Thank you to the 1,400 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 questions!
I hope reading
7 Questions with Neal
helps you in your leadership.
Cheers,
Jonno White
7 Questions with Neal
Name: Neal
Current title: CEO
Current organization: Flixmaster
Neal van de Kamer, author CEO of Flixmaster and former top judoka, only Dutch man with national titles in three different weight classes.
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1. What have you found most challenging as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise?
My biggest challenge was to recruit and build a diverse team. I started recruiting best friends and family. People are fun to work with, but not the people bringing the company to the next level.
2. How did you become a CEO or executive of a large enterprise? Can you please briefly tell the story?
After a successful career as a professional athlete, I found that skills such as discipline, focus and energy management are vital in a Sales job. By that I started working at LinkedIn where I was awarded with a MVP award for most valuable salesperson of Europe. After Linkedin I transitioned to Indeed to work with companies of the likes of Tesla. After a couple of years of experience and building my network it was time to start something for myself, close to my passion for personal development
3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?
Wake up at 6
Meditate for 10-15 minutes
Eat a healthy breakfast (based of the blood type diet)
Plan my day for 30 minutes. Going through my day, agenda point for agenda point and set a goal for each meeting
I stop at 5 to workout for 60 minutes
I leave my laptop at the office to relax and recharge at the evenings
4. What's the most recent significant leadership lesson you've learned?
Know what way you want the company to go and communicate that day to day to the team
5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?
Book in the genre of personal development as think and grow rich of napoleon hill and richest man of Babylon changed my perspective of mindset, abundance and financial freedom
6. How do you build leadership capacity in a large enterprise?
To read every day about leadership skills. Minimum of 30 minutes a day
7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a CEO or executive of a large enterprise so far?
I love this quote of Steve Jobs: “That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
The road of personal development is a tough one at times. But I believe that the growth of the company goes as fast as the personal growth of the CEO. That’s why I invest so much time to clear my mind and live a healthy life full of energy. This is not only meditating, but eating clean (day in day out- cut out alcohol and workout for a minimum of 4 times per week)