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Don't fit the template · The Generalist World Pod

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Millie, and welcome to the Generalist World Podcast.
• 0:03
  This is a show where I interview people from the Generalist World community, and we talk things like the future of work, careers, predictions, their hot takes, and really understand what their squiggly careers have looked like.
• 0:15
  So if you're a generalist who feels like they're living in a specialized world, this is the podcast for you. We are live. We start every GW podcast with a weird little dance. Dancing. Depending on the day.
• 0:29
  Depending on the day. We got Sakshi in the house. Welcome. Let's go, everybody. [laughs] Did I just, like, enter a rave? [laughs] Yes. Yes, you did. James, can we, like, can we get a little rave music in the background?
• 0:44
  I mean, it's pretty early. It's 10:00 AM here for a rave, but, like, if the rave calls you, you know, so be it. You answer the calling. [laughs] Yeah. So Sakshi, welcome to the Generalist World Podcast.
• 0:58
  I'm so flippin' excited for everyone to get to meet you, because we go, we go way back in internet years.
• 1:06
  Like, internet years, you know, we go back, like, five, six years, something like this, which is like, you know, 30 years in, in non-internet years. And when I think of you,
• 1:18
  I think of someone who is incredibly positive sum, someone who is a connector, someone who is a storyteller, someone who is able to take really complex ideas and make them simple and accessible and enjoyable.
• 1:34
  And, like, just, like, a shout-out, if you don't know Sakshi, y- you actually wrote GW's copy for our website, so that is, like, an example of you in action.
• 1:45
  And I [laughs] wanted to start off if we could give folks a bit of a, a bit of a flavor about who you are.
• 1:53
  So perhaps what we could do is say, you know, what lights you up the most at work, when you're, like, when you're working, when you're running your business, whatever it might be, what are the things that really light you up?
• 2:05
  Wow. I, I, I think we're off to a great start. Over the, over the past couple of years, I think the things that light me up have surprisingly remained the same. The number one is people
• 2:24
  with grit- Mm... and who have a mission. I think in my work, it's been so gratifying to meet individuals that are like,
• 2:41
  "I don't like how this works, so I'm gonna change the way it does." Mm-hmm.
• 2:46
  "I'm gonna put my heart and soul and thought and everything into building this, into making this a reality, into changing lives, into touching lives."
• 2:58
  I think that lights me up when I'm surrounded or when I'm in conversation with a person like that. I'm right now in a conversation with a person like that. That lights me up. That makes me believe that life is worth it.
• 3:14
  Mm. I think the other thing that really lights me up is when I am reading something.
• 3:22
  You know, I, I, I love my little reading time, whether it's, you know, before bed, whether it's early in the day, whether it's in a coffee shop. When I'm reading something and it unlocks
• 3:35
  a question my mind had been asking about how the world works- Mm... you know? Like, I get an answer that maybe I was looking for or maybe I wasn't even looking for it, and I think
• 3:50
  that's such a elating feeling, that, "Oh my God, wow, I understood something fundamental."
• 4:00
  And I think the final bit which just lights me up in my line of work is realizing, especially, like, when I'm working on a storytelling project, when I'm working on a narrative project, there's a lot of thinking going on.
• 4:18
  There's a lot of inside-the-brain work that's going on. And then comes a moment when, you know, I'm in a conversation with a founder, right, or I'm in a conversation with a team,
• 4:30
  or in a conversation with myself, when I say something or when I write something that is like, "This is it." Mm. You know?
• 4:41
  And this moment happens so much in my line of work, and I think it's, it's most exciting when founders say, "Oh my God, it felt like I was feeling this, and you said it," you know?
• 4:53
  It's how, like, when we read poetry, you know, you're like, "Oh, I'm feeling this," and somebody said it, and that's when you feel, "Okay, all the thinking [laughs] and all the writing and all the note-taking was, like, so worth it."
• 5:07
  So yeah- Mm... I think, I think that's my three-part answer. [laughs] I love it, and I completely resonate. I think books are the greatest teacher, and that's why I read so widely, and it's why I read so much fiction.
• 5:21
  Because it, it's often in the fictional books, in these characters, that something is reflected back to me that will then make something make sense in my own life. Exactly. I am a huge fiction person. Huge.
• 5:34
  And, and you know, I'm, I'm, like, lately obsessed with this idea of... So travel has become a very critical part of my life since past two years.
• 5:43
  I have this, you know, this itch in, in, in some part of my brain where I'm like, "I wanna live the moments I've read about." Mm. And I'm not talking about, like, romance or anything, you know?
• 5:54
  [laughs] I'm talking about, like, moments of, like, realization, moments of noticing a detail. And th- there's this funny story that I wanna just quickly share, which is I was recently traveling to Turkey. Mm.
• 6:07
  And the first stay that, that, that we did in Istanbul, you know, I enter and I'm like, "Oh my God, have I read about this place?" Like- Up to the detail, you know?
• 6:22
  The entryway, the way the lobby was, you know, so intentionally decorated. The, the lighting, it felt... So, so it reminded me of a book that I read and I love. It's called A Gentleman in Moscow.
• 6:37
  You know, it was the bestseller. I read it, I think, when, when the pandemic had just started. And I was like, that's what fiction does to you, you know? Mm.
• 6:45
  It changes your, it molds your perception about reality, I think. Mm-hmm. I, I just said it like a really big thing, but yeah, okay.
• 6:53
  [laughs] I totally hear you, and it's a perfect, a segue into what I, one of the threads that I we- really wanna spend time on in this se- in this episode is around narrative and around story because this is literally your bread and butter.
• 7:09
  And so to level set for people, why is narrative important? Why does story matter? I mean, story's the first technology. That's it. Like- Hmm... every revolution started with a story in mind.
• 7:26
  We didn't know about fire when it was invented, when it was discovered, whatever it was, until we actually saw an image of it, right? Mm. Like, we saw a cave drawing of it.
• 7:39
  People have been telling stories since people existed, and even before that, right? The reason I say story is the first technology is because code is a result of the stories that the world has been telling us, you know?
• 7:55
  Mm. And the stories that we tell ourselves. When I think about the work that I do, every idea starts with an analogy, a myth,
• 8:08
  a situation, an imagination in mind, and all of these words that I just said are stories. So your narrative begins the day even before, like, you type your, like, first code or, or you design your first prototype, right?
• 8:24
  Whether, whether you're a hardware company or a software company or any kind of company, any consumer company, whatever you are, your business is a story that you're telling to the world. Mm.
• 8:36
  Because a business is inviting people to enter a new reality with you, and you cannot do that if you're not telling a story. So a business is a story.
• 8:48
  That's how I've come to see it over the, the course of my, you know, work over the past five years. And
• 8:55
  it's been interesting to think about story this way because so often, like, especially in today's times, everything is, like, so s- so, like, templatized around storytelling. You know?
• 9:09
  There is, there's s- s- so much content, how to do it right, how to launch a business, how to do a launch video right, how to l- write a newsletter and all of that. Mm.
• 9:19
  But at the core of it, there is so much experimentation in storytelling. There is so much sitting down and thinking and ideating. How can I bring joy to people? How can I
• 9:37
  educate more people? How can I, like, make them feel this vision in their bones? Mm. That's what narrative does. Like- Mm... that's what narrative is. That's why, like, people invest in businesses.
• 9:48
  That's why people buy from businesses. That's why people remember businesses, right? I have this, this theory that I was thinking about the other day, which is, like, since when did we start getting in the
• 10:04
  conversation of conversion over being remembered? If you look back at storytelling, it was so much about having a relationship with people. It was so much about inviting people in and never letting them go.
• 10:20
  I mean, I- it's such a cliche example, but think about what Nike does, right? You're a cult, you know, basically. Mm-hmm. And I often wonder, like, what are the companies that are doing that today,
• 10:32
  and 50 years later, people will still be as obsessed as they are right now? Mm. So yeah, I think that's what narrative is. [laughs] I love it.
• 10:43
  I've been asked, I mean, more times than I can count, like, "So what is Generalist World?"
• 10:49
  And I've tried all of these different answers, which are the template answers, which is like, "Well, we're a professional network for people who..." or, like, "We're a, a media company who also has a..."
• 11:00
  And I've just started saying, "We're actually a world." That is what we are. [laughs] We are a world, a weird little world [laughs]
• 11:10
  on the internet and now in real life as well, and there's, it's like having different, like, countries or regions. It's like we're, we're this whole world. You can go get involved in community.
• 11:19
  You can get involved in the podcast. You can come to an IRL event. We're gonna do summer school. There's IGD as well. We made that up because it's a made-up world, and the whole thing is centered around this story.
• 11:30
  I mean, how cool would it be? I mean, you have world right there in your name. Yeah. But how cool would it be for companies to start thinking of themselves as, like, civilizations? Mm. Like, what is a civilization?
• 11:47
  It is a bunch of people coming together, really caring for each other, and really caring about what it is that they're building. That's what a company is, you know?
• 12:00
  I am obsessed with the way Stripe functions as a business, as a company. I think they are a true civilization, you know? They are thinking about the now and what's gonna happen after them, right?
• 12:17
  And that's how a civilization thinks. Mm. A civilization doesn't function on- The present moment and how much value we can extract from each other, right? It also focuses on
• 12:32
  is the value that we're giving and taking relevant for how we're gonna leave the world behind, right? They're thinking of expanding the pie in the true sense.
• 12:47
  And, and I don't believe that just, like, creating jobs is just equivalent to expanding the pie, you know? [laughs] I, I, I don't think, like, that's just, like, one form of doing that. Okay.
• 13:00
  So don't create a company, create a civilization. And one thing I've been thinking about is, like, don't create a community, create a cause. 'Cause, like, when I look at GW, that's what it is. It's, like, a cause.
• 13:12
  It's like- Exactly... there's all these, there's hundreds of thousands, millions probably, of people who are undervalued, misunderstood. They think they're alone in this.
• 13:21
  And so, like, the more of us that come together, and the more of us that get loud about it, that is how you take something from just something that started in my head to this, like, global cause. Exactly.
• 13:34
  And I, I love the way that you're seeing it like that because I think when, when something becomes a cause, more people join in supporting it because they feel seen.
• 13:46
  Like, that's the best way to make someone feel seen, right? Saying that this problem statement is valuable enough for me to march around the world holding its flag. Yeah.
• 14:00
  [laughs] Which is what we do on International Generalist Day. Exactly. Like, literally. [laughs] Exactly. Nobody does it better than you guys. [laughs] This is so fantastic, Sakshi. I wonder if we can, like...
• 14:14
  'Cause I'm wondering if people are listening, if they are... Some will be founders and will be taking notes, like, "Okay, cause, civilization, this is what we're creating." Mm-hmm.
• 14:23
  And some will be people who are solopreneurs, fractionals, maybe they're still working in companies, and they are people who- Yeah... are wanting to apply this personally rather than to a company.
• 14:35
  Do you have any- Yeah... thoughts on how people can shape their narrative to grow and to be known- Yeah... and to own ideas? Yeah.
• 14:45
  I think that the number one thing that came to me as a realization recently, I've been, I've been writing on the internet for the past five years, and I took a pause because I, I had so much to say, but I didn't know how to say it.
• 15:01
  And I was in the process of, like, neck deep in journaling, and this thought process came to me, which is that you've been trying to fit a template of a narrative or a personal brand.
• 15:17
  You've been trying to fit something that you've either outgrown or just doesn't belong to you anymore. Why are you forcing yourself to participate in it, right?
• 15:31
  And it's a little easy for me to do that right now because I've, like, I already had, you know, a community, and it served me really well. I served it back. So it's easy to take a step back.
• 15:43
  But I think realizing that you don't fit the template, and that's okay because it's actually a good thing. You don't fit in because you're not meant to be, because you have breadth, because you have depth.
• 15:57
  And I'm sorry to say this, but the platforms of today and the attention spans of today and the sense of community of today doesn't do value to a personal brand the way it, it did maybe five years ago or four years ago, right?
• 16:14
  The platforms are so restrictive and narrowed in how a person is supposed to show up, right? But the interesting news here is
• 16:28
  you get to think so deeply about who you are and how... I love the, the, the thing you said, own ideas, right? I think the, the w- number one thing I would say is think in years and not in, like, months or days.
• 16:46
  I know that it might sound tough to some people who are maybe job hunting right now or who need the business to move, you know. I understand that. But narrative has always been a slightly longer timeline thing.
• 17:03
  It isn't a quick fix, I would say. So write your ideas. Really, like, write them, right? Earlier, I used to kind of, like, open a notion page and, like, type, type, type, type, type, type.
• 17:19
  But now I have, like, papers in my, in my room where I'm, like, creating, like, chain of thoughts. Oh, this goes like this. Oh, oh, this goes like this, and, oh, this goes like this. And I'm actually in the process
• 17:34
  of creating a new format of, like, publishing content. I've been obsessed with Substack for years, but then I cannot sit down and, like, write a long article. I'm, I'm, I'm openly admitting this as a writer myself.
• 17:49
  It sounds harsh to say this to the world. Um, you know, but, but this is a safe space. So I cannot write more than 600 words. Physically, it's not happening. And so I'm like, "Why the punishment?" These ideas are mine.
• 18:07
  I've thought about them, so I'm clearly not running away from doing the hard work. Why the punishment of fitting a template or fitting a certain format? So I've decided to take matters into my own hand.
• 18:22
  I'm gonna publish them Think about the format the way that it suits me.
• 18:27
  And I'm hoping, and in, in, in my history of experience with content and community, people always catch up because we are craving for something that is authentic to the writer, to the author, to the thinker, right?
• 18:42
  So I think if you are a solopreneur or a founder or anybody who's, like, listening and thinking about, "What is my narrative? Where do I fit in?" I think I would say, like, take the time, let it hurt.
• 18:57
  Let it hurt that you're not finding the right thing, [laughs] you know? Because you will. Because through that process, and not through, like... I mean, um,
• 19:08
  you can use Claude all you want, and you can brainstorm with it. I do the same. But, like, nobody else out there has answers for you. Something might click, so consume content, talk to people.
• 19:21
  But then it's like, come back and, like, do the hard work. Like, have you ever, you probably have seen them. They come up maybe every couple of months on, like, LinkedIn, and it's like, "The algorithm exposed.
• 19:35
  This is exactly how to write so that you please the algorithm." And every time I see it, I think the same thing. Yeah. And that is, if I personally were to spend my time trying to please the algorithm, I've lost.
• 19:50
  I have completely lost. Exactly. I am pleasing a robot, and the minute I try and shape my narrative and my story and my perspectives around pleasing this algorithm, it will look like every other post on LinkedIn.
• 20:06
  It'll look like every single other one. Exactly. I mean, no wonder why we all look the same, feel the same, talk the same, have the same hooks- Mm... have the same call to action, right?
• 20:21
  There's nothing that is a fresh of breath air, except, like, maybe a few good people. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not, like, trying to, like, generalize everybody right now. Yeah. There's a lot of, like, great writing out there.
• 20:32
  I was actually listening to one of my favorite authors in the world. She was on a pod- podcast. She doesn't do podcasts.
• 20:42
  And she said there is so much history and there is so much knowledge and so much wisdom and so many ideas that are not on the internet. We think
• 20:57
  the internet has everything, but it doesn't. So much of it lives in libraries and archives and maybe even, like, hidden corners of the internet that, that we have never thought of looking, right?
• 21:13
  So I, I understand the need to be top 50 creators on LinkedIn [laughs] or, you know, having, like, a, a, a million f- followers on Instagram or whatever. Like, it is, whatever is the metric that you're, like, thinking
• 21:30
  is worth it, et cetera. But I think that there is so much more out there that you can do as you shape your narrative. Mm. I think there are unlimited ideas that you can execute.
• 21:48
  It's not just, like, a fight between two, three platforms. Like, if you zoom out and you think about it, it's, like, so narrow. [laughs] Mm.
• 21:59
  Like, such a narrow idea of building a narrative or building a distribution, right? There has to be much more out there. I mean, come on. Like, we're, like, billions of people out here on this planet.
• 22:11
  [laughs] Oh, I, I love this, Sakshi. I wonder if you can, like, take us back a little bit because you have clearly thought so deeply about this for yourself, and I can just...
• 22:24
  When you were, I was visualizing, like, you in your room with all these Post-it notes and these, like, strings all, like, attaching, [laughs] and, like, connecting dots.
• 22:32
  I wonder if you can take us back a little bit to, like, when you were kind of figuring this out. 'Cause I imagine people who
• 22:40
  are listening are like, "I wanna be there," 'cause you, you're exuding this confidence right now, this confidence to be like, "I'm going to step out. I'm gonna step out of the system that isn't serving me right now.
• 22:50
  I might step back in. I might step back in differently." Yeah. And so I wonder- Yeah...
• 22:54
  can you take us, like, what has your narrative journey looked like, and has there been a point or a couple of points that were, like, kind of trajectory changing for you? Ooh, yeah. I, I, I would love to do that.
• 23:09
  And thank you so much for, for, like, the very kind compliment. Helps me feel that I, I, I've been doing something right. My narrative started, Millie, like, very honestly. When I, when I stepped into LinkedIn,
• 23:26
  the first woman whose content I found decently good had this bio called content writer, and so that's what I put in mine. The second woman who I found inspiring had
• 23:43
  something else, and I put that in my bio. I was like, "These people are doing something right," and I know that I'm a writer, but I didn't have the terms for it, you know?
• 23:53
  I, I, I feel there was s- just, like, so less labels to fit yourself into, and I, I chose the labels that I thought made sense at the time. So I chose content writer, blog writer, newsletter writer. Boom.
• 24:09
  That was my narrative, right? And when I started working, I would constantly run into realizing that I am thinking so much more deeply about this, right?
• 24:22
  So what I did was I, I would, I would, like, make notes About like things that, that I thought like w- were making sense to me in my process of working, right?
• 24:33
  And what that led to me was in the course of three years, I went from someone who was being given, "I want you to write this, this, this, this, this in this, this, this, this, this manner to achieve like this X outcome,"
• 24:49
  and I started being the some- the person who started defining the outcomes. And then it became, I have to now find what to do,
• 24:58
  how to do it, why to do it to achieve this outcome that I'm defining for this business, right? It happened because I was so aware of my process as a person. I was aware when I was writing.
• 25:16
  Just, just for anybody who's listening, you know, and they're thinking, "How do I become aware of my process," right?
• 25:22
  A quick like story that I would tell you is it's 4:00 AM, I am sending requests on LinkedIn to the founders who inspire me. I've been awake since like 9:00 AM or something that day.
• 25:35
  I cannot sleep because my mind has so much to write to people, right? I'm giving them feedback. I am telling them, "Here's how they should like change this particular word in their, you know, website copy," and I am
• 25:54
  giving them entire like thought processes around how to like grow their LinkedIn, all of it in messages way before ChatGPT existed, way before any research about this person existed, right? I cannot sleep.
• 26:11
  I sleep somewhere around 6:30, 7:00, right? I wake up the next day at like 10:00 or something, 10:00 AM, and I've received a bunch of responses. That is the first time it hits me,
• 26:27
  my process is so empathy first.
• 26:30
  I have so much empathy towards a problem that a business is solving, and I have so much empathy that I'm w- willing to put in the hard work of actually finding the gaps for them and showing it to them
• 26:47
  without ever expecting anything in return, right?
• 26:52
  And that's, that is actually something that I did so much that I started, like you can send me on a, a website page right now, and I can show you the copy that's not working for them, right? I did that so much.
• 27:09
  So that process paved this, right? So it's all, it's all so transferable, you know?
• 27:16
  So just, just coming back to how to kind of like define your own narrative journey, it's all about what do you observe as a person, right?
• 27:28
  The world is fighting for your attention, your energy, your enthusiasm, right? But what are you excited about?
• 27:41
  And just like a little addition to it would be is actually putting in the hard work of thinking about your narrative, which I also said like in my previous like response or, or, or thought process, right? Is
• 27:57
  I spend so much time in defining constantly who I am, and of course sticking to a large part of it, right? That's when I also decided that the system isn't serving me.
• 28:10
  I need to change something about what I'm doing, and that's when I started actually hosting events. I realized that I wanna talk to people. I wanna see them. I wanna understand their fears face to face.
• 28:27
  And, and you don't come to that answer by not thinking about who you are, what's the story you're telling the world. So a lot of like that note taking about your own self is, is something that I highly like suggest.
• 28:44
  There's so much freaking gold in this. Thank you so much for sharing.
• 28:50
  And what I'm hearing, it actually comes back to the templates, and it's a reason why we go onto websites and we're like, "I don't understand anything about what this person does or what this company does," because they've followed this like ChatGPT, Claude, like say the pain point.
• 29:06
  Yeah. And like that can be helpful, but it's not coming from the human perspective, right? It's not coming from that empathetic, that empathetic lens. Exactly. I mean,
• 29:18
  I've done workshops where I've also given templates, you know. Templates are a great starting point to think about- Yeah... where do you wanna go? But they're not the endpoint, right?
• 29:29
  I like to think of templates as a starting point. I use them all the time, right? I use them all the time on how to think about ideas, how to dig deep into ideas, right? But you cannot live ideas through templates.
• 29:42
  You have to live them through reading, journaling, mind mapping, talking to people, asking bad questions. That pathetic middle, I won't even say the messy middle. It's a pathetic middle. [laughs] It's horrendous.
• 30:00
  You wanna tear your head out. Who am I? What am I becoming? Why am I becoming that, right?
• 30:08
  Like one of my deepest inspirations in life is Shakespeare, and I recently been reading about his genius. But I think people should replace the word genius with his empathy. Mm.
• 30:25
  I think he was a deeply empathetic human being- And he saw the grey in the worlds that people created for themselves and the worlds that people were, right? Mm-hmm.
• 30:38
  And when you think about narrative from Shakespeare's lens, right? Take any play that he has written, he is so empathetic towards the characters. He doesn't judge them, he lives them. That's the job,
• 30:57
  living the narrative, right? I'm so curious how you see the world of work changing. Like, do you have predictions? What's your predictions for what's kind of coming? Ooh.
• 31:12
  The first one is something that I want to participate in, right? So I tweeted this, like, I think literally three days ago, but I've been thinking on this idea. I've been mulling over it.
• 31:26
  I've been pouring so much coffee [laughs] over it, is when I think about what I want to do in the world, the first answer that comes to my mind is work at the intersection of, like, tech and science and art, right?
• 31:42
  Beautiful, glorious. Oh, wow, she wants everything, right? And then I started digging deep. I was like, "Why? Where does this come from?" You know, "Why have you thought about it this way?" I'm also a big sociology fan.
• 31:57
  Like, anybody listening, you will live your life a lot more deeply once you start reading sociology, is something that I would say.
• 32:07
  One of the key aspects of sociology is questioning structures and questioning systems, questioning who these structures and systems serve. As a part of that, I started asking myself, "Why are we solving everything
• 32:24
  with tech? Why is everything supposed to be solved by tech? Why is it becoming the singular superior answer to practically everything, right?" Oh, you cannot sleep at night. Tech.
• 32:43
  Let an AI chatbot talk to you. By the way, I know companies doing this. I know great founders who are doing all of this. So I don't mean to discourage [laughs] anybody here.
• 32:52
  Uh, and I don't think I'm someone that people would be discouraged by. But not every problem statement that humanity or a human is struggling with needs to have technology as the singular superior answer.
• 33:08
  There are so many more solutions that we, in our bubble, think don't exist, right? There is policy, there is infrastructure, there is policy at work. There is company culture.
• 33:26
  How do we design companies? Like I said, we need to think more of companies as civilizations. So one of, like, my 10-year prediction-- Actually, I would say, like, 20-year prediction, I guessed.
• 33:40
  I guess, is we're gonna reclaim our humanity. And I'm not saying we're gonna become anti-tech. I think we are going to realize that some things have better solutions outside of technology.
• 33:56
  Technology is one of the participating solutions, never the end answer, right? So I think that's like, like my number one prediction.
• 34:10
  Future of work, like, this other kind of, like, prediction that I am slightly mulling over is we're already seeing it happening.
• 34:20
  So I, I, I don't think it's necessarily a prediction, but I think the way we constantly assess ourselves in our careers
• 34:29
  is going through a complete overhaul, thanks to AI and our friends at Anthropic and OpenAI and all the other wonderful companies. People are increasingly thinking about themselves in, like,
• 34:45
  this dimension of a self, right? There's this wonderful article on Nooma magazine, and I would love for you to, like, link it in this episode.
• 34:55
  H- I- I'll send it to you later, but I was reading about it, and it's like, you know, twenty-five hundred years ago, people were so overwhelmed with disease and war and all of these externalities that were happening that people started looking for the first time in the history of mankind, humankind internally.
• 35:19
  And that became, like, the, the label for it is, like, the Axial Age, right? Where the thinkers of the world who we read now, they were the ones who started the conversation of looking inward, right?
• 35:33
  That's where this, the thought process around identity and self and all of this came from. We're again at a very interesting junction in the history of humankind.
• 35:48
  There's war, there's economic overwhelm unlike ever before. There is identity overwhelm unlike ever before, and surprisingly, even looking inwards isn't helping. And so this article is about collective interiority.
• 36:06
  That's how the author defines it. I'm sorry, I don't remember their name. Collective interiority is when we as a group, a world, or even a company think about who we are collectively.
• 36:23
  And, and the author, I, I love this term, planetary response. We have to-- Some things require planetary response. They don't require the idea of a billion-dollar company.
• 36:38
  [laughs] They require every walking individual to become a participant. And, and if not every walking individual, a lot of individuals, right? And so I think the future of work is increasingly going to become
• 36:54
  this, this collective being.
• 36:57
  Companies, organizations, nonprofit, for-profit, all of these, I think are going to realize that some problems need that collective interiority, where we as a people start thinking about, how do we relate to each other?
• 37:15
  How do we make sense of everything that's happening together versus as individuals? Doing anything alone is just so much, like, harder, right? I think we need to vote you in for president. That's the first thought.
• 37:31
  And the second thought is please do send me that article. We will link in the show notes. Because,
• 37:37
  yes, there is so much power in the individual, in, in, in the collective, and I think we have been sold our whole lives, and probably our parents' and grandparents' whole lives, that it is about the individual.
• 37:50
  And you look after yourself, and you succeed. And it just feels like we are at this tipping point of, okay, what does it look like as a collective?
• 38:00
  And I, I see this on the tiniest scale inside Generalist World, like the tiniest scale of this, when it is literally greater because of all of these parts, you know? Oh, it, it gives...
• 38:14
  It, it honestly gives me a lot of hope, because I think it's easy to get kind of discouraged and, like, really hopeless in this world when you read about all these things going on.
• 38:26
  And then you're like, "Okay, but maybe the answer is..." Like, I'm imagining, you know, you were saying, referencing, like, 2,500 years ago, and this is kind of like birth of these thinkers.
• 38:36
  And I'm just kind of seeing this parallel to this time now where, like, AI is this ultimate knowledge library, right? It, it has all the knowledge. And so then what else is there?
• 38:47
  If it's not knowledge that we're trading in, perhaps it's another renaissance of these thinkers, of people who are going inward and then collectively coming together. Exactly.
• 39:01
  I resonate with that so much because this, this sense of the fact that we are a collection of people and not merely individual lives, right?
• 39:16
  You're so correct to say that it works at the tiniest scale, which is right now what we're doing, and it also works at a company scale, and it's also going to work at a democracy scale.
• 39:30
  I think we just really need people to become aware of this, right? I know that it's, like, more of, like, a, a, a, a long journey to this.
• 39:41
  But I do think that as more of us start talking about this, start thinking about this, we've al- always done this at the level of, like, some small institutions or schools or certain colleges, right?
• 39:57
  But right now is the time. It's, like, the perfect time to sow the seeds, right? I, I, I think that's how I would describe it. Sowing the seeds. That's, that's exactly it.
• 40:09
  And I would love to spend a little time, because you have been... I mean, you were a super early member of GW. Like, it was, like, day zero, I think. It was, it was very, very early on.
• 40:22
  And so I wonder if you could speak a little bit to, like, what does generalism mean to you, and how has that kind of shown up or shaped or helped you in your own career journey? I, I, I could talk about this for days.
• 40:36
  [laughs] Um, I have always felt, and everybody who's gonna listen to this is going to be like, "Yes," but the reason anybody's listening to this is because they have felt like they don't belong, right?
• 40:52
  I've always felt, with cousins, with friends, like, "Why have I so much to say and think about and feel? Is anybody else going through this, like, illness?" Right?
• 41:06
  Like, if, if I was Taylor Swift, I would label it as an il- illness, right? I am 15 years old, and I'm reading neuroscience, and I am participating in a Shakespeare play, and I'm writing a play myself.
• 41:23
  And I am thinking about pathology, right? And I'm thinking I should also do a journalist degree, you know, when I'm, when I'm, like, w- when I enter, enter college. And I am buzzing, constantly buzzing.
• 41:41
  And it feels like there is no container that can hold me. So, so what I decide is, "Okay, this is me. This is who I'm going to be." And then nine years later comes Generalist World, the first place
• 41:58
  that says, "I'm gonna be the container that can expand as much as you need me to. I'm gonna be the container that can expand this much, this much, this much. Whatever you need to be, I'm gonna be that for you."
• 42:14
  It's like the ultimate perfect relationship. That's what, that's what women want in a man. [laughs] So if anybody not sold on Generalist World, the man you've been looking for [laughs] is GW community.
• 42:28
  [laughs] I think you're, like, list of comedian from your many lists of skills and strengths. I think that's a, that, that container is such a beautiful way of describing it. Nailed it. And I think generalism is
• 42:47
  accepting yourself, first of all. So many times people are like, "Oh, I should be this, not that. I am this. I, I, I, I, I, I need to be this," right?
• 43:01
  Because it can feel so ov- overwhelming to be these many things, right? But the thing a- thing about it is people have always been these many things.
• 43:11
  People were scientists who also drew what they discovered and what they saw on microscopes, right?
• 43:18
  Takes me back to my college days, we used to always cry, "Why are you making us draw a cell that we can see on the microscope? Why am I supposed to draw it? I don't wanna draw it. It's out there online.
• 43:32
  I can just see it and I can learn it." Seven years later, I realize, oh my God, that's how it was done. That's how science has come so far. People were always people with multiple skills.
• 43:47
  People were piano players in the night, TV spokespeople in the, in, in the morning. People have had so much inside themselves, right? And, and, and this also brings me to this point, right?
• 43:59
  Which is, which is another, another kind of like this, this thing that I'm learning, you know, and kind of like unlearning a bit is, not all your parts are supposed to be seen out there. Not everything has to be
• 44:14
  a word in your narrative sentence, you know? You can be a coffee connoisseur just for yourself. You, you can be a great chef just for your family. If you solve 10 problems at work,
• 44:32
  some of them are okay to leave out of your narrative. I don't think that generalism means describe everything, right? I, I don't think it ever meant that.
• 44:45
  But generalism is basically accepting who you are, and of course, doing the hard work of finding the time, the way, the thought process of doing everything that you wanna realize as a skill set or as a execution or as an idea that you wanna see through in your life, right?
• 45:12
  I think generalism is purely that. And generalist world is the container to make that happen. Oh, I wish we like, lived closer.
• 45:24
  Like, I wish that we just like, lived in the same place, and we could just go get, you know, a cup of tea and talk about big ideas all day. But we don't, alas. But maybe one day.
• 45:35
  Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you really wish you had a chance to speak about while you've got the mic? I, I, I think we, we touched upon so many different threads.
• 45:45
  We touched upon the template bit, you know, kind of like this thing that I'm calling the template economy.
• 45:51
  I am actually constantly thinking about it all the more ever since I've become an earning individual in this world.
• 46:00
  I'm constantly thinking where the world is trying to extract value out of me by making me fit in into something. So I think that's, that's something that I really think about a lot. What else should we talk about?
• 46:16
  I mean, I think if people are listening to this right now, they would have had got an enormous amount of insight and knowledge and gold. So I mean, I'm delighted.
• 46:27
  I'm really, really grateful that you could take the time and come on. Obviously. Anytime. Anytime. I think one thing that I would just lastly kind of like talk about because, yeah, because I think
• 46:40
  it's, it's been like a, a recent kind of like a realization, plus at the same time could really help people right now. I have been feeling extremely overwhelmed about my career ever since like mid last year, right?
• 46:54
  It was a constant like tug-of-war between the work that I'm doing and everything that AI is now capable of and everything. It felt like
• 47:07
  the world of business is moving so fast and I'm like physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually not able to catch up.
• 47:16
  So one of the most interesting things that has happened kind of re- like recently is just sitting with the realization that transferable skills is like the gold that all of us are sitting on.
• 47:33
  Throughout my five-year journey, I've never done a single storytelling course except a writing course where I wanted to learn how to write online on Twitter. I've never learned communications.
• 47:49
  I've never read a single book around communications. And I'm also not like claiming that I'm the best narrative architect out there or the best storyteller out there.
• 48:00
  But whatever decent, good work that I've done, work that has given me a lot of joy in my life, has given a lot of my clients a lot of joy, has actually come from being this person who tries to understand the world,
• 48:17
  not forcefully, but by embracing it. So reading a lot about different topics and thinking about them,
• 48:27
  having the opportunity to work across sectors has really, really served me well, and I'm always like so grateful for it, right?
• 48:38
  Back then I used to wonder if I should niche down, if I should like choose SAS founders as my only clients. But now I see that-
• 48:50
  Thinking about AI and thinking about a sleep system and thinking about insurance and then thinking about neuroscience, and then coming back and thinking about how to make generalist world feel, feel like the perfect community, right?
• 49:04
  Or the community that you've been looking for. And then going and thinking about what do ambitious women want out of a mother-oriented community?
• 49:15
  Doing all of this in a span of a single week has actually prepared me more for anything than I would have anticipated, right?
• 49:27
  A lot of my confidence around storytelling comes from that because I see it has made me more empathetic towards customers, towards why does a narrative work and why does a narrative fail, right?
• 49:42
  So I think it's so easy to try and find the answers in books or articles that have that question that you're trying to answer in the heading. Shows how to find yourself, and then you go and you click that answer.
• 49:59
  [laughs] There's, there's a very recent article on Twitter, how to fix your life in one day, and it's, like, viral. I'm sure you've seen that, and I think it's a great article. I read it. I think it's a great article.
• 50:11
  But then exploring more of who you are, giving yourself the time to really devour ideas, painstakingly eat them up, you know, as I like to say it, I think that's gonna, like, do wonders for people's careers. You know?
• 50:29
  I'm banking on it, right? I'm five years into it. I have the, the coming, like, 40 to go. So I'm, like, heavily banking [laughs] on that. I'll keep you guys updated.
• 50:40
  I, I love this 'cause it, it's not the popular advice that you would hear.
• 50:44
  You know, usually you hear this advice that's like, "Do this very, very specific thing and follow this five-step system and five-step plan, and you will get X result," where you are taking a much more broad, long-term, human-centered view, and I am obsessed with it.
• 51:03
  I love it. I'm lucky to know you. I'm lucky to have you in my circle, and we will be sharing all of your links so that everyone else listening to this can get in touch. So thank you so much for coming on, Sakshi.
• 51:18
  Thank you so much for having me. It's always, always a good time with you. [laughs] Amazing