Apollo Perelini | 00:00  
It's just a game that brings people together, irrespective of the cultures, irrespective of their beliefs. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not, or whether you're Muslim or Christian. It brings you together in a sport that really tests you physically, mentally, but more importantly, spiritually. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 00:32  
Welcome to the Cultural Agility Podcast, where we explore the stories of some of the most advanced Intercultural practitioners from around the world to help you become culturally agile and succeed in today's culturally complex world. I'm your host, Marco Blankenburgh, International Director of KnowledgeWorkx, where every day we help individuals and companies achieve relational success in that same complex world. 
Well, welcome to this podcast and a special welcome to Apollo Perlini. I'm so happy that you're able to join us on this podcast. Ever since we met for the first time, I was just captivated by your story, just your life story and the way that you have used sports as a vehicle, both your passion, but as a really intentional way to work with people all around the world. 
So I don't want to introduce you. I think you're much better at introducing yourself. 
So welcome to the show and I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Good. 
Apollo Perelini | 01:38  
To be here, Marco. And I think when we first met, it was a lovely chat just to get to know each other. But just, you know, I think we've both had those journeys. 
You know, we don't live in our home countries and we're both away. We're just visitors here. And I think it's all part and parcel of our journey and part and parcel that adds on to our story. I'm Apollo Perlini and I'm of Samoan descent in the South Pacific. Born in Samoa and raised and we moved to New Zealand at a very young age. I'm the youngest of eight kids. There's four of us boys and four girls. And mum and dad felt it was important to move to New Zealand again for better opportunities, a better life. Back in Samoa, we pretty much lived off the land. And parents, we had a plantation. We had a lot of land and basically lived off the land. And mum and dad decided that we needed to change the direction in which the children grew up. And so moving to New Zealand was that advancement for our family. And changing our culture was going to be the challenge. And moving to New Zealand. At the time, mum and dad was more focused on just getting employment and kids to go into the New Zealand school education. And that's how it was for us kids. And we loved it. And we loved it. We're thankful for our parents for taking that risk and jumping and really helping us to start a life a few rungs up the ladder. Right. As we say. And I guess then it was my opportunity to then continue that journey and continue that story of moving another run up a few ladders so that my kids have a better start to their life. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 03:44  
It sounds like moving to New Zealand, that's a new, you alluded to it, new cultural environment. So how old were you when you guys moved? 
Apollo Perelini | 03:53  
I was around about three when we moved. So I was very young. And when we moved to Auckland, New Zealand, my siblings went straight into school. School life was a lot better for it. And like when you say Intercultural, yeah, there was a lot more. In Samoa, it was just Samoans. 
You know, your own kind. But in Auckland, New Zealand, it was probably the most multicultural sort of city in New Zealand. And there were other Pacific Islanders, a lot of other European people. And there was a big, a lot of mixes and cultures in Auckland, especially in Auckland. 
So in school was where it all started. And it was great. 
And then mixing with different cultures, again, was a challenge to how do we keep our own culture as well as adapt to and accept other cultures as well. Because everybody did things differently. We did things differently to the Europeans. 
And then we are very similar to the Tongans and the Fijians. And to a certain extent, the Maoris were the indigenous peoples of New Zealand were very similar. But cultures were still different. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 05:18  
Yeah. And Auckland is a very multicultural city in and of itself. Now, you're in the world of sports today. But how did you get into it? Was this like one of your first loves when you were a kid? How did you roll into the world of. 
Apollo Perelini | 05:36  
Sports? Well, it was interesting because sports, growing up in that era, sports wasn't regarded as a profession. It was always regarded as a leisure, something that you did in your spare time. And so my parents never really pushed me into sports. We kind of found it because that's where you gain friends. And when I started school, I realized that everybody, that wide variety of sports, but the main sport in New Zealand at the time, well, it still is rugby. And so every kid played rugby and every patch of grass, there was always a rugby game going on. And even on the tennis courts, there was a rugby game going on. And if you didn't have a rugby ball, you use a shoe and just no kicking because you can't kick a shoe. But yeah, you grew up just playing the sport that everybody else did. And it was a way of integrating. It was a way of gaining new friends, especially at my age, growing up, well, at a very young age, especially from different cultures. You did mix with other cultures and that was the starting point. And sport has always played a major part of my life because it's, especially team sports and because I guess team sports kind of prepares you for life. There's all sorts of parallels in sports. And I gained that very early in my life and playing rugby. And that was my game. And that was my game that I grew to love and I still coach it. As a national coach for UAE and as a former professional and international rugby player. Those sports kind of gave you values to live off. And so that's how I got into rugby. But it wasn't the flavour of every Pacific Island family because you weren't there for sport. You were there to, one, education and two, make a living. And so mum and dad actually banned sports for a bit. 
So my siblings, my oldest siblings were kind of told not to join clubs and not to be part of a sports team. You're here to go to school. 
And then once you graduated from school, you can then find a job. You need to put food on the table and have a roof over your head and maintain a roof over your head. And so that's how my oldest siblings were sort of instructed. But I was the youngest of eight. 
So by the time I kind of came into that sporting world where mum and dad kind of ignored me and thought, no, you pretty much do what he wants. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 08:36  
I think that's a common theme in families where the rules become less and less applied with the younger ones. Yeah. 
Apollo Perelini | 08:43  
It was slightly blurred. Those rules were slightly blurred by the time I came, sort of was interested in sport. And so I always tell the story to a lot of kids that appreciate what your parents do because my parents never, so they didn't love me. They loved me unconditionally, but they didn't have an appreciation of sports because they didn't grow up with sports. They grew up plantations. They grew up living off the land. And so when sports became a priority in my own personal life in high school and in school, mum and dad didn't see it as important to support that. And so my parents didn't watch me play rugby at all my whole life until I represented New Zealand at an under 20s. And my parents actually came out to watch me represent a country. Wow. And, you know, shock to them, they went, you're all bad at this sport. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 09:47  
But the sport eventually took you international, right? Yes. 
So can you just a mini version of what happened? You ended up at national level, but it took you overseas. 
Apollo Perelini | 10:02  
Absolutely. And I think that was what my dad always says, you're never going to get in. 
You know, what are you going to do with that sport? And then I do remember a teacher actually said to me, I think I was in sixth form, he says, you're never getting in life playing rugby. You get anywhere in life playing rugby. And at the time, he was right. Just I was fortunate to land on my feet when it became professional and you can earn out of it. And I was playing internationally for New Zealand at age grade, and then I got the opportunity to represent. I was asked by the Samoan Rugby Union if I would represent Samoa at the 1991 World Cup. And although my father and mother weren't big supporters of the sport, because I was representing their country of origin. The Samoan, they became passionate about it. They said, please go represent our country. 
So I ended up representing Samoa and that's kind of put me on the map. And in that World Cup, I played very well and we made the quarterfinals for the first time ever. And we were just a small island from the Pacific and we made the quarterfinals. It was shocking the world and beating Wales and Argentina. And I was selected as part of the World Cup 15. From there, people started to notice me and then another sport called rugby league came along and said, actually, we pay to play. Would you like to come and play our sport? 
Marco Blankenburgh | 11:53  
You can make a living. 
Apollo Perelini | 11:54  
You can make a living out of it. Dear. And rugby union was amateur at the time, so no one was getting paid. 
So when I went to rugby league, it was professional in the UK. And the UK club came to me, approached me, sent me a fax at the time, and got an offer to move to St. Helens rugby league, which is in just west of Manchester and north of England. And so I decided to go for it and never turned back. And that's what took me overseas. And I guess when I look at that journey, I think, you know, making that bold jump was similar to my dad making the bold jump to move to New Zealand for a better life. 
So that's where why we ended up. I ended up in 1994 in the UK. And got married. We moved over there. We had two lovely kids in the UK. 
And then I went, I stayed seven years in that sport. And then I went back to rugby union and played, continued to play for some while and then played for Manchester South Sharks and then retired in 2000, end of 2002. Went into coaching and I've been in coaching ever since. 
And then that coaching experience brought me to Dubai, which I became a director of sports for a large British school here, International British School. And then I took up the position as UAE high performance director and head coach for UAE rugby. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 13:44  
Now, UAE and rugby. Yeah. A country in the Arabian Gulf. For most people listening, those two don't go together. 
So how does the UAE actually even have a national rugby team? 
Apollo Perelini | 14:02  
Well, they, the UAE Rugby Federation was founded in 2011. And they brought in coaches and it was predominantly expat. It was an expat community that kind of built that. 
And then when the UAE government took over running it from a sporting perspective as a, the sports governing body and they took over and therefore needed people to come in and run it. Although they had expat community and locals were starting to get interested in it. There's football, there's handball, there's basketball. But now we have over 100 Emiratis playing regularly. Which is, and I have an Emirati national team and I have an expat national team. 
That's how we end up. Yeah. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 15:07  
Yeah. No, that's quite a shift from soccer. It's still the main sport, right? In the UAE. 
Yeah. 
Apollo Perelini | 15:15  
Yeah. Dominates everything actually. Around the world. 
Yeah. And the interesting thing is that I never looked beyond your major countries like your, you know, British countries and your Southern Hemisphere, Australasian countries like New Zealand, Australia. But when you come to somewhere like UAE, it's not until you get to get out to places like Sudan, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and all those countries, they all have rugby. Wow. And the people who play rugby are passionate about rugby. 
You know, I just come back from Kazakhstan and you wouldn't, never thought that they play rugby. But between them, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, they have this big rivalry, rugby rivalry. And I'm like, gee. Wow. And so. 
So. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 16:05  
It creates actually very interesting travel opportunities, I assume as well. Yeah. At the same time, you know, on the one hand, it sounds like even just having a rugby team or multiple teams in the UAE, which is a very culturally diverse country. On the other hand, you know, creating opportunities in the region to travel, to meet teams from other countries. At the same time, you know, when you watch TV and you watch the world of sports, not everybody's always happy about all this Intercultural mixing. Even when you look at some of the soccer teams or even on cricket pitches, I've seen it where not everybody's happy about this multicolored team mixing. What has been your experience? I. 
Apollo Perelini | 16:57  
Think this is why rugby is so unique in the sense of, we call it unique because it has values. These are certain, because it was always played by a gentleman. And it's a gentleman's game that was started in the, you know, the south of England. Played, it was an upper class, it was a white collar sport. And as a white collar sport, it was always regarded that everything, you behave like a gentleman when referees make a call. It's referees always right. These are saying that the referee is, there's two things in life that you can't change. And one is the weather and two is the referee's decision. And so we always talk about that those values being woven into the game so that the cultural values of respecting the cultures and that when we travel, we always make sure that we mix. It doesn't matter what happens on the field, but when you walk off the field, there's an appreciation for cultures and appreciation for the people that you've gone into battle with. And if you see the New Zealand Haka, everybody always kind of think that's a war dance, it's actually a challenge dance. It's a traditional way of saying, we welcome the challenge. We welcome the challenge. Today we go to battle, but tomorrow, we'll be friends. And so that New Zealand is probably, the Pacific Islands and New Zealand take their culture with them. They don't leave it back in New Zealand. 
So the Haka is part and parcel of the makeup of the game within New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga. So their cultural warrior challenge is a sign of respect. And for you to stand in front of a New Zealand Haka or a Samoan Haka, it's a sign of respect to say, we accept the challenge. Let's go to war. 
And then the respect is there. And you see after every game, we form tunnels and people don't see it. And after you play the game, the host team will form a tunnel for the traveling team and visiting team will go through the tunnel and they'll clap you and then vice versa. 
And then we'll form a tunnel and then they'll walk through and there'll be hugs and shakes. And then we leave the result on the field. And what happens on the field stays on the field. And respect, that's part and parcel of the values. And that's why I would say the culture of sport supersedes the culture of countries. The culture of sports kind of takes over. And so rugby has a very unique culture. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 20:16  
It's fascinating because in essence, that's really profound. That you're saying the culture of the sport supersedes, but then on top of that, you're saying rugby has a deeper value set historically that has been maintained. 
So if the culture of the sport supersedes, how have you seen rugby used to build bridges between people, between nations, between people from different backgrounds? 
Apollo Perelini | 20:49  
Yeah, because of the game and because of the values of the games that, you know, the respect, you know, the loyalty to what the game symbolizes that it brings people together. And the World Cup, national anthem for the World Cup, for Rugby World Cup is something like world emotion where it's everybody's united. It's like a united anthem of unity. And that when we go to all these countries, we take our culture, the culture of rugby, which is respect. And that doesn't matter how old you are, how new to the game that our culture of and values of the game, we push on to them. 
You know, put aside your differences, put aside how you feel about that person, you know. Samoa and Tonga, you always used to go to war against each other, you know, in the old days. But when it came to rugby, it was very different. You played within the rules, you respected them. 
And then you all come together and after a game and you mixed. And there's always, we always have what's called an aftermatch function, which makes, you make friends. If you look at football, they have to segregate spectators. If you're from one, say, if you're from Liverpool and Manchester, you're playing in Liverpool, you go to your stand, your side and you don't mix. 
You know, people don't mix. In rugby, you mix. It doesn't matter where you're from, you know, two opposing teams, you could be sat next to each other as. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 22:42  
A stand. Now, recently in the Middle East, some pretty spectacular agreements have been signed between countries that nobody was expecting. And rugby had a role to play in bringing countries together. 
Apollo Perelini | 22:59  
Yes. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 22:59  
And you told me some of the story. I thought it was fascinating. But yeah, can you share a little bit of what happened? How did the world of rugby become part of bringing countries together in this region? 
Apollo Perelini | 23:11  
Yeah. After the, there's an agreement between the UAE and Israel, it was signed called the Abrahamic Accord. And I thought it was an advantage to bring the two cultures, they never, ever played against each other. Never competed in any sport against each other. 
So I was, during COVID, I made contact with their coach who is South African, you know, and I'm Samoan descent, you know, and we started talking and said, why don't we make this happen? Now that we've signed this agreement, why don't we make a game? Let's play a game. And he said, you know what Al, you know, let's bring them together because our value supersedes the differences they have. The game is all about the game. It's all about the game. We're not going to be political with it. We're not going to go sort of cultural with it. We're just going to go play the game to its values. And so we made the agreement and then we proposed it to both unions and my bosses said, why not? Wow. That's awesome. 
And then, but then we had to get permission from the government. So we couldn't just agree as a rugby federation. We had to then get permission from the general authorities and the government to say it was okay. Because it's still in the eyes of other countries. This was not a good thing. And, you know, so considering what was happening in Palestine at the time. And, you know, so they gave us the green light to go ahead. And so we did. And the amazing thing was that when we had it all signed off, everybody was in shock that this was going to happen. For me personally, I kind of thought, wow, this is historical. But I kind of, it is a big thing. But for me, it was like, yeah, but this is rugby. That's what we do in rugby. This is what we do. This is what rugby does to countries. We bring people together to play a game, a sport that we love. To everybody else, it was a big thing. 
You know, to a lot of the Arabs, to the Israelis, it was, the Jews were involved. We're very, you know, we're like excited about the whole thing. And everybody got excited. There was a big press. Even the president, one of the two that he got onto a big screen and they put it on a big screen at the game. It was at Sports City, just here in Dubai. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 26:04  
So the game happened here in Dubai? In UAE. 
Apollo Perelini | 26:07  
Okay. And so we flew them over and they stayed locally and we played two games. One game was Israel versus UAE. The second game was played where we mixed the two teams and we call it the Sons of Abraham Cup. The Sons of Abraham Cup, we mixed the two teams evenly. And we had trained the day before as a mixed team. We said, these are your team. This is Sons of Abraham Blue, Sons of Abraham White. 
So straight after they played Israel versus UAE, Israel won. They went back into the changing rooms for another 45 minutes, got changed, got together as a team. They came out and that was the main game. 
The Sons of Abraham Cup was the main game. It wasn't the Israel versus UAE. And when they played, it was just amazing. The camaraderie, the respect, the cultures were mixed, but they were loving it. And it was funny. There's times there where the locals were calling things out in Israeli and then some of the Israeli boys were speaking some Arabic. It was so funny. Wow. That was cool. That was really cool. And I stood there with their coach in South Africa. We stood there and halfway looked at each other and said, this is pretty cool. And he said, we take this for granted. We're just looking at it, but we've just created history. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 27:49  
You have. And so when did this happen? This Wow. 
Apollo Perelini | 27:54  
Happened back in February. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 27:59  
Now, bringing a team like, you know, bringing teams together like that, obviously you don't just play two matches. There's other things happening around the game. What were some of the other activities that you organized? 
Apollo Perelini | 28:13  
We did what we called a Majalis experience, which is the, we took them out to the desert and our local players, we decided that we'll do a proper experience for the Israel team to show them what the cultural side of UAE Arabs, the Emiratis. And they were fascinated because the interesting comments that came from, because we went out to the desert Majalis and there was food put on and the local boys will take them out there and they'll be in all in their kanduras, whereas the Israelis will Dall-E in jeans and a polo top, you know. And they were very surprised to see all the, it's just your national wear. This is what we wear. This is, do you wear jeans and shorts? 
Yeah, we do. But this is our traditional way. We wear this all the time on a daily basis. 
So they were shocked. And this is, this is amazing being out in the desert. This is what we do on a regular basis. We know that living in Dubai that in the weekends, you see all the locals go out, put up a tent and they set on a fire and they just have something to eat. And that's how they socialize from a cultural perspective. And the comment that came from the Israeli boys was that we've come from the same culture. We come from the same family and we're all sons of Abraham, but yet we don't practice where we've come from. And these guys are still, although they live in villas and they drive around in flash cars and so -called UAE Dubai fashion, but they still behave in that nomadic way that they live in back in thousands of years ago. They still practice it. They still enjoy it. Which Israelis felt we don't do that. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 30:15  
So when you think about the conversations around the campfire, hanging out together after the match, what were some of the lessons that they have learned from each other? What were some of the things that they were saying? 
Apollo Perelini | 30:30  
They really appreciate each culture. They're all pretty much the same. They laughed at the same jokes. They were all mixed. They were all on different tables together. 
You know, they didn't just sit together. They didn't sit in their own groups. They all mixed. There was a nice mixture. They all ate together. And I always said, look, friends always eat together. I said that when you come together with food, that shows true friendship. And that's a new bond that you gain with that person. 
So for them to sit and eat, and the great thing is that all of them were eating with their hands. There's not many people using the knives and forks. It was just hands, just like they would eat traditionally. It was nice. And the conversation was all about what do you do from a normal day? How do you live your lives? 
So it was a lovely cultural exchange that realized that they're made friends. And they've stayed friends. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 31:44  
That's awesome. 
Apollo Perelini | 31:44  
And I guess with social media and the platforms that you have now, these guys are now lifelong friends. And will it continue? 
Yeah, we want to continue this. And we've spoken about us going there and playing the exchange in Tel Aviv. Awesome. 
So that's on the cards at the moment. They're probably next year sometime either in March, April, where I'll take a team to Tel Aviv for that same exchange. But we take a women's team. 
So the women would love to go there. And they were a bit jealous that this was set up just for the boys. And I said, well, daughters of Abraham will start. Why not? Why. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 32:32  
Not? Why not? And I can tell, you know, the audience can't see this because it's an audio recording. But this puts a big smile on your face. 
Yeah, it does. What can you describe that? What does it do to you? 
Apollo Perelini | 32:46  
I guess as a Christian, we live a life of, you know, believing in a God that we don't see and believing and having faith in the stories and the told of places that, you know, of Israel and the Arabs versus, you know, the Jews. And when you read that, and when you see this whole unity coming together, you feel, gee, I've had a big part to play in this. 
You know, it wasn't just something small. I do take it for granted sometimes, you know, because I just think, well, it's just rugby. And that's the reason why I always say, well, it's just a game. It's just a game that brings people together, you know, irrespective of the cultures, irrespective of their beliefs. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not, or whether you're Muslim or Christian. It brings you together in a sport that really tests you physically, mentally, but more importantly, spiritually. And I always say that. And I said, look, the game of rugby is so, it tests you in all areas. And you do sometimes, when I say spiritually, and I said, how often have we dug so deep that you just think, that'll be a greater being that helps me through this. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 34:20  
So, when you think about your, you know, you're in the UAE, it sounds like there's tons to do for you here. Lots of, you know, bigger ideas, even just taking the Abrahamic Cup further. What do you see in the future? 
Apollo Perelini | 34:40  
Yeah, Marco, I think a lot of what I've kind of see that I want to do more of it. You know, again, over these last few years, it's been helping develop the game of rugby within the region, the Asia region and the central Asia. And I'm what you call a coach educator for the game of rugby. But a lot of the things that I do is more of a coach rugby, but you coach what the values, the behaviours. And when I talk about values, I talk about behaviours and how we behave as rugby players and the expectations of the game. And doing the Abrahamic Cup and growing that even more is just part of that story that I want to sort of imprint in my life and say that was something that I didn't do on my own. And as a Christian, I always say, you're in a place that sometimes you don't choose to be but God puts you in a place for a reason. And it's amazing that a lot of my Christian friends always say, gee, you're there for a reason, bro. 
Yeah. You're still doing good. But yeah, but more importantly, I want to use my rugby experience, my sporting experience and use the, I guess, the transferable skills that I have to help people. 
Yeah, and. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 36:21  
You mentioned to me as well that, you know, the whole value system, things you learn about your life, about collaborating, about resolving conflict, there's all these lessons that rugby gives. And you're bringing that outside the sport as well, to, you know, into the business world even. Or, you know, tell me a little bit more about that, because I think that's a beautiful extension of all the years of experience that you have. 
Yeah. 
Apollo Perelini | 36:48  
And I always say the transferable skills that we have, and the transferable experiences, I always call them experiences. And the experiences I have in the game or sport, doesn't matter what sport you have, the same experiences you have within the corporate world. There are teams within teams. And in the game, in the sport, any team sport, there's not just one team within that team, there's multiple teams within the teams. And so when I start to break that up, and put it in the context of business life, it starts to resonate with people. And when it starts to resonate with people, and for me, it was more self discovery. I kind of stumbled over it when people started asking me, how would you do this from a high performance team? You're a high performance manager, you work with high performance teams. How do you do that? What are the skills that you're looking for from high performance? What key ingredients does a high performing team require in order to perform at the highest level? But I think this is where there's always a, it's, I always say look, misinterpretation or the perception that when I ask people, when you say high performance, what do you mean high performance? 
You see me as a high performance coach. Or what do you mean by high performance? What do you perceive as high performance? And people always call it elite, top of your game, working on a game performing in a top of your game, peak. I said, No, I said, for me, perform was high performance for me, it's development. I said, when you hit high performance, I said, you're developing, right? It's all development. High performance is about working towards performing at your peak, right? It's not high performance doesn't mean that you're at your peak. High performance is the processes, the ingredients of to reach peak performance. 
So when I talk about high performance, when I look at my job, I always look at it from a development spectacles. I look at it from those lenses, this development. 
So when I see a player at the top of their game, I change the game. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 39:29  
And that's profound because, you know, in the corporate world, people talk a lot about high performing teams. But typically, they say, Okay, can you do a one day workshop for us? And make it happen. And what you're saying really, you know, high performance is almost like a mindset that is not developed overnight. Yes, it's a journey that you need to be on. And just listening to you, just the sport of rugby brings a culture with it. Then it creates a place where you can start developing. And that's what I often miss, actually, in business teams, that they don't take the culture of the team serious enough. They just say, you know, make us perform. And it doesn't happen unless you have a solid bedrock of culture that allows you to do that. Because I. 
Apollo Perelini | 40:21  
Think the problem with corporates is that it's sometimes people look at it as a dog eat dog world. And it's you try and perform on your own. It's all about you. It's all about you. If you put your best foot forward, you'll achieve this and you'll get the promotion. That's all it is. Whereas from a sporting perspective, if I perform, the team performs. Right. 
So we all perform, we all love that if we feel come together, we win. If we all perform as individuals doing our own thing, we lose. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 41:03  
The team falls apart. The team falls. 
Apollo Perelini | 41:04  
Apart. Yeah. And so when you look at that, you need to change the mindsets of the corporate companies. And the what the cultures are, what is the culture reflect? And I always say, well, what is your culture reflect in your company? And often, these are our values. Look at our 10, 15. Great. 
I mean, those you remember, I mean, those can you actually sort of is outworking in your life right now. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 41:38  
You know, not just remember them, but actually apply them. 
Apollo Perelini | 41:42  
Apply them. Yeah. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 41:44  
And apply them so that everybody actually knows what is expected from them. 
Apollo Perelini | 41:48  
Yeah. And that's why I always say to be with my teams is behaviors are so important because of behaviors are the visible sometimes behaviors and they is that they're measurable. Values are hard to measure. With behaviors are measurable. And that with somebody being honest and somebody's being vulnerable. 
Yeah. And you can see that. And when somebody's late, he's not behaving within our culture. 
Somebody doesn't when somebody falls out with somebody else and doesn't resolve it within a certain time period. He's not behaving within our team culture. 
Yeah. You know, we always say, look, if you got differences with somebody, sort it out. Because they we go into the trenches together. We'll fight that battle together. We're going to be in war together. But we're wearing the same uniform. 
Yeah. So it's important that you need to sort out your differences. And so that's really key. And it's the same in the corporate world. 
Yeah. But we need to change the mindsets of individuals in order for them to work collectively as a unit. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 43:06  
Anybody who's interested in that part of your story, we'll make sure that contact details for Apollo are available. So you'll find them at the bottom of the podcast. I have tons of additional questions I wanted to ask. Maybe we need to do a part two. But yeah, we're ahead of time. It's fascinating. Thank you so much for coming in. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's inspiring. And it shows that there are unexpected ways in our world to bring people together that really, like you said, create friendships for life. 
Yeah. So thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you for what you're doing for the UAE as a country. Because I think, you know, you're just saying it's just a game. This is significant. It's history in the making. 
So thank you for investing your life into that. And yeah, I hope we will have another opportunity in the future to talk some more. 
Apollo Perelini | 44:05  
Definitely. More than happy to come down and have these conversations. Nice casual chats as we go. Thank you so much. And catch -ups. Thank you, Marco. And really, thank you. And I know that all you listeners out there, you know, we sometimes, we chase dreams and chase dreams. But if we don't have a goal and a vision to achieve that dream, you know, we kind of chase it aimlessly. And we talk about that within our rugby team. We've got to have a goal. We've got to set our goals regularly, you know, long -term, short -term, and even micro goals in there daily. We have daily goals and then I give players what can they achieve today. Awesome. And so those dreams are only just dreams if you don't work towards them. 
Yeah. And wish you all the best. Thank you. 
Marco Blankenburgh | 45:00  
Thank you, Marco. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Cultural Agility Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with someone. The best way to help us out is by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app or channel or forward and recommend this podcast to people around you. As always, if any of the topics we discussed today intrigue you will find links to articles discussing them in greater depth in the podcast notes. If you would like to learn more about Intercultural intelligence and how you can become more culturally agile, you can find more information and hundreds of articles at KnowledgeWorkx .com. A special thanks to Jason Carter for composing the music on this podcast and to the whole Knowledgeworks team for making this podcast a success. Thank you, Nita Rodriguez, Ara Azizbekyan, Rajitha Raj, and thanks to Vipin George for audio production, Rosalind Raj for scheduling, and Caleb Strauss for marketing and helping produce this podcast.