What does it really mean to think like a product person? In this episode of If U Seek, we talk to Eleni Lialiamou about how product thinking can shift how teams work, how ideas get executed, and how people grow.
With a career that spans startups, global organizations, and her own venture Kimolian Academy, Eleni brings a grounded perspective to product leadership. We talk about the value of asking better questions, choosing the right tools, and building confidence in environments that often reward certainty over curiosity. This episode also touches on how AI is changing access to knowledge and how Kimolian Academy is helping more women build careers in product and entrepreneurship.
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Preview
In this episode:
- Product thinking isn’t a role, it’s how you show up and make decisions.
- Why curiosity, not certainty, is what keeps teams moving forward.
- A product leader’s take on tools, AI, and the small shifts that unlock creative thinking.
- What Eleni learned building teams, coaching women, and leading through change.
- The difference between having an idea and making something people use.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Eleni: Whereas if you have all the tools, all the algorithms, all the capabilities, but you can’t be there in a moment and really listen and follow the person you are interviewing or observing and tune into their world for half an hour, guess what happens? You just sit there for half an hour but if you weren’t there. Somebody was talking to you, but you were not actually listening.
[00:00:24] Eleni: So no matter what they do, no matter what their behaviors are, no matter what they’re struggling with, you’ve come and left, but nothing changed.
[00:00:36] Nikol: What we seek shapes, what we build, this is If U Seek by Useberry. Hello everybody. This is Nikol Fotaki. Welcome back to If U Seek. Today we’re joined with Eleni Lialiamou, founder of Kimon Academy.
[00:00:51] Nikol: Eleni has built something truly meaningful, not just a place to level up skills, but a space for transformation. Her approach to product [00:01:00] education is rooted in timeless wisdom. The idea that learning should spark curiosity, not just with. What makes her work stand out is how she’s turned her own experience in product management, into a platform for helping others grow in mindset, not just in capability.
[00:01:18] Nikol: In today’s conversation, we’ll explore the power of mindset, how the right tools can unlock new ways of thinking, and what it takes to move from idea to impact. Eleni, welcome. It’s great to have you here.
[00:01:33] Eleni: Thank you, Nikol. And thank you for having me today. It’s an absolute honor to be part of the podcast, and I’m looking forward to a discussion.
[00:01:44] Nikol: Let’s start with something foundational to your work, the mindset behind product thinking. You talk a lot about the product mindset. What does that actually mean to you? Beyond job titles or roles? What [00:02:00] shifts when someone starts thinking like a product person, even if they’re not officially in product?
[00:02:07] Eleni: Yeah, I think it’s a great question. And, to be very honest, it is not just a mindset that, as you said, fits under a role or under even building products in tech or startups. I think it is truly a mindset of approaching the world, and you can probably see that characteristic in a lot of people that kind of find their way into this career and what characteristics they share.
[00:02:36] Eleni: Fundamentally, you know, underpinning that role is curiosity, and not just, you know, being naughty or trying to intervene or interfere, but truly observing the world. So one of the things that I believe as a product person, having that mindset. What you do is you observe the world, you observe how people behave, you observe [00:03:00] where they’re getting stuck.
[00:03:01] Eleni: You know what is easy for them, how things make them feel. And then you start really, tapping into the world of possibility, and that’s the next important characteristic. Some people call you a problem solver. For me, more than anything, it is about imagining new possibilities of thinking of different ways that things could get done from the simplest of things, which could be in a very, very easy way thinking, oh, how might we check out an e-commerce load to think that are probably revolutionary, right?
[00:03:31] Eleni: Not because they’re complicated, but because of the way we just fit them in. To the context, the situation to what people are doing, to what they were used to, right? And we’re actually creating a new reality for them. So when you think of that element is, you know, you are always looking for possibilities and technology fundamentally is giving you those tools to challenge how things are done and to reimagine new ways of getting those things done.
[00:04:00] Eleni: And I think the final and most important characteristic in this product mindset is that you appreciate the value of other people, not only as the users, right, who you’re serving, but more importantly the other people in your team, because you acknowledge that not a single, great idea comes from one person, right?
[00:04:21] Eleni: It is that possibility of bringing all these great brains together and fostering, you know, very powerful ideas. And that for me is, let’s say the three Ps that I think underpin product mindset.
[00:04:36] Nikol: Yeah. That shift feels like it opens up different way of seeing problems, less about execution, more about intent.
[00:04:46] Eleni:Yeah. And I think to be fair, I often say ideas are cheap. You know, we all have great ideas, but actually, um, when you do progress in your career, right, and as you go through the trenches, building things right and bringing them to life.
[00:05:00] I think you realize the importance of execution, and it doesn’t mean that every single person right will have, all of these qualities at the staying, let’s say balanced level, but ultimately the ability to execute, the ability to motivate a team, the ability to align a team.
[00:05:18] Eleni: To deliver an outcome, is fundamentally, you know, something that makes something from a concept to a new reality. Um, and of course we will talk about tools and the role of generative AI tools and how these things might be making certain things easier or more approachable. But I do fundamentally believe that your ability to execute and align, even a smaller team, is really what makes the difference.
[00:05:47] Nikol: Yeah, and, and that ties into how careers are changing too. Not everyone follows a linear path anymore. Careers today seem less about fixed ladders and more about adaptability.
[00:06:00] What mindset do you think helps people not just survive change, but grow through it? Is there a story that shaped how you see this?
[00:06:10] Eleni: I have to say through the work we’ve been doing at the academy, and I assume Nikol, we’ve collaborated and he’s seen some of those stories yourself. Through engaging with some of our students, it is truly inspiring to see the path they followed. And I have to say, for me, it’s also humbling and at times reminds me, you know, of what it truly takes to.
[00:06:31] Eleni: Persevere and persist. Right? And, be inspired by others. So women that have had some health challenges to accidents that have to drop their careers, families, rights, four children, big career breaks, women that had to, forced out of their country or had to leave to educate themselves. Um, challenges. In terms of mental health or, or simply, you know, being different in ways that probably constrain their options and what they could be doing.
[00:07:01] Eleni: It is incredible, I mean, I had a lady from Nigeria older than me who, came from Nigeria and you won’t believe the amount of courses, she was taking. She reskilled herself in the digital space. So she took my course, she did all of the Google certification. I just could not believe it. The capacity she had, the determination, the tenacity to do this outta her, you know, early fifties to reskill herself entirely.
[00:07:33] Eleni: and frankly speaking, every one of these women in the academy is a reminder that, you know, career is not only that, it’s not linear, right? But. We probably will have many careers. And I think through every job or every career, step we take, you know, what really comes through is who we are and how we are evolving.
[00:07:56] Eleni: And you can see that in those moments, the qualities they have, their innate challenge, their experiences overall from previous roles, from previous journeys, right? And how they’re tapping into those and bringing them. Into a completely different world. I’ve, I’ve had women who, uh, a lady who does skincare and, and now she’s completed UX/UI design course, product management course, UX research courses, and she’s now actually teaching other women how to use AI tools to prototype and how to, load their prototypes into Figma, fundamentally different careers.
[00:08:34] Eleni: But what does it take? I think it also takes people who believe in you. It takes to be part of a community where you see other people, dealing, you know, with the challenge of change and embracing it.
[00:08:48] Nikol: Yeah. That kind of adaptability seems, uh, especially important. Uh, now when so much is in flux.
[00:08:56] Nikol: Uh, and I think it’s clear you’ve built your work around helping people reconnect, with their sense of agency. It’s, uh, really important.
[00:09:07] Eleni: Yeah, and I think, you know, if you are a product person or kind of mastering this product mindset, I think adaptability is a very important muscle. ’cause at the end of the day, as you know, no day is gonna be the same.
[00:09:20] Eleni: No opportunity is gonna be the same. No problem if you like, will ever be the same. Uh, capabilities of technology are changing rapidly. I mean, I finished university in 1993. The world is so different in so many ways, and it has been changing throughout all these years. So you, you, you have to master that muscle of adaptability and it no longer becomes a threat or something that creates fear, but rather a sense or exploration.
[00:09:49] Eleni: Right? Uh, need dearness to uncover. Sometimes I say that in our job, we have to flirt with the unknown. ’cause flirting with the unknown is that concept, right? [00:10:00] That you are on a mission of uncovering when you run an experiment. When you do discovery, when you’re launching a new product, effectively you have a hypothesis or on what might happen.
[00:10:09] Eleni: But ultimately you are in the process of uncovering and piecing the information and taking the next best action. So you’re fundamentally, all the time, you know, in a sense tapping into your adaptability muscle. And that’s where I think, you know, these women are demonstrating, they’re taking all they’ve done through different careers, through different education into a whole new, different space, uh, where they’re gonna be pursuing a different career.
[00:10:41] Nikol: Let’s shift to the role of tools. Something you talk about as more than just things we use. We’re surrounded by powerful tools, uh, but not everyone knows how to use them well. What separates those who just use tools from those who leverage them? What do these tools reveal about someone’s thinking?
[00:11:04] Eleni: Oh, I think that’s a great question.
[00:11:06] Eleni: We’re actually running right now. With a team, a research project, and we had a conversation yesterday. So we’re conducting discovery interviews and we’re gathering little transcripts. And part of the reason we’re doing it is to try to keep patterns in a way and tap, you know, our insights back into, the quotes and the references of interviews we’ve run.
[00:11:30] Eleni: And, one of the team members says, okay, why can’t we just simply use photo typing? Why can’t we just simply load all of these texts and ask the tool we’re using? I will name it, but there’s many in the category to simply go through the transcript and assign the text automatically. It is not necessarily a bad thing to suggest, and it doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t have some merit.
[00:11:51] Eleni: It would definitely break some qualities. But I said, if you were to do that, where were you in the interviews? Right? What is the value you bring and more importantly, [00:12:00] the value is and how are you interpreting right and classifying what you heard. Effectively teaching the algorithm with that right ability to interpret the words and the context into what they mean in the scope of our research.
[00:12:15] Eleni: I said to her, if you were to do auto tagging, it means you’re effectively taking yourself out of the equation, right? Your own critical thinking, your ability to interpret the person you were interviewing, and that’s not purely of the context of what was said. On the context of how it was said and everything you were interpreting by looking at them, right, every signal that was transmitted, and then teaching the system not only for you, for other team members, how we are interpreting, how we’re classifying it to then help us of course, as we’re loading more and more transcripts and we’re scaling our knowledge base right, to cover more ground.
[00:12:53] Eleni: So that’s a very good example. Like if somebody, I’ve seen people that go into chatGPT to create business plans and, [00:13:00] go to market strategies and ask what features to build. I mean, I’ve been advising startups where they just go to chatGPT and give me features to build. There’s nothing wrong with ideating, you know, with, you know, chatGTP or other type of tools that are, you know, in this category.
[00:13:19] Eleni: But the most important thing is what questions are you asking? And I think fundamentally the quality of our question is what makes the difference? And in order to have a better quality of questions, what do you need to have in place? That’s where that curiosity comes in. That’s our ability to observe the work.
[00:13:39] Eleni: That’s our ability to frame, you know, where might be something that I need to know that I don’t know, what might be something that’s important and then will have a big impact. If I was gonna do this, and that is effectively what I think is that critical thinking and our ability to ourselves assess the context and frame those questions.
[00:14:00] Eleni: You might call it prompts, but ultimately that’s what it is. Then get high quality answers, and it’s not about getting definitive answers. It’s about getting answers that help you maybe involve the line of question or unveil dimensions or aspects that you might not be seeing. It’s almost like talking to somebody who’s helping you reflect and see your own answers, right?
[00:14:22] Eleni: Open up directions that are important, using it to auto tag or to simply tell you what to build.
[00:14:33] Nikol: It’s almost like the tool becomes a mirror of how one approaches complexity. And, speaking of tools, you’ve mentioned a few you like Useberry, Wizard and Lovable.
What do you think makes a tool truly empowering for someone in a product role?
[00:14:52] Nikol: Is there a tool that surprised you in how it unlocked creative thinking?
[00:14:57] Eleni: Uh, I mean, I actually run a session with one of our graduates because she’s built, a product idea to taking it to light and getting, people to pay for it in light of three months and less than 200 pounds. So she used the combination of, wizard and Lovable and Miro, but predominantly, you know, she actually built it on Lovable.
[00:15:20] Eleni: And interestingly, you know, we, every Friday in our community, we run a tool session. We dedicate every Friday to introduce new tools, and often we do that within our own community. So one of the things I realized, especially for the women that are transitioning careers, it’s not about processing technical skills.
[00:15:39] Eleni: It’s not about being able to write code. It is about being able to articulate right with CL clarity and with a level of appreciation. What the users are, what the situation is, what are the key concepts of what they wanna build, why that’s important, what kind of outcomes you’ll bring. And when they start doing it, as you understand, they’re bringing to life an application without actually knowing how to write a goal.
[00:16:04] Eleni: They understand how code is structured and obviously lovable, for instance, has evolved quite a bit in bringing this barrier down. But even when we started using it, which was very early on when Lovable was launched. You could see that these women were able to actually build product enough tapping into their strength and not being limited by the constraint of not being a developer.
[00:16:29] Eleni: Now, whether, you know, of course whether this product would scale, that’s another matter, right? But already you’re seeing that people code on unlovable, for example, has more potential to be something beyond an mvp, right? And it could actually possibly scale. Um, but for me, it’s not something I read or experimented myself, something I’ve seen because other women have done it.
[00:16:56] Nikol: Yeah. It’s always interesting when a tool doesn’t just make things faster. It actually could help you think differently.
[00:17:06] Eleni: Yeah. And I think, you know, also used very, right. It’s one of those tools we’ve been using Extension Lane. In fact, one of the things that. If you remember Nikol, we did very early on.
[00:17:15] Eleni: It’s not just use it to test, Figma wire frames. We’ve been testing, as you know, early MVPs that we build on lovable and also things we’ve been doing on Wizard. So for me, from the very beginning, it was all about bringing that phase of bringing an idea to life much faster. Uh, and you know, it’s not about using Figma or not, but actually again, the barrier, right?
[00:17:38] Eleni: So now we can prototype. Without necessarily knowing the mechanics of big more, having to drill into the layers of that prototyping and focus on, you know, the concept of what it is communicating in a language that the product person right can focus on versus getting diluted on the building of a prototype.
[00:17:57] Eleni: And the amount of time it would probably take, and [00:18:00] that’s another thing that would seem extremely viable with Berg. You really bring your idea to life in front of people very, very quickly. So even if you’re gonna use this iteration, the learnings are significant and you can take them all to whatever you’re launching.
[00:18:16] Nikol: If you’ve ever felt stuck with a confusing or low quality research submission, we get it. That’s why we’ve upgraded Useberry’s Participant Pool, so you can review each submission, return ones that don’t meet your standards and message participants directly for clarification, built for more transparency, more control, and even better results.Check out Useberry.com
[00:18:38] Nikol: We are in a time where there’s more content, more advice, and more templates than ever, but also more confusion. What skills matter most right now when information is everywhere?
[00:18:55] Eleni: Yes, and I think this cohesive overload is so significant and I think we’re exacerbating the problem when we generate content generated AI that is not actually primed and lacks context and lacks, let’s say, authentic origins.
[00:19:12] Eleni: We’re just overwhelming ourselves and others with things that don’t necessarily carry a significant signal. So I personally think that, you know, the principle of critical thinking and questioning is fundamental. Of course, you know, obviously the sources that we follow, the people that we read from, uh, how we approach getting informed is very significant as well, like the choices we’re making, but also the way we approach our information and how we question things.
[00:19:44] Eleni: Is critical in this time. And you know, in the end of the day, I think it goes back to the fundamentals. So for instance, you know, in this thinking of, you know, understanding users, for me, at the end of the day, believe it or not, it all boils down to your ability to listen, your ability to follow people in their, let’s say in their wavelength, in their own story.
[00:20:12] Eleni: Your ability to spend your own bias and allow yourself to ask questions that really follow the person you are interviewing and your ability to see patterns, right? Your ability to see how.is connecting among all the people you’re talking to. So you know, you can have no tools, you can have no, let’s say, digitized elements in how you would be doing this, but if you have those qualities and those abilities.
[00:20:42] Eleni: You probably have one 60% of the game in understanding your users, whereas if you have all the tools, all the algorithms, all the capabilities, but you can’t be there in a moment and really listen and follow the person you are interviewing or observing and tune into their world for half an hour, guess what happens?
[00:21:04] Eleni: You just sat there for half an hour, but you simply weren’t there. Somebody was talking to you, but you were not actually listening. So no matter what they do, no matter what their behaviors are, no matter what they’re struggling with, you’ve come in and left, but nothing changed. And I think that’s also part, and we see, you know, with a lot of startups and product people, like your ability to tune in to whoever that audience is that you’re surfing is such a big, um, and fundamental capability.
[00:21:37] Eleni: It is what I call the. If you have the number 1 million and you take the number one, all you’re left with is zeros. But sometimes that very simple thing is the hardest thing to do, and, and so for me, you know, I take away all of the templates and all of the complicated things and always ask that fundamental question as a human to human first and foremost.
[00:22:03] Eleni: Are you really present and are you really listening or are you just. Doing whatever you do to confirm what he believes to be true.
[00:22:11] Nikol: Yeah. That ability to filter signal from, from noise, uh, feels like, uh, could be a differentiator today. Important.
[00:22:22] Eleni: And you know, I don’t think it’s as easy as we believe it. I really think that the more you observe how you know yourself, how we communicate, if you observe how we respond to each other.
[00:22:38] Eleni: I think fundamentally that’s one of the areas where we assume we’re very good at, but actually that’s where we start building a whole, how to say, big building, very, um, braille foundation. So for me, reflection is very important. Um, I personally, for example, go back to a lot of the interviews I do. Four sessions to observe myself.
[00:23:04] Eleni: In fact, that’s where I’ve gained most of my skill, was through reflection and observation of myself. And I also tell a lot of the people I work with that when you’re conducting interviews and you do record them, don’t record them only to see how the person you were interviewing was responding. But more importantly, observe yourself.
[00:23:23] Eleni: And how would you do something differently? How many times did you lead somebody into an announcer? How many times are you actually boxing people in? How many times somebody important is being said, but you didn’t quite get it at the moment, right? Or even interpret it in a very different way. So again, what are all these skills?
[00:23:41] Eleni: Very fundamental skills, right? But do you see what kind of realities we can create if we don’t understand ourselves and how we get about everybody else?
[00:23:53] Nikol: We interpret the world and that brings us to a concept. You often talk about being a gap finder. Can you unpack the gap finder mindset? What does it mean to look for blind spots and how does that skill show up in a great product work?
[00:24:13] Eleni: Yeah, I think actually there is, in the uk, uh, even, um, uh, a TV show and, um, a radio show called The JobFinder. So I think, and, and they highlight, you know, different entrepreneurs and people that have got great product uncovered solutions. And I think, you know, if, if you look about the qualities we discussed about being curious, right?
[00:24:35] Eleni: And observing the world about approaching technology and its capabilities as a tool to create new realities and solve problems in different ways. These are definitely, for me, the key and important skills, and I believe it. It doesn’t have to do with having technical merit. For many times I thought that being a great engineer is what it really takes.
[00:24:56] Eleni: In fact, I’ve seen a lot of great engineers who are obviously building great stuff, but actually lack that ability to connect the dots. Whereas you see people that don’t have an engineering background and sometimes have come from social sciences or psychology or. Um, literature, right? And for the strangers of all reasons, they’re able to just support those things and then help with engineers or expose themselves to capabilities and come up with really good ideas, right?
[00:25:27] Eleni: They have potential that really, you know, have legs. And so I think it all comes back to our ability to observe the world and not do it just to prove that we’re right to truly do it too. See how whatever we’re gonna bring to life could really change the reality of the people that we wanna be serving through our product.
[00:25:50] Eleni: And how do you build that muscle, right? How do you become a gap finder? How do you approach the world, uh, with this mindset? I believe it’s something you can learn. It’s something you can practice. But I do also believe that there are people that are just gifted. And I also think there is a part of intuition.
[00:26:09] Eleni: Uh, involved in this. So it is in a way, um, an ability to explore and undiscover world intuitively, not only through the data, the words, the numbers, the evidence that you’re seeing, but your ability to synthesize it and interpret it through your own intuition, right, through your own ability to comprehend the world.
[00:26:30] Eleni: And, and I’m sure you can appreciate, Nikol, that there are some talented innovators that have talked about the role of their own intuition. In making decisions or sensing right through the data, but through all their own interpretation of where those opportunities
[00:26:45] Nikol: might be. It reminds me of the kind of insight that doesn’t, uh, show up on roadmaps, but they do end up, uh, driving the most valuable insights at the end of the day.
[00:26:57] Eleni: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, [00:27:00] also when you look at, uh, roadmaps, you know, I had a boss who used to always tell that, you know, roadmap is not a laundry list of things to get done. There has to be something in there effectively, you know, a product vision. Right, exactly. That really stems very, very profoundly into that deep understanding, and I think that how it articulates into features and how you play around and experiment with ideas.
[00:27:23] Eleni: Is where you have that freedom. But ultimately, if you are really connected with that audience, with that reality, you wanna create with what you’re exploring at the art of possible, it becomes a whole new different game. And yes, I do think that sometimes roadmaps are the one thing that kills any creativity or any innovation.
[00:27:42] Eleni: I mean, of course you can have ones that are tactical in every product, depending on stage, but it’s hot and has a collection of things that, you know, have. Have relevance, have value. There are more tactical things I need to do, but, um, oftentimes we just remove our ability ourselves [00:28:00] to find solutions that help merit because we box ourselves in, in fact, I was discussing with our group, we’re working right now, and I said one of the questions I used to ask business customers when they came up with a requirement, so I had a lot of business customers.
[00:28:15] Eleni: B2B products I was working on. And they would like to come with this requirement. We need to build a feature and all of that. So I said, okay, assume it’s done. We’ve built it. You come to the office. What’s different? Describe to me, okay, is it different for you who you know? Who are the people that are experiencing a new reality?
[00:28:35] Eleni: What does it mean for them? What do they do? How do you measure it? What are they feeling? What are they doing? So I had to really bring them to a situation where they had to articulate. What was different if that thing was built? And as you understand, most of the time we never ended up building what they’ve asked for because there were so many different ways to actually get to that out.
[00:28:57] Eleni: You see? And, and for me it was just the power of onequestion. Describe to me once we’ve built it, assume it’s there. What’s happening? That question, you think the quality of that question opened up a whole new different conversation. So all of my product team, I kind of coach them. You know, it’s not about debating the feature and specifics and why they’re saying this or we can’t do this, you know, going into this kind of bottom load, but sifting the conversation and tie, and of course building a whole new different relationship with your customer because suddenly you’re listening to them and you’re actually trying to send.
[00:29:34] Eleni: What it is that they’re striving to achieve, but not just do it purely on numbers. Right. Or one metric. You actually invite them to describe it in context and obviously how they would measure it. So you see how much richer picture and you can see in their face, like the relief at times. Like, ’cause they’re imagining, oh my god, it wouldn’t be happening anymore.
[00:29:53] Eleni: So, you know, and they’re describing they’re living it. And also their current frustration comes finally, [00:30:00] you know, we won’t have to be doing this. Or we’re, we’re, we’re relieved. And that’s the beauty of this job, right? At the end of the day, what we’re building, uh, either it’s targeted to business users or individual customers, right?
[00:30:11] Eleni: It’s about delighting a user. It is about creating realities that believe in and make things easier for them.
[00:30:19] Nikol: I’d love to bring it back to something fundamental, turning ideas into momentum mindset. Uh, and tools are powerful, uh, but at some point ideas have to ship. What do you think separates someone with great ideas from someone who makes a real impact?
[00:30:39] Eleni: Yeah, I think that’s a very good question. You know, what will you call the ability to execute? Um, and to be fair, I think ability to execute is not, um, something we should take for granted. Neither should we assume that everybody has the stamina and the capability. To execute. And sometimes it’s, it’s not about starting something, it’s about being able to seeing it through, um, and in fair honesty, right?
[00:31:11] Eleni: People that are great innovators right, don’t necessarily, as you know, execute themselves, right? They have other people, other teams. ’cause oftentimes these two skills are not necessarily finding the same person. So there are people that are great at capturing. Problems are finding, you know, what needs to be done. They are good at maybe bringing it to a point and then they need to move on naturally.
[00:31:35] Eleni: They board right there, there, their strength lies in just doing that, and they’re not the people that would actually see through. And then there are other people that, you know, have more of a capability of taking this early stages. Right. And prototyping it and, and have the stamina to see through. And then you have this incredible thing.
[00:31:54] Eleni: I find, you know, combine these two things, they’re able to have great ideas, but also see them through. So I think you need to know who you are first and foremost, because you can’t operate out of your own zone of, um, excellence or zone of genius, even better, right? You need to know who you are. Um, and if you can’t be that person that will see true.
[00:32:17] Eleni: You need to have members in your team or compliment yourself, right? If you’re a founder, have a co-founder that’s complimenting you. If you’re in a product, you position yourself with your team, right? To be able to have that rounded hole. And if you’re lucky enough to be that person that can see things through up to a point.
[00:32:36] Eleni: Um, again, I think nurture other people ’cause you very quickly will need to pivot, right? Or focus on growth, or focus on expansion. Um, so in essence, knowing yourself, knowing where your strengths are, and I think being able to find people and bring them into your team, um, that will compliment you. It’s really important for me.
[00:32:58] Eleni: Um, I’ll be very honest that there are certain things that I like to see happen, that I want to execute. So. I make deliberate choices on the things I’m not gonna do. And there are a few things that I choose to do, and believe it or not, you know, there might be my own ideas, but I wanna see them through, like, I, I really passionately wanna bring them to the point where they come to life.
[00:33:19] Eleni: And at that point, maybe I’ll pass it on to someone else. But I do find incredible joy and satisfaction in thinking few things and seeing them through,
[00:33:31] Nikol: yeah. That distinction between energy and follow through is something so many teams, wrestle with these days.
[00:33:42] Eleni: I do believe it all starts with understanding yourself.
[00:33:46] Eleni: I know it sounds very simple and very, um, it takes away from tools and templates and, but if, if you can’t really appreciate yourself and, and where you’re operating well, [00:34:00] um. Then everything else is gonna be a challenge. So when we start the cohort, at Kimolian Academy, the very first thing I ask people to do, believe it or not, is to fill into templates.
[00:34:11] Eleni: The first one is something about themselves. So they have to describe their superpower. Uh, you get the best out of me when you get the worst out of me, when you can rely on me when you need this and need your help. So that’s the first card they need to fill in, so to call themselves. Then as a team, they create another card where they talk about their collective superpowers.
[00:34:35] Eleni: What are the collective skills? What are the resources that each person brings in, and where are the needed areas where they have to, um, get help? And then they have an identity as a team, and then they present it to the entire group. So why is that something I do before we do anything else? Because fundamentally, right, their success is gonna be predetermined.
[00:34:58] Eleni: By their ability to understand themselves in the context of that team and understand how to operate as a team. And that’s something I’ve seen so many times in my career. In fact, very often you can tell which direction things are headed, regardless of what the product is, the opportunity space, the market, by observing the team, because a team that really hadn’t unlocked our ability to work as a whole and compliment each other,
[00:35:28] Eleni: most likely we’ll lose momentum. To your point, we will end up in, in introvert mode, uh, consumed by its own dysfunctions versus staying tuned to what matters and getting, feeding in and pivoting right, and adapting even in the worst of circumstances. And so. If you think about the health of yourself in a team and your ability to see your team, something you belong in and, and you really tune in is such an important dimension and it really gets the best [00:36:00] out.
[00:36:01] Eleni: And, and the job we do right is creative, right? It is a new challenge every day. We need to problem solve. We need to be in a great state of mind to think through things, you know, calmly with an ability to deal with whatever deadlines and stretch we have. Really getting the best outta ourselves, getting the best outta each other.
[00:36:21] Eleni: And that is not something that you can achieve unless you’re intentional about it to close.
[00:36:27] Nikol: Let’s zoom out for a moment. Uh, looking back at your own path, what’s a belief, mindset or lesson that stuck with you and shaped the way you teach, build, uh, or lead today? Not a tip or trend, but something deeper that still guides you.
[00:36:45] Eleni: There are certain things in your life and your career that will shape you fundamentally and will change the way you see yourself and the way you see everyone else around you. And for me, I do [00:37:00] believe that there are people in our career that really lift us up and can have an impact of really allowing us to see ourselves in our full potential and even exceed what we believe is possible.
[00:37:14] Eleni: There are other circumstances where we’re actually shrinking, right? And we can’t even remotely, uh, see what used to be easy for us to do. So my, um, approach in what I do and my approach for myself is to believe in people and not do it because I think they’re perfect or that they know it all, or that they have every challenge.
[00:37:38] Eleni: But to find in everyone, including myself. What are those qualities that are unique? What are those qualities that are valuable and how can I tap into those to really multiply them to create value for myself and everyone else around me? And I think there are people that are gifted that can truly, you know, believe in you.
[00:38:00] Eleni: And by doing that, help you become the best person of yourself. That’s something that I want to be doing for others. That’s something that I wanna see more people, um, doing within their teams as leaders, as managers, you know, as product people, we have such an impact on each other. Sometimes we don’t even realize the impact we have.
[00:38:23] Eleni: So being very mindful of our own ability to influence, you know, not just ourselves. But everyone will interact with, and frankly speaking, even if you’re a product owner, a product manager in a very small team, just that alone, the impact you’re gonna have, you know the influence you’re gonna have in that very small team and how that team will be shaped by your leadership is so much more important.
[00:38:52] Eleni: Thank you, than it is. And people will remember you, right. So setting that intention, um, making yourself somebody that inspires others and lifting them up and get them to see what they’re capable of is for me, the biggest learning in my career.
[00:39:08] Nikol: It’s clear that mindfulness, uh, shows up in everything you do and how you walk this world.
[00:39:16] Eleni: Yeah, and I think, you know, sometimes the way you learn, as you know, is not only when things go well, I think for me. What I’ve seen has the greatest value in the course that are run. It’s not talking about the things that work. In fact, it’s about reflecting on the things that didn’t work. And it doesn’t mean that they were failures, right, or it was catastrophe, but I’ll be very honest.
[00:39:36] Eleni: For me, the biggest advancement in my career was when I went back and revisited things that didn’t quite work as I expected. And I actually studied and observed and researched and went out to find tools and ways of working and understood like what could we have done differently? And I’m not just talking about the mechanics of things or how, but everything from how I showed up to how I led my team to how I created the environment for my team.
[00:40:03] Eleni: The biggest breakthrough for me by far was my ability to go back and revisit. Every time something that wasn’t that easy. And obviously when things work well also observed, you know, what happened? Why did this feel easy? Why did it materialize the way that, and, and if you do that consistently, right? All of your life and career experiences, what do they become?
[00:40:27] Eleni: It becomes your own product. If you’re actually evolving yourself, applying that same product mindset, and you’re not only doubling down on your strengths, but actually you’re starting to soften, right? Or better understand the thing too, you’re not naturally good or your weaknesses are right? Because that is what humans are.
[00:40:46] Eleni: We are all humans, so we have to appreciate it. What we enjoy, where we perform our best, what are our constraints? You know, where I often will say, you know, um, when I do too many things, I tend to make mistakes. And I’m very aware that after a certain point in time on the day or after an amount of tasks, I stop because I know that I’ll start making mistakes.
[00:41:07] Eleni: Or if I do make a mistake in the dopamine, I say, I was clearly writing it when I was tired. So knowing yourself and really managing yourself. And really appreciating how you can constantly improve. And obviously, as I said, when you’re in a team and the ways of working, it’s such a big game changer when you have that ability to do, you know, an honest reflection.
[00:41:32] Eleni: And I know we do it in scram, we call it retrospective. I believe no team really realize the important of having honest retrospective
[00:41:42] Nikol: and learning. Thank you for this conversation. You’ve given us a lot to think about, not just about, as builders, let’s say, or creators, but as learners and leaders.
[00:41:55] Nikol: Thank you so much. We’ll drop links to the show notes to Kimolian Academy and ways to connect with Eleni. Thanks to everyone for listening to If U Seek. See you next time.
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[00:42:23] Nikol: If U Seek is a platform for discussions and personal insights. The opinions presented by guests are independent and do not represent the official position of the host Useberry or our sponsors.
