Welcome to Episode 339 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work. I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book is published. It’s available on Amazon, Indigo, barnesandnoble.com bookshop, a few other websites, so check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such nice reviews on Amazon, and more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it. And please don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week.

This week is no different with my guest, Suraya Yahaya. She’s the founder and CEO of Khazana, Inc. in Denver, Colorado and now, she’s with me here today. Suraya, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Suraya: Thanks so much for having me, John. I’m excited to be here.

John: This is going to be so much fun especially those 17 rapid fire questions. Get to know Suraya on a new level. Are you ready?

Suraya: I’m ready. I’ve got my vegetable shake with me.

John: That’s not going to protect you. All right. Here we go. I’ll start you out with a fairly easy one. Chocolate or vanilla?

Suraya: Chocolate.

John: Chocolate. Oh, that’s slam dunk.

Suraya: My vegetable shake is chocolate.

John: It sounds like my kind of vegetables. Those Hershey’s vegetables, they’re delicious. How about puzzles? Sudoku or crossword?

Suraya: Crossword.

John: Okay. How about a favorite color?

Suraya: White.

John: White. Okay. How about a least favorite color?

Suraya: I’m going to go with lavender. I was looking at clothes yesterday and I saw this lavender sweater for my daughter and I was like, “What? No!”

John: Even the way you say it, it sounds so like, “Lavender? Ugh!” I hear you on that. How about prefer more hot or cold?

Suraya: I prefer hot. I’m always cold. I prefer hot. The 60 degrees in December, I’m going to take it.

John: There you go. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Suraya: Some people are going to laugh, but I have had the biggest crush on Keanu Reeves since I was 16 years old.

John: Yeah. He’s like the nicest guy.

Suraya: I hear he’s the nicest guy. Of course I’ve not met him but his movie skills are — let’s call it challenged. Let’s call it challenged.

John: But the movies he’s in are really good. You’re still watching it.

Suraya: They’re really good, yeah. I think the great part is that he seems like a nice guy.

John: Yeah, he’s just a really good person, totally. I’m with you on that one. I can get behind that. All right. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

Suraya: I’m a night owl for sure. I don’t actually settle down until past 11 or almost midnight.

John: Oh my. Yeah. Wow. Okay. All right. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Suraya: Star Trek.

John: Oh, okay. That was a quick answer.

Suraya: I actually do like science fiction, so it’s not like I’m just throwing it out. I actually do like science fiction.

John: Right, right. If Keanu Reeves would do the new Star Trek movie —

Suraya: Right. Exactly. John Wick meets Star Trek, yeah, I know. My husband and I are actually rewatching Star Trek Enterprise. That was kind of like — I can’t remember — one or two season show, but we’re just rewatching that.

John: Yeah, very cool. All right. How about your computer? More PC or Mac?

Suraya: PC. I love the graphics and pictures on Mac, but I just can’t hang with all the connectivity issues that you have to troubleshoot.

John: Oh, I’m not even cool enough to go into the store. They’d kick me out.

Suraya: Yeah, there is that.

John: They’re like, “You’re too square. Get out.” How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Suraya: Denali Moose Tracks, which is basically double chocolate with chocolate chunks.

John: Yes.

Suraya: It scares the crap out of everyone who tries.

John: Yeah. Absolutely. I need the ice cream with chunks. I need more of the calories per bite.

Suraya: I highly recommend it. It’s probably why I go to bed at midnight actually. “I’ve got to think about this.”

John: There you go. This is more of an intervention than a podcast, Suraya.

Suraya: Yeah, right?

John: Since you’re in operations, I have to ask, line chart or bar graph?

Suraya: Neither actually. I love charts and I look at them to get data and to understand the big picture, but actually, I manage operations with people. I like talking to people and I think you can get a lot more from people than charts can tell you.

John: Okay. All right. I had to ask. I needed a good laugh out of that. All right. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Suraya: Scotch.

John: Scotch. Okay.

Suraya: The smoky kind. The smokier, the better.

John: Oh, there you go. All right. How about oceans or mountains?

Suraya: Mountains. I’m from Malaysia and I grew up by the beach, white sand, the whole thing, but I’ve lived in Colorado now for 20 years and mountains for sure.

John: Mountains it is. All right. We’ve got four more. Heel, flats?

Suraya: Heel, four-inch.

John: Four-inch? Whoa! Okay. All right.

Suraya: Personal, mostly flats.

John: Exactly, but it’s all good. It’s all good. When you want to.

Suraya: Yeah.

John: Do you have a favorite number?

Suraya: I don’t think so, no.

John: Just positive ones?

Suraya: Just positive, yeah, exactly, just positive.

John: There you go. How about since my book’s been out, Kindle or real books?

Suraya: Real books. I love the feel. I love the smell. I love holding. I love the whole tactile experience of reading.

John: Yeah, for sure. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Suraya: I have a bangle/bracelet from my great grandmother that has been passed down through the women in the family, so I have that. I have her earrings, too. I have two daughters and I will give one of them each of that. It’s over a hundred years old.

John: That’s incredible. That’s super cool. That is super cool. Yeah, that’s awesome. From Malaysia, growing up there and everything, yeah, that means a lot. That’s really cool.

Suraya: It does. Well, my great grandmother was from India, and so it’s stuff she brought with her when she immigrated to Malaysia. I just love old things. My friends laugh because I’m just incredibly boring and I hang on to old things. I think there’s so much value in just the stuff that people overlook sometimes, so I hang on to all the old jewelry. I have my grandmother’s cookbook and it’s actually written in Indian script. So she would actually be writing the recipe. It’s kind of funny because she’s like, “And don’t forget to add” and then she writes with the Indian script and I’m like, “No! Add what?”

John: “The magic ingredient? No!”

Suraya: “This is not going to work unless you add…” and then it goes into a different script and I’m like, ugh!

John: Right. Exactly. That’s awesome. Actually, I have a recipe of a Scottish shortbread from my great grandmother in her handwriting, and yeah, it’s kind of cool. Of course, I never knew her. It was way before me, but it’s really good shortbread. It’s from the motherland, so it’s legit good.

Suraya: Have you been to Scotland?

John: I have, yeah.

Suraya: Yeah. I went to Culloden field, the highlands, and there’s actually a shortbread recipe in the museum that is etched on the wall that they found on the field after the battle. I guess it fell out of some soldier’s pocket. It must have been his mother’s recipe. It’s actually on the wall because it’s in Culloden field where the Jacobite battle took place, and I actually took a picture of it, so it’s pretty cool.

John: No, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. That dovetails perfectly with all of your travels, all of that wandering, if you will, the wanderlust in the RV. Maybe we’ll start with the RV. When did that come about? Because not everybody has one.

Suraya: Not everybody has one. You don’t have one? You don’t have one parked in —

John: Oh, we have three. Which one am I taking out today?

Suraya: My husband and I have been married for 20 years this year, and one of the things that brought us together when we first started dating was we both have this incredible sense of wanderlust. We traveled together. After we got married, before we had kids, we traveled. Collectively, we probably visited maybe between 15 to 20 countries together —

John: Oh, wow.

Suraya: — after we were married. The pandemic hit and we’re all isolating at home, which is what we needed to do, but we still have this incredible sense of wanderlust. We started thinking about, “How do we do this? We can’t be at home this entire time, not going anywhere.” I know a lot of people had to have that as their reality. Certainly, I’m not trying to do a compare and contrast there, but for us, what we decided to do was get an RV. If you can’t jump in the car and go someplace and get a hotel room because you have to clean the heck out of the hotel room when you get there, we’re going to get an RV.

Also, I think having an RV, every day is an adventure. Every day is an adventure, seriously. We’re not handy people. We’re not mechanics. The furnace drips, and my husband and I both stare at it like, “What are we going to do now?” So when we thought about getting an RV, everybody was like, “Don’t do it. It is the worst possible thing.”

It appeals to that sense of adventure and that sense of wanderlust. What has been great about it is as a family, we ended up spending the entire summer learning together, learning how to use it. It is an adventure even when you’re just parked at a lake. Getting to the lake is the adventure.

John: Right.

Suraya: It’s like, “How do I drive this? Am I going to hit someone?” You park it. You turn it on. It’s an adventure because there are all these you turn on this, turn that on, shut this off before you turn that, the furnace, the air conditioner, et cetera. Then you’re lying in bed at night and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, the water pump.” All this stuff you just think about. Literally, you cannot relax. We come back from the RV weekend like, “Where’s the bed?”

John: Right. That’s hilarious. That’s so funny, but it’s also part of it. It’s part of that experience.

Suraya: It’s part of the experience at a time when I think, again, learning taking care of each other, continuing to support each other is so important. I think it’s actually brought us closer as a family. It has allowed us to keep that sense of adventure in our own way. Essentially, the world’s your oyster. You could drive from Denver to Alaska.

John: Right.

Suraya: We’re planning our trip and we think we might go up to Calgary from Colorado, which is like a straight shot up. I was talking to my husband the other day. He’s like, “Oh, it’s only 19 hours!”

John: In an RV, it’s probably double that.

Suraya: Yeah.

John: Yeah, exactly. Calgary, the Canadians, they say it’s the Denver of Canada. It’s very similar. I’ve been there actually when they had the stampede even. It is very Western and really good people. Yeah, it’s a fun city. That’s for sure.

Suraya: Have you been up there?

John: I have, yeah. Yeah, I was there. Actually, I flew in, and Banff is just a 45-minute drive away and that is really amazing. Is there a more fun trip that you went to with the RV so far?

Suraya: We just got back our last trip before we had to shut the RV down. Our last trip before we had to shut the RV down was we went to Eleven Mile Park in Colorado, which was just beautiful right there by the lake. We’re able to get out. The weather was warm enough. I do have two funny stories from Eleven Mile Park.

The first story is we were by the lake. We’re fishing. It’s myself, my husband, and we have three children. They’re fishing and we see this thing in the water and it’s swimming. My kids are excited. They’re squealing, “It’s an otter! It’s an otter!” You can see that the head is out of the water and he’s going back and forth in front of us. Finally, he turns and he starts heading to shore. My kids are squealing at this point. We’re like, “Shut it down. Shut it down. Don’t scare him.” I swear to God, he comes up to shore. He jams himself between the three kids like he’s the fourth kid. It wasn’t an otter. It was a muskrat. He has a giant crab in his mouth, or a crayfish, and he starts eating. He’s holding this crab. This muskrat is eating this giant crayfish and he’s looking around at the kids like, “Well, kids, what’s going on?”

John: That’s hilarious.

Suraya: Everyone was dead silent because we’re like, “Is this really happening?” The muskrat just comes up, sits like he’s the fourth child —

John: That’s amazing.

Suraya: “So, guys, what’s going on?”

John: Yeah, it’s like a Dr. Doolittle moment where you’re talking to animals now.

Suraya: No one moved for the seven minutes it took him to eat his crayfish. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see this second dude come up the water. I’m whispering to the kids, “He’s coming. There’s another one. There’s another one.” The second dude comes, walks up again on the shore to this first guy and tries to yank a piece of crayfish from him. The first guy’s like, “No, no, I have family now and my crayfish.” Then the second guy leaves and then the first one leaves. It was just the most surreal experience.

John: That is amazing.

Suraya: The five of us looked at each other like, “What just happened?”

John: Right.

Suraya: This muskrat really — because normally, you hear that animals are scared of people. Of course, my part-time lawyer brain is like, “Please, let’s not have a park ranger show up and think we were feeding him.”

John: Right, like you gave him the crawfish.

Suraya: We’re not feeding this crazy muskrat that came up and sat between my kids.

John: Exactly. That’s so cool though. What a great experience for the kids as well.

Suraya: Yeah. So we’re totally stoked at this point, right? We’ve got all these adventures. We’re totally stoked. We pack up the fishing stuff and we get back in the car. We’re driving back to where the RV is from the lake. We see a herd of something on the road. I’m like, oh, deer. You know in Colorado, in parks, deer. I’m heading towards them and I was like, “Oh, it looks kind of big. Maybe it’s horses. What is that?” We get up to this thing. It is a herd of wild donkeys.

John: What? I didn’t know there was a thing.

Suraya: I didn’t know they were wild. It’s literally a herd of donkeys. They stopped the car because they were on the road. We stopped; they flanked us. They flanked us. They come around the car, all around the car. They start scratching their necks against the side mirror.

John: Oh my gosh.

Suraya: My husband’s like, “Can you just Google and see if they’re wild donkeys?”

John: That is amazing.

Suraya: I was of course thinking, “Is that really what I should be Googling right now? Maybe I should be Googling park ranger phone number.”

John: Yeah, 911.

Suraya: “Help. We’re surrounded by wild donkeys.” So I Googled and yes, there is a herd of wild donkeys in Eleven Mile Park.

John: And you met them all. There you go.

Suraya: We met them all. Of course, the children are trying to hit the down button on the window. I’m like, “That window better stay up, okay?”

John: Mom Suraya came out. There you go. That’s super cool though. You wouldn’t get that had you stayed home and even just watching Netflix or Nature Planet or whatever. That’s super cool.

Suraya: Every moment is terrifying in the RV. I highly recommend it.

John: Yeah. You might as well live on the edge a little bit. Why not? You mentioned earlier that people are like, “You’re crazy. Don’t get the RV.” Is this something that comes up with work people as well?

Suraya: All the time. The RV has become the conversation opener and the way that I think people connect with you because normally, I think as COO, people expect you to be in charge of all these functions and have all the answers to the problems. Well, not have all the answers, but come to you for problem solving. The fact that I get on the phone, I talk to my clients about, “Hey, the water pump turns itself on in the middle of the night in the RV. I don’t know why that happens. Should I be worried about this?”

John: Right. That’s awesome.

Suraya: It’s not only become a way to connect with people. I think it also allows people to just see me in a different way and that we have fun with it. We’re having this conversation right now and people are like, “Why did you get an RV? It sounds like it’s a lot of work.” I’m like, yeah, because we all have a desire to explore and see the world, and this is the way to do it.

John: Yeah. Sometimes too, it’s easy to overlook those things to explore within our own state because we’re busy on an airplane to a different country. All of a sudden, you get in the RV and you’re like, “What? Look at this.” It was right here two hours away from our home and we were busy flying over it, so that’s kind of neat.

Suraya: Right. Exactly. It’s also a huge learning thing too because things could get stale. You do the same thing over and over again. This just, in a terrifying way, allows us to expand our knowledge base. It’s like oh, yes, I am going to read up on why the water pump comes on in the middle of the night.

John: Exactly. That’s awesome. I love what you said earlier of how it just allows people to see you in a different light. How important do you think that is?

Suraya: I think it’s really important. I think over the years, I’ve learned that the leaders, I think, the ones you connect with the most and I think the ones that you trust the most — and I think trust is really important at the leadership level — are the leaders who want to appear vulnerable. “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Are my kids going to get food poisoning because the refrigerator didn’t come on?” are the leaders who appear most vulnerable and the leaders who allow themselves to be seen in a light that you can connect with. I think when people build that rapport and trust with you, there’s a rapport and trust that flows through everything else, problem solving, planning, strategic planning. In my role, I do a lot of that, people development. I talk to people about where they want to go with their careers, and they see me as someone who’s a more well-rounded person and I think they’re able to bring themselves to that conversation, too.

John: That’s so well put, and somebody that they can trust with “Here’s what I really want to do and it’s not at all what my job is right now.”

Suraya: Right.

John: You’re like, “That’s awesome!”

Suraya: Right. Also, I kind of like this, but I don’t know anything about it. I wanted to go for it and I’m like, yeah, go for it. The first day my husband and I got the RV, we couldn’t even get through the door. We don’t even know how the lock works.

John: How to unlock. There you go.

Suraya: Just do it. If you have a passion for something, explore it.

John: Yeah. No matter what it is, have that passion and explore it. I love that. That’s so perfect. It’s so perfect. Is traveling in general something that you would talk about all through your career or is it something that you opened up more about later on?

Suraya: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think that I’ve always loved to travel. Malaysians, there are only 33 million of us, but man, we get around. My parents and grandparents — well, my grandparents and great grandparents being immigrants to Malaysia, they had that sense of wanderlust. I’ve always traveled. I think I went on my first trip when I was like, I don’t know, two years old. Throughout my teenage years, I went to school in the UK. I left home when I was 17 and went to school in the UK. I traveled there extensively throughout Europe and then got married and traveled as well.

Yeah, it is a way, I think, to again have another — one, I think traveling opens up your perspective and your viewpoints. So to answer your question, at work, when people throw something out, I consider it and think, “Oh, well, okay. Maybe that’s something they’re saying based on their experience.” It makes you consider a different viewpoint because you’ve been exposed to so many different viewpoints. Travel is fun. People have great travel stories. People learn things when they travel. I think it just makes for interesting conversation.

John: Yeah, for sure. It’s just interesting because some of us in our own heads, we think, “Well, it has nothing to do with our job, so why talk about it?” type of thing. I was too dumb to know that we weren’t supposed to. If somebody asked, I was like, “Well, I did a comedy show this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky” or whatever. Oh, I was supposed to say nothing? I didn’t know.

Suraya: Exactly. Right. I think some cultures, work cultures, don’t invite that kind of authenticity and connection. It’s very stick to the facts, come in and do your whatever report.

John: The TPX report from Office Space.

Suraya: Exactly, from Office Space and that’s fine. That’s fine. I think, in my opinion, the cultures that are the most successful and invite collaboration and people feel like there’s really an environment of caring about the whole person and people who want to contribute to that type of an environment is where they invite people to share about stuff. There’s knowledge about, “Oh, what did you do this week?” Not just what you did this weekend, to your point, but also, “Where have you been? Where did you grow up?” that kind of thing.

John: Yeah, that next level stuff. That’s so great to hear. That’s so awesome. So awesome. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that might have an interest or a hobby that they feel like no one cares about or “It has nothing to do with my job?”

Suraya: I think start sharing. I truly do believe — over the years, I’ve learned — like you said, John, you never knew. You never knew that it was not the right thing to do. I almost had a little bit opposite perspective of you. Well, I for a long time had experiences with different work cultures where I never knew that it was okay to do it. It’s almost the opposite of you. So if I would just say to listeners, if they’re in that kind of an environment, start doing it. Start sharing who you are. Start sharing your whole self. If people shut you down and they’re like, “Nope, I don’t want to hear about that, John. No, I just want you to stick to your TPX report” then you’re not able to bring your whole self to that place, that environment. Maybe it’s not the environment for you.

John: Yeah, but you never know until you do start to share.

Suraya: You’ll never know until you try it, right? I would say you want to find the environment where you can be your whole self.

John: Yeah, amen, because otherwise, you’re going to work with one arm tied behind your back and that’s dumb. I can be so much better in —

Suraya: Everyone has different circumstances. Some of us may not have the luxury of choice and I’m always very conscious of that when I throw out advice. If it turns out we have to be, I think, in an environment at work where you can’t be your whole self then I would say feel free to be your whole self everywhere else.

John: Yeah. There you go.

Suraya: If you’re at soccer practice with your kid, talk about your comedy club routine that you do —

John: Yeah, or your RV or whatever it is.

Suraya: If you’re at church, talk about scotch. I don’t know.

John: Right. There you go. It’s important, like I say, in the book. It isn’t sharing drama. It’s what are your true passions, what do you actually really — things that are more positive that bring you happiness and joy.

Suraya: That is a great point because I think there was a time there during, I would say, early to mid stage pandemic when it was just the grind, and yes, it was so easy to share drama. It was so easy to share drama, but this was a way to positively connect with each other as a family and also positively connect with people because it was funny. It was like, “Oh, so you pretty much spend your entire night in the RV reading the manual.” “That’s right.”

John: That’s so good. I love that. That’s hilarious. That’s so funny. That’s really funny.

Suraya: And we read that RV manual front to back.

John: I promise, everyone, What’s Your “And”? is an easier read than an RV manual. I can promise that. I’ve never read an RV manual, but I’ve got a lot of money on me being right on that one.

Suraya: I have no doubt it is a funnier read and less stressful.

John: There you go. Well, this has been so awesome, Suraya, but it’s only fair that I allow you to turn the tables on me since I started this episode rapid fire questioning you. So we’ll make this the first episode of the Suraya Yahaya podcast, everybody. Thank you so much for having me on as your first guest. I appreciate it. So what questions have you got?

Suraya: Favorite city you’ve been to?

John: Favorite city, probably Cape Town, South Africa.

Suraya: Oh, wow!

John: My favorite, yeah. That’s pretty cool because it’s a cool mixture of a lot of things going on. Plus, there’s wine country about 30 minutes away, Stellenbosch.

Suraya: Yeah. Actually, my husband and I were just talking about that. Africa is a destination we have on our list. I want to go there.

John: It’s so diverse. Africa’s huge.

Suraya: It is. It’s very diverse. I know.

John: It’s like everyone in America thinks, “Oh, America is huge” and it’s like, well, not totally.

Suraya: You’re absolutely right. Well, that’s awesome. Favorite drink?

John: Favorite drink, like a liquor?

Suraya: Yeah, liquor.

John: Mojito because it’s fun to say and it’s minty. I’m a girl. My wife and I, we would go to these all-inclusive resorts and I don’t know how to order liquor. I skipped over that, and so she would order it for me. I was at a conference in Chicago and a guy I knew from Texas happened to be there for business with the Texas State Society of CPAs. We met up at this hotel bar and the bartender is like, “What do you want?” and there was nothing wine. I know wine well, but I couldn’t get any wine at this bar. I’m like, oh no. So I said what I say to my wife, “Vodka and something fruity” and it’s like the whole bar stopped. They’re like, “Wait. What?” The bartender was like, “What do you mean something fruity?”

Suraya: Right. The soundtrack stops in the back.

John: He’s like, “So, vodka and pineapple?” “Yeah, sure, man. Whatever.” The guy that I met, he’s like, “What in the heck was that? Are you an adult?” Now, my go-tos are mojito or if it’s like a simple thing then vodka cranberry.

Suraya: I feel like I should buy you some. I’ll buy you a scotch or no?

John: I’m like anything fruity with vodka or rum. That’s me.

Suraya: I’m not going to judge, but let’s move quickly to our third question.

Suraya: Yeah, exactly. Bring your peach mojito when you got to sit in the RV. Since we talked about me going to bed at midnight, what’s your favorite thing to do to wind down?

John: Oh, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Wow. That is a good one because it is hard to wind down.

Suraya: It is, right? And it’s something we don’t think about. Maybe we’ll leave the audience with that. I think part of self-care for 2020 no matter where we are in the year is think about taking care of yourself and winding down and filling out a little.

John: Yeah, for sure. Watching TV isn’t necessarily good for winding down. We just watch mindless —

Suraya: I was going to say mindless.

John: Yeah. My wife got us on Married at First Sight, which is —

Suraya: Oh yeah. Oh my.

John: It makes me look so good, so that’s why I watch it, but it’s so mindless and it’s just silly and whatever. So something like that, but that’s really not great. Yeah, definitely nothing on my phone. I’d stay off that for sure. Sometimes it’s nice before or after dinner just sitting on the back patio and just chilling out. The weather in Colorado, of course, is so nice. So just sitting outside and just chilling out, that’s always good, too. Cool!

Well, this has been so much fun, Suraya. Thank you so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”?

Suraya: Absolutely. Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. It’s been a great conversation. I can’t believe the time has just flown by. It’s been awesome.

John: Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Suraya’s RV or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there, and don’t forget to buy the book. While you’re on the page, please click that big button and do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use, and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread that who you are is so much more than what you do.