you're always going to be scared, so you may as well get on and do it at the same time. But what you've done, and people talk about this a lot, about in how to manage anxiety, and you've just said it so many times, you build capacity, and you build resilience and you lower anxiety by having a plan and having a plan B, because what you're effectively doing is you're conjecturing what a future might hold. And if anxiety is the fear of the future, what you're doing is you're sort of putting down, well, if this happens, we'll do this. If this happens, we'll do that. You sort of got answer where a lot of anxious people just say, oh my God, it'll be terrible.
Russell:But they don't take anything proactive or put a process in place to help them. So, I wonder whether that planning thing has always been a mindset thing or it's been a skill you've learned. You're obviously successful in business. Is that something from your business life you brought into your personal life?
Aziz:Very much something that I've had to learn. It's not something that's innate. And I remember reading a book which made reference to the Mossad in Israel, and this thought experiment that they have called the 10th Man Experiment. Have you ever come across that?
Russell 19.52
I have.
Aziz:Yeah, sure. So, for your listeners, essentially, the Mossad collects lots of data, and some of the data points are just highly unlikely and improbable scenarios. And some of those scenarios can include the Middle Eastern armies arranging themselves. What if they're about to attack Israel? And it's so improbable that mostly they're dismissed, but they've been burnt by dismissing these ideas in the past. So, they came up with this and more recently exactly, and they came up with this kind of new approach where if there's ten in a room and nine of them agree that the intel does not present a threat, it's the 10th Man's duty to believe it exactly as it is and to act accordingly. And so, I've applied that in my businesses for some time. And so, as an example of that, when we landed in Sudan, working in a third world country is really unique.
Aziz:There are things that you can't even imagine being an issue, like not having running water or not having electricity. So, when we'd arrived in 2017, it was a military dictatorship and it was actually relatively stable in terms of the economy, in terms of the infrastructure, things were quite stable. But there were a lot of rumours about the sudden collapse of the dollar, which the Sudan economy is very reliant on. So, the pound against the dollar and that would impact oil imports and that in turn would impact electricity. And it was so unlikely at that time because people were living kind of prosperous lives. I remember sitting down with my team and saying, okay, this is just a rumour, but let's assume that it's right. Okay, if we assume that it's right, what do we do? Well, we would find another source of electricity. And the obvious source in the Sub-Saharan African country is the sun.
Aziz:Right? So, we spent $20,000 and we set up solar panels and we got our energy from solar panels. And actually, it did a few things. Firstly, it just brought our electricity bills down to zero, so we recoup the money in a year anyway. But secondly, six months after that, we started going through twelve hour rolling blackouts across cartoon. And so that 10th man mentality is something that I've tried. There is a danger of giving credence to all intel and being beholden to rumours. But at some point, you got to kind of use your logic and talking to the people around you and their expertise to come out with some sort of is this a real threat or not? And if it is, to act accordingly.
Russell:Yeah.
2Aziz 2:44
So I think it's something that I've had to learn. I've had to learn throughout my business life.
Russell:Yeah, it's a great idea. And it's that idea of moving away from groupthink, isn't it? Because actually what's currently happening, what's happening in Israel because of the political climate, actually everyone's because if you eliminate the opposition such like you become more extreme. Everything's predicated on all believing the same thing. And therefore, you can all drive yourself into over the same cliff edge, can't you? So fascinating. So, what's the future for you? Where are you going in life?
Aziz:I think my focus right now is on bringing more of our people over from Sudan into Egypt and getting them safe. I think know without getting into politics. I am a capitalist at heart, so that is kind of my mindset, but like a pure capitalist, one that tries to do good whilst building economies, right? And so, I think that have a unique opportunity to continue to evacuate people from the war zone and to give them jobs and to pay them in a way that they're able to support themselves and their families. We're blessed to be able to do that for so many people. But I think that's my focus right now. Therefore, at the same time, we have a digital agency. And the only way that you can actually bring in or evacuate more people from Sudan is if you're making revenue from clients. And you can only make revenue from clients if they're happy with your service.
Aziz:And so the primary objective is bringing more clients. And every client that we bring know we are able to bring in one or two more people from Sudan. And I think one of the things that's really interesting is that none of our clients know about what's happening with us. They don't really know. I remember meeting one of our clients in Dubai recently, who I've known for years, and he made a passing comment about, we pay our bills every month so that you can build your villa in Marbella. And I didn't respond. But at the time I was thinking I nearly responded. I nearly told him what we actually do with our money. But I said at the time, I was thinking, I understand why he believes that, because that's what most agency owners do. But if he knew where his money was actually going, I think he'd be prouder than anything else.
Aziz:But then that's a strange dichotomy, right? Because if I'd have told him that, he wouldn't have necessarily felt comfortable stopping an agreement with us if there was ever an issue in the future. So, it's a strange thing. You want to try and keep the quality of service, and you don't want people to do you favours. You just want good work to win out and therefore be able to bring more people in from Sudan. So, I think that's probably the thing that I'm focused on the moment.
Russell:Yeah, a lot of people create a social enterprise alongside their firm, don't they, and put an amount of profit in it. And that way it sort of keeps the two things separate. I'm sure you've discussed that opportunity for its very tax efficient as well, apparently.
Aziz:Yeah, a lot of doctors are doing that at the moment. A lot of doctors are sort of dedicating, sort of 15% of their time to telemedicine for Third World countries. And I think that's, like, it's such an impactful way to execute. Your dad was like I said, my dad was a doctor. He was a doctor in Sudan, and he was a doctor in the NHS. And he always used to say know, being in Sudan, you are the difference between life and death and being in the NHS. You're part of a yes.
Russell:Yeah, absolutely fascinating. So, if people want to support the work that you're doing, or hire your digital agency to be able to indirectly support the work you're doing, how could people get in touch with you?
Aziz:Sure. So, you can visit our site. We're Cush digital. By the way, cush for a lot of people means cannabis, but we aren't to do with cannabis. Cush actually refers to the Cushite empire, which spans Sudan and Egypt and superseded the Egyptian empire. And I'm easiest to contact on LinkedIn. Aziz Musa at LinkedIn.
Russell:Brilliant. Well, look, it's absolutely fascinating and please keep in touch with us because I'd love to know how your story develops. I think that'd be absolutely marvellous. And maybe in a number of months, we'll come back for an update and see how you're doing.
Aziz:Yeah, that'll be great.
Russell:Brilliant. Oh, well, look, thanks so much for your time today. I really do appreciate it. Support Aziz. That's what I'd say. Find him on LinkedIn. Aziz Musa,. M-U-S-A. Links will be in our show notes. And what a cause. Thank you so much for your time today.
Aziz:Thank you.
Russell:You take care. Bye.