Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 11

6 Keys to Successful Interactions.

As people return to the office and work is impacted by the Generative AI revolution our human to human interactions are going to be the key to success. This builds on an earlier post.

Whether in the physical or virtual world we spend a significant amount of time interacting with others.

To a great degree the success of an individual at both a personal or business level, as well as those of leaders, teams and company cultures, are highly co-related with the quality of these interactions.

There are six keys to maximize the impact of any interaction whether with individuals or groups.

Three of them are what we bring to the interaction ( generosity, empathy and attention) and three of them (clarity, belief and energy) are what we want to leave or take from the interaction.

Why interaction versus meeting.

The use of the word interaction versus meeting is purposeful for three reasons:

1. Active versus Passive. One attends meetings while one participates in an interaction.

2. Return to Office mandates are likely to flounder if people return to attend meetings and find themselves sitting around with headphones in common areas hoping that some enlightenment via osmosis occurs by watching others or some magical serendipity transpires because one runs into someone around the mythical water cooler!  Hours of travel, a reduction in flexibility and increased expenses to hopefully glimpse these highly advertised experiences will not be a great trade-off. The focus should be on in-person interaction versus office and meetings if RTO is going to work and the true learning, relationship and cultural benefits which are very real and important can be experienced.

3. By focusing on interaction one reduces waste by limiting the number of attendees to only those who benefit from or participate in the interaction and constraining the content to what needs real time synchronous interaction versus something that can be read or dealt with at any time or any place.

What one should bring to an interaction.

There are a lot of books and articles on meeting management and how to get the most out of gatherings.

Most of them are utter and complete BS because they all focus on how you can get the most out of an interaction, while the focus should be how can you give the most in an interaction.

If you go to a meeting with an “extraction” mindset versus a “giving” mindset you are likely face several problems including a) missing meetings where you may have been able to share your knowledge and therefore build goodwill b) become so focused on what you are looking for that you do not discover what you need.

So, you end up with less and less knowledge, find yourself shocked and surprised at things that come from left field and suffer a diminished reputation as a taker versus a giver.

To maximize learning, reputation and enhance interaction experience focus on generosity, empathy and attention as the keys to bring to every interaction.

a) Generosity.

How can one leave the person or the people whom one is meeting with or presenting to with a gift?

A gift of knowledge or insight or a way to see things that they did not have before. Something that makes them believe that it was a good use of their time.

Besides knowledge some other ways to be generous include appreciation of their skills and their contributions. Everyone wants to be acknowledged and recognized for their good work.

Another way to be generous, is to provide guidance. People are hungry for advice, directions and stories to navigate whatever challenge or situation they face. Providing perspectives, stories and experiences resonate and scale in empowering and growing people.

Knowledge. Appreciation. Guidance. These are three ways to bring generosity to an experience.

b) Empathy.

How can one truly understand the other persons perspective and point of view because in doing so one will grow even if we might disagree with their perspective or view.

If you are presenting, how can you make sure that your talk is relevant to those in the room and the issues they have in mind and not some boiler plate boiled anew. Is it not ironic when speakers talk of relevance and customization and customer or content is king but do not customize or make relevant their content to their audience? Basically, they are saying that their time is more valuable than those attending.

Three ways to ensure empathy is to seek to understand by asking, listening, and re-stating the problem and situation. By reframing the problem using analogies and other categories and finally by sharing relevant personal experiences.

Understanding signals, you are listening. Re-framing telegraphs that the problem or challenge being faced has been shared by others. Personal experiences ensure a human connection and re-enforces that you have been in this person’s shoes or seen others who have been.

c) Attention.

When we have a great interaction, we feel that the person talking to us is paying attention to us.

They do not appear distracted looking away at some screen or signal they are participating grudgingly in the interaction. They are there in body and spirit.

People watch for tone of voice, facial expressions, and small gestures rather than one’s physical presence if one is paying attention paying attention.

Bringing oneself, one’s generosity and ones empathy are key inputs for a great interaction.

But an interaction is as much about what you and others take-away. Outcomes are key and the it is important to leave people with clarity, belief, and energy.

d) Clarity.

In a great interaction or meeting people come out with a clearer understanding of a situation, with greater precision of knowledge, and clear-cut next steps than before the meeting or interaction.

Doubts are cleared. Any mixed signals clarified. Hedges eliminated.

Everybody is clear as to what they need to do next and who is doing what.

One leaves the interaction better informed and equipped to tackle whatever the challenge or problem might be.

Now think of the meetings one has when people come out more confused, more unsure of what to do. We have all attended these group gropes or even individual one on one meetings which were thick with dense mumbo-jumbo, buzz-word bingo, oozy obfuscation and mixed signals that left us more mystified and doubtful than before we had the interaction.

One way of ensuring clarity is to speak simply using plain language and have people play back what the next steps are.

e) Belief.

It is one thing to be clear as to what must be done next but as important is to leave an interaction with a greater belief in your or your team’s ability to do what is necessary.

Many managers collapse the mood of a room by berating an individual or team’s performance without some offsetting knowledge or guidance on how they can do things better or improve themselves.

A great interaction occurs when one leaves a meeting feeling more confident about one’s capabilities in tackling what must be done. Even if one had received feedback in a meeting about not having done a good job it is key to leave with guidance and a sense of motivation that one can fix the situation and finding a remedy.

A dirge like procession of individuals with hang-dog faces, droopy shoulders and shuffling feet is not just a downer but a negative vibe that echoes through everybody who interacts with the individuals whose self-belief was drained out of them.

A key is to leave someone feeling better about themselves after you meet them rather than worse even if you provide them with less than positive information by showing how you or another individual tackled the same problem, reminding them of the times they recovered when they were knocked back by a challenge or sharing your individual stories of tackling similar situations.

f) Energy.

We are living in a time of great change, accelerating velocity of business and multiple pressures.

This is leaving people often drained, burnt out and wanting to just curl up under a blanket from the noise and tension.

Great interactions leave people rejuvenated, replenished, and refreshed.

While clarity is about the mind, belief about the heart, energy is about the body.

Bringing energy to a meeting can boost others. Energy is contagious.  Other ways to leave people more energized can involve leveraging humor, providing the opportunity to take a break, or bringing empathy and understanding on the forces that drain energy with some ideas of fixing them that can leave people with a boost.

Regardless of whether one interacts in person or remotely, individually or in groups, how senior or junior one is the likelihood of having a great meeting or interaction is likely to improve if one focusses on leaving everybody you interact with clarity, belief, and energy.

Rejuvenating & Re-Imagining Organizations.

Photography by Steven Friedman

For decades the fundamental beliefs of most organizational design were built on five assumptions:

The Organization gives structure and directs work.

Tenure and experience are critical to advancement.

Most of the work is done inside an organization.

Fairness requires a common set of rules and ways of working to be applied to all.

Most employees are full time employees of the company.

These are now being supplemented and in some cases being replaced by the exact opposite realities and dawning realizations:

The Organization enables talent to create structure and direct work. Talent does not work for the organization, but the organization works for talent.

Expertise in a changing world and constant learning rather than tenure/experience are key.

Most of the work is done outside an organization by suppliers and marketplaces to access talent when one needs it and to remain agile and cost-effective in a transforming world.

Fairness means customizing programs for each talent to which everyone has equal access.

Most staff are either contract workers, free-lancers, or fractionalized employees.

Photography by Steven Friedman

Organizations are now beginning to twist and transform into new shapes recognizing the realities of the world that is and will be versus the world that was or one may wish to go back to:

a) Need to be designed from outside in versus inside out:  Companies need to be designed to be driven by marketplace realities about new competitors, transformational technologies and changing talent mindsets rather than historical category definitions, a companies historical moats, or the way management got to be management.

b) Companies will have many models versus one model of working: Models will defer based on country, competition for talent and focus on current business or new innovations. A company with one way or one model is unlikely to have the multiple foci necessary for a shape shifting world.

c) The focus should be on outcomes and goals versus process and control: Three key outcomes for any company are financial results, client satisfaction and talent attraction and retention. These three outcomes and goals should be what organizations should be optimized for.

This requires a significant shift in the mindset of management where they need to be willing to trust talent and teams who are doing the work to best decide how to drive the outcomes of financial results, client satisfaction and talent attraction and retention.

As a result the emphasis should be on:

Bottom Up versus Top Down: Talent will be asked to take the initiative and to drive the answers and management will guide and coach.

Frontlines Vs HQ: Teams working in different markets on different clients need to be empowered to solve the problem in ways that fit their markets versus some mandate from people far away from the competitive battlefield.

Freedom within a Framework: Besides a focus on outcomes Management needs to provide some frameworks and guard rails to ensure IP ownership, alignment with legal and other guidelines and some criteria where a quick sign-off may be needed from Management.

Every management team should ask if their organization is biased towards yesterday or tomorrow and if they are designing their companies to deliver on the mantras, they claim such as agility, personalization, trust and being future forward.

Agility: If being agile is important than companies need to be able to shape shift and move quickly. If this is true is the organization flexible on how and where work is done and how partnerships are initiated.

Personalized: Can an organization truly deliver customized products and personalized services if this is not built into the organizational structure. If there is one mandate, one way and one process how do people have the flexibility they need.

Trust: Can an organization engender trust with Clients and customers if they do not trust and empower their teams?

Future Forward: In a world of rapid technological change, new demographics, changing mindsets, new ways of working and marketplaces the proof of being future forward will be identified in organizational design.

Chance.

Whenever anyone asks me for career advice, regardless of their age or industry or challenge, I ask them to read a piece I wrote a couple of years ago called 12 Career Lessons (it is second most popular post in over three years of writing this thought letter after Re-Thinking Presentations)

12 Career Lessons distills everything I have learned after a 40 year career. Many then ask and want to hear the story behind these lessons.

10 years ago the Chicago Ad Federation gave me their highest honor which is like a life time achievement award and my acceptance speech called “Chances” is what I share with those who want to understand the messiness but most importantly the help and luck one needs in any career. I have republished below for those interested:

In every life, and a career is just a part of life, chance plays a very big role. Luck matters. Some believe things are destined and “it is written” while others like TE Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia believes “nothing is written.”  But regardless luck and chance play a big role in life.

It is not this chance that I would like to speak about but rather about the chances that people took and the chances people have given me over the years without which I would not be here.

Let me start in the middle or at the beginning of my US life where the Graduate School of Business at The University of Chicago (now the Booth School) gave me a chance to be part of a world class university by admitting me with no work experience and an okay GMAT score. I was only one of two people from India admitted that year, 1980, and one of a handful from outside the United States. ( 49% of the students in the Class of 2025 at Booth were born outside the United States!)

When I graduated with great grades only one of 35 companies, I interviewed with called me back for another round. I did not have a work visa. I was from India. I looked and spoke like an Indian. A gentleman called Mike Kearns was interviewing for a company called Leo Burnett and because one of his friends in the agency, Sadru Patel, was an Indian he decided to overlook the lack of a work visa and call me back for a second round. But before the round Sadru and him prepared me to ensure that I had the best chance to get in. I interviewed with legends like Dick Hobbs (who was one of the driving forces behind the Leo Burnett Media department and who would help birth Starcom) and many others, all of whom voted to give me the chance to get a job. Without the chance that Leo Burnett and all those folks gave me, I would have graduated jobless and possibly returned to India.

In those days even if you were going to join the Client Services Department you would start in media and before you were “placed” on an account you sat in a large room called “The Pit.”  It was a big conference room which had a series of desks and one phone which Tony Weisman who had joined the same day and is now the CEO of Digitas in North America sat next to and barked out the names when the phone rang for one of us in “The Pit” to go do some thankless adding of numbers or spreadsheets (this being real spreadsheets since there were no computers).  My main job in “The Pit” was to work with the head of media research called Jayne Zenaty who showed me how to build the case for an emerging new technology called “cable television.”  That chance to see how you built a case for something that still was in its infancy turned out to be very helpful some decades later.

When I was finally placed on an account (Maytag and Allstate) I was fortunate to work with Don Amos who took a chance by taking me into his office and letting me know that I “did not fit”. What he meant was that while I was good at running the numbers and doing the buys, I could not speak about sports or culture or make others feel that “I fit.”  Today this advice might be considered inappropriate but Don did not just provide advice but took it upon himself to send me to college football games with his children, get me into the University Club and pick up all the social graces, cultural cues and nuances that mattered (and still matter) in corporate America. Don Amos took and gave me chances.

When I moved into Client Service on Procter and Gamble, my first boss Patricia Swindle who is here decided I had no writing skills and as far as I was concerned, she became the Devil incarnate in that she would make me re-do memos at least 20 times (this was in the age of typewriters) until every word, every sentence and every selling point was as tight as possible. She gave me the chance to improve my writing skills. Others like Paula McLeod, Mary Bishop and Peter Husting threw me meaty and strange assignments that included observing and analyzing rat studies to build a case for an anti-plaque toothpaste. When going through these rat studies with corporate lawyers like Carla Michelotti who is also here, I wondered where I was and what I was doing. When would I work on a prestigious account and do glamorous things?

As luck would have it my next assignment involved trash bags. Glad trash bags. I moved onto this account owned by Union Carbide two days after the Bhopal Gas disaster to go work for a client who was from the deep South and yelled at my account director with me in the room as to what he was thinking putting me on the account. Bill Haljun who was my director just said I needed to work under hostile conditions and hostile clients and here was my chance. He was a religious man and then said we should pray things would work out. His prayers worked and when I left the business two and half years later some long lasting achievements were (along with Warren Guthrie) renaming the company to First Brands, developing the first data driven way of allocating spot television spending to market results and learning how to make amazing ads with Kent Middleton who today is the longest serving creative still at Leo Burnett and who is also here in the room. I also was terrorized by an Account Supervisor named Mike Miller who was convinced that I was the worst presenter he had ever seen and so decided that I needed to rehearse and rehearse and present and present till I knew what I was doing. He did not say you will not present because you are no good but rather you will present till you become good. All these folks took and gave me chances.

I am not a fan of cats and dogs. So after rat studies and trash bags the Leo Burnett company decided I was to work on pet food and specifically on a brand, Amore, where the client did not believe in television advertising but wanted to explore this strange terrible second class thing called direct marketing. My bosses Jeff Herscovitz and others insisted that I learn this direct marketing thing the Client was interested in. So mailing lists, de-duping, postage costs, databases were encountered rather than Hollywood TV shoots or working on McDonalds or United Airlines or Kellogg’s…But that would surely come when I became an account director….

It was time to be promoted but there were no positions since all the large accounts promoted from within. So, Tom Collinger who ran the direct marketing department gave me the chance to be a director in his group though I really was not a direct expert. In some ways it was also seen by many as career suicide since the 34th floor was full of outsiders like Jerry Reitman and Tom Collinger spouting things about integrated marketing and data bases. I joined the “leper colony” and started to learn about these “dark second class” arts. Also got interested in a thing called CompuServe and Prodigy because the economics of direct marketing had a bunch of fixed costs like paper and postage which needed to be offset to make the economics work.

One day driving to a client to present a direct marketing plan with Linda Wolf who would become the CEO of Leo Burnett but was then running the Fruit of the Loom account and was the head of new business I spoke about computers and technology. She asked me to go see Rick Fizdale then the Chief Creative Officer who was determining how to staff a new business pitch for IBM’s Personal Computer Business. The assignment was not a creative pitch but a 90-minute conversation about the future of computing and what we would recommend IBM market its PC. Rick gave me the chance to lead this pitch and I was armed with the very first IBM ThinkPads, went off to Forrester conferences and got to work with legends like Bud Watts (creator among other things of the Rhapsody in Blue themed ads for United which we still hear today). We lost the pitch even though we had got the recommendation right (which was about empowerment and suggested that IBM stop thinking in silos and instead of giving us their PC business to put all their business together), they first hired an unknown agency for a few weeks and did just what we recommended with Ogilvy and Mather who had worked closely with IBM leadership at Amex where they all had come from.

In order to work on the IBM, pitch I had left my direct marketing job and so I was now without an account and a new business loss. Bill Lynch and Rick Fizdale who held the titles of Chairman, CEO and Chief Creative Officer between them asked what I would like to do, and I asked if I could start an Interactive Marketing Group. They were not sure what I was talking about, but they said yes you can do so but you will have no staff. So, I started the group with no staff, no account, no budget in a business where stature meant how many clients and budgets and people you controlled.

Jan Klug who was running a part of the McDonalds account called me and gave me the chance to pitch her Client about Leo Interactive to help them evaluate the Time Warner Full-Service Test in Orlando in 1994. McDonalds hired us and we needed people to help us with content for this test and I was introduced to two young brothers, Adam and Eric Heneghan from Iowa who had moved to Chicago with a company called Giant Step Productions. We asked them to work from the Leo Burnett building. We then found ourselves recommending McDonalds to get out of the Time Warner test telling them that it was not going to work. The Client wondered if we were mad since we were asking our only Client not to do the only project that we were working on. We asked that they think about a company called America Online instead and a CD-ROM company called Broderbund to partner with.

In rapid order Carla Michelotti’s husband Bob Colvin then a senior agent at the talent agency ICM, introduced us to Broderbund and helped introduce us to folks that allowed us to create the first online live talk show called Oldsmobile Celebrity Circle on America Online. Bob and ICM took a chance on a crazy Indian guy spouting interactive marketing, a bearded savant called Tig Tillinghast and two strange looking Iowan folks which were the Leo Interactive Marketing Group.

Then came a flurry of gambles and chances that people took. Adam and Eric agreed to sell most of their company to Leo Burnett. Bill Lynch, Jim Jenness and Rick Fizdale allowed us to take Leo’s name off the door and make Giant Step the Leo Interactive Marketing Group and they let us leave the building into a loft in Greek town and fund things called a server room! And from this loft Clients like United let us launch them on the web and General Motors partnered with then sites like Hot Wired. And the person who helped us build the underpinnings financially was Frank Voris who later would be a driving force with Jack Klues behind another new entity called VivaKi…

3 years and 100 employees strong Adam and Eric taught me how to be an entrepreneur, how to make payroll and a lot of other things but we came to disagree with each other since I remained loyal to Leo Burnett (whose employee I was, and which owned 75% of the company) while they cared about Giant Step and its future. I returned to Leo Burnett sitting in a room stinking of fish above Catch 35, a restaurant, with nothing to do.

And then the phone rang and gentleman I know well said…” Hi this is Jack Klues. I am about to launch Starcom. Can I convince you to join me to help us on digital and the future?”. And thus, was born Starcom IP. But I was not the first employee of Starcom IP. Rather an ex Starcom employee, Tim Harris, had been hired back from a company called Launch Media ( a CD-ROM music magazine run by David Goldberg now CEO of Survey Monkey and husband of Sheryl Sandberg) to help Starcom in digital. Tim Harris was pissed I was there but decided to give me a chance to be the President of Starcom IP (he was Vice President and the only other employee). And with completely made-up credentials we got Miller Beer to take a chance on us. As we grew, we hired folks in a most unusual way. The first hire was someone we thought was an online porn specialist called Steven Governale (he was not), the next was a pal of Tim called Jeff Marshall. Every one we hired had to be approved by everyone else and we took chances on the most unusual and most strange folks who left successful careers to take a chance on us. PJ Macgregor , Wendy Barsky (now MacGregor), Sarah Cook, Andrew Swinand, Dan Buczaczer, Scott Witt, Chandra Panley, Christian Kugel, Courtney Acuff, Michael Zeman….the list goes on and on. Today these folks are among the superstars of the industry, and they were great then too and took a chance with us. My claim to fame was that I ran the land of misfit toys, crazy dreamers, strange talkers and very skewed thinkers.

And the chances and people taking chances grew as we become SMG and got people to give us chances to launch the first gaming agencies (Play), social expertise (Reverb), mobile expertise (Digits), futures think tank (SMG Next) and then came Publicis Groupe Media. And during a PGM board meeting we built a case for the future that the only way to win big in digital was to buy a company called Digitas or one called AQuantive which had a unit called Razorfish. While we went about doing that, we were given the chance to launch a unit called Denuo which a gentleman called David Kenny (CEO of Digitas) called to understand better.

Soon Digitas came into the fold, and we launched VivaKi which included Vivaki Nerve Center with Curt Hecht at the helm and in time included Performics and Razorfish and much more.

The chances continued when eight months ago I got a call from Maurice Levy, the Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe when I was traveling for work in China and was asked to Chair DigitasLbi and Razorfish. When I asked why he noted I was “acceptable” to the Pete Stein, Shannon Denton, Luke Taylor and Tony Weisman and the other CEOs of the company. They gave me a chance to work with some of the smartest folks and best transformation marketing and technology agencies in the space.

So here I am because of chances I have been given and people who have taken chances on me.

A benefit of success is the ability to give chances to people and taking chances on people.

Because the best thing you can do when given chances is to give other people chances…

Post Script: 10 years after this talk I am still connected to the Publicis Groupe as a Senior Advisor, ending my full-time employment after 37 years in June 2019. During the last few years of my Publicis career I was their Global Chief Strategist and Chief Growth Officer and on the Directoire+. I now work as a company of one focused on writing (one best selling book published, another near completion, plus this Substack), speaking, running work shops on a range of topics including how to upgrade ones mental operating system and how to lead today as well as advising some of the most amazing companies and leaders around the world on talent, change management and remaining relevant in transformational times. Still being given chances after all these years…

On Wealth.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Over time many come to realize that there are many dimensions to wealth.

Often much is written about financial wealth which is clearly important, but there are at least five other types of wealth and to be “wealthy” one needs many of these different wealths which are often intertwined with each other.

The 6 factors to Wealth are 1) Physical 2) Emotional 3) Mental 4) Reputation 5) Financial and 6) Spiritual.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Physical Wealth.

It is often stated that “health is wealth” and it is when we fall ill or are injured that this adage resonates.

If time is all we have than health is a key to ensuring the quality and the quantity of that time.

Everything else being equal (which it rarely is due to everything from genetics and the luck of the draw as to where and to whom one was born) everyone can maximize good health through enough sleep, some exercise, moderate eating and getting checked periodically and then following the advice of doctors trained in modern science.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Emotional Wealth.

Most long term studies have tended to co-relate happiness and contentment with human relationships and a sense of belonging. 

At the time of this writing the richest person in the world clearly does not have “a failure to launch” but appears to have  “a failure to connect” and amidst all the fame and fortune seems deeply impoverished on what makes one human.

A sense of empathy, erring in the direction of kindness and an ability to laugh at oneself often helps one connect.

Exposing oneself to different cultures, experiences and perspectives also enhances and builds emotional wealth.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Mental Wealth.

Mental Wealth  is a combination of many complex factors including mental wellness and cognitive ability. The ability to think on ones feet. Learn and understand. Continuously upgrade oneself is a form of wealth in a changing world and the good fortune of a healthy mind is as important as a healthy body.

Allocating an hour day to hone one’s mental faculties though learning is a way to stretch and connect dots in new ways. Sometimes mental acuity can be  enhanced by pharmaceuticals or alcoholic libations among other things.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Reputational Wealth.

In a connected and fast changing world many opportunities arrive due to positive word of mouth, a well established brand and a network of compatriots and colleagues. Reputation matters in a world where leadership is increasingly about the zone of influence versus the zone of control.

Reputation and reality eventually align. 

While one can use social media and PR firms to architect, hone and sculpt a reputation sooner or later who and what you are comes to align with who and what people believe you are.

The three keys to reputation are 1) a constant quest  for excellence because if one wants to be known as world class one has to try to be world class, 2) an ability to be open to constant feedback which is used to iterate and improve and 3) generosity and giving back and helping people particularly those who cannot help you.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Financial Wealth.

Money matters and most ( but not all ) people who say it does not matter either have too much of it or are actually besotted by money.

The key with money is that it allows people to acquire food and shelter at minimum and think of things besides money once the most urgent needs are taken care.

Self esteem and happiness are often (but not always) tend to be co-related with financial wealth because it  allows one to buy better mental and physical health, is aligned with reputation in some ways and most importantly allows the freedom to spend one’s time in the ways that gives one joy.

Interestingly, if one builds physical, emotional, mental and reputational wealth one often finds well positioned for financial wealth as result of these other assets.

The challenge for most people is to resist the force field of some cultures that emit a message that a “net worth “is the same “life worth”, which tends to make one steer by only the financial star and end up in places one never meant to be by following its siren call.

The most difficult part of dealing with financial wealth is being able to say “enough” and follow unexciting habits of saving, diversifying and planning for the long run.

Photography by Aline Smithson

Spiritual Wealth.

A form of transcendental wealth  that is disconnected with the physical and the scientific is spiritual wealth.

Some find it in religion, others in nature and yet others in something else bigger than themselves that seem to stand outside of time and space as we know it.

Clearly all these forms of wealth are important and connected and often it is hard to have the balance sheet in each area to be only filled with assets and no liabilities.

What is true is that an ideal is to ensure one has ones health, feels connected via relationships, be well regarded, be able to think and feel deeply and have enough money to spend time in ways that gives one joy, while also recognizing that in the grand scheme of things we are both the center of our world and absolutely nothing in the context of the greater world.

Leveraging Waste.

Sometimes to make a point one needs to combine humor with some graphic visualization to break through.

Here are three examples that leverage “waste”.

The turd on the table

The grass is greener because it is fertilized with Bullshit.

No Flatulence does not smell like Chanel 5.

1. The turd on the table.

What is a turd on the table?

It is something that is brown and moist, and people know it is a piece of poisonous waste, but they pretend it is a brownie. They are aware of the stink but perfume over the aroma. Here are some flavors of turd:

Mismanagement. For instance, management (particular leaders or leadership teams) is disconnected from reality and refusing to acknowledge the facts—or they’re guilty of bullying, discrimination, or harassment.

These are incredibly touchy issues, since the former means confronting powerful people in denial and the latter means addressing an individual’s unethical or immoral behaviors.

Toxic cultures. Organizations are highly defensive about their cultures, even when they become cult-like and inflexible or fear-driven. Telling a leader that the culture has become poisoned requires courage.

Financial improprieties. Here, the problem may be a company over-inflating revenue, such as Enron, or one that takes short-term measures to goose the numbers, such as Wells Fargo. Confronting these improprieties that have major short-term benefits and may involve illegal or unethical actions is a challenge.

Major industry shifts. A leader may refuse to address big changes in customer behavior, or the competitive landscape, or mammoth technology changes requiring tough decisions (such as Kodak and digital emergence). It’s easier to rationalize or deny shifts than articulate the business-altering trend and the need for rethinking everything.

People problems. The boss or some person with influence is acting like a jerk, or is playing favorites, or is blind to internal or external developments. In many ways, this is the biggest turd on the table, in that it requires confronting a powerful individual about his or her issues.

How to become a turd slayer?

Do not fear the turd.

Call it out. Shine a bright light on it. Place it on a pedestal. Address the damn thing!

Here are some suggestions for you to become a “turd slayer”

Say what you think. In business we care what is between your ears. If you cannot say what you think (hey if it is wrong you will be told so, in fact even if you are right you will be told you are wrong…). Truth eventually has a habit of breaking in. Why not open the door and save time and damage?

Assume the person you are trying to be diplomatic to about an issue knows what the issue is. If you bring it up, you will be more respected by them. If they did not know, you will earn an ally.

Do not go with the crowd if your instinct says no. Often group and crowd dynamics take over in much decision making. People think about what their boss wants to hear rather than what they should say. People worry about the impact of their career rather than what is right. Sooner or later too many people are dodging their own shadow and playing mind games that lead to slow and bad decisions.

Do not work for a boss who cannot bear the truth or whom you fear. We are living in a time of change and most of the time senior folks need to be told that their core beliefs may no longer be true. I have seen too many companies from newspaper to magazines to many other companies hasten their decline because their leadership did not face reality, in part because their staff was scared of them. Tell all the truth but tell it slant: Once you have decided to address the turd on the table, you might want to do so in a way, so the message gets through. Ideally it is in a way that does not make the person receiving the news “lose face” so much of this is best done person to person. In other times some humility, self-awareness, metaphors or humor will be called for. Emily Dickinson says it best in her poem, too much of shock and you will have blinded someone to the turd!

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind

So, let’s address the “turd on the table” wherever it might be.

2. The grass is greener on the other side because it is fertilized with bullshit.

Most jobs are difficult and challenging.

A great job is one which you enjoy and find meaningful 70 percent of the time.

Thus even a great job has days, or weeks or sometimes months where it sucks for a combination of circumstances from revenue setbacks, management drama, talent soap-opera, client intrigue, geo-political shocks, bad calls and more.

If you enjoy what you do 100 percent of the time you are likely not working for anybody or are not being challenged nor stretched so you may be not growing or maybe you are in a coma.

All companies big and small tend to be filled with constant change and challenges which sometimes leaves one feeling out of sort.

The boss we know is a task master, our team sometimes appears to be filled with more buffoons than talent, our Clients from time to time seem to lose their minds, or we are dazed and confused with the change happening around us.

At this time we are so aware of the problems we face that we imagine it is wonderful somewhere else, and are particularly susceptible to fleeing the challenges we know to the siren call of wonder being described by someone trying to recruit us,or the allure of another firm or opportunity.

The other opportunity maybe better but is unlikely to be as wonderful as it is advertised since every company on the inside tends to not look as wonderful from the inside.

Importantly, wherever there are people there is drama, wherever there is change there are challenges, wherever there are P&L’s there are hard decisions, and wherever there is competition there is the potential for business losses.

Too many people flee from one frying pan and fling themselves onto another but now have to learn a new company, build new relationships and re-build internal and external connections.

Switching jobs is often necessary but as one does so be very careful and realize that the grass is greener on the other side because it is often fertilized with bull shit.

Once the romance of courting and the honeymoon of a new adventure have passed one finds that wherever we go the challenges and dramas seem to follow.

3. Flatulence does not smell like Chanel 5.

Today due to our location, income level, choice of media or the algorithmic realities of a digital age which optimize everything around us to make us feel we are the center of the world, we often lose the plot.

This is particularly true in a polarized world where we fail to see or demonize the other side. Taking complex issues, people and challenges and simplify them into silly caricatures of black and white, all good or all bad.

In organizations this ability to lose a sense of reality is likely to happen among elite and powerful people who are surrounded by or ensure that they are surrounded by supplicants, glad handlers, toadies, courtiers, minions, gatekeepers and other genuflectors who confirm biases, double down on delusions, or hyper drive hallucinations to keep bosses happy, remain on their good side while protecting and advancing their own careers.

There are many benefits of being a leader, working at a very successful company and being on the top of the world. Everybody wants to meet with you or think you are cool because of the fame and reputation of your company. The press fawns and friends’ gush.

It gives powerful people a great rush and some get too high on ones own fumes and begin to believe their flatulence smells like Chanel 5.

It does not.

The Transformation of Work.

Anyone who joined the workforce before January 2020 would most likely not have been familiar with the following terms: AI, Remote-Hybrid Work, Web 3, NFT’s, Spatial Computing, GPT, Metaverse, “Woke”, or “Quiet Quitting”

Today, in every organization large and small THE critical discussions are a) about the coming impact of technology from AI to Web3, b) the future of the workspace as firms struggle to manage the balance between remote and in-presence work, and c) the shifting beliefs about work driven by the emotional impact of Covid and new generational mindsets.

The where, who, what and why of work have transformed more in the past four years than in any decade or more before.

Talent is asking their mangers what do you do?

Management is asking their talent to work harder, show-up and grow-up.

IBM and Gallup release research indicating that many jobs will disappear and almost all jobs will be transformed by AI.

Apple, Meta, and other companies continue to believe that despite recent setbacks the future of computing will increasingly be three dimensional and spatial, changing how and where we work.

Every company is grappling with how best to be inclusive while also ensuring they can attract and retain talent whose mindsets have changed from one balancing work and life to one asking how work fits into their lives?

Across all companies of every size and in every category, the single biggest question is “How do we remain relevant in transformative times?” Not just relevant as businesses grappling with new business models and competitive landscapes but as individual talent and leaders facing a future that seems to be shape-shifting constantly.

One way to remain relevant in these times is to a) truly understand ALL the factors that are in flux and not expect that mandates that force people back to the office are likely to solve the challenges we face, b) to re-train and upgrade our mental and emotional operating systems to align with new realities and c) both learn and unlearn so we can deal with the changing Where, Who What and Why of work.

1)    Where: The future of work will most likely be hybrid with different companies combining talent in some combination of in-person/in-office presence and remote work.  Even if one’s own company is fully remote or fully in-person a firm’s future talent and existing partners and Clients are likely to have their own unique ways of combining in-person and remote or in global firms’ different countries will have different models. In addition, in the United States by 2027 the free-lance work force will be bigger than the full-time work force meaning that many companies will have talent outside the firm working with people in the firm. Thus, it will be key to learn to manage and communicate diverse across different models of work.

In person interaction is critical for learning, relationships and culture but to ensure that its benefits are maximized we need to think places ( events, restaurants/bars, offsites, and programming learning and interaction in an office) as a spectrum of ways to leverage the benefits of being together vs bringing people into an office to do what they did at home with headphones on their ears and hustling to find cubicles in spaces that have been optimized for a world that has past.

In addition, lets also realize that it is management as much as staff that needs to learn how to lead and coach versus boss and monitor which may be the real issue on the where one works question. Management which has not been trained or sensitive to know how to manage a new paradigm of work cannot solve this shortcoming by forcing people back to the office!

Also after years of companies swearing by data, personalization and the need for agility a one size mandate model is neither data driven, personalized or provides the flexibility needed for an agile world.

2)    Who: In the United States the population under 21 years old is already Caucasian minority and over forty percent of the population is multi-ethnic. Every new hire graduating from school is likely to be a “minority” though the “minorities” now are greater than the “majority”. It is not just a change in ethnicity but a different make up in gender (far more women at work and far more women than men graduating from school every year) and sexual preference (13 percent of the population define themselves different than straight).

66 percent of baby boomers believe in capitalism while only 22 percent of Generation Z do. In addition, we are likely to see a significant aging of the workforce as populations shrink, the country gets older, and companies work to find ways to retain talent and skills even if in a part-time basis. And the free-lance population which will be greater than those fully employed wonder about this fixation on where one works.

3)    What: IBM believes 30 percent of jobs will be replaced by AI in 5 years.

While there can be a debate about jobs lost there is less debate about jobs changed.

A recent survey by the New York Times indicated that “A range of new research has analyzed the tasks of American workers, using the Labor Department’s O*Net database, and hypothesized which of them large language models could do. It has found these models could significantly help with tasks in one-fifth to one-quarter of occupations. In a majority of jobs, the models could do some of the tasks, found the analyses, including from Pew Research Center and Goldman Sachs.”

Basically, up to 75% of white-collar jobs that required a GRADUATE DEGREE will be changed by AI, with 64% of Four-Year Degree jobs but only 6 percent of jobs that require a high school degree will be impacted.

The more educated the more likely that AI will impact one’s job. This July 2023 Pew Report is a must read to see how you and your job might be impacted by AI: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/07/26/which-u-s-workers-are-more-exposed-to-ai-on-their-jobs/

Having ones job impacted by or exposed to AI does not mean one will lose one’s job or lose pay but it means that everyone will need to a) embrace the technology, b) adapt their ways of working utilizing AI as a co-pilot, side-kick, first-draft thought starter to build on and c) companies and talent will need to build and hone skills that complement the AI which are likely to be those of empathy, curiosity, communication, collaboration and new forms of creativity.

Or as someone said it is not a human who will lose their job to AI but to a human who is using AI if they themselves refuse to use it.

But AI which will be a critical technology is not the only one that will have great impact. The concept of 3 D spaces whether we call it Metaverse, Virtual Reality or Spatial Computing will require new sets of skills to navigate and manage and find ways to sell and build brands and companies.

4) Why? There is a changed relationship between people and work driven by a) the existential crisis that was Covid which gave people a new sense of agency over not just their personal lives but work lives b) the completely different mindset of Gen-Z who will be a third of all employees and have not chosen to sacrifice themselves for their jobs and c) a declining population which is placing more power in the hands of employees and talent.

The chart above from Deloitte shows that the focus on personal change and well-being might be helping to tip the scales of work-life balance. Compared to one year ago, the percentage of consumers who feel they are finding more time to enjoy today (34%) significantly outnumbers those who feel they are working harder to get ahead (22%) ). This is a healthy portion of people prioritizing their personal time over working more, particularly considering the financial challenges many faced throughout the pandemic and rising prices for everyday purchases.

"It is not where work takes place but where work fits into life"

"It is now about life-work integration not about life-work balance"

Heather E. McGowan who in both business and academia and has been called by Tom Friedman an"Oasis of Insights"was a guest on “What Next?” a podcast I host.

She shared amazing ideas and thoughts on how managers cannot lead by using the ways they were lead, how coaching is key vs bossing because the future is about collaboration and not competition and Gen Z will spit your command into your face.

Listen below:

These four shifts of a new work force, a new workspace, a new set of enabling work technologies and a new mindset have all emerged in the past three years and will scale and transform business.

In a world of such change it will be critical for all of us to upgrade our own skills and be retrained for the transformation of work versus thinking this is about finding a silver bullet like getting back to the office.

Vagabonding.

Photography by William Neill

Vagabonding is an outlook on life.

Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions.

Vagabonding is about taking an extended time-out from our normal life-six weeks, four months, two years-to travel the world on your own terms.

Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s an uncommon way of looking at life-a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And as much as anything, vagabonding is about time-our only real commodity-and how we choose to use it.

Vagabonding has never been regulated by the fickle public definition of lifestyle. Rather, it has been a private choice within a society that is constantly urging to do otherwise.

Have a library of over one hundred travel books including all the classics and among the best is a simple book published over twenty years ago that is book about travel but also a book about living called Vagabonding by Rolf Potts which reminds us that we and nobody else must determine how we live.

Vagabonding is a book about living that choice.

Before it is too late.

Below are extracts (italicized) from the book as well as quotes mentioned in the book (bolded).

Photography by William Neill

If you have built castles in in the air, your work need not be lost: that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

Your travels are not an escape from real life but a discovery of your real life.

Regardless of how long it takes to earn your freedom, remembering you are laboring for more than a vacation. A vacation, after all, merely rewards work. Vagabonding justifies it.

Indeed, the freedom to go vagabonding has never been determined by income level; it’s found through simplicity- the conscious decision of how to use what income you have.

There is an insanity of consensus, if you will- to get rich from life rather than live richly, to “do well” in the world instead of living well.

Money is of course needed to survive but time is what you need to live.

Unfortunately, life at home cannot prepare you for how little you need on the road.

Travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the road, we often live more simply, with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance. - Pico Iyer, Why We Travel

Photography by William Neill

The discoveries that come with travel, of course, have been considered the purest form of education a person can acquire. “The world is a book” goes a saying attributed to Saint Augustine, “and those who do not travel read only one page”

A good traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving. - Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life

You can read everything there is in the world about a place, but there is no substitute for smelling it. - Bill Wolfer, Musician

Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell bound realm-which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of the shell and enter a new world. - Eknath Easwaran

On the road, you learn to improvise your days, take a second look at everything you see, and not obsess over your schedule.

We see as we are. If you view the world as a predominantly hostile place, it will be. By this same logic, of course, a positive world view can lead to inspiring, human-centered experiences.

Adventure is not an experience that can be captured on television or sold like a commodity Real adventure is not something that can be itemized in glossy brochures or sport magazines. In fact, having an adventure is sometimes a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing environment-not so much a physical challenge as a psychic one.

The secret of adventure, then is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you.

Photography by William Neill

Travel is often a matter of confronting our fear of the unfamiliar and the unsettling. - Tim Cahill, Author

Adventure is wherever you allow it to find you- and the first step of any exploration is to discover its potential within yourself.

Explore your own highest latitudes. Be a Columbus to the whole new continents within you, opening new channels, not of trade but of thought. - Henry David Thoreau. Walden

Thus, travel compels you to discover your spiritual side by simple elimination: Without all the rituals, routines and possessions that give your life meaning at home, you’re forced to look for meaning within yourself.

After all , a journey is a temporary diversion, and there would seem to be little reward in the “common miracles” it promises. That is, until you realize that life itself is a kind of journey.

Both Sides Now!

Photography by Bruce Barnbaum

The most successful organizations and leaders are rarely defeated.

They defeat themselves.

Three common symptoms of SDD or ‘self-defeat disease” are:

a) the inability to anticipate new competition,

b) a failure to see situation from another perspective,

c) self delusion due to a bubble of filtered thinking buttressed by sycophantic deputies.

One simple exercise to avoid this fate is to make it a point to see or demand to be shown or insist on trying other options and approaches opposite to ones recommended.

To always insist on both sides now!

Three simple exercises one can apply every time a key decision needs to made are 1) to integrate outsider perspectives, 2) to unite two diametrically different models and 3) to balance roots and wings.

Photography by Bruce Barnbaum

Think like an outsider/immigrant.

Earlier this week a long time friend of mine, Lou Paskalis, was in Chicago. During a drive I shared some key themes from a keynote I had given earlier in the week to a legendary company aiming to be bolder to ensure their continued leadership in a changing world.

One key point I conveyed was the importance to look at things from an outsider’s perspective or that of an immigrant.

While not all of us are immigrants to a country we are always entering new companies, new jobs, new cities and when we arrive we come without the baggage of knowing and the wonder of fresh eyes and thinking. We wonder why certain things are the way they are and our acts of noticing and curiosity are acute. This allows us to bring in fresh perspectives. It is one of the reasons successful firms combine experienced individuals with long tenure with new external talent.

Lou mentioned that one of his bosses at American Express (the legendary John Hayes) had given him similar advice when Lou had just been hired by saying “Lou do not become one of us”.

It is important that individuals while they respect and align with a culture of a firm do not get assimilated by the Borg ( Star Trek!)

If one like the Mandalorian and begins to believe “This is the Way” we will be beaten by the Lawrence of Arabia’s who say “Nothing is written”

Combine an insiders understanding with the provocative thinking of an outsider.

Both sides now!

Photography by Bruce Barnbaum

Only the Schizophrenic Thrive.

Andy Grove the late CEO of Intel once wrote a book titles “Only the Paranoid Survive”

Today we are living in a connected and constantly shape shifting world and paranoia is a recipe for decline as Intel has suffered from.

One cannot succeed without collaboration, partnering and trusted relationships.

Seeing all outsiders as the enemy to be resisted or defeated is a recipe for irrelevance.

Microsoft under Balmer followed this “Windows good everything else bad” paranoia approach and it took a partnering oriented “Linux is also critical” and it is “Azure no longer Windows” Satya Nadella to turbocharge Microsoft.

Companies need to optimize for today AND re-imagine for tomorrow sometimes with different teams with different incentives and goals to ensure continued relevance.

The biggest mistake is to somewhat focus on today with a leadership team incentivized for today while running “task forces” and “models 2.0” as a side project with a diluted focus on tomorrow ( a second class team with a limited budget and constraints told not to rock the boat or destroy the existing business model).

These optimize neither today or tomorrow but create a warm goo of board documents and sinecures for people the company does not know what to do with (notice how many tomorrow projects are run by individuals who did not do a good job running today ?).

Instead, empower some real superstar talent with real budgets and minimal constraints to do what it takes to win tomorrow or put today’s firm out of business while also having world class teams focussed on delivering the margins and leadership needed today to fund tomorrow.

Two models acutely focused. The first on today and one on tomorrow both reporting to the Board and CEO.

Both sides now !

Photography by Bruce Barnbaum

Roots and Wings.

If every individual and company is a story with a place we came from, every individual and a firm is also about a place we are going to.

The best leaders and firms all integrate the dualities of roots and wings.

Too rooted and we may wither way as changing times and climate bring drought to the place and way we were.

Too winged and we may be blown away in the gusts of change.

Too rooted and we may be seen as old school, hide bound to tradition and inflexible.

Too ready to fly with change may find us painted as unreliable, undisciplined, and short-term oriented.

Transformation is twisting ourselves and companies into new shapes with the clay of what we were and new skills and pieces we acquire.

To believe and better understand where you are going people want to know from where you are coming.

Heritage, provenance, legacy, story, first principles, and foundations are all critical.

So are re-invention, setting sail, taking risks, pioneering and re-imagining.

Roots and wings.

Both sides now!

Attention.

Photography by Karl Taylor

A definition of success is the freedom to spend time in ways that gives one joy.

Joy is more than happiness which is often transitory as it ebbs and flows with external events.

The joy that comes with deep satisfaction and contentment however endures and its contours do not waver with the oscillations of the transient.

Experience, time, and observation reveals there are ways to architect joy.

To be free to use your time to pay attention to what matters and what matters to you.

Or as the late David Foster Wallace said in his mind shifting talk This is Water:

“The important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Every day there are more and more things that vie for our attention. This has been true long before algorithmic social media or soon the customized cuddle puddles of applied statistics ( also known as AI) transforming code to vie for our attention.

In “Things of the World” the poet Kay Ryan writes:

“Wherever the eye lingers
it finds a hunger.
The things of the world
want us for dinner.
Inside each pebble or leaf
or puddle is a hook.
The appetites of the world
compete to catch a look.”

Above is a cover illustrated by the cartoonist Chris Ware from nearly 15 years ago for the New Yorker described by Francoise Mouly, the Art Editor of the New Yorker.

“Chris aims at pinning the butterflies of our most basic and universal emotions. His beat is daily life: how we relate or fail to relate to each other. For a Halloween cover, Ware stayed away from the usual Halloween signifiers of kids in costumes, pumpkins and straw, colorful candy. He condensed the Halloween narrative into the upturned faces of the children as they knock on a door-and behind them on a street, the parents faces turned downwards towards their phones. Both are slivers of white masks, the parents faces illuminated by the light of the phones. The eager young excitement and the jaded boredom exist in perfect contrast…”

Photography by Gary Winogrand

The Garry Winogrand Way of Seeing

Garry Winogrand who died in 1984 was the first digital photographer decades before digital in that he was not constrained by the scarcity of film and took over a million pictures. He combined a disinterest in technique with an obsessive devotion to shooting on the street all day, every day.

Garry was most alive when he was outside of himself which was when he was behind a camera lens. He once said “I get totally out of myself. It’s the closest I come to not existing, I think, which is the best – which is to me attractive.” 

To him seeing was key:

“Sometimes I feel like … the world is a place I bought a ticket to,” Winogrand once said. “It’s a big show for me, as if it wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t there with a camera.”

“When I’m photographing, I see life.” 

Garry Winogrand suggests to see better we need to look more often, look with different perspectives and look where others do not.

Photography by William Eggleston

Experience, time, and observation reveals there are ways to architect joy.

What makes the ordinary and every day extra-ordinary is that one day it will not be so.

There will be a last day a child will crawl. A last day you will see someone. A last day you will visit a place or drive a car or go to a restaurant. Sometimes we know the last times and often we do not. When we are aware of the last times, we have a higher sense of attention and a sensitivity to the specialness and the passing of the moment.

But these last times come every week and sometimes every day.

The ordinary becomes extra-ordinary when we pay attention, and we find poetry in the crevices of every day.

As some of you may have noticed, a couple of weeks ago, I offered a FREE spot at the Quilt AI event in NYC on Sep 06, 2023. My post received an overwhelming number of requests which far exceeded the slots I had. I spoke to the Quilt AI team (am on the Board) and have received a few more FREE slots. And all attendees will receive an autographed copy of my book.

Titled the “AI-volution of Culture”, it is structured as a day of blending AI and Culture (or math and meaning, as I like to call it) to drive better marketing. 

This is the link for registering for the event: Culture eats AI 

Please use the free code: rishadxquilt

Speakers in addition to me include:

Gillian Tett, Chair of the Editorial Board, Financial Times

Jeremiah Lowin, the CEO of Prefect and Marvin AI

Deepa Mehta , the Oscar nominated filmmaker

Bhaskar Chakravorti, the Dean of Global Business, Fletcher School, Tufts University

Luke Burgis, Author & Entrepreneur

David McCandless, Journalist and Designer

Katherine Ann Paul, the Curator of Asian Art, Birmingham Museum of Art

Loss. Love. Learning.

Rishad Tobaccowala

Loss.

Loss is central to the human experience in three ways.

First, is we often lose in our attempts to succeed. We lose promotions, jobs and opportunities. We lose money and valuable assets.

Many times, we also win.

Some people win a little and others win a lot.

But we all lose.

But these losses however daunting and disappointing are not the big ones.

The second set of losses are the losses we will face of loved ones and friends either because relationships end, or death comes.

And our final loss is that of ourselves.

Our health.

And then our lives.

Franz Kafka wrote that “the meaning of life is that it ends”

How we live amidst these losses defines a large part of life.

The joy we make is because time is precious, and this moment of victory may not last forever.

Given that loss is part of human existence it pays to be kind and to think about how to help those in loss and deal with and recover from loss.

To learn to practice “personal resurrections” after setbacks and to endure and keep on growing and going.

Rishad Tobaccowala

Love.

A big part of what makes life worth living despite the guarantee of loss is love.

Love of people, of work, of art, of culture, of craft and of things and hobbies.

It is in fact this love and attachment that is deeply intertwined with the feelings of loss.

The Buddha said to avoid suffering one should avoid attachment.

Attachment is programmed into our DNA, so as a way of living and an ideal or a guiding path this is all well and good but is hard to live this way.

Love does not compute; and computers though they are getting increasingly advanced into deluding us that they love us since they ingest all our stories and then customize their reaction to be our “personalized” friends cannot love us.

In part that is because they cannot feel.

And therefore cannot feel loss.

And with love comes loss and love is an anti-dote to loss.

Also, though we individuals care about ourselves and what is ours, it is the love of something bigger, greater and outside us that often matters more.

Thus the human search for purpose, identity, meaning and belief.

Rishad Tobaccowala

Learning.

Today we have large language models that learn by ingesting, sorting, parsing, co-relating, re-combining and digesting all they can eat.

It is clearly a form of learning and the machines are getting “smarter”

Thus while machines may not know about love and loss they definitely can learn.

But do they feel joy as they learn?

Without the reality of loss or the feeling of love can they turn information into insight into wisdom?

Learning is particularly joyous.

Learning in its first form is building knowledge.

With great knowledge and practice we build skills and craftsmanship.

Human progress has been driven by learning and passing on the learning to those who follow.  

We architect, hone and sculpt our lives into forms that fit and resonate.

Learning is also seeing things from other perspectives which gives us understanding.

Sometimes if we are lucky, we can graduate from knowledge, skills and understanding to wisdom.

Love, loss and learning are intertwined with each one feeding and influencing and resonating with each other.

Life is about love, loss and learning and how we live our life is deeply affected by how we incorporate and then unify, balance and integrate them into our lives.