What Would You Stand Up and Fight For?
Deeper reflections after my conversation with Steve Muscat Azzopardi — episode out now on YouTube and Spotify.
Some conversations you prepare questions for. And some conversations you simply need to be present for, because the person in front of you is going to take you somewhere better than any question could.
My conversation with Steve Muscat Azzopardi was the second kind. I met Steve at the end of last year, in a workshop run by my very first podcast guest, Alina. I had just self-published my first book. He was still writing his. I started following his work on LinkedIn, and when I launched this podcast, I knew: Steve had to be one of my first guests.
Meet Steve
Here is what you need to know about him. Steve spent more than 20 years in senior leadership across financial and corporate services — from Malta to Luxembourg, back to Malta, and now Luxembourg again. He made it all the way to Partner at a top-tier global advisory firm. He was, by every definition our generation was handed, successful.
And then he stepped away from all of it to become an independent leadership mentor, speaker, and author. His book, Your Leadership R.I.D.E., builds an entire leadership framework out of something you would never expect: motorbike riding. Balance. Awareness. Trust in yourself — on the road and in how you lead.
Steve's trajectory in life was nothing linear. And he did it anyway.
He has lived on the success side — the high achiever, the promotions, the nice cars (his words, not mine). And he has lived on the other side too: coming home to yourself, reevaluating your life, your personal values, your own definition of fulfilment. In our conversation he shared, honestly and so generously, what it took him to become the most authentic version of himself.
What stayed with me
1. Life humbled him and he let it. Steve lost his wife when he was 41. He spoke about it openly, without drama, and about how therapy carried him through the hardest chapter of his life. He needed to reconsider everything: his values, what he stands for, what actually makes him happy, what makes him tick and how to regulate his own nervous system. He knows his body now. He knows when stress is beginning. He chose to live near a forest because he knows he needs nature almost daily. That level of self-knowledge is not an accident. It is work. And he did the work.
He said something in our conversation that I want every leader — and every human — to hear: people still believe you go to therapy because you are broken. You don't. Top athletes have coaches not because they are failing, but because they want to see their blind spots. The same is true for the rest of us.
2. He is not selling you a recipe. This is what sets Steve apart from so much of the leadership industry. He is not saying "I did this, so you should do it too." The whole message of Your Leadership RIDE is in the first word: your. Your journey, your career, your life — nobody else's.
The sea restores him. It might terrify you. Cycling grounds him. You might hate it. Everyone has their own unique set of skills, values, and definition of fulfilment in life and that is okay. Actually, it is more than okay. It is the whole point.
Success, Steve says, is when you achieve something you set out to do. Fulfilment is something else entirely: being in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, with the right people, in a way that energizes you. Success is easy to define. Fulfilment is the one worth chasing.
3. Alignment came through trial and error and it still does. Steve didn't arrive at his alignment through one big decision. He arrived through many. Malta to Luxembourg. Back to Malta. Back to Luxembourg. Employed to self-employed. Corporate world to mentoring. Some of it worked. Some of it didn't. He took the lessons and course-corrected.
His philosophy on decisions is one I will carry with me: once a thought arrives — what if I stopped? what if I tried? — you are going to live with a regret either way. Do it, and you live with the messy reality. Don't do it, and you live with the romantic "what if." Steve chooses the messy reality every time. Keep moving. Keep trying new things. Keep saying yes to new opportunities — even when it's scary. Especially when it's scary.
The question I'm leaving you with
At one point in our conversation, Steve talked about values — real values, not the ones we put on LinkedIn. He described them as the things you would stand up and fight for. Literally, he said, the things you would die for.
So here is my question for you this week:
What are your values in life? What would you absolutely stand up and fight for? Have you ever actually asked yourself that?
Not the borrowed answers. Not what sounds good. Yours.
Sit with it. Maybe on a run, maybe on a bike, maybe just with a coffee and a quiet moment. Steve would tell you the reflection is the work.
I’d love to hear. Reply in the comments or reach out. I’m collecting these stories.
It does not cost you anything to share. And sharing is caring!
P.S. His book, Your Leadership RIDE, is available in paperback on Amazon, and you can find him at stevema.eu or on LinkedIn. He also hosts his own podcast on leadership, VISOR UP.