What does it take for someone who has won the corner office to walk away from it all, move to Hawaii, re-invent themselves, and launch a podcast that celebrates leaders' life stories in the technology space?

In this inspiring #NomadFuturist podcast, technologist and futurist Nabeel Mahmood speaks with co-host Phillip Koblence about the physical and emotional journey that took him from the athletic fields to the halls of corporate America and to the incredible four minutes and nineteen seconds that made him change his life forever, replacing the pursuit of money with the pursuit of happiness. 

Nabeel discusses the pressure to conform in corporate America, how that impacted him, and how it caused him to lose touch with his authentic voice.

“When I was a young man, I used to have a voice. I could think of something that was totally against conventional thinking, I would chase it and accomplish it, and it would turn out well! But as I entered corporate life, I started losing that voice. I started becoming a follower even though I was in a leadership capacity.”

Nabeel is a transformational leader who explicitly allows his followers and associates to drive change. With the NomadFuturist initiative, Nabeel’s goal is to raise his followers, associates, and partners' consciousness while putting aside their self-interests to achieve great things for others.  Nabeel’s philosophy “Live life as if there is no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes to live again. Do things that you like. If your work and your hobby are the same, you will work long hours because you are motivated.”  He feels fortunate to have had a wide-ranging career fueled by a passion for technology. 

“I had the opportunity to touch pretty much every element within information technology whether it be the software layer, the application layer, the physical layer or the design build layer.”

Nabeel and Phil also look back on the first 23 episodes of Nomad Futurist and call out some of the common characteristics they’ve seen among the speakers. Many have been autodidacts and more importantly, according to Phil, “A common thread is that they do not fear re-inventing themselves.”

As a man who has also re-invented himself, Nabeel encourages us to follow our passion, sharing advice his father gave him:  

 “If you don’t risk anything, you risk everything!” 

Nabeel Mahmood is passionate about the power of technology to deliver competitive and transformational change and the need to develop digital leadership that will create the enterprise of the future. He identifies opportunities based on emerging technologies and is an advisor to CIOs and CEOs across a number of industries. He serves on multiple boards of private and publicly traded companies globally.