Latest / CEOs and ABCs / Rishad Tobaccowala (Pulicis Group & The Rethinking Work Platform) A Conversation on The Future of The Working World, Routine and Communication #020

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Rishad Tobaccowala (Pulicis Group & The Rethinking Work Platform) A Conversation on The Future of The Working World, Routine and Communication #020 · CEOs and ABCs

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Look is going to change more between 2019 and 2029 than in the previous 50 years.
• 0:06
  Speaker B: A lot of people are struggling with this feeling of becoming obsolete. Every headline is about how many tens of thousands of jobs are being cut every week.
• 0:15
  Speaker A: Right now 12% of all of knowledge workers jobs can be replaced by agentic AI. This year when someone did not have meaningful, productive, rewarding work, they tended to have shorter lives, bad health and frayed relationship.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: Does that leave people when they're trying to figure out am I going to have a job in the future?
• 0:36
  Speaker A: The first thing is to embrace AI, then figure out how you adapt what you do, including potentially your career. Jobs and work are not the same thing. I think jobs are a silly phase that work went through. I would get up at 4:30 in the morning, 5 to 6. I would spend an hour learning. At the end of that hour I would open my email, read it, did not respond. And for the next 45 minutes to an hour I would go exercise way more run. Then I'd come back and have breakfast with the kids.
• 1:05
  Speaker B: Did you ever have moments where it was difficult to get back and reconnect with them after a trip?
• 1:09
  Speaker A: Technology also is a very interesting way of staying connected. For instance, you could actually be at their bedside honor reading to them. At the same time, if your daughters.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: Were to look back, what do you think that they learned most from having you as their father?
• 1:22
  Speaker A: They would always find me reading and learning. We paid for great education and we traveled a lot.
• 1:28
  Speaker B: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting wins and fails and everything in between. I'm your host, Kevin Rice. Here's today's episode. My guest today has spent over four decades helping leaders navigate change, not just through strategy, but through clarity, curiosity and humanity. Rashad Tabakiwala grew up in Mumbai before moving to Chicago as a young immigrant with a mindset built on learning, adaptation and possibility. He went on to spend nearly 40 years at Publicis Group leading digital transformation, building new businesses and advising global CEOs. Today, he's in a chapter defined by Reinvention. He writes a wildly read newsletter, hosts the what's Next podcast, and leads the Rethinking work platform beneath the titles. He's a father who's built a global career while staying deeply connected to his daughters, carving out early morning routines, traveling with them and choosing presence even when the work was demanding. In this episode, we talk about identity, reinvention and the immigrant mindset and what he hopes his daughters remember decades from now. Welcome back to CEOs and ABCs. My guest today is Rashad Tabakawala. Rashad, thank you so much for being here.
• 2:37
  Speaker A: Thank you for having me, Kevin.
• 2:39
  Speaker B: It's a pleasure. Wanted to start out by saying I got a chance to read most of your book and I really loved a lot of the concepts. So congratulations. I know it's a huge, huge effort to write a book and I wanted to understand kind of what were you seeing in the world that inspired you to start this project?
• 2:59
  Speaker A: When I was thinking about work, what I began to realize was that over time, across countries, there are three things that keep people happy. One of them is quality relationships, if they have good relationships with people. Second is if they have a sense of physical and mental health.
• 3:22
  Speaker A: And third is if they have meaningful, productive, rewarding work.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: And I thought, interesting. There are three things all over the world that keep people happy, and they're all exactly the same things everywhere in the world. But as importantly, what I discovered was when someone basically did not have meaningful, productive, rewarding work, they tended to have shorter lives, bad health, and frayed relationships.
• 3:57
  Speaker A: And as a result, I said, aha, that's interesting. Couple that with another insight, which is work, which was so central, was going to change more between 2019 and 2029 than in the previous 50 years. And I said, there's something there that we have to rethink Work because work is central to humans and it's changing dramatically. And that's the reason I wrote the book, which is called Rethinking Work.
• 4:23
  Speaker B: Amazing. You touched on something and how important having a sense of purpose in your work is. And I think a lot of people are struggling with this feeling of becoming obsolete. Every headline is about how many tens of thousands of jobs are being cut every week. I haven't been able to get an exact figure, but it's somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of jobs this year have been reduced based on AI efficiencies. And so where does that leave people when they're trying to figure out, like, am I going to have a job in the future?
• 4:57
  Speaker A: Right now it appears that 12% of all of knowledge workers jobs can be replaced by agentic AI this year. So 12% of half the workforce is in the tens of millions of people. And it's, I would say, the thing that most people are worried about, including if you're very senior in an organization. And the reason is because most of us who are white collar workers are in the knowledge work business. What we do is we Create, distill, refine and share knowledge. And AI is going to make knowledge free, Right? And nobody says that, they say all kinds of stuff. But I said, why don't you say actually what this is making knowledge free.
• 5:43
  Speaker A: So the first is for any of us who are sort of concerned, good, that means you're alive, that's good, that's better than dead, you should be concerned. But second is recognize that you can't avoid it. So the first thing is to embrace AI, then figure out how you adapt what you do, including potentially your career. And your adaption will be on how you complement AI with hi. And hi is not human intelligence, because human intelligence has long been beaten, if it even existed. It's basically human insight, human intuition, human interaction, human imagination. So in a very odd way, it's a embrace it, don't run away from it. It's very easy to learn. Then figure out how it can further what you want to do. And as importantly, also start thinking about yourself, which somewhat aligns with your show.
• 6:52
  Speaker A: Also think about how do you begin to operate where the company is not the center of your existence. Your craft, your skills and your relationships become the center of your existence. And this actually allows you to potentially do something that most people do not understand. But I think the big thing that people don't realize is we might be at peak full time jobs, but we are not at peak full time work or peak full time income or peak full time opportunity. So the big disconnection is jobs and work are not the same thing. I think jobs are a silly phase that work went through. So you basically say, look, I'm looking for meaningful, productive work with the exception in the United States, because jobs and work or other healthcare is connected to a job. You don't really need a job to have a very, very meaningful, productive, rewarding work forever. And so jobs are going away, but work is not in tomorrow's world. Your ability to do many things to suit all your different personalities that a person is while doing it without necessarily taking away from your other human roles as parent, brother, sister, child is what is possible. So I'm looking at both the challenges, but my book is very optimistic about what is possible. But what it does require us and organizations to do is to change. And since none of us can change our organizations, we can change ourselves. Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker B: One of the big takeaways or themes that I appreciated was this concept of not thinking about your career like a ladder, but maybe more as a portfolio. And it seems like that's kind of how you see a Lot of work shifting is to more of taking ownership of your role and not necessarily just focusing on being an employee of a company.
• 8:54
  Speaker A: With the exception of this healthcare issue, it's actually much better and easier and more productive to do that. So, for instance, I stopped having a job six and a half years ago. I have more work than I've ever had in my life because I also figured out how to take care of the healthcare thing. But I don't do one thing. I do lots of things. And those lots of things combine to being very useful both to other people. But I find it very rewarding. So I have a career as a writer, a career as a speaker, a career as an advisor, a career as a teacher, all running at the same time.
• 9:37
  Speaker B: And I imagine that's all very rewarding.
• 9:39
  Speaker A: Yes. And one feeds each other, which is the other thing. It's very integrated because what I learn in one place, I teach in another place. What I learn in the questions that the students ask makes me think about answers I should both improve or questions I should think of. And it all works together.
• 10:00
  Speaker B: Before we keep going, because I do want to talk about this amazing career you've had. I think You've spent over 20 years with publicist group. I want to kind of start with where your story began and growing up in Mumbai. I'm curious, like, how did growing up in India influence your view of the world view of life and ultimately the career path you chose?
• 10:24
  Speaker A: So when I grew up in India, I spent my first 21 years, with the exception of like one year when I came to the US in the city of Bombay, India, and I did both my.
• 10:36
  Speaker A: Full high school as well as my undergraduate degree in India. And there were four big learnings from India. These were India in the 70s, 60s, mostly 60s and 70s. It was a poor country, government controlled, not yet opened up to markets. But what was interesting is it was a country where everything that you could say about it was true. And the exact opposite was true at the same time. And what has happened is over the years, it's become even truer of India. So India still has a large amount of poverty, though over 3,400 million people have come out of poverty. But India also has more billionaires than any other country besides the US and China. And that's one thing that I learned, which is the world is much more multifaceted than most people think. You can't put it in a box. The second one, to a great extent, which was a big learning, was the emphasis on education in India. People will sacrifice Everything to educate their kids. And education is considered to be very, very important. Third is a belief in science.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: So there was a basic belief that science and math were very, very important. And that to a certain extent explains certain things, like why six of the top 10 technology companies in the United States have an Indian CEO, including Google and Microsoft and IBM and Adobe. And these are first generation Indians. These are people who grew up in India, came to the U.S. but guess what? They did. They knew science and technology, they believed in continuous education.
• 12:34
  Speaker A: And because they grew up in a country with multiple religions, multiple castes, multiple things, they know how to integrate teams. And that was a big learning I got, which was that in diversity is strength, and whatever you believe, the opposite possibly is true at the same time. And that helped me. When I came to the us What I began to realize is I knew a lot about science and math, but I knew nothing about American culture because they don't teach that in India. And I said, I can't operate in a country where I don't even understand baseball and basketball and various things. And I realized that the world of marketing and advertising was in those days very much built about strategy, about selling. It was a business, but was one that could only thrive if it created, participated and understood the culture. And so I joined what was the Neo Binet company because it allowed me to have 32 jobs with one job, because they have 32 different clients and you can work across them over time. And the clients for companies like United and Kellogg's and McDonald's. And I thought I'd learn a little bit about culture, learn a little bit about marketing. But one thing led to another and including acquisitions. And I ended up staying in the publicist group for 37 years. So I remind people it's either because I was loyal or nobody gave me a job for 37 years and I just hang on to the only one I got or I did not like change.
• 14:10
  Speaker B: It's rare these days. Most people I see moving up in their career are doing it by moving to new companies and they're kind of spending two years, three years, four years, and that's kind of how they move up today. So it's very rare to see that kind of loyalty to any sort of company. What was it about Publicist that caused you to stay with them for so long?
• 14:30
  Speaker A: So I stayed obviously like out of my 37 plus, now seven years as an advisor. So 44 years connected in some way to Publicis.
• 14:42
  Speaker A: For 20 of those 44 years, I worked prior to Publicis at a Company called Leo Burnett and other offsprings of that. And then I worked at Public. I think what I recommend to people, if you look hard enough, you can create your new opportunity in your existing company.
• 15:03
  Speaker A: So the reason I stayed is my business card has 12 different names on it. One of them says Publicis, one of them says Leo Burnett, but there are 10 other company names. So I both created.
• 15:17
  Speaker A: Helped acquire, and then ran a lot of other companies. So I actually switched companies all the time. But I stayed under the same ownership, if that makes sense. So it's like basically going from Coca Cola to Fanta to Sprite when you're still working for the Coca Cola company. Right. But along the way you also say, hey, by the way, we want to buy this energy drink. Then we want to, you know, maybe we want to go into coffee. Right. Or whatever it is. So one of the things I remind people is it is easy often to think that the only way up is going out. But sometimes you can create new opportunities inside your company and then you benefit from trust and speed, which allows you to move really fast. Which is harder when you move to new companies because each time you come to a new company you have to prove yourself. You have to understand the slippery scopes and the snakes and everything else inside any particular company. You know exactly who's going to come to bite you and how. So you know how to avoid them.
• 16:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's always Those kind of first 90 day pitfalls to watch out for. Yeah.
• 16:25
  Speaker A: And I remind people most of us are going to end up working for 50 years, switching jobs every couple of years. What's the. You'd have 25 different careers. So think instead in three to five year pieces versus one to two year pieces. And what I found is if you hang around in a place for five years, it's very likely you'll end up there for 10 years.
• 16:47
  Speaker B: When we first met, you told me a story about how, how they had supported you when your wife had cancer. I imagine that, you know, first of all, that's very rare to see that kind of support coming from a corporate organization. So maybe you could share that story because I think it was a really like beautiful, special way to understand the corporate culture.
• 17:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. So you know, when this, this happened about 14, 15 years ago when I was very senior at Publicis by then and my wife fell ill and what began to happen is our headquarters were Paris and my boss basically said, hey listen, you don't worry, we'll sort of pretend our headquarters is in Chicago where I stayed and where the hospital was. So he says for the next few weeks, when there's stem cell and all of that, you have to be in the hospital. First of all, you don't have to work, but you might find it useful just to go into a room and do other things. It might be a good distraction. So it's not that you work because you have to, but it might be a positive distraction. So I said, yes, it's a good positive distraction.
• 17:51
  Speaker A: And they did that as I was senior and it was great. But I tell you what happened 10 years later, which was the really other interesting story. So 10 years later.
• 18:06
  Speaker A: I've already left the company. My immediate boss has become the executive chairman. There is a new CEO who comes in and the new CEO, two, three years into his regime, announces that he has cancer and very overtly does not hide it and says, look, I'll be not traveling and I'll be out of commission for a few months. And when he comes back, he's doing a bunch of research and he says, one of the things I learned was a lot of people asked me, I was so brave. And he said, am I brave because I've got cancer? They said, no, you're so brave you're telling people you have cancer. And his research indicated that 50% of everybody at some stage in their life will get cancer. But most people are scared to death of telling their bosses that they've got cancer because they think they'll lose their job and they'll be seen as trouble. So he created an entire thing which is now global and worldwide, which is work with cancer, which basically has companies who say that if somebody basically says they've got cancer for the next year, their job is guaranteed. What people don't realize more than data and numbers decides where people stay.
• 19:23
  Speaker A: Because I always tell people everything, being somewhat somewhere in the same range. People choose with their hearts and they use numbers to justify what they just did. Right. And we keep talking about this being a data driven economy when it's a completely emotion infused economy.
• 19:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. And as we kind of think back to your book, like people have so many more options than ever. Being able to work remotely, work from home, moving towards that kind of portfolio style of, you know, working for different companies as a contractor, freelancer or fractional. So today it becomes even more important for companies to really deeply care about and treat their team members or their employees or contractors. Well.
• 20:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, because that allows you to actually attract and retain the best talent. And in the long run, that's the big thing that makes or breaks A company is companies that have an ability to have a disproportionate share of talent, whether that talent works full time for them, are suppliers to them or freelancers to them. But if you get access to a greater group of talent, you are likely to be more successful as a company.
• 20:36
  Speaker B: Hi, Kevin here. If you're enjoying this conversation and you know someone else who's working to grow in their career while staying present at home, I'd really love it if you could share this episode with them. It's one of the best ways you can help us and help more leaders build their careers in a way that they're proud of without missing the moments that matter most. Yeah. During those 37 years at Publicist Group, you had two daughters as well. So I'd love to kind of bring your family into the frame. What was it like raising daughters and, you know, building this career and, you know, kind of how did you manage to do both and stay present for your kids while being successful in your work?
• 21:19
  Speaker A: So in all of these things, I was obviously fortunate that I wasn't bringing them up by myself. So I had my wife and we made certain trade offs is the best way of thinking about it. So she had a job and I had a job. And when our first daughter was born, we sort of decided at that time that my career was starting to really take off. But she says, why don't I focus on her and you focus on her, but also focus on the job? Then what began to happen is I cut back a lot of my travel, but I still traveled. But the way I spent time was I would get up at 4:30 in the morning, and from 4:30 to 6:30, I would do lots of stuff before anybody woke up. Then I would spend time with the girls, and then I'd go off to the office. So they would have me very involved in the mornings, and then when I would come back in the evening. And then as our daughters grew up a little bit more, my wife decided to go back to work. But she decided to go back to work not in the world of marketing, but in the world of teaching. So she decided to become a teacher at their school. Right. Which allowed us to both get a great tuition break, which was the expensive private school. But she went with them and came back with them, which meant that I could make commitments to be in France without worrying about picking them up. But the other thing that we did is I traveled with them. And so because I was traveling, I would take them to see where I was traveling to. So they would come to Paris, they'd go see my boss, they'd see my office. I'd say, I'm on this plane, I'm doing this. So when they say where are you? I'd say I'm in this room. Right. Or so. Yeah, we've been in that room. And a lot of this was before FaceTime and things like that.
• 23:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. You mentioned you spent two and a half hours in the morning getting ready. That's quite the morning routine. And we've seen everything online these days about morning routines. I'm curious how you started your days in those two and a half hours.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: So the way I looked at it is that 4:30 to 6:37 was my time and 7 to 8:30 was with the girls. Once the day started, it was out of my control because if you work at the world of business, so the first hour I would basically, I'd say five to six. So let's say you get up, have coffee, all that stuff. Five to six was what I basically called my learning hour. So I would spend an hour learning. So it was the hour when I was upgrading my mental operating system. At the end of that hour I would open my email, read it, and if you're senior enough or in any kind of company.
• 24:02
  Speaker A: A certain set of those emails that you receive overnight are ones that make you angry. And I did not respond to those. I took that emotion and for the next 45 minutes to an hour I would go exercise, swim or run or do something and get really what I would like to say to them out of my system so I could answer in a better voice. Then I'd come back and have breakfast with the kids. So by the time I started, I had spent an hour on my mental, then my physical and then my emotional operating systems.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: And at that point you've won the day. When you were traveling, were you able to maintain that routine?
• 24:48
  Speaker A: I did so with the exception of when I go to Asia where the whole thing gets completely turned upside down and then I don't do it. But even to this day I get up at 5:30 because it's 4:30 Chicago time. When in Chicago, I would try to sleep at 9:30. These days I don't have as much or like doing that every single day for a couple of reasons. One is our daughters have grown up, so I'm actually at one of their homes in New York. And the other is, I don't quote, have a.
• 25:20
  Speaker A: Boss or a job I guess, if that makes sense. So I have a lot more flexibility. So certain things like my morning hour of learning has moved to the other parts of the day. Right. My exercise still remains. Again, I'm not caring for young daughters anymore. When you work for yourself, you have a little bit more control over your calendar. And I currently work in a way that I don't actually have bosses or people reporting to me or clients and still find a way to make money. So I don't have people who I have to look after, answer to or who can yell at me. I just have my three ladies, my wife and two grown up daughters are my three bosses. But otherwise I don't have others.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I have a similar morning routine. I mean I start the day working out with friends at about 4:30 every morning and then it's just kind of straight into like parenting routine and getting ready for work for the day. But yeah, having that anchor in the morning of doing something hard for me. I get to connect with some of my close friends which is really important for me to have that sense of community. But it, it starts the day, it helps me regulate myself emotionally especially as I'm you know, parenting with a six and nine year old. And that's how I, how I start the day. I think it is, it is difficult. I certainly try my best when I'm traveling to maintain that routine, especially like bedtime. That's probably the hardest part when I'm traveling is to like keep a consistent bedtime routine.
• 26:45
  Speaker A: That is hard because you're out, you know, there's dinners, et cetera, time zone changes. But you know, one of the advantages, often people talk about how technology can be bad. Technology also is a very interesting way of staying connected. For instance with your kids when you're on the road, which you did not have in the previous years. Right. You could actually be at their bedside on a reading to them at the same time. So that's one of the other things I remind people is.
• 27:16
  Speaker A: In almost everything there's nothing good or bad. It's how we use it or how we think about it.
• 27:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, like the meaning you use.
• 27:24
  Speaker A: We can use technology. We can use technology to say it's like polarizing our society and I can show you where it actually is, unifying society.
• 27:35
  Speaker B: Sure, absolutely. Yeah, that's something that's really important is I use facetime a lot when I travel. I don't travel as much as I used to for work, but using FaceTime to stay connected with my kids is really important. Love the idea of actually like reading them bedtime stories cuz that's a big ritual for us When I'm on the road, I do notice, though, when I traveled or when I used to travel for work, when I would come back, I would notice. Notice a little bit of a rift, like just a little bit of a disconnection. And I'd have to be really intentional about reconnecting with my kids. When you were traveling a lot to Paris, what was your relationship like with your daughters? Did you ever have moments where it was difficult to get back and like, reconnect with them after a trip?
• 28:15
  Speaker A: It was not that difficult. And the reason it was not is because they were a little older than your 6 to 9 year olds. So they were probably 12 and 14 or 15. So they were very fascinated with what was going on to a certain extent. And I would talk to them about things that were of their interest. And at some particular stage, my daughters believed I needed all kinds of help, like on all kinds of things. So they would say, go do this. Look at this. Go find this. Go check this out. Go to this rep. This store. You know, go here. So we managed to stay sort of engaged. They would always know where I was, so they would sort of study stuff. So it was easy to sort of engage, more or less, if that makes sense.
• 29:04
  Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. That's beautiful.
• 29:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was almost like they were parenting me versus me parenting them.
• 29:13
  Speaker B: That is often the case. I learned so much from my kids.
• 29:17
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 29:18
  Speaker B: I was reading your substack the other day and I saw an article where you were talking about how trust and integrity are two of the most important words in our kind of current day and age. Oftentimes, on the surface, I see those as the same thing. Could you help me understand kind of the delineation between the two and why you think they're so important today?
• 29:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. So the reason there's a delineation and they're obviously intermingled, but they're different, is trust is a feeling that people have about you and integrity is about you.
• 29:55
  Speaker A: So here's what I mean. The way you earn someone's trust is not necessarily just being hanging around for 30 years or things like that. You can earn people's trust if you share with them the data you are using, the intention of what you're trying to convince them with or what you're trying to do, and transparency about how you're using the data to convince them about what you're trying to convince them with. You actually, then trust the person because you're not questioning their intention. They're laying forth their data and they're laying for their thinking. You may not agree with them and you say, look, I trust you, but I don't understand this logic. This is the stuff. So that's trust. Yeah.
• 30:35
  Speaker B: You almost basically just described a change management plan for building trust in a corporate setting and decision making.
• 30:42
  Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. Here's what we're trying to do, here's why we have to do it. Here's the data, and here's how we're using the data to get what we want done. And let's have a debate about the intention or the data or the transparency. But that's what it is. It's the difference. By basically saying to your kids, eat this. You can basically say, I believe this protein is good for you. Here's why protein is good for you. Here are the ingredients I have used for the protein and here's how I put it together so it's going to be edible and it's good for you. Then the integrity.
• 31:15
  Speaker B: My goal is for you to be healthy and strong.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: And this is why. And this is what. And this is why. Integrity. I originally had a definition that basically said integrity is if what you say, what you do and what you believe are the same thing.
• 31:34
  Speaker A: Okay, So a person of integrity, outside of, you know, the occasional white lie because you don't want to start a fight. Right. Says, believes and does more or less the same thing. Okay. I change that definition by adding a fourth one. What you say, what you do and what you believe are aligned, and they're also aligned with the rules of science and economics.
• 31:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. And why do you think those two things are so important in kind of today's business world?
• 32:04
  Speaker A: There are two reasons for it. The first reason is in a world of AI, you won't know what to trust. So trust is going to become the currency. In an age of change, when bosses aren't telling you the truth about the future of work, you don't trust them. You don't see them as people of integrity. In the boardroom, they're talking about getting rid of 25% of the jobs. To you, they're saying everything's going to be okay. That's pretty ridiculous. That's one reason in an age of AI, in a world of change, we're trying to convince people at some particular stage they have to trust you emotionally to go on this journey of change. So because of us being in what called tectonic times of change, as well as because of things like AI, it's very important. The other reason it's very important is in this new world order where you're going to basically have a lot of gig work or projects.
• 32:56
  Speaker A: You are going to quickly connect with other people who you believe have integrity or can be trusted. Because if someone basically says, don't work with that person inside a company, you didn't care because the company took care of anything that was went crazy. When you're working by yourself, you have to be very careful about who you're working with.
• 33:21
  Speaker A: And so to me, trust and integrity become a reputation thing that allows you to attract work, attract partners.
• 33:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, integrity is one of my family's core values. When you think about trust and integrity, how did you try to help teach these principles or values to your own daughters?
• 33:41
  Speaker A: I think what we basically said is, we said, hey, look.
• 33:46
  Speaker A: All of us are going to basically make a whole bunch of mistakes, and making mistakes is not a problem. And usually we get into issues of trust and integrity because we want to cover up mistakes. People don't start becoming weird just like that. It's like they made a mistake and they want to cover it up. Right. So whole thing is like, let's talk about what we would call the third on the table, which is if there's something brown and moist and we know it's not a cookie, it's a piece of shit, let's talk about it. Right. And as a result, that making mistakes, doing stuff that didn't work out right. Was okay as long as we discussed it. So you don't make a mistake, a fault, or a failure, which is a moment in time into a character flow. So as I always tell people.
• 34:39
  Speaker A: You have failed at something, that doesn't necessarily mean you are a failure. Those are two different things.
• 34:44
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 34:48
  Speaker B: I saw in a recent. You recently won an award, and in the ceremony you spoke about repair and resurrection and generosity. And one thing was really interesting because you were an immigrant from India. You talked about how we should all think like an immigrant. Could you share a little bit about your thinking around those topics?
• 35:10
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 35:14
  Speaker A: So recently, you know, I said, what are the four ways to lead today? And I. And it's also, what are the four ways to be successful in an uncertain future? So one of them was resurrection, which is we all eventually get to our Good Fridays and we feel we're crucified. We have to then get to our Easter Sunday where we rise from the dead. Right. We're not going to religion, but any career, any leader, anything over time has to practice resurrection. I also believe that if you start thinking about how you help other people, it creates an amazing amount of Goodwill versus how do you basically think about this being a shared battle? So think about generosity in that particular sort of area. I mentioned a little bit about how you combine roots and wings, which is as wherever you're going to never forget where you came from. So you combine those three. But then the reason for the immigrant one was this. So when I was in India, you know, we grew up learning Shakespeare and the two most important pieces of writing that are not religious books were actually written a few weeks from each other 500 years ago. One is Don Quixote and the other one is Hamlet by Shakespeare. And Don Quixote is at its heart about the injustice of death. And Hamlet is about the undiscovered country you go to when you die. So I actually looked at Hamlet and I said, every day we go to an undiscovered country called tomorrow. So as a result, we are all immigrating into the future. Make sense. So what do successful immigrants do? Successful immigrants think like outsiders because we are today in a world of change. The opportunities and threats coming to any business come from outside their category. Very much like Uber and Tesla challenged the automobile industry. Immigrants think like underdogs. So when someone tells me I happen to have a castle with a boat around it, I said, you have a castle and I have a source of water with which I will flood you out.
• 37:31
  Speaker A: Right. So immigrants think like underdogs and immigrants are willing to take short term pain for long term gain. And I said, if you want to succeed in the future, you have to think outside of your category. You have to think in a world where AI and other technologies are like slingshots that allow David to bring down Goliath. So think that way. And don't tell me that the board made you do this for a quarterly earnings. World class companies invest for the future and take short term pain. And that really resonated with people which just think like an immigrant.
• 38:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. I think it makes even more so sense right now with a kind of landscape where it's hard to unimagine what the business world is going to look like in five years.
• 38:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. And therefore, if you think continuously like an outsider underdog willing to retrain, it's like going to the gym. The thing is, going into the future requires you to basically work out and it's painful. You have to get up as you do at 4:30 in the morning. You don't have to do it at 4:30, but you have to like eventually work up a sweat, lift weights, jump into the water, do something. Right. And initially none of those things are particularly cool till at some particular stage you get addicted to it. But on the way there it's not particularly cool. And in effect what we're doing is we're taking short term pain for long term gain. But that whole path, the initial weeks or months is painful.
• 39:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I actually saw recently saw a study that showed how strength training specifically actually helps develop your mental capabilities as well. And so there's, you know, so many benefits if you're willing to put in that short term sacrifice.
• 39:19
  Speaker A: Yes, yes. And, and, and so those are things that I think is why I, I mentioned think like an immigrant.
• 39:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. So if you were talking to somebody who's maybe earlier in their career today and you've given a lot of like amazing gems of advice, what would you tell them about how they should be thinking about their career? How would you summarize it from. For somebody who's trying to figure out where to go next?
• 39:42
  Speaker A: So I would basically say that in the first five to 10 years of your career, which for many people will think is a long, long time, but it's only the first 10 or 20% of their career. First five to 10 years. Number one is remember that you're gonna have a 50 year career. So don't think a bad week or a bad meeting is the end of the world. Young people tend to not have enough of a context, so they often say, oh my God, I screwed up that presentation and I should leave and things like that. That's number one. Number two is try to align with a industry or a trend that you believe is going to lift all boats. Therefore, even if your boat's not a very good boat, it's going to be lifted. So I basically aligned with trends like digital unbundling of media today with AI because the trend is so strong, it will carry me. Right? So don't try to sell typewriters today. Even if you're a great salesperson, the trend isn't your friend. So try to find a trend. Number three is do not price yourself out of your dreams. You may not know exactly what you want to do, but don't accept a job that pays you a lot to do what you know you don't want to do. Because in effect, you eventually will be addicted to the income and you'll have priced yourself out of your dreams.
• 41:07
  Speaker A: The fourth is very quickly recognize that who you work for is more important than the company you work for, that it's the person or the people you work for that'll teach you more than anything else. If that makes sense.
• 41:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. That's why they say people stay at a company is because of the person they want to.
• 41:26
  Speaker A: Right. People leave. People leave, don't leave. People never leave companies. They leave bosses. Yeah, if that makes sense. And the fifth one.
• 41:34
  Speaker A: Is starting from the day you graduate. Remember, you've never graduated, you're a student forever and spend an hour learning like I do or you do or other people do. Keep spending an hour learning or anything you want so you don't get out of that learning mindset. So if you do those, you'll be successful. And the last one is less of a career thing, but it's the one that my daughters would always tell me and I would tell them this long before there was Facebook and all the social media stuff. So I would say, do not live in other people's minds. And they said, what do you mean? So I said, when? I said, do pay attention to your parents minds, but otherwise don't live to other people's minds. So, you know, often you're going to be doing things because you want to impress other people. Why? And I said, so much of what people are doing, including how they spend money and what they do is not because they want to do it, but because it looks great on today's social media. In those days, it just looked great, right? Sure. So my whole stuff is don't live in other people's mind. Live in your mind.
• 42:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 42:39
  Speaker A: Pay attention to what other people say, but just don't live in their minds.
• 42:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. And your daughters are kind of in that window. Right. And they're 10 to 15 years into their career. Do you have these conversations, what does your relationship look like with them today?
• 42:53
  Speaker A: Well, you know, they kind of laugh because occasionally one of them will say when I'm talking to the other, like, how was the last quarter in business? The other one starts laughing. She says, you know, you used to carry this baby around and now you're talking about quarterly earnings. Isn't that hysterical? So I said, yeah, it is hysterical. But I said, you know, that's what they want to talk about. So our relationship is great. I mean, they took me to Disney World this, you know, Thanksgiving, the two of them. They took their mom and me. I had to pay, though, but they took my. And we still do that from time to time where, you know, these days, obviously they're successful, but my elder daughter used that exact line against me to not live in other people's minds. So she began her career for the first six years. She had a very successful career. Both in promotions and in money at a little company called Google. This is 10, 12 years ago. And then she came to me and said, I don't want to do this. I want to become a filmmaker. So I don't care if Google has lots of money. And am I working at Google. I'm not an engineer. I don't want to do this. I want to be a filmmaker. And she says, don't live in other people's minds, so I'm going to go become a filmmaker. And she did. And 10 years later, she is now, like, a filmmaker. Okay. But, like, she used it against her parents.
• 44:14
  Speaker B: I think she learned from you. And you shared a lot of amazing advice there.
• 44:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which is a key thing.
• 44:23
  Speaker A: And she's very, very happy now. And now she's starting to earn money, too. But her whole step was like, this is what I want to do. This is what makes me happy. I said, fine, if that's what makes you happy and what makes you happy isn't in any way harming your health or anything else, go and do it. Making film is fine. Which is. Which is a key thing.
• 44:41
  Speaker B: If your daughters were to look back, what do you think that they learned most from having you as their father?
• 44:47
  Speaker A: I think the two or three things they'd basically say is, one, that they would always find me, like, reading and learning. And even today they say, like, would you stop reading so much. The other is they think I'm funny, which is kind of interesting. So they think they like funny. So all of us laugh a lot. And my old stuff is being funny is also a way of making fun of yourself, which is. Which is sort of important. And the third, I think the big learning was I said, look.
• 45:17
  Speaker A: What my wife and I could give them. And now, obviously, we are better off than we were in the past. But even then, we said, we spend our money in three things that no one can take away from you. And one which doesn't require much money is like, give them love, because hopefully no one can take that away. But the other was education. So we paid for great education. And third is amazing experiences. So we traveled a lot and took them to different places. No one can take away the experience you had with us, all the travel and the education. They could take almost anything else away from you where they can't take those three. And they remember that.
• 46:00
  Speaker B: Rashad, thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciated all the practical advice that you shared with our listeners and kind of how to navigate the future of work. I think you showed us that in a world of AI automation and just constant acceleration. The most important skills are trust, integrity, maybe curiosity, and the courage to really rethink who we are. So thank you so much for your wisdom, the clarity, and just the generosity of your story.
• 46:25
  Speaker A: Thank you very much. And Kevin, thank you again for the invitation.
• 46:29
  Speaker B: If you're enjoying this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. CEOs and ABCs is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We've got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow and stay tuned.