In Search Of Excellence - Mircea Geoana: NATO Support for Young Leaders and Innovators | E62

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Welcome to the second part of our insightful conversation with Mircea Geoana, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO. Mircea was born and educated in communist Romania, finished his education in the West, and built a successful political and diplomatic career.He was appointed as an ambassador to the U.S.A. and became the youngest ambassador in Romania’s history.  He later served as a president of the Romanian Senate, Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Deputy Prime Minister. In 2009, he narrowly lost the elections for the president of Romania when he received 49.6% of the votes.Mircea is a board member of several organizations, including the World Economic Forum, The Aspen Institute, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a published author and has written several books on foreign policy and international relations.00:00 NATO’s billion-dollar entrepreneur fundNATO created an ecosystem where young entrepreneurs can test their ideas for freeTesting ideas in DIANA – Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North AtlanticThe Innovation Fund – The first ever multi-national sovereign venture capital fundCompetition with ChinaEuropean HQ for DIANA is based at Imperial College in London10:23 Mistakes made and things learned from themDon't be satisfied with your learningAspen Institute in ColoradoStarted Aspen Institute in RomaniaWishes to become a moderator of Aspen leadership seminars 15:20 Five ingredients of being a great leaderThere are no natural-born leadersThere are many different types of leadersNever be happy with your success (make room for progress)17:55 How important it is to be funny as a team leaderA tendency to become rigid and dry from within over timeTry to be humble and listen to othersEverybody has something to offerThere is always something to learn20:32 What does it take to be successfulLife is tough and has ups and downsThere is always another chanceNever give up 21:36 Extreme PreparationRomanians are very talented people, but sometimes neglect preparationHard work is very important (talent is not enough)In NATO, everything is done with thorough preparationPreparing for the unexpectedDon’t take things too seriously26:30 The importance of mentorsBelieves in mentorship and, even more, in indirect mentorshipStarted mentorship program with NATORandall’s mentorship programMircea’s dream is to bring programs to Romania31:33 The secret to work-life balanceThe balance between mind, body, and spiritA tendency to have a foresight for bad things to happenA Randall’s intern spoke in NATO about the anti-microbial diseaseFocusing on simple things – love, compassion, giving back, improving yourselfWhat is next after leaving NATO?35:41 Fill in the blank to excellenceMircea's biggest lesson in lifeMircea's number 1 professional goalMircea's number 1 personal goalMircea's biggest regret in lifeMircea's biggest dreamMircea's advice to a 21-year-old selfSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

I started in NATO a young professionals program. We offer something like 20 positions. You know how many applications we got for 20 positions? Thousands. Thousands. And they do a great thing. For three years, they rotate. And once they are working with us in Brussels,

then they go to America, and then they go, I don't know, Wales. We decided to create two things. One, to have a sort of an ecosystem of test centers, accelerators, where startups and young entrepreneurs can test their ideas for free. If that technology is promising, NATO allies to put some money into the first ever multinational sovereign venture capital fund. You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Mircea Giuana, the Deputy General Secretary of NATO. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first.

Without further ado, here's part two with the amazing Mircea Giuana. All right, let's talk about some more positive things. Tell us about NATO's billion-dollar entrepreneur fund, what's behind that, and what's its purpose? Listen, when Secretary General Stoltenberg recruited me for the job to PCC's number two, he gave me an interesting job. He said, Mircea, that's me, I want you to be the champion of innovation in it. And for me, innovation is not only technology. Innovation is a mindset. You are innovating with this podcast with your great crew here.

I try to innovate in dealing with my kids and education. Do they listen to you or you're the dad so they don't really listen but they listen to someone else? They listen to me and that's why I'm trying to use my chips wisely because they listen to me but not on

everything I say so I have to be very, very careful. I chair the innovation board in NATO, and that's a formidable experience for me because I look to every single technology, every single technology, AI and big data, biotech, quantum, everything, space, cyber, with the lenses of national security. And you see the same technology, the same basically object,

can be used in a ubiquitous way for doing great good, great good, fighting cancer and better education systems and many good things, supply chain, everything else. When we decided to really nurture what we call the innovation ecosystem in this one billion strong alliance with so many great universities, with probably, I think, most of the Nobel Prize laureates coming from NATO countries, we decided to create two things. One, to have a sort of an ecosystem of test centers, accelerators, where startups and young entrepreneurs can test their ideas for free

in something like 100 places all over the alliance, from Romania and Estonia all the way to Canada and America, everything in between. And if you have an idea for a dual-use technology on anything, you can go and come to us and say, listen, I would like, knock, knock, door is open. We'd like to take this in what we call DIANA, which is the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic. That's the acronym. And you can go and test it in AI in Romania or something in Texas, whatever.

And if that technology is promising, then the innovation fund that we started, which is the first sovereign multinational venture capital fund. Sounds quite a tension in what I'm saying. Yeah, it is a tension. But we convinced NATO allies to put some money into the first ever multinational sovereign venture capital fund. So when you have a company testing an idea in Diana and then getting a little bit of seed money

from the NATO Innovation Fund, and we just recruited the management of the fund, would be done by professionals, it's not bureaucrats. We hire people from the venture capital industry, the best of the best. So that company, with their idea tested in Diana and a little bit of seed money, they mature the innovation. The young ones have the equity in their pocket, not forced to sell it too soon.

Do you keep some of the equity? We don't. Okay, so 100% the funding is a gift. We want them to be successful. It's not for us making money. We are an international organization. We don't make profit out of that. So all these young entrepreneurs with an idea which is already consolidated,

with a little bit of money to help them cross the, you know, the death valley of the place between an idea and the marketplace, and then they can go to the real big venture capital or the big tech and the others and mature their business. And the benefit for us, that we have smart technology from young startups producing for us dual-use technology that can be used for the civilian purpose, for the good, positive sense, but also making sure that it can be used also in national security. Is good business? Yes.

Is it smart? Yes. And also addressing an issue, because not every single nation in NATO are as powerful economically or financially, or the depth of the venture capital system, or the wealth of the American universities. Some countries are smaller. So I have also the Albanians of the world and Croatia and other countries. My country, Romania, is a big country in the region. It is not the most affluent of the nations in the universe. So in a way, we also create less asymmetry of power between allies.

And again, as I mentioned, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, we have a huge ecosystem of innovation. And I'm very proud that what Jens Stoltenberg told me, Mircea, be the champion of innovation. I have a sense of mission accomplished in a way because we have done things that will be helping our... In the competition with China,

because that's the most formidable challenge that we had in centuries as the political West, maintaining our edge in technology is the essence of this competition. It's the essence of this competition. So it would be a pity for us not to put to work the fantastic talent coming from bigger or smaller nations in NATO.

And as I said, Finland and Sweden joining will also add tremendous depth and sophistication to our technology ecosystem. So in the VC world where I live, you're a venture firm, you get over a thousand business plans a year, some 5,000. You have to sift through those. I imagine you're talking about a worldwide billion dollar fund. I imagine you're going to get tens of thousands of submissions how are you going to manage that and pick out the good ones and the bad ones how much are you funding per company and then who should they contact for all the people listening to this podcast they're not sending

you an email but how do you go about it to have someone look at your business plan? So basically, on the Diana side, in Europe, we have a European HQ for Diana, which is based at Imperial College in London. We recruited the head of Diana, Adip Chana, who used to be a professor at Imperial and is now running Diana together with a professional team. And they're issuing challenges. So we don't open the fund or Diana to everything. We say, okay, now we're more interested in quantum.

I'll give an example. And we are waiting for applications from startups for Diana and then innovation fund through challenges. So we don't get everything at the same time because then it will be very difficult to do this. I'll be speaking at the Milken conference tomorrow after we have this podcast. And I'll be on the panel with the person we recruited to run our innovation fund. So now we have two institutions that have a governance that is actually like in real life.

It's not NATO running those things. We have professionals hired to do these things. So yeah, there will be a cap of money and a challenge on what kind of technologies and what kind of applications we are waiting. And then through a process, we can really manage. And we hope to be lots of requests for funding and lots of requests for testing ideas in Diana. And of course, this is something which is a learning curve. We are not going to stop here. Probably the fund will grow, I hope, even bigger.

And also in Diana, it's not a static process. So tomorrow I could have another university. I don't know. Now we have in Rome. Beware of our Italian-American friends here in the studio. And by the way, the top military commander in NATO is Chris Cavoli, a superb military leader. He's also Italian-American.

So we have now in Turin, Italy, one of the more of what Italy offers to Diana. Next year, it could be somebody from Turin or something from Milan or in Bucharest. My alma mater, the Politico University, is offering a test center for AI. Next time could be something in Cluj in Transylvania offering something else. So that's also sort of a competition inside the innovation ecosystem in NATO to have more. In Denmark, we have the Niels Bohr Research Institute doing on quantum. It's the best in Europe that we have.

We'll have Sweden and Finland offering new things to us when we come. So, yeah, there'll be a lot of dynamism. And this will be with the speed of private sector. We don't want to have a bureaucratic process impeding on the velocity or the capacity of the fund and Diana to reach its potential. What are the check sizes that you're writing or are going to write? I'm not going to get into that when it comes about money. I'm not into that. But as I mentioned, it's already on the websites, both the Innovation Fund in NATO and Diana.

And I think anyone interested could look it up. It will be a very transparent professional process. On our path to success, we all have mistakes. We overcome challenges. Can you talk about a few of yours on a personal basis and NATO's and what you learned from them? Listen, I mentioned one of my credos in life, which is never be satisfied with yourself. There's always room to do more, to do better. And not necessarily in terms of having more money in your bank account.

It only helps. But to be a more fulfilled human being, to be a better father or a better husband or a better friend or a better citizen. So I always believe that there is a sort of an ongoing cycle of investing in yourself and doing something with your life. The other thing that happened when I was a very young ambassador to America, I got an invitation totally by accident because I was a young guy, scared to death what I'm doing here in this big country,

so young and relatively unexperienced. And I got an invitation to the Aspen Institute for a leadership seminar. And they do this, not coincidentally, also from 1949, the same year when NATO was founded, the Aspen Institute in Colorado was founded. And they started basically with a Goethe bicentennial, big, big, big gathering. And the old mining city was dying. And they just came from all over the world with philosophers and business leaders and a music tent, which was assembled. You see the photo with the old Fords, you know, coming to that place. And ever since they are doing these

leadership programs, and I attended one of the leadership programs, which is not about skills. It's about values. It's about the moral compass and the ongoing conversation along history, because from the Roman Empire days and ancient Greece to today's world and tomorrow's world, there is the same conversation between community and freedom, between individual and collective rights, and this kind of leadership seminar that is basically helping you understand the ongoing conversation about who we are and what's the meaning of a good society and a fulfilled life, and the combination between mind, body, and spirit.

You find it also in church, but you also find it with philosophers. And for me, it was a sort of a tremendous wake-up call for me. As a young guy, understanding that being successful in life is not enough if you also do something more. So when I returned to Romania, I started an astral institute in Romania. And to give an example of a huge satisfaction I had out of the thousands of young ones that we've been educating and training leadership in my part of the world. And I was receiving a deputy defense minister of Ukraine in NATO HQ just last week. And he says, a young guy, big, you know, this cocky, square-eyed uniform that they're wearing. He said, Mr. Joanna, I would like to thank you. You changed my life.

I attended the Aspen Institute Romania Leadership Seminar. Amazing. And the Sunday before, I go to the Romanian church in Paris. I was visiting Paris. And I go to the service. I'm a Christian Orthodox. And I go to the service. At the end of the service, a young priest, young priest, you know, the Byzantine, Robes, Christian Orthodox, comes to me.

Mr. Joanna, I'd like to thank you. You changed my life. I attended a leadership seminar as a young student at Business School of Bucharest to the Aspen Institute. And now I turn to become a priest because my call is with God and everything he wanted to do. So I'm just saying that I strongly believe in leadership and what we call value-based leadership. And values are not identical. You probably, in your philosophy of life, you're probably driven by results and things. Others are more, let's say, more community-oriented. Some people would like to start a charity.

Others would like to start a big business. Others would just like to be left alone and just be able to live their lives. Some people would like to become a Buddhist and to have a sort of a life of self-improvement spiritually. I'm not saying this's as one size fits all, but investing in young leaders and the values animated in them is the most rewarding thing in my life. And this is something that I'll continue to do.

And my dream, when I really get old, now I'm still doing pretty well, is to become a moderator of Aspen Leadership Seminars. And I'm preparing to take a course and to be able to have the same joy with many, many young generations to come. So that's my thing, investing in young people to have the best possible and most fulfilled lives that they can have. So what are five ingredients it takes to be a great leader if you can list them one two three four five number one my lesson they are not such thing as a natural born leader you can build yourself a leader even if you're a shyer person i was very shy when i was young that's hard to believe by

the way yeah i was very shy very shy it was probably communist education and my dad and all these things. I was shy. And I changed gears, and here I am. If you wake me up, really, at night, and tell me you go to the fantastic stadium in Los Angeles, because I'm still watching the Super Bowl halftime show of last year with hip-hop and with DRE and Snoopy Dog. If you put me speaking in front of 100,000 people at the stadium, I go and speak.

I have no problem doing this. And the same guy, 30, 40 years back, I was the shyest person in the universe. So the first lesson, you can really build yourself to being a leader. Secondly, there's not one type of leader. There are some leaders that are leading by example. There are leaders that are team leaders, others that are basically leading from behind. And the third one is never be happy with the kind of success that you have in that moment of life.

I can only give explicit leadership lessons because God has made all of us unique. And I'm too humble and also too experienced in life to say that my recipe can be replicated by anyone else. The only thing we all have is the capacity to learn, to improve, to be better human beings, and basically try to make a difference in the world. And it could be a difference in making a great podcast like I hope we are doing today. Or you can really be a president of a country.

Or you can be a CEO of a great company. Or you just be a great civic leader or somebody that is just educating as a single mom your kids to be successful in life through sacrificing yourself. So there's no one type of leadership. Definition of success is subjective. And thirdly, we always have something good in ourselves that we can offer

and we can do a little bit of good in our lives. So sometimes we think about being a leader, not just with straight up the middle tangible things, but things like humor. You're known to be a funny guy. How important is it to be funny, to be a team leader? Does that help you become a team leader? I want people to think about in this podcast ways to improve in ways that we don't normally think about to improve ourselves in our search for excellence. Listen, as we grow more experienced, there is a tendency for all of us to become a little bit, how should I put it, rigid and dry from within.

And a little bit arrogant. Because we know how to do things. Sometimes. Yeah. Anyway, we have such great experience that we start believing that our experience is in itself enough. It is not. So what I'm trying to improve in myself is to be able to listen more, to be a little bit more humble. I'm not an arrogant person.

I'm a relatively modest kind of person. But sometimes I have so many things to share that I'm not listening to the other guy. I'm always trying to tell them what I believe is good for them. And this is a two-way street. And even a guy would not, you know, the average Joe has something to tell you. Every guy, young or old, man or woman, whatever kind of nationality or whatever person they are, they have something to offer. When I was doing campaigning in my home country of Romania, because, by the way, I won the elections and I was declared the victor of the presidential elections. So I went to bed as a president of Romania and I woke up with some suspicious ballots coming in and said, no, no, no, no.

And it was proven it was basically a rigged election. So I overcame that thing. Look, I'm moving forward. So what I'm just saying, don't let yourself, especially for the more experienced, the more seasoned leaders, don't let that kind of wealth of knowledge and experience dominate you. There's always something to learn.

Listen to the others. Even the most, let's say, unspectacular human being can teach you something, a lesson of life, a story. Listen more and then try to give back as much as you possibly can. You talked about success a minute ago. What does it take to be successful? Can you give us three or five ingredients of success? There's only one.

Never give up. Never give up. Life is tough. You're up, you're down. I was up, I was down. You can one day be sick, one day have a problem, one day you have a problem with your girlfriend or whatever. I mean, you know, things happen in life.

Never give up. Never give up. We have one thing, one life, and God has put us on this earth to do the best with our lives. Never give up. There's always a second chance. There's always a second chance. There's always a third chance. As long as you keep the faith that by doing the good things and the right things, you can do things in life. So never give up.

That's the one lesson. Nothing more. One. Never give up. Things are sometimes very successful. Keep them rolling. Sometimes they go south. Don't give up.

Always there is a chance to come back and do better things with your life. So one of the things that's led to my success is something that I call extreme preparation. That's not preparing anybody else in anything that I do. If someone's preparing one hour for something, I may go 10 or 15 or 20. Has extreme preparation been important to any of your accomplishments and success? And can you give us some very specific examples of that? Listen, I'm coming from a culture which is not always very disciplined. I mentioned the fact that we are very close to Italians as Romanians. So we have a lot of creativity.

Sometimes we know that we are talented people, really. And sometimes when you have a sort of a natural talent for something, preparation seems to be less important. Yeah, but people get lazy. That's the problem. And my lesson is that even if you're very gifted and talented in sports, in music, in politics, in whatever profession you have, always find time to prepare properly.

Look at tennis. I love tennis. And look at this young Spanish guy who is now dominating tennis. He's immensely gifted, but he's so hardworking as well. I don't think that extreme preparation, as you mentioned, it would be something for me, to be honest, because I don't think I have enough patience to go hours and hours. But what I learned also in NATO and also I learned in America and in my days in France when I was young is that talent is not enough. You have to also work to put your talent into work. So in NATO, there is absolutely no single thing we do without what we call a prep meeting before.

There are people from a speech. I will give a commencement speech at Virginia Tech a week from now. I will be at Stanford. I will be in Washington. Everywhere there is a preparation. So yeah, you're right. I'm not a big fan of extreme preparation, but I'm a great fan of proper serious preparation because that's the key to success. How many times are you going to run through that speech before you get up there?

A few times. A few times. I give you the recent speech I gave at the Imperial College, which was the annual lecture. It was something more solemn, you know, British tradition, a great scope. And I think I prepared with my team a few times, back and forth. And in the end, also at the last minute, I also made some corrections. And I also a little bit improvised on the margins during the speech. But there's always a back and forth process with my team,

and I'm very, very fortunate to have a fantastic team of speechwriters at NATO. There's always me. I try also to put something of me. You can have great speechwriters, but there's always something from your personality and your vision that has to be present be present in any any public appearance i think part of preparation too is preparing for the unexpected and when your daughter was six months old you were in president clinton's office and she bit his hand and your son was too and took something off of his desk so how do you prepare for very awkward moments like that and keep your cool and not lose it. It was such a, yeah.

I remember it was a snowy day in Washington. And when they invite you to present the credentials to the White House, to the president, they send you a big limo from the White House to pick you up. It's a very, you know, solemn thing. And our residence in Washington was basically on a sort of a street which was a little bit steep. And of course American cars, especially in Washington, they don't have enough, you know, there's no four-wheel drive. So all of us, you should see me and my team and the drivers, you know, pushing

the car because we couldn't leave the house. And then we had our kids with us. But President Clinton was so, so gracious. Sandy Berger, God bless his soul, was there. So everybody was looking so amused at our son taking a big stick from Zaire, very colorful, from the Resolute desk from President Clinton and playing with this. So, yeah, we are prepared for the unexpected, but also have humor. Because if you take things too seriously, then you could have a problem,

because things, you have to treat them also as they come. You cannot curate everything. You cannot prepare for everything. So leave a little bit of humor. And that's how all of us treated that moment in the Oval, which was just great for our kids and for us. What do you think about the value of mentors? How important are they in our success?

I believe in mentorship. I mean, I've done this a few times. I also believe in the indirect mentorship kind of thing. So I have people that influence my life, and they were not my mentors explicitly. Their example was so powerful that they were basically mentoring me without them knowing they are my mentors. So I think the second version for me is more valuable. And there were a few people like this

that really influenced my life. It's also a matter of timing. What kind of situation are you in and what kind of influence you can get in a moment like this. When you're very successful, sometimes you believe you know it all. That's a mistake.

Yeah. When you're down, you're more open for advice, for wisdom, for compassion, for love, for faith. So that's why I think that the most important mentors for me were not the ones influencing me. They are when I was really a big shot, but more when I was more lonely and a little bit more sad and a little bit more vulnerable. And I think that's the kind of mentorship that I would encourage people to try to have to.

And if you can, of course, if you can give time to young ones and accept to be their mentor and help them as much as you can. I started a mentorship program at NATO. And I had a formidable German young lady. She came back from Afghanistan, by the way. And I was so happy to be able to work with her. I started in NATO a young

professionals program. We offer something like 20 positions. You know how many applications we got for 20 positions? Thousands. Thousands. 1,400. And I'm meeting those. And I'm not their mentor. And they do a great thing. For three years, they rotate. And once they are working with us in Brussels, then they go to America and then they go, I don't know, Wales. And every six months I'm meeting the 20 young leaders of NATO and I say, how are these guys doing? I'm not their mentor.

I'm just a more seasoned guy trying to see how they enjoy the experience with my organization. So giving back to the young ones is very, very, very, very fulfilling and very rewarding. I love mentoring young, hungry people.

You know, I have a summer intern program. Your daughter was in my program. She's phenomenal. I remember. We got a thousand applications now. Each summer has become a thing. And there's nothing more enjoyable to me than to take someone young and hungry and motivated and make a huge difference in somebody's life. I had dinner last night with one of my interns 11 years ago.

She worked at a consulting firm, went to Wharton. Now she's working at a large car company. And it's just incredible what she has been able to do. And it's incredible for her to tell me I had a big influence on her career. It keeps me going. It motivates me to keep doing it. And with the podcast as well. Continue doing this. I remember when I was, I think, a few years back, I met, through the Aston Institute US, a guy who was working with General McChrystal on a program which was, I think, called National Service. And now it's, I think, a service year alliance. There's a big program that was also adopted by the White House.

So basically, and I think Cisco offered for free the digital platform to have volunteer offer and volunteer needs being matched with private sector, with government, with citizens. And it is my dream to bring it back to Romania because civic involvement, trying to do these kind of things on big or smaller scale is very, very important. So I'm going to be meeting General McChrystal in Washington

and try to see his advice and also talk to Chuck Robbins, the CEO of Cisco, to say if he would be able to do a smaller replica in Romania. And I'm dreaming of the day when we'll have people, you know, doing, you know, not only the military service, but also the civic service and trying to give something back to the community. So congratulations for the work you're doing with the young ones. Thank you. I appreciate that. You've been very successful in your career. You've had jobs that take an enormous amount of time, day, night, morning.

I'm sure you get woken up with crazy things from time to time. What's the secret to work-life balance? And what's your advice to people when they're 20 years old versus 30 years old versus 40 years old? Where's that line? For me, doing sports and listening to music. And of course, family.

But I would say that these are the two big things that you have to keep your emotional side and your brain in sync. And my life was not always full of success. I had lots of difficult moments. I had lots of difficult moments. And when you're very successful, there is an adrenaline of success coming with you. You're pumped up.

You do things. In a way, you feel fulfilled. The art of living a meaningful life is to try to stay afloat, at least, when you're low. And again, family, sports, learning something new, and listening to lots of music. I love music, all sorts of music. I mentioned the Super Bowl halftime show, but also classical music or whatever kind of music I just love. And I think that the combination between, it's again, mind, body and spirit. And you can find a balance between the three. You'll be able to serve through life and have a meaningful life. What keeps you up at night?

You know, when you work with things so complex, like the ones I'm working with here in NATO, sometimes you also have a tendency to have a sort of a foresight for bad things to happen. I had in Brussels a new friend of ours that also worked, Anna, that interned for you, also worked for a great lady. And she came to speak to NATO and the European Union about antimicrobial disease. So we developed a sort of an immunity to antibiotics and to things like this, and that's becoming a big issue. And the World Health Organization is saying this is one of the 10 dangerous things to come. I'm not saying I'm waking up at night because of these things, but in the business of working with crises, I'm thinking, which will be the next one to hit us?

And even more than that, which will be the combination of crises that will be hitting us at the same time? So in a way, I have a sort of a dooms instinct in my radars. In a way, this is bad because it can wake you up at night it's also good because you you are more resilient and be expecting the unexpected so for the young ones i say buckle up because there will be lots of unexpected things coming in your life and the more complicated life is uh the more you have to go to the simple things that keep us as human beings who we are, which is love, compassion, giving something back to society, and trying to improve yourself all your life. Your term as Deputy Secretary General of NATO is four years. You've been asked to stay

another year. What's next for you after you leave NATO? I don't know. We have, you know, you know, I think we I think we are in a way lucky to have this big job at NATO because I learned lots of things. We have many options after we leave. We might go back to Romania and continue the work that we have started there. We could do something different. Anyway, I'll do everything I will do with the same passion, and I hope I'll be invited again on your podcast.

I'd love for you to be on, especially if you're the president of Romania. That would be a super... We'll see. Time will tell us. Again, I'm vaccinated with politics, so we'll see what life brings us. Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask some more open-ended questions. I call this part of my podcast, Fill in the Bl blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Sure. The biggest lesson I've learned in life is never give up. My number one professional goal is to be the best in my profession of politics.

My number one personal goal is? To see my kids happy. My biggest regret is? That I was not doing enough when I had the opportunity to change things in life. The one thing I've dreamed of for a long time but haven't done yet is? To go to a Super Bowl final, to a game. I attended the latest game. And by the way, I'm very happy that they made it on the way up. But I would like to really go to a Super Bowl and to see the halftime show live.

That's something I really want to do if I could. I don't know. Let's see. Next year will be where? Okay, we'll find out. I'm not sure where it is next year. Who's your favorite football team? In Romania is my family's team, which is a smaller team. Of course, all of us are looking to Premier League.

We are big soccer fans in Europe. So I was watching the Arsenal-Manchester City competition and see who's going to win the Champions League. That's a big deal. Do you have a favorite team, our kind of football, American football? No. I attended a few games. I played rugby football when I was young also for two years.

So I love American football because it reminds me of the original rugby football, which was the inspiration for American football too. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice to your 21-year-old self, what would it be? Take more time with your kids when they're young. The only regret I have, because being so busy and so absorbed with everything I do and being so driven, that sometimes probably I didn't give my kids enough quality time as a father that I should have. Thanks God that my wife, Mihaela,

compensated somehow. And I hope the kids are not holding anything against me. If you could be one person in the world, who would it be? Myself. What do you mean by that? Just being the better self that I know I can be. I think we should not dream of being someone else. I think we should dream to being the better version of oneself. What's the one question you wish that I'd asked you uh i i would have hoped you don't ask the question about returning to romanian politics but yeah because that's my team tells me never touch on that one you're trying you've done amazing things in your career doing a great

job at nato i'm so grateful for you to make time for coming in today thanks for being here on in search of excellence thank you so much and i hope that the young ones will be watching osha they're I'm so grateful for you to make time for coming in today. Thanks for being here on In Search of Excellence. Thank you so much. And I hope that the young ones will be watching OSHA. They're going to love it.