Leading Through Extraordinary Circumstances with Yusra Mardini

 

Meet Yusra Mardini

When the Syrian civil war broke out, Yusra Mardini and her sister fled. And when the boat she was on started to sink, she pushed it forward for three hours until she and the rest of the passengers got to safety. Eventually finding refuge in Germany, Yusra reignited her passion for swimming, and in the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was the proud flagbearer of the newly formed Olympic Refugee Team.   

In this episode, host Gautam Mukunda speaks with Yusra Mardini, former Olympic swimmer, activist and founder of the Yusra Mardini Foundation, about how she gets through trying times, how she leads for others and how the work she is doing to ensure her organizations are built to last.  

  

Time stamps

2:40 “I did not want to be on this team because of my story. I didn’t want people to think I didn’t deserve to be at the Olympics.” 

5:20 “I do believe that I have a responsibility to change the narrative and change the perception of what a refugee is.” 

9:40 “I think leadership tests you everyday, you have so many challenges along the way that test your abilities to lead.” 

13:45 “I want the foundation to function with or without me.” 

 

Resources Referenced

Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World 

 

Transcript

Gautam Mukunda (00:00):

When leaders don't have a foundation to build on, they create it within themselves.

Yusra Mardini (00:05):
There is no native country in the world. We all can by choice change the country that we live in.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda, a leadership podcast for a changing world, an original podcast from Nasdaq.

Yusra Mardini (00:26):
My life changed in literally one night. I woke up and then a war started out of nowhere.

Gautam Mukunda (00:33):
Most leaders get to guide their teams from a place of safety and stability.

Yusra Mardini (00:38):
I was very young. I was 13 years old. I felt like I was very far away from my dreams and I had to grow up when I was 13, 14.

Gautam Mukunda (00:48):
Yusra Mardini didn't have that privilege.

Yusra Mardini (00:51):

So I learned how to help my family. I learned that when there is a bomb attack, I had to run. When there is something I had to help others to get to shelters. And then we had the journey that taught me that everything can change in one day. So if something bad happens, it's not really worth for me to sit down and think about it for the next week. It's like, "Hey, can I fix it? Can I do something about it?" "Okay, then let's do it." "Can I not do anything about it? Is it almost impossible to do anything about it?" "Okay, let me put it on the side for another week and then come back. Maybe I'll have new ideas." So in general, why am I always positive and thinking about the next steps is because everything can change. Yes, we have this comfort of us having our houses and everything, but for me, I always think, "When I come back home, do I have food on the table?" Yes I do. "Do I have a shelter?" Yes, I do. "Are there millions of people out there trying to get that and trying to just be safe, to shelter their kids, to shelter their wives, their families?" Yes. So I am in a very privileged position and I can help and I can do better.

Gautam Mukunda (02:06):

When the boat they were using to flee the war in Syria started to sink in the middle of the Aegean Sea, Yusra, her sister and two others jumped into the water. Together, they pushed and pulled the craft and the 14 other refugees on board for over three hours until they arrived safely on shore. Yusra went on to settle in Germany, and less than a year later, she would be swimming again at the Olympics in Brazil as one of 10 athletes selected to represent the newly formed refugee team in the 2016 games.

Yusra Mardini (02:38):

I think one thing that I was thinking about since I was very, very young is competing at the Olympic Games. And after everything that happened, I thought of myself always as someone who's unique and different, and I believe that unique is different since I was young. So that helped me. When I got to Germany, the only thing I was thinking about was swimming for some reason, and it was the only thing I know. When I reached to Germany, I didn't know how to speak the language. I didn't know anyone. I had to build my life basically from zero again. So when I got to the pool again, I think it gave me hope to continue and it gave me this motivation to basically think about something that wasn't war, that wasn't tragedy, that wasn't violence, and that was basically the smallest, yet [00:03:30] the biggest dream of mine. So that's kind of how I continue to be honest.

Gautam Mukunda (03:36):

So you arrive in Germany and you become part of the Olympics and they create this, they call the refugee team for the Olympics. So that's different from every other team because of course people, they're not from the same country, they haven't trained together.How did you think about creating this team from scratch under these extraordinary circumstances?

Yusra Mardini (03:58):

I absolutely was terrified because I did not want to be in this team because of my story. I didn't want people to think that I did not deserve to be at the Olympics, that my story basically put me in that position. I wanted to earn my spot. It was really weird for me as I was still a teenager as well. So just being okay with the word refugee was a whole fight for me. So imagine becoming a part of the first ever Refugee Olympic team, but slowly I realized that it's about sports. It's not about where I come from or what happened to me in the past. It's about sports and it's about the dedication and the hard work that I've put years not only me, but my family and everyone else around me. So yeah, I took that idea not very well, and I slowly accepted it. But then when I went to the Olympic Games with the team and I met them, it was really inspiring because they were so positive and they were so positive about their stories, about everything they're doing, about their dreams. And then when we walked into the stadium for the first time with this team at the opening ceremony, everything changed for me. I realized that I'm representing something way bigger than just my dream. I'm representing many nations, many people, many young people around the world that maybe if they see me make it, they will think they can too. And that is the most important thing for me now.

Gautam Mukunda (05:32):
Yusra retired from swimming earlier this year to launch the Yusra Mardini Foundation aimed at advancing access to sports and education for refugee communities around the world.But in addition to being an Olympic athlete and the youngest Goodwill ambassador the UN has ever appointed to the refugee agency, Yusra is also currently studying filmmaking at UCLA with plans to become a documentarian and laying the groundwork to become CEO of her own fashion line. And there was a Netflix movie made about her life last year. Building a CV that diverse may sound daunting, but as David Epstein wrote in his book range, developing a multifaceted skillset that's built for adaptability can be the key to success in any and maybe all of these endeavors. Let's look for example, at golfers versus tennis players. Golfers play against a static course. It doesn't change. They don't have to adapt what they're doing to a dynamic opponent. That's why Tiger Woods who started playing at age two excelled. But tennis players on the other hand, need to adapt constantly. And Roger Federer, who started out as a soccer player before specializing in tennis is one of that sports all-time grades. Generalists are often more adaptable and innovative than specialists. And because of that, over the long-term, they can [00:07:00] end up outperforming their pigeonholed counterparts. But of course, when we are talking about a generalist concept of themselves that can get complicated. How does someone with that amount of versatility view herself and her place in the world?

Yusra Mardini (07:17):

I do believe that I have a responsibility to change the narrative and change the perspective of what the perception of what a refugee is. Because a lot of people have this wrong idea of, "Oh, refugees come to Europe or to United States or to the UK because they want to steal our jobs and they want to have this luxurious life," which is completely wrong. We leave our countries because of violence, because of war, because when a parent leave the country, they're thinking about their child. They're thinking about themselves being safe, building a better future. And I always say there is no native country in the world. We all can by choice change the country that we live in, whether we are looking for a better opportunity for a job or in any way, no matter what we are looking for in life, sometimes we just decide to move to another country and that's totally fine. Why do we have to make it so hard for refugees that actually have a really strong reason to leave their countries and to search for safety somewhere else? Especially the United States, there are so many refugees there and so many cultures there, and that is what makes it beautiful. So I think refugees should be supported, should be given the opportunity to find a job, to learn the language, and to become a part of the community so they can thrive and they can help build the United States or any other country they're in.

Gautam Mukunda (08:44):
So when most of the leaders we interview, right, most leaders we speak to, they have a home base. Sometimes that home base is a company. It's an institution that settles the entire world. You had to build yourself into a leader without that kind of advantage, without those resources, without sometimes even without a place you could return to. What's it like to lead when the resources you can draw on are almost entirely internal, right? You can't ask your deputy to cover for you. You're saying, "I'm going to be a leader and it's up to me just what I can bring to the table and nothing else."

Yusra Mardini (09:14):

Honestly, it's not an easy position, of course, but in general, it's about who you are and it's about what do you want to achieve in life. And for me, I have my few trusted people around me, and becoming a leader or being a leader is not easy. Some people say, "Oh, take the first step and it's going to become easier the more you move forward," which is not true in my opinion. I think leadership tests you every day. You have so many challenges along the way that test your abilities to lead, that test your abilities to say, "Okay, I made a mistake. Let me try and change something." What makes a leader unique is being sometimes just a normal human being, even though they have to have the strength to lead, of course. So in general, for me, honestly, as example, I never thought of it like, "Okay, today I wake up and I want to lead as the voice of refugees. I don't think of it that way. I think of it, "Okay, I have a message. I have a really strong voice and I have the opportunity. I was blessed and yet to be giving the opportunity to represent millions around the world. So why not?" And even if I don't have a base, as you said, I am myself as base, if that makes sense. My body, my mind, the people around me, my narrative of what a home is as well changed. It is where I am happy and it's not about the place I'm in.

Gautam Mukunda (10:44):

We generally think of our bodies as having one nervous system, but we really have two. Our sympathetic nervous system kicks on in the presence of excitement, danger, or anything else that requires us to move fast and make quick decisions. Our parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, helps us relax and calm down so that we can do other important things like digest and sleep. The sympathetic system is designed to be triggered in the case of potentially traumatic events and to anticipate those conditions in the future. If we're surprised by a snake while we're out on a walk, for example, our bodies will learn instinctively to react even faster the next time we hear rustling in the grass. And while learning to anticipate danger like this can be damaging in the face of especially large or repeated trauma, it can also make us quicker, safer and more resilient. This is true in the case of small events, but also sometimes in major ones. Psychologists call this post- traumatic growth and its existence shows were built not just to suffer from awful experiences, but also potentially to grow from them. This is not to say that what happened to Yusra and millions of others like her isn't a dire and ongoing global catastrophe. It is. The refugee crisis has no silver lining. That's why when a leader emerges from that crisis with such a clear sense of purpose of who they are and of what they need to do, it's all the more remarkable.

Yusra Mardini (12:16):

One thing that really, really helps is that I've been authentic since day one. I told the story as it is. Everyone knows the story. The film came out about my life and my sister's life where you can see the whole story and people can relate to that. When I go to camps as example, I meet the refugees, and when I tell them my story, they feel like they can. They say, "Oh, she was also in the camp. She went through the same journey. She could do it so I can do it too."That gives me really a lot of motivation. And because I was in one of those camps, I know what it feels like to be trapped in a camp and not be able to just have a normal life. I mean, they're just trying to survive day by day, escaping the traumas that they went through, trying to live in a camp where when it's cold, they're freezing. When it's warm, there is no electricity even in a camp. So in general, of course, it gives me insights and I think it is exactly the right push for me as well to do what's needed and to reach out to companies and CEOs and people around the world that can really, really make a change as well. So yeah, of course, my experience really affects that a lot.

Gautam Mukunda (13:30):

So to make the foundation have all the impact that you want it to, I think you'll have to think very deliberately about building a brand and identity for the NGO and for yourself, right? As the face and the leader of it. How do you think about that?

Yusra Mardini (13:43):

To be very honest with you, I want the foundation to function with or without me. It does not matter. I gave my name to the foundation because I knew that people would trust me, but I want the foundation to function and to help people, even if I'm not on earth anymore I created this foundation because I really, really believe in the power of change, and I believe that really a lot of people around the world want to help. So I want the foundation to be working whether I'm here or not. So of course, whenever I'm needed, I'm going to be there. I want to use my image and want to use every strength I have to try and give this foundation and the people and the refugees, whatever is needed.

Gautam Mukunda (14:30):

How we see ourselves matters. The idea we carry around in our heads of who we are affects how we move through the world, how we relate to people, and how we lead our teams. But our identity can also be tricky to define once we really try to pin it down. Most psychologists now agree that the idea of a consistent personality is something of a myth, and that most of the time it's the situation that determines how we're going to react, not something within ourselves that stays static day in and day out. As leaders thought, our teams need to be able to rely on us, and that means we need to establish some level of consistency. We need to build an identity people can count on whether we're here at the pool, or in the editing booth, or in a refugee camp, or sitting next to the runway at Fashion Week. We don't need our leaders to be exactly the same every time we see them, but we need to know that no matter what, they're going to stand up for us, they're going to advocate for us, and they're going to work to leave the world a better place than they found it. And if you can build that kind of identity, an identity that is shaped, but not defined by the things that have happened to you, that stands for helping people not only survive but thrive. That's the kind of identity that lives on long after the leader who embodied it is gone.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda, a leadership podcast for a changing world, an original podcast from Nasdaq.