Sohin Shah (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Beyond the Podcast, which is a podcast where global leaders from the Harvard Business School and its OPM community join in a personal capacity and share the real decisions, failures, and mental models behind building enduring companies. And before we start, I want to take a quick moment and share something from behind the scenes. Yesterday, Mathieu, who is our guest today,

and I recorded an incredible conversation. And then I had a technical glitch which wiped out the entire file. I was ready to panic, but Mathieu being a former 777 captain, reacted with the same centered decisiveness that he has probably shown all his life in the cockpit. There was no frustration. There was no drama. He just messaged me saying, that's fine. Let's do it again. And he was available right away.

So that moment alone taught me more about leadership under uncertainty than any other framework could. So Mathieu, I thank you for that. Welcome to the show. And ⁓ for our listeners, could you please introduce yourself and share with us who you are and what you do?

Mathieu (01:07)
Thank you very much, Sohin for having me. Thanks for the wonderful introduction. I'm Mathieu, I'm 44, I'm from Belgium. Like you said, I started my career as a professional hockey player until I realized there was no money in field hockey. I became a pilot because I thought it was something nice to do. I did that for about 18 years, I would say. I finished as a 777 captain for Etihad Airways.

until COVID hit. About two months after COVID hit, my company fired 500 pilots in one day. I was a junior captain on 777, so I was in the second batch of people to go relocated to Bali and had to reinvent myself, started entrepreneurship. I started a luxury

property development business in Bali and a property management business as well. And I've been investing in real estate my entire life. And then about one year ago, I went to OPM for my first session.

Sohin Shah (02:02)
incredible Mathieu so you've had three lives one as an athlete one as a pilot and now as an entrepreneur which one do you think has shaped you the most and why do you feel so

Mathieu (02:13)
Good question, but I think they shaped me equally. I think the athlete life was the easiest life because you really do something that you enjoy and there's not so much to deal with that you don't like. Even though it takes passion and it takes effort, it's something that comes very naturally. The employee life as a pilot,

taught me a lot of things, especially being a leader at a young age. I was fortunate enough to be at the right time at the right place. So at 34 years old, I became a 777 captain, not because I was much better than anybody else, but just because I was at the right time at the right place. So I definitely learned a lot about leadership there. And entrepreneurship is real war. You have to stand up, get up every day and do all these things that you actually don't like to do.

Sohin Shah (02:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mathieu (03:00)
like ⁓ tax reporting and audits and deal with all kinds of assets of the business that you actually are not so interested in. So I would say equally, they shaped me equally.

Sohin Shah (03:04)
Ha

Yeah, and it's those boring things which matter a lot, the things which entrepreneurs don't like dealing with, but they actually define how your company is positioned for success. So I totally hear you. I feel you as well. Going back to your professional athlete days, is there a moment from your field hockey years that you believe shaped your philosophy towards leadership today?

Mathieu (03:33)
Yeah, I was lucky enough to be forced into leadership at a young age. So I have three brothers and they were all playing field hockey. I was the oldest one. And at some point, the team of my little brother was looking for a coach and a trainer. I was kind of pushed to take it.

I must have been probably about 12 years old, I didn't have that much experience. And that's where I got pushed. And then later on, I became the captain of our own team in the first league. That also some position that I never asked or never wanted, but it was pushed on to me because I think because the people around me believed that I was the right man for the job.

not saying I was, but yeah, that definitely changed my or shaped my leadership journey at a young age.

Sohin Shah (04:23)
You said something about leader being one who doesn't have a title. It's not just someone who has the title of a leader who needs to behave like a leader. Could you emphasize a little more on that?

Mathieu (04:32)
Yeah, for me a leader is not somebody who absolutely asks for a title or wants it per se. A leader is somebody that people naturally want to follow and people naturally want to listen to. I see a lot of people who are forcing it and to me that's usually not the best leadership style.

Um, me as a leader, able to, suffer yourself away a little bit. Uh, you don't care about personal credit. You, you, you care about advancing the, the, the whole team or the whole company and, you don't necessarily need to be in a spotlight. And, and, uh, the best leaders that I learned from were people who, when I was not a leader in the team gave me responsibility to grow into leadership myself.

That's something that I really believe in to, cypher yourself away a little bit, let the people, develop by themselves, steer them in the right direction. If they're not doing the right thing, if they're deviating from procedures or rules, or if you see them go towards something that is not going to end up well, that's your leadership role to, then steer them away, but don't, don't take the limelight. Don't take the spotlight basically.

Sohin Shah (05:39)
Tell me, just moving on to your aviation days, is there a time you remember from being in the cockpit where everything seemed to be going wrong and then you had to try and stay calm under pressure? Could you give us some of those moments and share those experiences with us?

Mathieu (05:53)
Yeah, there's many stories and most of them I end up forgetting. One of them stays with me because it was the first time that I really had to deal with very, very nasty weather. I was doing a local flight in Italy and on my left side I had the Alps and on my right side I had the biggest thunderstorm I've seen in my life. So I really didn't have...

anywhere to go. The left were mountains, the right was even worse. And I was a young first officer, I was flying for DHL, I was flying 757s. And I had a very experienced captain with me, he was probably about close to 60 years old, a lot of flying hours and the weather became too much and he completely lost it, completely shut down. And I was alone in the cockpit.

So there's always one pilot flying and pilot non-flying in the cockpit. I was the pilot flying. So my job then is to just fly the airplane. His job as pilot non-flying is to talk to radio control, to ATC as we call it, and do navigation and so on, and do the checklists. And he completely disappeared. He was too impressed by the weather. And that was the first time I think where all of a sudden I felt like,

Sohin Shah (06:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mathieu (07:01)
If I don't step up, then we're pretty much screwed because the guy on my left is gone. yeah, that was definitely a moment that I will never forget.

Sohin Shah (07:11)
How old were you then?

Mathieu (07:12)
I must have been about 26 years old, I think.

Sohin Shah (07:18)
Okay, so not too long ago.

Mathieu (07:19)
Yeah.

almost 20 years ago.

Sohin Shah (07:23)
Right. And so when you think back to that moment and you know, your ability to step up and tune in to the moment, take control. What do you think happened there? Do you credit that to training? Years and years of training, or do you think there was something beyond that which made you recognize the gravity of the situation and then take control and see everyone through to safety?

Mathieu (07:45)
⁓ It's a very good question because part of me believes that being a good leader comes with a lot of training and by training I mean seeing good examples and bad examples of leaders because I've had very good examples of leaders in the cockpit basically where I learned a lot from but I had a lot of very very bad examples and I learned equally as much from them. So part of me wants to say yes it's

It's about training and learning. Another part of me wants to sometimes believe that it's the kind of person you are sometimes also. Some people are meant to be leading or don't want to be. Leading is about getting out of your comfort zone, right? And a friend of mine described it pretty well a few months ago.

He said, it's funny because when I look at you, you go, when you're out of your comfort zone, when you're scared, you actually dive in. And there's people who when it becomes scary and it's out of their comfort zone, they hold back. I've been told that I dive in and I think it's true as well, which

is needed as a leader, right? Because even if you want to be a good leader and you want to let the other people take over and teach them, at some point you will have to step in because they're not going the right way. And if you're afraid to get out of your comfort zone, it's probably not a good idea to be a leader, I think.

Sohin Shah (09:08)
Could you take us back to the kind of training you went through in your career to maybe deal with such situations as well? What do captains go through in terms of training?

Mathieu (09:18)
The biggest thing we go through is CRM training and it's an ongoing training when you start your young aviation career, whether you're a co-pilot, a captain, even a cabin crew, it's called crew resource management. And it's basically all kinds of different people, characters. You learn about different kinds of leaders, whether they're autocratic or they're more easy.

to solve situations. And actually, it may deviate a little bit from the question, but I had a very interesting situation where I learned a valuable lesson myself. And I think it's worth mentioning. I ⁓ was a young first officer in Etihad Airways. I just joined the company. I must have been...

I think by that time, 30 years old, so I had quite a bit of experience already, but I was close to being a good leader or a captain or anything like that. and I showed up one day for a flight before going on holiday and I was paired with the worst captain of the company. I didn't know because I was new in the company.

But he was very, very tough for no reason whatsoever. Didn't say hello, didn't respect me, didn't say, how are you doing? Just basically yelled at all the wrong things while he came late for a flight. He was being very nasty. I mean, it was the worst example of a leader actually that I've ever seen in my life. We went through pre-flight. I basically saved his ass because he was

way too late and I did his job. We went to the cabin crew briefing, we briefed the crew. He was very obnoxious, didn't acknowledge my existence. And things started heating up a little bit. And then I caught him doing wrong procedures in the airplane. My bad character said, okay, this is where I'm gonna actually

find a reason to yell back because I'm a little bit tired of the treatment that I've been getting. And I started giving him a few comments on, this is not the right thing to do. And I was pretty firm in my comments. At that point, I was really looking for confrontation as a young, ambitious guy thinking, you know? And he became upset and I started yelling.

And I thought at that point that I was going to get fired and I said, look, the first thing you did to me was this. The second thing you did to me was this. The third thing, I basically listed everything that he did to me. And I said, look, now you're going to call scheduling and you're going to explain to them why you or me are stepping out of this flight deck because we're not flying together. And I was very lucky. And at this stage, I really thought it's not possible at all

to have a flight anymore together. It would be dangerous for safety and me being the junior guy in the company, I would probably get fired or get a huge punishment. And he did something that really surprised me. He said, I apologize. I realized now what I've been doing. We start over and he reached out his hand. I told him at that stage, I was, I was ready to lose my job. And I told him, look,

Sohin Shah (12:05)
Wow.

Mathieu (12:11)
We can start over, but if you give me any more reasons to get out of this flight deck, I will walk out of this airplane in Jeddah and leave you alone with 400 passengers in Jeddah. And you can explain to the company why. And he said, well, no, I'm serious. I'm really sorry. I didn't realize. And I would like to reset this situation and

we did, and it was the nicest flight I've ever done after this. And I learned that no matter how far you go in the heat of the moment, you can always reset the situation, which was a really nice lesson, actually.

Sohin Shah (12:44)
That is so valuable as a lesson then you can always reset the situation. Most of us go through our lives assuming that we're in a particular position which we cannot pivot from and I think entrepreneurship is all about pivoting. You start with an idea, you start with a vision and suddenly it takes a turn which you believe there's a different direction that could do more justice to whatever you're working on.

And in this case, you shared the story about this relationship, this encounter you had, which seemed like it was doomed and going nowhere and you all were able to reset from there. I think that's very valuable and I thank you for sharing that.

Being a captain, you must be taking a lot of decisions quite quick. So could you walk us through how you would prioritize, knowing what's right, what doesn't need focus? Any mental models or first principles that you think you've built over the 19 years of flying?

Mathieu (13:36)
Yeah, basically twice a year they throw you in a simulator for two days. It's a four-hour session on day one and a four-hour session on day two. And they do this every six months. And it's quite intense because they try to find your limits, right? They throw everything at you that they have. And they want you to force you into error and to overload you

with all kinds of failures. That was the old school of aviation at least, the aviation I grew up in. Today it's a little more relaxed I would say, but you basically don't have much time, you have to really

filter the information that you have available at that time. You don't have half an hour to find out if there's more information available to you or better information available to you. In a time where your engine is on fire, you have a fuel leak at the same time, there's someone in the back doing a heart attack and there's a colleague entering the flight deck saying she wants to report the other cabin crew because they're dating the same guy. All these things happen to me.

You don't really have time to think about why your fuel lines got ruptured and caught fire. You just need to land at the nearest suitable airport as fast as you can. So I think we've been drilled to make decisions very fast, And I still do today, even big decisions, I take them very fast. It doesn't take me a day or an hour.

Give me the highlights in five minutes and I'll take a decision. We're thought to analyze the information we have on hand quickly and then really prioritize. So you really have to think, okay, what's the most urgent thing right now? Right now I'm on fire. So I don't care about the heart attack.

I need to land safely somewhere. The cabin crew or anybody else who has a personal problem doesn't matter at that time. I simplify it a little bit, but they really teach you to prioritize the biggest urgency, deal with it, then go to the next one. Deal with it, go to the next one.

But in general from aviation, I can say I compartmentalize pretty well and I can easily spot the most urgent cases to work on. I'm pragmatic and methodical. But yeah, however, I'm a guy of big lines. So sometimes I'm not detailed enough.

Sohin Shah (15:41)
It's hard to be detailed when you're going through so much data and you have such little time to act on it. So you mentioned early on that you lost your job during COVID and I believe losing your job during such a sensitive time could have broken many people. What was going through your mind that week when you lost your job?

Mathieu (15:59)
I have to say it wasn't that bad for me. One, because I was planning to quit aviation about one year later. That was my plan. I had bought a bit of real estate and I wanted to do something else and I was very lucky to have a short career but I did pretty much everything in that short period of time.

I was a very young captain on 777, maybe a bit too young. I was only 34. I did delivery flights for Boeing. So I kind of felt like I had done everything there and I didn't want to do this for another 30 years. And on top of that, I was always very frugal with my life.

I didn't buy brand new Ferraris with it, couldn't afford it. So I didn't really have any debt except for mortgages that were being paid by tenants. I had quite a bit of cash aside. I had time to reorient myself.

It was a smooth transition and my entire family are entrepreneurs. I was one of the only employees. So I always kind of missed that that entrepreneurial. I had that drive, but I really wanted to be an entrepreneur. COVID forced me into it. I really didn't have much choice because nobody was hiring pilots in the first year after COVID.

So I got pushed into it, but it was an easy enough transition, I have to say.

Sohin Shah (17:12)
When you think about your transition from aviation to real estate, what do you think you got right in that transition and what do you think you could have done better?

Mathieu (17:21)
What I got right was the partnership, partnering up with people who knew more about real estate than I did back in the day. I couldn't have done it by myself. And by the way, I don't like to do anything by myself. I always like to have partners in all my businesses.

What could I have done better?

I had a really nice balance actually, because my partner is my original partner from the first company is a little bit older than me and he was the brake and I was the gas pedal. I was young and ambitious and he was the brake pedal. Right. So it was a nice balance actually. Patience is difficult for me. I always want to go big and go fast and I need somebody next to me, I think who is able to say, Hey, hold on.

Take your time, relax, think about things a little bit more. So it's important for me to have somebody like this next to me.

Sohin Shah (18:11)
Most people struggle to reinvent themselves even at a younger age, but you made this transition when you were probably around 40 years old. Talk to us about what that felt like. Was it easy? Did you have to dig deep to find the strength to go through recreating yourself again?

Mathieu (18:28)
Yes, I had to dig deep. The first pivot was a reinvention of myself was a forced one, right? Aviation kicked me out. kind of had to reinvent myself. I'm going to say it was hard the first six months.

working without results and still believing, but then we quite quickly caught a break and then another break and then another break and then it became quite easy. And again, without the people around me, first of all, my family that believed in me, but also the partner that I had back in the day who was there also.

It wouldn't have been possible, I think. For me, it was really important to have somebody next to me. I wouldn't want be an entrepreneur by myself. I like team sports. My father had a substantial company by himself. He was the only shareholder.

Company truck and trailer parts for DAF and for Caterpillar and so on and only very late in life he told me well sometimes I wish I had a partner because and I agree because when it gets tough you're by yourself but also when you win you don't want to celebrate by yourself you really want to have somebody to share it with.

Sohin Shah (19:34)
And so at what point did Harvard Business School come on your radar and why OPM at Harvard?

Mathieu (19:40)
So I had no clue about OPM. I didn't know what it was. But somebody here in Bali on the island, very good friend of mine, she went to OPM the year before me. And she came back and could only talk about OPM and how amazing it was and how life changing. And she said to me, look, this is something for you.

Sohin Shah (19:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mathieu (19:57)
And for a long time, I said, why would I go to Harvard? First of all, why would they accept me? Second of all, why would I at 44 years old go to this program? And she insisted and continued to talk about it. And then I met a few other people who went to OPM with her.

But then I decided, okay, well then I have to go. And it goes back to getting out of your comfort zone. I went because, not because I knew much about the program, to be honest, but because I thought, wow, this is really something out of my comfort zone. I thrive outside of my comfort zone.

When I stay in my comfort zone, I'm bored and it's usually not a very good sign. After a couple of years in a position or a job or having established a company and once it's running, I'm usually not the right guy to continue. I like to start new things. I like to get new experiences and so yeah, that's my OPM story.

Sohin Shah (20:48)
Yeah, one of the first lessons I learned as an entrepreneur was to be comfortable being uncomfortable because you're uncomfortable all the time. And suddenly I started realizing that my biggest growth was happening when I was uncomfortable because that meant I was putting myself in a situation where I had to learn and adapt. And the growth curve from that situation is so much more than trying to be comfortable and then chasing growth. So I completely understand what you mean there.

Is there any idea from Harvard Business School that you took away or any professor who shifted your thinking the most?

Mathieu (21:21)
Yeah, there were quite a few. I mean, I got a lot of takeaways from fellow students also because the quality of people you meet in this particular program is absolutely stunning. But yeah, I think many people will recognize the classes of Professor Das, especially the, I think it was the first class where he spoke about

businesses to exit and businesses to last. I always at least wanted to build businesses to last. And it's a very different way of doing business. And when in the first hour of the first class of marketing at Harvard, the professor tells you, most opportunities in today's world are on the businesses to exit side.

And this is how you grow a business to exit or lead a business to exit. It woke me up a little bit because I don't think about exits enough. I always think about businesses to last, I agree. It's sometimes very nice to get paid and move to something else.

Sohin Shah (22:16)
Any business which is bootstrapped, in my opinion, is, you know, the founders are typically thinking about a build to last model because you're using your retained earnings to grow the business. You don't have outside shareholders. And so you can take a much longer view on the positioning and the growth of the business. But I do see how some of those classes at Harvard, especially from Professor Das, helped us recognize the value of build to sell as well.

⁓

You've reinvented yourself about two times now, know, once from the athlete to the captain and now from the captain to a real estate entrepreneur. Any advice you have for someone who may be stuck in version one of their life or their career on how they can move past that phase of being stuck?

Mathieu (22:58)
I would say find something you're passionate about, learn as much as possible about it. In my last pivot, in my last business, I started reading a lot of books about what I wanted to do, watch a lot of YouTube videos, and then surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and who have more experience than you to help you. It's important, I think, to have a mentor or a guru.

that you can refer to. Somebody you're inspired by and then take the leap, jump, really get out of your comfort zone, go for it. You just have to take the chance when you see it.

Sohin Shah (23:30)
And thinking about your own growth and career. Is there anything you would do different as a 20 year old today if you could go back to being 20 year old?

Mathieu (23:38)
Yeah, probably take more risks. I was way too conservative when I didn't have any responsibilities. That's the days where you want to experiment and try things. You know, when you're older and you have a, maybe have kids or maybe there's other responsibilities. You have real estate with mortgages that need to paid and so on.

It's a little more, you should be a little more risk averse. You should take calculated risks. But when you're young, I mean, the sky is not the limit. You should really go for it. Be fearless when you're young.

Sohin Shah (24:10)
Yeah

Mathieu (24:13)
When I was young, I was too busy with my core ⁓ occupation, which was being a pilot. I really thought I wanted to stay in that industry and grew up in that industry. And I didn't take, probably didn't take enough time to open up my eyes to other things. Read more books about things that have nothing to do with aviation, explore other

Sohin Shah (24:13)
go on.

Mathieu (24:33)
ventures. That's also a big one.

Sohin Shah (24:35)
And Mathieu, is there any belief you've held all your life which you might have changed your stance on after you turned 40 maybe? Any such thing come to mind?

Mathieu (24:47)
I change my mind all the time. The world evolves, situations evolve, you evolve. You don't have the same mindset when you're 30 than when you're 40 or when you're 20. And sticking with one belief,

for your entire life is not a very healthy principle, I think.

Sohin Shah (25:02)
Lastly, any books that you've read which influenced you a lot?

Mathieu (25:06)
Think and Grow Rich is one that had a lasting impression on me. A very simple and not very complicated book, but I read it when I was younger, was the Robert Kiyosaki books of retire young retire rich, which was a bit of an eye opener. The E-Myth from

I think his name is Michael Gerber, if I remember correctly. He's a very good one for smaller and medium businesses. Those are a few that I can think of right now.

Sohin Shah (25:33)
Great. Mathieu thank you so much for your time. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of valuable insights from this conversation that the listeners can take away, especially the younger entrepreneurs. And I believe this is going to help everyone a lot. So I appreciate your time.

Mathieu (25:47)
Pleasure, anytime. Really nice thing you're doing because I think there's so many really interesting people in the OPM program and it's really nice. I'm looking forward to listening to all of the other ones as well.

Sohin Shah (25:58)
Thank you, Mathieu.