Leading Privacy Lawyer Reveals The Secrets To A Successful Privacy Career

Hi, my name is Jamal Ahmed and I'd like to invite you to listen to this special episode of the #1 ranked Data Privacy podcast.

When Tracy Odipo joined the Privacy Pros Academy, she was looking for the confidence to serve her organisation and clients to the best of her abilities. Three months later, Tracy had not only passed the CIPM, she was 'killing it' at work!

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to position yourself for leadership opportunities
• A hassle-free approach to operationalising your privacy knowledge
• How to build a credible personal brand and get rid of imposter syndrome

And so much more....

Tracy Vivian Odipo is a tech and data privacy lawyer advising global enterprises on all aspects of corporate/commercial law, contract law, financial law, GDPR, SaaS, through the use of technology and artificial intelligence to drive efficiencies within the business of law.

Tracy recently completed the Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) through the Privacy Pros Academy.

Ready to become a World Class Privacy Expert? Book your call to join the World's Leading Privacy Program

Follow Jamal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmjahmed/

Follow Tracy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivian-odipo-a6235370/

Subscribe to the Privacy Pros Academy YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PrivacyPros

I realized that I needed a deeper understanding of some of these key concepts. I needed credibility before clients. That's when it hit me that, yes, I had attained what I went to look for. So many other professionals, especially lawyers here in the market, are asking me, how has been your professional, your privacy journey, and what do I need to become a good privacy professional or a great privacy professional? So this is what I told them.

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Hi everyone, and welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast. My name is Jamilla, and I'm a data privacy analyst at Kazient Privacy experts. With me today is my co-host is Jamal Ahmed, Fellow of Information Privacy and CEO at Kazient Privacy Experts. Jamal is an astute and influential privacy consultant, strategist, board adviser, and Fellow of Information Privacy. He is a charismatic leader, progressive thinker and innovator in the privacy sector who directs complex global privacy programs. Considered by his peers and clients to be one of the UK's preeminent privacy experts, he has the credibility and gravitas to engender confidence. He's a sought-after commentator, contributing to the BBC, ITV News, Euro News, Talk Radio, the Independent and The Guardian, amongst others. His Privacy Pros podcast reaches audiences in over 100 countries as ranked the number one privacy podcast in the world and one of the top three GDPR podcasts. Hi, Jamal.

Hello, Jamilla. How are you?

Good, thank you. How are you?

I've had a very busy week, so I feel like I've had a really productive week, but I'm quite exhausted at the same time.

We'll see how it goes. Jamal so next week, Wednesday the 16th and Thursday the 17th, November we will be at the Risk Exhibition. Tell us more.

Yeah, so the Risk Exhibition in the Excel London is bringing together all the GRC professionals and one of the hubs is on data protection and privacy. So we'll be exhibiting there as the Privacy Pros Academy this year. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to meeting all of the awesome people that listen to this podcast that are going to be coming. I'm also looking forward to meeting some of the mentees who are going through one of our programs or reviewing the program and promised to come and say hi and celebrate. So it’ll be good to see them because a lot of the time we only met virtually. We haven't really met everybody in person, so I'm looking forward to that. And I'm also looking forward to meeting new people, making new professional connections, and maybe even some friends as well. So if you're listening to this and you're in London or anywhere in the UK, get yourself down to RISK at the Excel on the 16th and 17 November. Look out for us and make sure you come and say hello.

Yeah and tickets are free I believe.

Tickets are free, if you're in the Academy and you're listening to this, I've got about 20 VIP tickets I still need to give out, so let me know and I'll hook you up.

Great. We hope to see some of you there. Right over to our guest today for our podcast. We’ve got an amazing guest. Tracy Vivian Odipo is a tech and data privacy lawyer advising global enterprises on all aspects of corporate and commercial law, contract law, financial law, GDPR, SaaS through the use of technology and artificial intelligence to drive efficiencies within the business of law. Tracy has recently completed the Certified Information Privacy Manager, CIPM through the Privacy Pros Academy. Welcome, Tracy it's lovely to have you.

Thank you, Jamilla. And thank you, Jamal. I'm very happy to meet both of you this afternoon. Thank you for having me on this show.

So, as we always do on the Privacy Pros Academy podcast, we start off with an ice breaker question. And today's ice breaker, Tracy, if you had a chance to go to the Moon, would you?

I think yeah, no, I have never actually ever thought of being on the Moon, but I've dreamt of being in space, but just not the Moon.

So Tracy, what was happening at work that led you to want to do the Certified Information Privacy Manager, the CPIM? What was going on? What was your role prior to doing the course?

Nice. And why did you decide to do the CIPM with Privacy Pros Academy in particular? How did you find out? Because obviously you're in Kenya and we're based in Britain. How did you find out about the Privacy Pros academy?

Great question, Jamilla. So one thing that I planned for earlier in the year is that I approached my manager and I told him that I wanted to upskill in data protection and privacy. So he told me to go to IAPP and find out how the training is done, if they have any partners that train this program. So when I was searching on CIPM program, I also came across Jamal's LinkedIn I also came across the Privacy Pros Academy online. And that's when I reached out to Jamal and I said, look how I'm looking to be trained by a certified trainer in CIPM program, and I just don't know where to start from. So Jamal linked me up with Ananya, who took me through the Privacy Process program, how it's delivered and how it has really helped privacy professionals in the market to upskill and also just to gain that credibility in the market. So that's how I came across Privacy Pros.

Tracy, I just want to go back a little bit. So you've started this role with the big four. You've got a lot of responsibility, you’re managing lots of projects and overseeing things, and then you're coming at a consultant, which basically means you've got to really deliver. And you said what you were looking for was a deeper understanding, number one, so you can serve better in your role, and you also want more credibility. So those are the things you want. I'm curious, what are some of the frustrations or the pains that you are feeling from not having that deeper understanding and perhaps not being able to have that credibility in front of clients?

I think just the concepts being delivered in a very simple way, because when you go through the GDPR and also the DPA in Kenya, which is quite modelled on the GDPR, the terms are quite heavy. And even as a lawyer, if you're not a privacy practitioner, it's not really easy to break that down into simple, understandable concepts. So when I reached out to Privacy Pros, that was my main intention. I wanted this simplified to me in a language I could understand and apply it in my day to day work. So I was hoping to beta deliver the GAP assessment projects to my clients. When we roll out the GAP assessment to our clients, there are key controls that we use to achieve a privacy program or framework within a company. So for me to understand these key concepts and apply them on my day to day job was really easy after the CIPM training and just how to come up with the best questions to ask the clients to map out those risks that the organization faces on a day to day basis.

We’ll get into the results because I know, I shared it with my team that I got a message from Tracy all the way in Nairobi saying she's killing it. So we'll get on to that in a minute. The reason I'm asking these questions is because just like you reached out to me, I speak to so many privacy professionals on LinkedIn, on Facebook and other places we are engaging. They also have very similar problems. What you've just shared with me now is, look, we love what we do, we love data privacy, but sometimes it gets really overwhelming. And then, because I'm not really sure, I spent lots of hours looking into stuff and then I start questioning myself and all of that starts chipping away at my confidence. And then it starts eating into my free time. And then this work life balance that I'm supposed to have from this, all of a sudden it goes out the window because I'm always double checking, triple checking and making sure I've got everything right. Can you resonate with some of those feelings that I hear a lot?

Absolutely, Jamal. So, for instance, I would give you a scenario where somebody reaches out to you, they need advice with regards to a specific operation within their company. And when you read the law, it's one thing, it's more theoretical. But then applying the law and implementing that in a real life scenario to clients is absolutely different. So for me, that was a huge challenge in terms of how to relate these two aspects. The concept, the theory that you learn from the GDPR itself and how to now apply that in real life scenarios and give solutions to organizations that here, this is what I think you should do. For instance, if a client has already collected personal data from its customers before this law came into force, but now there's a new privacy law that says the nature of information you've collected from your customers is really sensitive. You need to obtain their consent. So in this kind of scenarios, then, how do you advise your clients? Those are some of the questions I've had to answer because you get that there are new privacy laws in the market, they're imposing these kind of obligations to companies. But then what happens to the information that was collected before this law came into force. So those have been some of the practical challenges I've had to address to my clients.

So prior to the training, when you were dealing with these kinds of challenges and the questions, how did you feel going about getting an answer to it?

I felt quite inadequate, to be honest, Jamal, because first of all, I didn't even understand now how do I get the best scenario in terms of responding to their business needs and also making sure that they stay compliant with the regulations coming from that space or from that position up to now, I feel like there's been significant improvement in terms of just how the Privacy Pros program made me understand the how of what the law is and how to apply that in a day to day basis.

So I just want to touch on that feeling, the pain, because it's the same what you're talking about now. Every single Privacy Pro can relate to that feeling of inadequacy. Sometimes we call it imposter syndrome or self doubt, but that's exactly what we're talking about here. And it's a big problem across the industry. A lot of people find that privacy, the privacy role although there are so many privacy pros out there, it can be a little bit lonely because you're often by yourself trying to solve a lot of challenges. So this feeling that you're struggling with before you join the program, how was that having an impact on other areas of your life?

So I think back then it would just be difficult because you find yourself really demoralized moving forward. You find yourself not believing in yourself. And also you find that sometimes you're questioning a lot your capabilities. So it's not really the best feeling, especially when you have to deliver on projects that are already ongoing. So for me, it really pushed me to go beyond my own comfort zone and explore what it is to be a privacy professional.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Tracy. And I really want to show gratitude, honestly, because what you're saying to me there, everyone has those problems and they tell me those individually, but the fact that you're sharing them is that so many people will be able to relate to you when they hear your story and get inspired by you as well. So just to summarize, you've got this role. You're working for a big for, a high pressure environment for high performance professionals. You're a great lawyer. You've now been tasked with operationalizing privacy. There's already ongoing projects and you're getting new projects all the time. And clients are coming up to you and asking demanding questions. They're expecting you to give them the answers. But here you are, you understand the law. But how to then translate that into finding pragmatic solutions for your clients in a way that they understand what you're saying without just regurgitating what the legal requirements are for something that you are struggling with. And that led to you questioning your abilities, feeling a bit demoralized and starting to have this feeling of inadequacy, which then becomes exhausting and starts impacting other areas. So then you started looking for a solution. You came across the Privacy Pros Academy because you spoke to your manager and he was very supportive and he said, yes, I want to help you. Go and find a solution. So you came across the Privacy Pros Academy. Did you look at other potential solutions without naming any names or did you just come straight to us?

Yes, I did. So I looked at several other providers in the market who are IAPP certified partners to provide the kind of training and also I just considered whether I should go straight to subscribe and do the examination, like apply for the CIPM exam and just book my slot in there and do the exam. But when I came across the Privacy Pros on LinkedIn, I saw that it was a network of other privacy professionals. And I believe that would really help me to share what I understand, to know where I am and to unlearn the things that I thought I knew. And especially also just to get this wealth of information from other individuals. That was a very good addition to just going to do the exam only I think it was the best choice I made, because post the CIPM, I'm still able to reach out to these privacy professionals, the cohort of privacy professionals that I met during the program has really helped me push forward in my career.

Awesome. And I'm sure Jamilla is going to ask you a little bit more about that. So you looked at other programs and then of course, you didn't have to take a program like to identify you can just book the exam and do it yourself. And a lot of people decide that, you know what, they're just going to read the book and learn how to pass the exam. Why was that not enough for you?

I think because coming from my previous background, what I have learned in university and what I actually applied in my actual life, professional life, were two worlds apart. So coming from that experience, I knew that joining a practical program would really put me at a very high level, gives me a chance of succeeding even way faster than just getting the accreditation only. So for me, in fact, to be honest with you, Jamal, it wasn't about getting the CIPM accreditation, but to know how to apply those skills in my day to day work. So even over and above CIPM, which I haven't even updated on my LinkedIn, I feel like going through this privacy program has really helped me to gain practical skills that I'm currently using in my job, which an exam would never have given me.

The other thing you could have done, Tracy, was signed up with someone else. I think there's 120 official training partners as part of IAPP. What compelled you to join the Privacy Pros Academy over anybody else. You said you've done your research and you're smart. I'm sure you've done your due diligence. What was it about us that stood out for you the most?

I think what I got from the market, the previous Privacy Pros mentors that you have trained, also, I got to understand the full spectrum of your program. It really details what you do, how you help your privacy pros clients to eventually kickstart their privacy career. And especially, I think I came to know about Tahir Chaudhury before I knew you because I saw his profile on LinkedIn, and he spoke about his background. And then I was like, okay, this Tahir guy has never even imagined that he would turn out to be such a cool guy, such a cool privacy pro. Reading just about his story and how he made it to being a manager, data protection manager in his current organization, was quite inspiring. So, for me, I really could relate to that. And I think for my research, I then made up my mind that this is the kind of academy that I was looking for.

All right, awesome. So then you took the leap of faith. You joined the academy, and you were welcome. Tell us more about your experience during the program.

Right, so the experience was quite insightful. The experience was really fantastic. One of the things that I love most from this program, as I have mentioned, was just meeting these other privacy pros professionals from across the world, like from UK, from the US. We had pros from Canada and also Africa. So those are really different privacy data protection regulations represented. And having to learn about how data protection is done in their countries and how they approach some of the key concepts that we're trying to distil to clients really was a good learning point for me. And then also during the program, Jamal has this quadrant, and Jamal, I'm just going to refer that back to you to explain it to us and what I picked from that. But it really helped me to identify where I was. It really helped me to align the things that I thought I knew and just to also be aware of where I was in terms of my privacy career.

Thanks for that, Tracy. So, yeah, so one of the first things I do whenever we start the live sessions or the live program or the live teaching part of the program, is I always start off with explaining the four different quadrants. And anytime in your life, you will find you are always going to be in one of these four quadrants. This is what I say is the kind of cycle of learning. So first you have unconscious incompetence. You don't even know that that you don't even know about something. Then somebody talks to you, or you come across something, and you're like, oh, what's that? I didn't even know about that. So you're now consciously incompetent, so you know that you don't know about it. The next stage from there is to then become consciously competent, which means that you've learned how to do these things. You will make some mistakes. You will still remember that you have to think about it, but you are consciously competent. And the final stage is where we get to unconscious competence, which means you can pretty much do this thing in your sleep and whatever stage you are in, anything on your career you will find you’re in one of those stages. First we start doing privacy. We learn about the principles. And then one day somebody comes along and mentions something new, maybe something to do with facial recognition and artificial intelligence. And you’re like, hang on a minute, I have no idea what that's all about. And you go through all of these four stages and when you are consciously incompetent and when you're consciously competent during that stage, it's a little bit outside your comfort zone. So you have to challenge it because that's the only way you can go up to mastery, which is the unconscious competence. And it's a little bit like when you learn how to drive a car just to make people understand the concept we’re talking about. First you go, you think, okay, I need to learn how to drive a car. I don't even know how to drive a car. Right, so you've got this conscious incompetence that, yes, you don't know how to drive a car. You need to go and learn that. So then you book some driving lessons. Maybe you get someone to teach you and you have to shift the gear and have to think, oh, I need to get the biking point before I change or I'm going to stall. And you're driving around, maybe you just even got your license and you still have to think about indicating, just thinking about when you need to change gear. And maybe you need complete silence. You need it to be quiet for you to be able to do that. But over time, what happens is you get so used to doing this, you become an expert and you can do it pretty much without having to think about it. You can have a conversation with somebody. You can have a sandwich. I've seen people applying makeup, which basically means now you've gone to a stage of unconscious competence. So that's the quadrant. And what you find privacy pros coming to any of our programs find is they will be at different stages. Sometimes they're not even aware that they don't know about certain things. And this is the biggest problem with trying to do self-study for these complex methods, is you won't even know what you don't even know because it's completely unconscious to you. It's only when you go and learn from other people, you get a mentor of experts in the field that you understand? Oh, yeah, I had no idea about that, or I had a misconception about that. I got the clarity I needed. And when people come to the program, sometimes they will come and be like, wow, this is fantastic. I was feeling super confident before I joined, but now I'm not feeling as confident in certain areas because you just showed me there's so much that I don't know about and I need to learn about them. And people get really excited because now we've highlighted the gaps, which means when they go and fill those gaps, they can be a more holistic and a much better private professional. Other times, people come in, they're feeling a little bit low, feeling a little bit unconfident, questioning themselves, and they come on the program and they discover new things. And sometimes they discover, I actually do know all this stuff already. I know a lot of this already. There's a little bit something to add on and that's going to help me to go towards mastery. And they come in and leave feeling super confident. So I'm going to ask you the question, when you join the program, before you joined the program, how confident are you feeling and how confident you are feel now that you've graduated from the program and you've been implementing all of the lessons?

We used to use the ten out of ten. So when I joined, I was at 4.5. By the time I was completing the program, I was at 7.8. It really got me up there and I had a lot of confidence. And I remember there is a lot of business development I was doing at that time in the market that just boosted me and there was lots of clients who are listening and plugging me into those conversations. How can you help us here? How can you help us in this area? And that's when it hits me that, yes, I had attained what I went to look for in this program.

So, Jamilal, I've been talking a lot.

I wanted to ask a question for you Jamal. I know that when you decide to take someone on to the Privacy Pros academy, there are certain criteria that you look for. You want to make sure it's the right fit. What was it about, Tracy, where you thought, yes, this is someone that could be really great as a privacy pro?

We are very selective with who we allow into our academy. It's not just as a website. Go and put your credit card in, then you can join. You have to go through an application process. The reason for that is we actually have a community. This Privacy Pros, it's not just, hey, come and do a training for a couple of days and then get on with your life. We're all working towards building a world where every man, every woman and every child will enjoy freedom over their personal information. And the only way we're going to do that is by empowering every organization on the planet to adopt honest privacy practices. To achieve that, we must have a community of privacy professionals that we upskill to become world class professionals that have integrity, that have sincerity, that actually want to go out and serve and thinking more about the world and just beyond themselves. And those are the people that we attract to the community, the people who want to give stuff back. So that's what we look for is those qualities that, yes, they're eager. They want to serve because they want to make an impact. They want to make a difference. They want to leave a legacy. That's the kind of individuals we look for. Some people will just come and say, hey, how much is the program? I just want to know the price. And then we say, okay, let's have a conversation. Where are you? What are the challenges like? No, no, I just want to get 20 grand more. Why? Oh, I just want the money for myself. A very selfish reason. So that's not the kind of fit that we have in the community. The community is, yes, we want everyone that works that becomes part of community to be highly rewarded. And if you listen to some of the people in the program, you see coming through the program, they've had increases in salaries. They've been able to buy properties. They're having an amazing lifestyle. We love all of that for our community, but we also want it to be beyond just what we can get, and it should be about what can we give as a community and having such a massive impact. When Ananya told me about Tracy, from the conversation she was having, you could see the passion, and you could see, here is somebody who is actually willing to sacrifice their time, sacrifice their energy, go and speak to her boss and say, hey, I've got some shortcomings, and I want to be a much better person because I want to serve my clients better. And when she serves her clients better, guess what happens? She actually serves the whole of the nation with her. And it's not just a nation. She works for multinational companies as well. So she's having an impact on the world by working on all of these projects. And those are the kind of individuals that we want that say, hey, I want to be the best I can. I recognize that I'm not there yet. And you have proven that you can help individuals elevate their level of professionalism, and I want to be part of that, and I want to contribute to the community. And that's what it's about. It's about making sure they’re a great fit for the community and have the right mindset.

And, Tracy, that was something that drew you to the academy, the community. Have you found a lot of use from the Privacy Pros community?

Yes, Jamilla. There is a lot of discussions that happen in our group chats and I've learnt quite a lot. Sometimes you even get to be challenged as a privacy professional by some of the questions our privacy professional members are able to ask and we're able to share ideas, you learn that you didn't know something actually existed. So it's like a day to day learning. There's always something new out there in the market every day. And the thing I love about privacy and the Privacy Pros community is that you get to learn that data protection and privacy is an ever-evolving thing, it's an ever evolving concept. So you need to always challenge yourself to get more upskill, to get more knowledge in the market and also where there's no knowledge, to brainstorm with your colleagues or privacy pro members on what are the possible answers or what are the possible solutions we could offer in the market. And I think for me that's really something that's a good takeaway home because you get to continuously learn from your colleagues and also to share your knowledge with them. That's great.

That's amazing. Thank you. So we've spoken a lot about kind of what you were doing before the academy, what you're doing during, so post academy what is the biggest difference that you have seen in yourself?

I think the biggest would be in the way I'm currently dealing with client projects. The turnaround is a bit faster. So I'd say that the way I have previously delivered my gap assessment is not the same. Also, I would say the way I used to conduct my trainings and awareness has really improved. It's more knowledge rich and practical to my clients. And lastly, I think in terms of also just upskilling myself professionally, I think it's put me in a very good place in my career. The main difference between the Tracy you met during the training and the Tracy that you're speaking to right now is that I have gained a lot of confidence professionally as a professional. I could walk into a room very confidently. And I say this because previously I could deliver most of my trainings with other colleagues together who are leads on the trainings. But now I can lead the project, I can lead the training and for me that's a very great step forward in my career because it's given me confidence, it's given me the comfort that I have made so much progress compared to the person I was two or three months ago. It's also really helped me in just the way I provide solutions with regard to data protection and privacy to our clients in the market. So that's also a really good thing for me. And obviously the one thing that I have left out is that so many other people have reached out to me, especially people who know me on LinkedIn and also people I have no clue I was friends with on LinkedIn or I had connected with on LinkedIn, people from New York, people from Nigeria, people from Nairobi. And they were reaching out to me to ask about my experience in Privacy Pros, and what is the worth in getting accredited as a Certified Information Privacy manager in terms of does it really get you up there, whether it's financially in your career or whether it changes you in terms of upskilling? So I've had a lot of sessions where I just said, okay, let's have a chat. Let's have a virtual team call, and I would tell you about Privacy Pros, I would tell you about my transition, and I also tell you about my story about getting the CIPM certification. So it's not the same person. And I think much of that has had to do with the last two months in my life.

That is super inspiring. You came into the program; you worked so hard through the program. You asked some great questions, and you got the transformation, you built up the confidence, you got the clarity that you were seeking, and then you started applying it.

So many other professionals, especially lawyers here in the market, are asking me, how has been your privacy journey, and what do I need to become a good privacy professional or a great privacy professional? So this is why I told them you need to join Jamal's Privacy Pros Academy, because, first of all, you benefit from a wealth of other cohort members. You will learn so much. You'll share ideas, and also you'll get to explore your competencies and Privacy Pros and build on that. And then the other thing is that I would also tell them the reason why you should join Privacy Pros. They will help you prepare for your CIPM, and not just to pass the exam, but to go beyond the exam and operationalize the concept you've learned in the CIPM program. And then lastly, I would advise them to join Privacy Pros Academy because Jamal is a great guy. He's fun. He really makes everything just so easy. So I don't know why you should seek for another trainer. Go to Jamal.

All right, thank you, Tracy I’m very grateful. Just for the record, no brown envelopes have been exchanged between myself and Tracy.

No, honestly, no.

Right. Thank you so much, Tracy. You've been so insightful, and I think anyone that's listening who's considering joining the Privacy Pros Academy, I think your words will have made up their minds for them, as we always do on the Privacy Pros Academy podcast. We like to end by asking the guest if you have a question for Jamal so you can ask him anything, whether it's personal, whether it's work related. Most people usually choose work related, fortunately or unfortunately. But there you go. The floor is yours.

Wow. I had two questions, but now I just have to ask one.

You can ask me both.

Right. The first one is, Jamal, what keeps you grounded in terms of going each day in privacy, how to inspire others. What really keeps you grounded? Who inspires you?

What keeps me grounded is this vision that I have where my baby daughter will grow up in a world, where she will have complete freedom over her information. And one of the things that I've been told by one of my mentors is what you love for yourself, you must love for others. So if I love that for my daughter, then why should I not love that for every single person's child and every single woman and every single man and every single person on this earth? And when you look at that and you go to for example, two years ago I went on pilgrimage to Mecca. And when you go there, you’re all wearing the same clothes, just a white rag and it reminds you of how close you are to death. And you just realize that you're completely insignificant. Like who you are is completely insignificant in terms of just hundreds of thousands of people and you're just one white dot moving around with everyone else. And the only thing that's going to make a difference is how you show up and serve the people. So that's what inspires me. How can I make sure that this white dot, I'm this dot amongst all the others, how can I really show up and serve? And how can I have a great impact on the globe? And I found privacy and the Privacy Pros Academy is actually going to help me do that. And it's actually when people like, you message me about your story and how it has such a profound impact on where you were and where you got to after the program. That's what inspires me. People like you Tracy, people like Tahir. People who have gone from having unease in their life to where it was sometimes a bit miserable just thinking about work because oh my gosh, I have to go and do that again, to now where they're like, I just need 4 hours sleep and I can go on to some clients. Because that's how passionate you are, that's how confident you are and that's how much of an impact you also want to go and have on the world as well.

Absolutely.

It’s you and Tahir and every single person in the Academy, you guys are my real inspiration because I can see the difference it's making and then I see the kind of work you guys are going and doing and there's other people you're inspiring. Yes, not every single person is going to come from the Academy, but that's not what it's about. It's about inspiring people. And when you guys allow people to see the light and say, hey, instead of fitting in, let's all go out and be outstanding, that is me making sure that I'm guiding people to be their best selves. And that's what I love most.

Wonderful. Thanks a lot Jamal, for that answer. So I'll quickly just ask the last question. How do you find physical sports? Have you tried, have you explored physical activities?

I still hold the 400 meters record in my high school.

You do?

I'll send this in the group. Actually, I have stack of trophies from my footballing days. Then I hurt my knee and since then I've been a bit pudgy. And in terms of sport, the only sport I play right now is badminton.

You know what every man I know says I could have been a professional football player, but I had a knee injury.

I didn’t have the talent to be a professional footballer. I was destined for better things, privacy.

Why did you ask about sports? Are you hinting that I need to go and focus on my sports a bit more?

No, absolutely not. The reason why I asked that is.

You’re right because I have been eating takeaways for the last 18 months, because my house has been refurbished and I had so many problems with my kitchen and yeah, I'll talk about that story another time.

No, I was saying that because I'm an avid follower of you. I think I must have come across something where you said you're not so much into sports at the moment, and even if you were to do something like, say, read a book on sports, you would need a professional trainer to get you going into that. So like the way I'm so interested in data protection and privacy, I came to you because you're the pro. I was just wondering, have you explored this kind of professional?

No I haven’t looked at sports professionally, but if I was to, then I would go and find the best mentor. I’d probably find somebody who has retired from doing what they did but they were the best at it. This is the thing. One of the things is, when it comes to investing in my development, I don't think twice. Just this year alone you could say I've spent about $60,000 on professional mentoring. And that's on different areas of my life. Not just privacy, but communication, how to serve people better, how to build better products to engage people. Because here's the thing. When you go into business or when you go into anything, and if you're just looking at, hey, what can I get? Then you're going to end up with the same program that all other official training partners do, which is, hey, buy this program. Come for two days, someone will read, slides out to you, and then you're left to fend for yourself. That's when they're looking at how many of these courses can we sell. The way we look at it the way or the way I look at it is, how can I serve better? How can I help people to become super world class professionals? And that's why we have this unique program that you find nowhere else. Nobody else gives you the community, nobody else gives you all of those useful resources that I spend evenings and months going over. The Easy Peasy guides, the case summaries, the enforcement actions in a way where you can go and share that story with your clients. The reason I make it so easy peasy is for you to get credibility, people need to buy into what you're talking about. Facts tell, stories tell. So by summarizing all of these things, you can now go and say, hey, guess what? I know the story about what happened when Google got fined, blah, blah, blah happened, and this happened. And what we should learn from that is XYZ rather than the law says you have to do XYZ, and if you don't do it, you're going to get a fine. We are trying to get people to buy in so they can adopt those honest privacy practices so then we can have an impact on the globe. Right? So when you look at the question of how can I serve better rather than what can I get? You start getting some of the results that you see us getting as an academy. I'm super proud of what we're achieving as a team. And, I mean, on the podcast, you hear me and Jamilla, on LinkedIn you probably see me posting. A lot of my team is always in the background, but it's not just me, and it's not me. I mean, I'm probably the most insignificant part of it. I just do what I'm told to do. But those ideas are not developed by me alone, it’s people Jamila, people like Mahmoudat, people like Ananya, Aditi, Aman, Hassan, Yaseen every single person on my team plays a part. I get the pleasure of getting all the credit because you just see me delivering it. All of those things come together as a team. It's very unfair for me not to give credit to the team every opportunity I get. So, Tracy, thank you for reminding me. And it goes back to reminding myself. It's a humbling experience when you go and you see that you're insignificant. The only way to make sure that your existence means something is to go and serve as many people as you can.

Thank you.

Great. We've had such a profound chat. We found out so much about Tracy's experience in the academy. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Tracy, thank you so much for joining.

I was going to say our last two podcasts have ended up on very philosophical notes I want to hear. Tracy, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listener? What's your message that you want to share with the world?

My message is, as privacy professionals, wherever it is or at whatever stage that you might be at the moment, you might be going through a lot of challenges at work trying to explain to clients, trying to simplify those concepts in different regulations across the world and privacy laws. Please feel free to reach out to the Privacy Pros Academy. There is a really good community here. There's a really good trainer, Jamal and his team that do a really good job ensuring that you gain that confidence that you require. I hope to see you soon as one of the members of the Privacy Pros Academy, thank you.

It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Tracy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Jamilla. And thanks a lot, Jamal, for hosting me. It's been a great pleasure and happy to do this one more time again.

Awesome, Tracy. We'll bring you on a webinar. Let's do it live next time.

Wow. Awesome. Yeah.

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