- We are here with Larry Gioia,
a individual who defies definition,
but what I can say is
that he is simultaneously
a business owner, founder,
senior consultant in the digital division,
digital product innovation
division of PwC,
one of the global
leading consulting firms,
a family man, X, Y, Z, we could go on
for about a couple of
paragraphs of introducing him,
but the main thing that we're
gonna focus on in this talk
is his thought leadership
around connection and community
and how those ideas
apply to our work lives.
So over to you, Larry.
How do you think about
connection community
as applied to our working
careers, et cetera?
- Yeah, Alex, it's so good to see you
and thanks for the opportunity to be here
and for our global community
that we're talking to today.
It's good to see everybody virtually.
Yeah, so I think everyone
can relate to this.
And as much as that if
you are an introvert,
you're an extrovert, no
matter where you come from,
we can all relate to being human,
and no matter what your line of work is.
And the fabric of being
human comes to our desire,
our various interest of
being tribal animals.
And in that tribal nature of who we are,
we crave connection.
And we live the times
we're living in right now,
we're all living through it,
is that that connection
seems to be lost a bit.
And so I've been thinking
about this for a long time,
both in my work as a consultant
and advising Fortune 1,000 companies,
but also about personal life.
And so what I wanna talk
about today with you, Alex,
is about how do we bring that connection
to everything that we do,
and not just think about it as a silo of,
"I've got connections in my personal life.
"I've got connections in my work life."
And those are people, right?
So we're talking about
connections of people.
I wanna take it one step further
and talk about connection of the world.
Everything that we live
through is connected somehow.
da Vinci said it himself, and
maybe we'll talk about that.
But everything's connected somehow.
And I'm gonna challenge us today to talk,
talk about, think about
how do we truly connect
at the speed of life, in a
very real human authentic way
to bring out the best in ourselves
and our people and organizations.
So I look forward in talking today.
- Okay, so let's start.
So the thing is you've been coming at this
from a couple of different
angles, as you referred to,
that the bigger, the high-end
corporate community building
and the, like the smallest scale
startup community building,
not to mention friends and relationships,
but let's start with something
probably more appropriate
for the audience,
which is smaller scale work
grade community building.
How are you approaching
that and thinking about it?
- Yeah.
So, look, we've got a
lot of community builders
that are listening in today.
I think that the underpinning
of community onto itself
is finding the common thread
to which we can all relate.
So here we are talking about
attending a biohacking summit virtually
from around the world.
There's clearly gotta
be this interest area.
Call it a topic, call it whatever it is.
That's nice.
But as, we call it founders,
as instigators, as conveners,
like we all are, Alex, as you
and your leadership team are,
is how do we bring those people together?
And bring us together is not about
just picking up the
phone and calling people,
"Hey, I wanted to have you
be a part of my community,"
but putting something out into
the world that is attractive
so that we can relate to
it on a very human level.
Let's talk about that in a very real way.
So it's nice to have a
topic that I relate to
and I wanna be a part of a community,
but we want those people
to be a part of a community
and actually, dare I say, add
value versus kind of lurking.
And so as I think about building community
and the communities that I've built
and continue to think about,
is how do we incite people
to be a part of community
so that they're not just a
part of it, but they live it?
They live it every single day.
They talk about it themselves.
They invite others.
It becomes organic.
And to do that is, a couple
of things I've learned.
I think many of your listeners
will appreciate this.
It's about letting it be organic,
and that community to be organic,
versus, say, top-down define
it, here's the structure,
I found the best communities
are those that are truly self-forming.
Those that let themselves
run their course.
And we let people be people versus saying,
"Here's I want you to talk about.
"Here's the way I want you to interact.
"Here's what they want you to engage,"
and I think you've done
a great job with that
with this community, right?
And letting people come in,
come as they are, listen,
contribute and be their own evangelists.
So that's how it's worked for me
and I find that, Alex,
at the smallest scale,
and then when we scale to larger,
obviously, communities
and then organizations
allows us as leaders to
really build those communities
inside of our workplace, right?
And I found that to be something
that has transcend in time,
but it's working very
well for me personally,
and I'm looking forward to
talking more about that.
- Okay, so in your answer there,
you shifted from the
smaller scale communities
to the larger scale ones.
In both cases, you're saying that it's,
like you found that the most powerful,
or the strongest communities
are self-forming,
how do you set the
conditions to allow that?
What are the kind of pillars
or the foundations for that?
- Yeah, yeah.
So some of the things I've
found that works so well,
so, two, usually as,
let's say, as thinkers,
as founders, as conveners, instigators,
whatever you want to use
to describe ourselves.
- Connectors.
- Connectors, yeah, exactly.
You know, we wanna put forth
a framework, because it's,
say, our idea that we wanna
bring people into us, right,
and it's kind of this pull model.
That some of the things
I find that work best
are not necessarily a push,
but putting ideas out there, concepts,
and letting people gravitate
towards it on their own terms
is really important.
I say that because when we
put a community out there
in terms of like, we have
a seedling of an idea
and want people to be a part of it,
that we're pulling people into it,
it's nice to have that foundation.
But one of the pillars is
letting it take its course naturally.
'Cause I can tell you,
communities I've started
have completely pivoted away
from what the original intent was,
I'll give you a couple of
examples of that perhaps,
and letting it run its course.
And what I've found, as you know,
a connector, a community builder,
is that that's like
evolution of people, right?
People will want to come to a
place where they feel welcome,
where they feel like they
can connect with other people
in a very human level, but
they can relate to people.
So the first pillar is really around
let it take its course naturally.
Be prepared to pivot, just
as we would do with any
obviously business endeavor.
That's kind of number one.
Number two is I think there is a,
an overindexing on administration.
And I don't mean like administering forums
and administering like, and policing.
The best communities that I've found are,
how do I say, self-policing.
And as much as people
will weed themselves out,
if they're kind of going against the grain
or the ethos of the community,
I think administration, so to speak,
we should remove that
from our own vernacular
when it comes to building community.
That's kind of number two.
Let it police itself.
It goes hand in glove with self-forming.
The third of which, to me,
is around continuing to stoke
the community fire.
And what I mean by that is,
yes, let it run its
course, let it percolate,
but as kind of founders, as conveners,
throwing new things into the
mix every once in a while
to stir the pot a bit, and in a good way,
new thinking, new ideas,
having these kinds of conversations
just to get things
interesting, keep them moving,
and get people to think differently.
I'm a huge fan of this
diversity of thought,
as I know you are as well, Alex.
- Mm-hmm.
Okay, so let's switch gears.
We'll come back to the
community techniques,
because I really wanted to
ask you to share a little bit
about the Leonardo da Vinci
kind of catalyst that you have.
But what's the story there?
- Well, I mean, so look, da Vinci is,
hopefully not anybody, any
foreign to anybody here
in terms of his thinking.
I've just been fascinated by his thinking,
not just as an engineer,
as a philosopher, as a,
all the things that he is, was,
and continues to be in
influencing our lives,
but then and there there's
a very specific quote
and very specific, in his writings,
that has really stuck
with me over the years
and it's truly become a
foundation to what I talk about.
And it's very simple.
And it's really the principles
for the development of a complete mind.
It's pretty simple.
And it goes like this.
It's study the science of
art, study the art of science,
develop your senses,
especially learn how to see,
realize that everything
connects to everything else.
And it's so simple, right?
It's so simple.
But then I look back at
everything's connected.
Okay, yes, we, as people, are connected.
But when you look at what da
Vinci's work was all about
is true polymath, right?
How did he see things
that others couldn't see?
I have a sneaking suspicion.
He probably did a whole lot more listening
than he did talking.
I have a suspicion that clearly
a savant in his own rights
in terms of kind of how
he thought about things,
but had a very unique way
of approaching problems.
Not so much with a,
obviously a solution in mind,
but really listening.
And what I would say
is probably empathizing
with people around him.
And so this idea of introducing empathy
and introducing truly listening,
and I mean, truly
listening, just as you are,
to tease out what the root
of the problem actually is,
(clears throat)
excuse me, becomes the
basis of connecting dots.
And da Vinci does that I
think better than anybody,
it has been the foundation
of my own thinking on this
and continues to be a catalyst.
There's so much reading to be done there,
not just his own writings,
but that what has been written about him.
So I use that as a through line
of everything that I talk about
or connect it back to him in
some way, form or fashion.
- Yeah, and one of your
maxims or your main maxim
is always be connecting the dots, okay?
- That's it.
- That applies to human relationships,
as well as like conceptual connections.
- That's right, that's exactly right.
And this little maxim of
a very simple acronym.
And how can you forget
this, right, A, B, C, D.
Always be connecting the dots.
And it truly has become a
maxim for me, for my teams,
whether they adopt them
that's really up to them,
but it's very simple.
It is that it's all connected.
And when we as, whether we call
ourselves connectors or not,
when we take a mindset,
and it's truly a mindset,
we take a mindset of something
that either before us or is forthcoming
when we think about that connection point
and think about how they are interrelated,
or, frankly, what's not yet related,
that's where innovation happens.
That's where obviously
curiosity is unlocked.
And then when we build that into community
and we empower community members
and people of our tribes,
right, of this tribe,
to think about connection through
always be connecting the dots,
I think, and then I've seen it,
a lot of magic can actually happen.
It's pretty fascinating.
- Okay, let's, that's a
perfect segue onto the magic.
So can you give us a couple of examples
of your favorite cases, both
from the corporate world
and from the side hustle world
or entrepreneurial world?
- Yeah, so let's make this very real
and in the moment here, Alex.
I mean, you and I have known each other
for probably all of, maybe
a few weeks now, right?
And as much as we were
connected through one of very,
well, mutual friends, I presume,
one of my very dear friend,
who's also speaking as a part
of this summit, Hassan Osman,
there's connection happening in real time.
And what I mean by that
is Hassan definitely lives
the ABCD mindset, okay?
And as much as you clearly invited him
to be a part of this
summit and give some talks,
presumably you had asked
him for some other people,
but Hassan, I very much believe so,
thought about it much differently than,
"Hey, I know somebody who
knows something about a topic,"
more so than probably, I presume
he was thinking about this,
to say, "Hey, there's this Larry guy,
"who I know from graduate
school, who has a perspective,
"but he's probably gonna
connect you to other people,"
and I think that's part
of this is the connection
happening in real time here.
So there's one example
of how I even became,
an opportunity to become with you
and have this conversation today.
Very real.
You know, look, part of what I think,
and I'll kinda connect this
to my work in the enterprise,
and we get on the fact of
what the social media mean
and how do we leverage
social to be social,
I will tell you that
there's so much happening,
especially in the world
we're living in right now
where how do we connect,
how do we develop business,
how do we develop true
relationships in a very human way
when we can't see through face-to-face.
It's beautiful that we can be
on calls together like this,
but how do I actually create
connections with people
who I would ideally like to be clients
or I would like to create
a true relationship with?
Coming back to social.
I cannot even begin to
tell you and our listeners
how much I've leveraged social,
LinkedIn, Twitter specifically,
communities under themself, right?
And finding niche
communities in healthcare,
where I do a lot of my work,
and not just seeking out people
to connect with to be clients,
but to truly, truly
form relationships with
in the event that when
they might need something
or in the event they
would like a perspective
and a point of view.
"I know this guy named Larry,
"who happen to lead digital
product innovation for PWC,
"I remember him from Twitter."
I share that with you as the
basis of that has come to life
in the past four months, but
the past 15 years of my life.
Let's not underestimate
the power of social
when it comes to, I don't
wanna say business development,
but connection of tribes.
I cannot impress upon us enough.
Yeah, we're all doing it,
but I encouraged us to go,
how are you doing that to build business,
to build your own brand
and what that looks like,
and how are you showing up?
How are you showing up
in the digital world?
And then we bring that
into a very personal
human digital context, as we are today.
- Okay, okay.
So those examples are very relevant
for general career development,
even outward facing.
What about internally?
Like what kind of, how are
you applying these principles
inside a high performance
organization with the clients
or the teams there?
- Yeah, yeah.
So let me give you an example within PwC,
in this set that people
can relate to this,
even if you're not a
very large organization.
So we ourselves have been going through
our own transformation.
Every organization, in light of what
we're living through right now,
is actually transforming
the way that we work.
That goes without saying.
You know, about three years ago,
we were very, very
intentional of recognizing,
(clears throat) excuse me,
the direction of travel
for where the way the world is going,
that we need to continue
to empower our people,
but more specifically let
our people be the catalyst
for what's next for the firm of PwC.
What I mean by that is we're talking about
citizen-led innovation.
Perhaps maybe not that new to
many of us in this community,
but a citizen-led
innovation is what's next.
I'm not talking about the next big idea.
Giving our people the
tools, the technologies,
the capabilities that they need
to actually create the next
thing that we can't see.
Dare I say, empowerment will
be the next da Vinci at PwC.
We've done that for the
past three years in earnest,
and really leaning in
heavily and really investing.
I'm not talking about
just upscaling, okay?
We've talked about that.
We know all about that.
This is really about truly
empowering our people.
And I'm not talking 20% time.
There's that, of course.
I'm talking about taking what
you have built and thought of
inside of a monstrosity that is PwC.
Take that to your clients.
Maybe it's not a service offering today.
Maybe it's not something that
we sell or deliver today.
Go experiment with it.
Empowering our people to experiment,
try new things that would
otherwise kind of break the mold
of a 100 plus year-old organization,
that has become the fabric of the culture
of what I would say is no
longer our grandfather's PwC.
No matter where you're sitting
in the world right now,
you've heard of this firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers.
We're not the firm that we used to be.
And now here we are building products,
delivering software solutions,
and really, what I would say is not hiring
the same people we used to hire.
That was all, I would say, fundamental
to how we have built
community inside of PwC
and extending that community
now out to the outside world
and in a very real,
pragmatic and thoughtful way.
- Nice.
And I'm hearing echoes of
what John Hagel was saying
in his session, which, he's the founder
of the Deloitte Center for the Edge,
I guess a major competitor for
PwC in terms of corporation,
and his, one of his most powerful ideas
was about assembling or
taking the initiative
to assemble a small
team with the intention
of looking at unseen
opportunities and problems
and having a dedicated session for that.
And this is something which
applies to everyone listening,
no matter what level of
corporate existence you have.
And then what you're saying is that
PwC has built into the fabric,
that kind of thought, contemplation,
and then the ability to, the autonomy,
to go out and experiment
with opening conversations
with clients, et cetera,
is that a accurate?
- It is, it absolutely is.
And let me take this one step further.
You're exactly right.
And I love John's
thoughts on this as well,
because it's very much complementary.
Look, whether you're a client,
basically we're all
commercial in some way,
our brands are our commercial
to the outside world,
whether you're a consultant,
you're an entrepreneur,
you're an executive whatever,
and wherever you are in your career,
and no matter where you're working.
The fact of the matter
is, is that experience
and experience expectations are changing.
Our expectations of our companies,
about the world around us are changing,
but so are our client's expectations
of the experience they have,
whether they're working
with Deloitte ,or PwC,
or name your whatever.
Pick your large
professional services firm.
Those experience
expectations are changing.
And so to stay ahead of that,
we ourselves are having
to literally adapt,
not just on the fly,
but get ahead of that,
to try new things so
that we can truly deliver
on the promise of our
respective brand values,
the values we and purpose
that we all want to deliver.
So experience plays into this as well.
And I guess I would
re-impress upon our listeners,
whether you're in a large organization
or you're a small organization,
or you're an entrepreneur, entrepreneur,
that experience of how you show up
is as part and parcel of the
brand that you're creating.
And then how do you do
that in digital world
is what obviously we're
here to talk about.
So hope that makes sense.
- Nice, nice, yeah.
And it's really, I think
it's really useful to,
for our community where there are gonna be
a lot of professional
service providers from,
not only corporate backgrounds,
but also freelance,
agency, consultants,
advisors, coaches, et cetera.
So would you like to share a little bit
about your framework and the story,
the background of the
framework, about aperture,
and the giving and
tribes, tribes and giving?
- Yeah., so--
- And how does that apply to this--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
So a bit of a loose framework
for how I've been thinking
about this ethos of connection.
You know, first and
foremost, it comes back,
I think we've been talking about it
for a little bit now, right,
is opening our aperture.
And what I mean by that
is just thinking about,
not just the bigger
picture for the problem
that lives in front of us,
so what we've been presented with,
but opening our aperture
to the world around us.
Looking at the world
from different lenses.
You know, look, we've got
a lot of freelancers here
who are very technical in their skillsets,
how do you think about
your technical skillset,
but also compliment that with
perhaps something that's nontechnical?
Maybe you are a designer
to, you're a designer,
and that's what you do
when you build products.
What are you doing in
the world of philosophy?
What are you doing in
the world of reading?
What are you doing in the
world of writing, right?
Marrying those two things together
and opening our aperture
to the world around us
I think not just makes us
more interesting people.
Quite frankly, built
on our own desire to be
lifelong learners and curious,
but opening our aperture
to the world around us,
I truly believe, if you think
about that every single day
in the spirit of connection
and connecting ideas,
not people in this case, will
truly change the trajectory
of how you think about your work.
And quite frankly, the people who are,
who are engaging with your work, right?
So opening your aperture.
The second thing is giving, right?
You know, there's never a bad time,
but now, especially, is
how do we think about
and continue to live
through a world of giving?
I don't mean monetarily giving,
perhaps that's your thing,
I'm talking about giving your time,
giving your energy, sharing
space with people around us.
And that'll be at sharing virtual space,
just like we're doing here.
We could do more of that.
We need to do more of that.
And not just because of we're living
through this world of pandemic right now,
as we talk about this today,
but when we give, we get
back 100,000 times over.
And I say that, Alex,
with the real intention,
is that we have to give, but
expect nothing in return.
And that's critical,
because I think many people
think that it's a quid pro quo.
I have to give something to get something.
When you approach this sort
of mindset of giving time,
energy, expertise, sharing
thoughts like we're doing here,
there's no expectation
I think in return here.
But I know, I hope this is
of value to our community,
the community that I'm now a part of
and very much appreciate,
at some point, somewhere, some way,
somewhere down the line
the universe will provide.
And I think we'll be more
connected in that capacity.
So giving without
expectation is number two
from a pillar perspective.
The third of which is around tribes.
And I talk about tribes a lot.
I said this in the very beginning.
You know, it's not just about
connecting ideas and people,
it's like connecting tribes of people.
Tribes of, the ideas that
emanate from our tribes.
We like to associate and
assimilate with people
with like thinking.
How do we find our tribes?
Find your tribes if you don't have one.
And that could be a community group,
that could be people who are
of likeminded technical skills,
that could be, quite frankly, people
who just wanna talk about
what they're doing outside of work,
whatever your tribe is, find your tribe.
And then when you find
that tribe, I challenge us,
and maybe we'll challenge
each other at the end of this,
is to, connect those tribes, right?
I'm already thinking
about how do I connect
this biohacking community,
which, quite frankly,
it's a word that I've heard of before
but I've never really immersed myself in.
How does this tie back to
my work in the enterprise?
We don't talk about biohacking
in the enterprise, specifically.
I'd love to connect our
two tribes together.
So connect your, connect, join a tribe,
build your tribe, connect the tribes,
open your aperture to
the world around you,
the world will truly change by doing so,
and then finally give, give
without any expectation.
And I think that will make you
as the whole well-rounded person.
But quite frankly, really
allow you to become
a true connector of people and ideas.
- Yeah, and so that's
the, the common thread
across that framework is
the concept of connection.
So, first of all, when you
are opening the aperture,
you're allowing yourself a
wider view to connect ideas
and see, back to Hagel,
unseen opportunities,
unseen challenges, perhaps.
And then when you're
connecting the tribes,
you're talking about
connection inside the tribe,
connecting with your other
tribal members and communities,
but also then looking to
reach out from your tribe
into other tribes and connect that way.
And then--
- Absolutely.
- And then the, well,
another overriding theme
is the concept of giving
without expectation
and just trusting in the
laws of cause and effect
or camera or whatever you wanna call it.
- Yeah. You know, this
isn't, this isn't like,
I don't want things like a
woo-woo thing here, right?
This is, it's truly one
of those things that,
yeah, if we truly give without
expectation and believe that,
and just believe that,
that will come back to you
in many forms of which you
probably can't even put your,
put a handle on at this juncture.
Exactly, that's right.
- So that framework there,
so what's the idea behind that framework?
That's like a mental
model for people to apply?
Where did it come from?
- Yeah, I mean, it was
one of those things,
like probably many of the,
of the thought leaders
who are speaking on this summit,
it's one of those things
that I have kind of amassed
over kind of my collection
of years as an entrepreneur,
as an advisor to large organizations.
And I like you kinda
pull on simple threads.
I like to find what is the commonality.
Yes, I should not have
to change my approach
when it comes to working with an executive
versus working as an entrepreneur
or another entrepreneur.
The commonality, I think we can all relate
to these three pillars,
no matter where you are
working in the world,
where you are physically
or who you're working with.
That's kind of where it was emanated from.
I continue to adapt that framework
in as much as I built on
that a little bit, right?
So if I can share with you, if I may,
underpinning kind of those
three kind of pillars,
I believe there to be some other
kind of underlying principles.
If I may share with you
in the audience here
some of the things I think
are really fundamental
to the future of work.
Yes, we can open our aperture.
Yes, we should think about giving.
Yes, we should be
thinking about our tribes.
When I think about what's required
from not just a skills perspective,
but just truly principles, I
think there are six of them,
and this is where I continue to adapt.
First and foremost, I think
this whole community lives
probably in ethos of curiosity,
and you yourself are
obviously a lifelong learner
in the content you create.
And how do we continue to infuse
curiosity with our people,
those around us?
Connection of tribes,
help people be curious,
instigate thought, instigate
conversation, be curious.
That's principle number one.
The second principle is
around community orientation.
That's what we're talking about today.
Community orientation is the
fundamental future of work
when it comes to bringing
the people together.
Third of which I don't think
is any surprise to anybody,
but it's about being adaptable.
Adaptation and then you
say this directly as you,
obviously we promote this this summit,
is how do we adapt in the new world?
And I don't wanna say new normal.
It is just normal now.
Adaptation is fundamental.
And frankly, I think
those who cannot adapt,
they're gonna have a
very hard time, right?
And I wanna work with those people,
I wanna help them find their way to adapt,
and find their way into a tribe,
or find a way to obviously
adapt their skillset.
So adaptation is the third one.
The fourth one is around transparency.
And what I mean by that, Alex, is about
how do we show up and
actually as ourselves?
And this comes back to something
I'm very passionate about, which is,
and I talked about da
Vinci from the beginning,
is having empathy and listening.
But also showing up and we've
heard about radical candor,
but showing up and being
transparent with how you feel,
what you're thinking.
Don't let those emotions bottle up inside,
especially in the digital world
we're all living in right now, right?
So we're working virtually,
we're having conference calls all day,
this is like stop the grind,
but like it's okay to
be emotional, it's okay,
vulnerability is actually, quite frankly,
I think one of the most
underrated characteristics
or skills that are gonna
be required to truly thrive
in the world we're living in, right?
Relationships.
You said it yourself,
we're talking about it
for the past 40 minutes, this
connection and relationship.
So the fifth principle
is around relationships.
The sixth is finally purpose.
How do we underpin, other
thing we're talking about here,
with purpose.
If your purpose is to, at PwC, it's,
our purpose is really around
building trust in society
and solving important problems.
That's what we do.
How do you tie your personal purpose
with something that maybe
your business is leading
or that the organization that
you're working for is leading?
Tying your personal purpose
to your work purpose, I think,
will go a long way in integrating
your work in your life
and, quite frankly,
thriving in the new world.
- Nice, nice.
And that, those are all
concepts that have been
kind of explored with various speakers.
You know, we had Chris Shipley,
who was a thought leader on adaptation,
she wrote the book "The
Adaptation Advantage",
it came out like last month,
and she's been thinking
about adaptation, agility,
all these kinds of things.
A lot of people are talking about purpose
through the different
lenses to that concept,
starting with why,
finding your North Star,
massive transformative purpose, MTP,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So it's good to have them kind
of summarized and reinforced.
Now give us a little bit of a,
because you mentioned the word polymath,
and that's a great way
to describe yourself,
and I'm sure that you get frustrated
when someone asks you the
question, "What do you do?"
What are your thoughts about that
dinner party, cocktail party question?
(laughs)
- Yeah, it's the go-to, right?
It's the not where you are
or, "Oh, what do you do?"
I don't know, I hope I,
hate's a very strong word,
I strongly dislike that question.
Because it's so inauthentic, right?
- But you have to answer it, don't you?
You have to answer it.
- But you have to answer it.
So I'm not gonna dodge your question.
So what do you do?
Yeah, so, look, I definitely,
I'm more of a self-described polymath.
And people would probably say,
"Larry does many different things.
"He does them all very well.
"But he does lots of different things."
And so, frankly, I think the
way that I answer that question
somewhat whimsically as I,
it depends with the
conversation we're having,
'cause if I'm at a cocktail party
with a bunch of entrepreneurs,
"What do you do,"
I'm gonna start, "A
founder and also an adviser
"and mentor to many startup companies."
That's what I'd do in this context.
If I'm in an executive roundtable,
talking with a bunch of
CIOs, "What do you do?"
"I happen to be an entrepreneur,
"but I actually happen to
work with Fortune 1,000 CIOs
"and help them define
their digital strategies."
So a bit of a roundabout
answer is, "I do many things,"
and I know, and just as our
audience does many things,
I would encourage us not
to put yourself in a box.
I don't put myself in a box.
And quite frankly, my titles,
titles I don't care about them.
My company does not define me.
What I would say is, "I'm a
bit of a chameleon," right?
And so what I do is whatever,
not whatever I need to do for
the context of that meeting
or that conversation, but I
feel comfortable in adapting,
truly adapting on the fly
in the context of the conversation.
For the people--
- Adaptation at work.
That's exactly,
adaptation at work.
- At work.
- But like, I also like the,
getting a bit cheeky sometimes with like
a pattern interrupt.
What do you do?
I do well.
- Yeah, I do well.
I do well, how about you, right?
It's like, "What do you
want me to be today?"
No, in all seriousness, right,
I mean, that's the truth.
- What do you prefer, though?
Which questions do you prefer?
And what do you ask?
- Yeah, so it's like, what do I ask?
What are you working on right now?
Not with what do you do?
What are you working on right now?
What's the cool project that
you're currently working on?
Because quite frankly, that cool project,
that cool thing could, quite frankly,
someone's never ever asked me that.
"Hey, I'm working on building a community.
"I'm working on this really
cool product in my basement,
"in my garage."
That's not what you do.
It's something working on,
something you're passionate about.
I don't like the question of like,
"Oh, what's your superpower?"
That could be somewhat awkward
if someone just asked
you that out of the gate.
I think it's cool, it's whimsical--
- It's trendy, it's trendy.
Needs a bit of work.
- Yeah, it's trendy.
Don't go with the trend.
I like to ask the questions a bit deeper.
What are you working on right now?
You know, is there someone else,
maybe, if we were in a networking context,
"Hey, is there anybody, I'm Larry.
"It's really good to see you.
"Hey, I saw you were talking,
"like, is there anybody else you think
"maybe I should talk to?
"Who have you met that's
really interesting here?"
That goes down a level
deeper than what do you do,
but I get to tease out, and
you can tease out of me.
"Why are we even here together,"
and I'm talking about this
in the context of like,
maybe say a formal gathering--
- What's your why?
- What's your why?
Yeah, that's also, I like that.
I love the question, Simon
Sinek, "Of course, why?"
But when we do this in a very,
I'm getting at the
underpinning of all this stuff,
is how do we approach each
other in a very authentic way
versus the transaction, right?
The transaction of what do you do,
here's my title, here's
who I work for here,
here's what I do if they
threw the ball to me,
then we're done, like I got,
like cool, tell me more.
I could do that.
But it becomes very transactional.
Nowhere in this conversation have we,
and it wasn't even engineered this way.
The conversation you and I
had even leading into this
is you didn't really care what I did,
but you had an appreciation for
I have a perspective and thought on this,
and that's where we started.
And now here we are
having this conversation.
So it's very authentic,
it's relationship oriented,
non-transactional.
That's how I start those conversations.
And it's been a lot of fun.
It's a lot more fun to have that.
And quite frankly, Alex, it
becomes much more memorable.
Everyone's asking what you do.
- Always go deeper.
- Always go deeper.
- AGD.
- Go ask the deep--
(laughs)
- And I'll tell you what--
- Go be AGD.
- I'll tell you another one,
while I'm just interrupting
up on that one,
the what you do thing,
one of my preferred ones,
you can add it to your tool
kit if you wanna use it,
what are your dreams?
Tell me about your dreams for life.
That's deep, depth charge,
as deep as possible.
Look, I think we've covered
some really good ground.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Now, if you, if I had to ask you
what is the most powerful idea from,
like putting you on the spot,
the most powerful idea
that you'd want to share
with our audience, we might
take this out as a soundbite
on the social media, what would that be?
- Yeah, so I'm gonna encompass this from
a working remotely from a teaming,
from a personal branding perspective,
and I think it boils down
to, yes, it's connection.
I'm gonna challenge us to think about
not time management, think
about energy management.
And what I mean by that
is we can watch a clock,
we can, but it's gonna keep ticking.
It's gonna keep going around
or ticking away on our watches.
When we move away from time management
and really shift towards
energy, we have more control.
And I mean by control is that
can be control of ourselves,
our centering of ourselves.
But frankly, we can then begin
to integrate work and life.
When we think about energy management
versus time management,
we can really, I believe,
change the way that we work,
change the way that we live,
and, quite frankly, have a direct impact
on the people who we work
for and we work with,
and, quite frankly, make
the world a better place.
- Beautiful.
Okay, well, thank you so
much for sharing with us.
Thank you for the time.
We look forward to the tribal connection.
I'm gonna hold you to that.
Thank you so much.
- I got you.
- And until next time.
- Take care, my friend, be well.
