Utkarsh Narang (00:01.065) In this world of AI, if you have to talk to someone to understand what does careers in the future, what does careers 3.0 looks like, then Abhijit is the right person. And one of the books that and the newsletter that I really admire is called Dreamers and Unicorns. So we're going to have great conversations today. Welcome Ajit to the Ignite Neurons podcast. Abhijit Bhaduri (00:20.302) Thank you so much for having me here. It's such a delight to see you again. Utkarsh Narang (00:24.199) It is an absolute pleasure and it's been eight years since we last, I think eight or nine years since we last spoke. But it just seems like yesterday I saw you with the same energy, the same smile, and you look exactly the same. Abhijit Bhaduri (00:34.932) Thank you. Utkarsh Narang (00:36.267) So Abhijit, podcast, the first question we kind of get into the deep dive of the conversation. And we start by asking, if that eight-year-old Abhijit, the little boy, wherever that eight-year-old was growing up, if that eight-year-old were to come and meet you right now, what kind of a conversation will emerge between the two of you? Abhijit Bhaduri (00:43.288) Mm-hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (00:58.915) Well, I think, you know, one of the things that I would talk about is probably I would advise my eight year old to self to learn many more languages. You know, so I used to be really good at it. And so learning new languages, learning new musical instruments, you know, each one of them actually opens up a massive door, but nothing like learning a computer. completely different language. that's one I would definitely talk about. The second I would say is Abhijit Bhaduri (01:32.898) You know, each time you feel happy, make two more people happy. Somebody else, mean, two X, give back two X. And I would probably say that try and understand yourself through the eyes of an enemy. Abhijit Bhaduri (01:58.7) because that's one of the best ways to understand what you're missing. Because your friends only see something good in you, your family loves you, they see what's nice in you. You never really get to see, but you have to deal with it. So you don't get to see what the enemy sees, but you have to deal with it. And so just being sensitive to that, I think is one of the pieces I would say. So this is... Utkarsh Narang (02:24.915) This is very interesting. So learn languages or music instruments because that's a skill that stays and then each time you feel happy, make two more people. So 2x the happiness in the world, so spread it. And then third is fascinating that watch yourself from the lens of an enemy. What would he be surprised with? Like when he sees you at the current state, what would he be surprised by seeing? Like what happened to the trajectory of the life or what happened to the... the dreams that we had of Vijita at eight years old. Abhijit Bhaduri (02:58.766) So, you know, I was a person who was always really living. I moved between many cities, you know, growing up, my father was in a transferable job. So I moved between many cities and I was a very quiet kid. was really someone who just simply read a lot, but I didn't really have a whole lot of friends because, you know, because of the fact that we had moved so much. I didn't really build a whole lot of friends until I, you know, probably the final years of my school, maybe the last one or two years when we were there for a couple of years. And then I continued through college, I have friends from college. And then of course, over that phase in my life, yes, I made a lot of friends. But I think I lost out on making a whole lot of friends. You know, when I compare people who have stayed in one city now here when I look around, there's so many people who've gone to the same school and have been with those friends from the time they were like three years old, five years old. So now of course I realized that there is an advantage to having moved around and all of that. I mean, I get that, but I'm saying if you want the best of both worlds, I would have loved to move around and have all those friends. So that's what and therefore, you're not learning languages is a great way to make friends instantly. You know, it is sort of passes all barriers and you build really deep friendships with people who you can articulate yourself best with. And, you know, the more fluent you are, the more you understand the nuance of languages and the more you understand how to sort of. put the idea across in a manner which makes sense to the other person, not just to you. Otherwise you're constrained by what you can convey. Utkarsh Narang (05:02.143) Yeah, languages is the way you can express what you feel, think, and so much more. But what's interesting is like, and you and I were just talking about how I moved to Melbourne and you've also moved countries and cities and continents. And so you're in Seattle right now. One thing that we as a family discuss a lot is that when you move countries, then you let go of certain friendships to make new ones. But at each stage of making new friendships or it takes a lot of effort. So how do you think that has impacted you in terms of not having those deep bonds in the early years or having like, yeah, friendships? How do you think that's impacted you? Abhijit Bhaduri (05:42.552) You know, in the last couple of years, technology has improved so much. You know, it's just very easy to stay connected with friends. And really, so that's really in the recent times, that's not been a problem. I've been in touch with and I've also been privileged that I can travel. So, you know, for work or otherwise for holidays. So each time that I've gone back, I make it a point to meet friends and spend time with them. So that has not been a problem. It is a You know, friends who I had in school when I was growing up, you know, the first eight, nine years of school, I don't really have too many friends there, you know, that I'm in touch with. I've very recently gone back to, you know, I was part of the alumni event in school and college by sheer coincidence. I was there, you know, last time I was in India. A week apart, you know, I attended in different cities, you know, the school alumni alumni get together and also the college get together. So I kind of divide a lot of those friendships. Utkarsh Narang (06:58.155) Amazing, amazing. Love that, love that. The three books, I want to kind of bring them to center stage because there are so many, like, I feel like the one hour that we have is going to be less, but you've had experience and I was looking and I was stalking your LinkedIn profile. In the 35 years you've worked at Wipro and PepsiCo and Colgate and Microsoft and learning and HR has been, and talent has been your key domain. I really feel like this word dreamers and unicorns. And also how career 3.0 can be thought about that they come really close to each other. So imagine that the audience that we have for this conversation is someone who's saying their thirties has had about eight to 10 years of career and life they've built. They have dreams. They want to do more, but something stopping them or, they're there in a state of flux, like, much happening AI and this and that, like, what do I do with life? How do we have this conversation that will help them? So yeah, just open the Pandora's box wherever you want to take this. Abhijit Bhaduri (08:03.862) So I think when you think about, you know, the term dreamers and unicorns is as applicable to organizations as it is to people. You know, when we start doing anything, we are a dreamer. We have lots of dreams. You are starting off in your career and then you kind of, you know, go through different experiences and some of us become unicorns and some of us. take different kinds of parts, you know, and some of us in my book, Dreamers and Unicorns, I talk about four kinds. You have dreamers, you have unicorns, you have market shapers. You know, these are the people who are really defining the way we live and work. mean, so those are the market shapers. And then of course you have a scenario where you have people who stagnate in between. Some just remain dreamers. They don't become unicorns. Some become unicorns, but don't become market shapers. And the reason for that is just each stage, you just really have to reinvent yourself. So career3.0 was a phase for me to really put together what helps some people really reinvent themselves in different ways. And one of them, for example, you know, in career1.0, you have one ecosystem in which you're playing. Think about one fish pond, you know. So you know everything about the fish pond. And even within that, there are some ways you can really grow so you can understand. So let's say I start off in one part of talent management, HR, whatever, law, finance. Learn about what your part of the work, how that fits in with what the other colleagues do. So if you are in finance, understand. What does treasury do? What does bills payable do? What does accounts payable do? What does accounts receivable do? What does, you know, the accounting practice do? How do they interact with audit? So you begin to get a view, you know, which is horizontal. You also sort of then at the same time in the work that you are doing, you become deep. You know, as you begin to see things for yourself, you build depth. Abhijit Bhaduri (10:21.94) The second thing that happens is to actually start looking at it from the point of view of the customer. know, so if you have the departments that you're working with, you know, the client systems that you're working with, whatever that might be, you might be the HR VP for a particular business unit or a particular team, whatever that is. So you understand your role and refine it in terms of that. So that's how you build depth and breadth in that particular field. Of course. At a later point of time, if you've got a little more years of experience, now you're trying to actually see either, I'm going to assume that you either may decide that you're going to move around, you know, or you decide that, you know what, I'm going to really start to see this from the outside. You take a trip into another part of the organization, maybe change the geography. So for example, when I was, you know, working at Colgate, I got an opportunity to come and work. you know, as somebody who was responsible for implementing the SAP HR module, you know, I'd never done project management. I had never done SAP, you know, by any stretch of imagination. I really didn't know what it was. So you become a novice all over again. And it's a terrible feeling because, you know, you are just when you're beginning to kind of, you know, find your feet, you again get churned and sort of moves. Utkarsh Narang (11:37.483) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (11:49.517) This is one way in which Career2.0 is about adding a little more complexity. And by complexity, it is about putting yourself into a, in my case, it gave me an opportunity to live and work in the region, you in the Asia Pacific region. So live in a different country. You know, I have a portfolio of countries where I was trying to implement this. Each country has its cultural nuance. It has its history. has its opportunities. It has its strengths. So you begin to learn all of that. So what it does is it builds context into what you are doing. And then of course, subsequently, you know, your phase three is, so when you do this two little gigs side by side, that is career 2.0, two ecosystems, two skills. Career 3.0, which is what I wrote about, is where I see the world going. Utkarsh Narang (12:39.243) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (12:48.202) because business models are dying really fast. Your skills are sort of withering away in two, two and a half years. So that's the half life of a skill. And in this particular phase, you also have the additional complexity that human beings are living to be close to 100. So then in which case your work life. So this whole phase that you are spreading out your... work life over much longer, you're adding substantially more, 30, 40 years more to that workspace. How are you going to sort of operate on that? So that's the whole reason why you juggle multiple ecosystems, you sharpen multiple skills. And so in the book, I talk about six skills that you build. So that's really the way that I would think about a career strategy. Utkarsh Narang (13:21.749) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (13:38.38) Got it. I'm making copious notes because so to do and love how you've, I can almost like visually see it. So 1.0 is a fish pond. You get in, you get out, just one task and don't have to worry about the complexities that A, your workspace offers or the world offers. 2.0 is when your different ecosystems are interacting. For some, could be a different geography. For some, it could shape up as, as maybe different skills that you're using or different diverse markets that you're leading in all of that. 3.0 is almost there. Abhijit Bhaduri (14:08.971) Or 2.0 could even be within the function. Let's say you're a HR VP, now you become an L &D specialist, or you're managing performance and you're managing, let's say, hiring. So could be anything. 2.0 is just you're widening your skill base. Utkarsh Narang (14:13.28) Correct. Utkarsh Narang (14:27.819) Yeah, yeah. And 3.0 is like metaverse. It's multidimensional. There's no end it. what I'm seeing is like there are too many variables there. And you spoke about six skills before you even go there. And with AI, I think there's an added level of complexity as you were saying, because things are becoming redundant so quickly, whether that's business models or people skills or whatever. So who should be scared in these times, Abhijit? Abhijit Bhaduri (14:53.045) No, mean, I actually don't see that as being scared because the reason is it creates new opportunities. You know, we'll add many more jobs. So that's one part of it. I really think that we are going to actually depend a lot more. Human skills are going to be at a premium. So if anything at all, is, you if you see, I talked about My eight year old self, said, learn the language is why, because, know, it helps you to widen your, you know, your own aperture. You are beginning to look at things from different language, making someone happy, you know, really thinking about really what does the other person want to building that people sensitivity is going to be actually the skill for the future. So I, I didn't think about it like that, but when I sort of go back and So reflect on what I just said. It's understanding yourself from the eyes of the enemy. It actually allows you to understand when somebody is completely different from you, what is it that's coming in the way? And you know, you're continuously working with people. So it's the people side of it which absolutely gives you the opportunity to thrive in the future. And, you know, technology will change. People actually have remained pretty much the same. needs are, you know, there is an external shell which is a little different. But the software inside our mind is very much the same. We all have similar needs. We have similar perspectives. So if you understand what is common, you know, the very famous phrase that people say, we are like, everybody else in some respects. We are like a few people in some respects and like nobody else in some respects. That I think is really the opportunity. Utkarsh Narang (16:57.139) Love it, love it. How empathy, people sensitivity and yes, what you spoke about with the eight year old Abhijit. It just connects so beautifully to this, this aspect. But what I also say Abhijit and that's where kind of, I feel that not everyone has the, the operating system or the software within to, and I love this phrase, right? To learn, to relearn, to unlearn. And I think that's what the world keeps pushing. So what I'm inclining towards is that there are people who don't have that mindset. There are people who don't find joy in their work. They don't find meaning in their work. And if human lives increased and they have to do more work, they feel like, the hell? How do we support them? Like if we were to give them something in the next, say, 10 minutes and have them shift how they operate, where do you want them to start? Abhijit Bhaduri (17:51.083) You know, I think what has happened is we've taken, we have turned work into an extremely, extremely, extremely transactional process. And that takes the joy out of anything. Human beings thrive when there is no transaction. I mean, there can be a transaction as a result and a by-product, but it can't be the only reason to connect. because when somebody, so which is why I don't particularly like the use of the word networking. It just sort of has the connotation. Maybe that's just me. It has the connotation that I'm sort of, whether I'm stating it to you on day one or day 30, I'm doing it with the intention that, okay, Utkarsh has something that I desperately need and so I'm going to be friends. So I'm going to do everything to be friends. And people spot that fakeness right away, you know? So it never happens. However, if you see, that if we are friends and we have a relationship where people understand each other, that it's fun to work together on something. And, you know, I bring something to the table, then you bring something to the table. This whole aspect of being other focused is very important. Networking is self-focused. I'm here to fend for myself. It's a very individualistic society's view. Whereas You know, I've grown up in a collectivist society and I think that's where the magic is. you will find when we build walls around ourselves, then you feel that loneliness becomes overpowering. know, so that's that leads to people feeling lonely. There is grief, there is sadness. It's all of that. When you have deep friendships, genuine friendships, you build those deep relationships. That's what happiness is all about. So I think if you are able to understand that, that I think is where I would like to play. Utkarsh Narang (19:57.1) Hmm, very, very interesting. I think what you started this sharing with was very powerful because what we have done is that we have made work transactional and if it will stay transactional, then there is no joy to it. And if there is no joy to it, then you don't want to do it. And this morning, so it's about nine 30 my time and we're recording this. My son and I were coming back from the gym and he asked me, I don't know why that if you win $10 million in lottery, would you still work? And I said, I'll choose what I want to work on, which is like I was telling him, like, I love to have these podcast conversations. And I would still continue to do that even if there's $10 million in the bank sitting with me, because there's joy in it. There is learning in it and there's growth in it. I would eliminate some parts of my life, work life, because I don't find them to. So, so I'm thinking that how do you build that deeper connection is through relationships, which then leads to happiness is what you're saying. Abhijit Bhaduri (20:54.762) And that the work that you do inherently must be fulfilling. know, a lot of us are stuck, you know, because we haven't deepened the skills. So if your proficiency is low, think about it. When you are learning to drive and you're on the highway, you can't enjoy it. It's a very stressful experience. It's a terrible experience. If you are good at driving, It's a happy experience. You can listen to music and chat with people. You are still on the road. You are safe. It's all of that. So proficiency and skill in what you are doing is a very important piece. This is something that, you know, is a, it gives you the entry point to getting hired, but you thrive and you enjoy the place where you build human relationships. Places where I have worked where the human relationship was non-existent, it was very transactional. You know, I can't come and talk to you about anything. It's very transactional. Those are the places I've hated and I couldn't wait to get out. The places where I have built deep relationships, those relationships continue even now. So I think it's the human relationships that define whether you are happy in the workplace or not. whether you're happy in the place where you live or not, whether you're happy in the relationships you have or not. It's just that. Utkarsh Narang (22:26.463) And it depends on the human being is what I'm kind of continuing this into to build those relationships, to build those bonds. And as I was saying to you that Melbourne now feels like home in three years, it's because of the relationships that we have built here so that there's no sense of loneliness. Abhijit Bhaduri (22:42.686) Yep. Imagine if nobody spoke to you there, you know, you would it would not feel like home. You it would be an alien place. It's no different from a city which you know you're passing through, you know. So it's like that airport seat. You don't really care about it. You are sitting there now and you are not going to be coming back there in a hurry. So then it's an airport seat. Work has become like that. So you need to bring back, you know, the complete self, which means my ideas, my skills, my network, and it's all of that that needs to be brought in. Utkarsh Narang (23:19.039) Yeah, yeah, love it. Bring your complete self to work. How do you think, and in your experience, you've worked at Microsoft and others, how do you think organizations can be the catalyst in helping an individual bring that full, complete self to work? Abhijit Bhaduri (23:36.114) Organizations don't become catalysts. think the individuals make that effort. You know, at the end of the day, I mean, I've worked in different places. If those people come into the organization that I'm today miserable about, you know, it would change. if you're so it's really like, you know, sometimes you see an airline gets bought over by somebody else. It's the people who make the airlines. It's not about the shareholding. It's not about changing the dress or the logo or something. The service level will remain great or terrible depending on the people. So, you know, it has nothing to do with, you know, the external shell. It's the human beings that make the difference. Utkarsh Narang (24:25.887) Yeah. Yeah. A few minutes ago, you spoke about our software being very same, like our needs as human beings are very, the shell might've changed, but at the end of the day, we all want fulfillment. We all want joy. We all want, to stay safe, stability, certainty, all of these beautiful words, right? How do you think your software and based on your personal life and sharing, how has your software evolved over the years and what have you learned through that experience? Abhijit Bhaduri (24:57.801) You know, I think there is a point of time where you in the story that this is a reflection that happened when I wrote my first work of fiction, you know, and as I was writing that one of the things, of course, it's said in the words of the character there and in Mediocre of a Talagant, I talk about the fact that if you want to be if you want to be successful, think about yourself. If you want to be happy, think about others, you know? So the whole notion of success comes in the early stages of our life because you want to, you know, build the financial cushion. You want to establish yourself professionally. You want to explore whatever all of those things. You focused completely on yourself. For me, the other part of it happened almost by accident because I was teaching at XLRi. It also gave me a chance to connect to a very large set of people every time. in the work that I was doing, was working at Prata Steel. I was working, running different workshops. Each time you would meet a different set of people. So for me, those relationships did not only end at the time of the workshop with most of the people I stayed in touch. So even now, if I think about it, my relationships have continued with many of those people. In Aisha, the people that I worked with, my relationships have continued. So I think that whole process, it's never about what you are seeking to acquire out of entire thing. It's what you give that really builds the relationship. Because if you really see, as someone told me on one of my podcasts, which was a great summation, he said, in give and take, give comes first before you take. So, you know, it's that whole element and which fundamentally means you focus on the other person. So in a in a workspace where I have to really watch what I say to you, are you going to misinterpret? Are you going to be suing me? Are you going to be... Abhijit Bhaduri (27:22.877) That is a recipe for a low trust environment and human beings hate low trust environments. Utkarsh Narang (27:30.967) As we are talking about the words happiness and relationships are coming again and again in our conversation, makes me think of that Harvard study. I think it was a 70, 80-year-old long study where they tracked 1940s to about 2000-something. And relationships became the primary driver of someone's level of happiness slash fulfillment. And we can use different word. How about the relationship itself? Abhijit Bhaduri (27:40.284) Yup. Yup. Abhijit Bhaduri (27:57.086) You know, this notion of self and others, self exists in relationship with others. Self doesn't exist in isolation. That's one of the ways in which the Eastern philosophy, specifically Indian philosophy, is very different from the Western philosophy. The Western philosophy has one truth, one self, self-actualization, which all of it really focuses on me, me, me, me, me, going all the way up. You know, my food, my safety, my relationships, my self-esteem, my self-actualization. It sort of goes only focuses on me. And that leads to loneliness. Whereas when you do it in conjunction with others, you're sort of it's a give and take each of these moments becomes, you know, an opportunity for you to really thrive. So then you are not sort of, you know, holding. more than what you need, you also very comfortable giving because you've also received. know, so that I think is the basic difference when you put yourself in relationship with the rest of the world. And that's a very, that's a very fundamental shift in the paradigm. If you see the Indian philosophy doesn't have one right answer for anything. I mean, you see that that gods lie. Gods can be treacherous. mean, Krishna and Mahabharata, you know, lies. so the whole notion is it's dependent on the context. Utkarsh Narang (29:38.859) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (29:40.891) At that time, it's necessary to do this and it's contextual. Whereas in many other places, in the individualist cultures, it's one truth, one thing, one word. The moment you think about it like that, it's a very black and white world. The cultures which have been thousands of years old have all survived because there has been the whole notion of adaptability. That if it's If this is what's needed to survive, then so be it. So if you see, that's been the magic of the philosophy that I've grown up with. This is meant that you go out of your comfort zone and adapt to something. Today, we are talking about it ironically in the context of AI. We are saying the adaptable will be the ones who will survive. And that's exactly it. How do you survive? That's the opportunity. Utkarsh Narang (30:41.899) Yeah, I need a second to process this because I love Mahabharata and the intricacies of how Krishna behaves as the OG coach throughout. So what you're saying is that self cannot exist in isolation and self exists in the relationships, in the interactions we have with others. So this is more like a dynamic structure to self rather than like an isolated me me me kind of structure. I absolutely resonate with what you're saying. I don't like Maslow's hierarchy because I don't think that's how you evolve in life. It can be deeper. Whereas maybe what I feel is like topple the pyramid to say that let's build that identity of self. And since you and I are speaking, identity of self in relationship with others and then build from there. And yes, we need some level of psychological safety, physiological safety. I'm not discounting that, but this cell. Abhijit Bhaduri (31:36.051) No, for each one of them put self and the other together for each one of those steps. Suddenly it becomes very meaningful because you're not just looking at, you know, food, clothing and shelter. Think about it. You have responsibility in the family. You've got, you know, a family that you are looking at and you play a role in not just, you know, having the stuff for yourself alone. Think about it. If there was a choice to be made, you know, that tomorrow, for whatever reason, there's only one meal portion available. Chances are that, you know, in the family, you're not going to say, I'm going to get all of it myself. Assuming you are not allowed to share it. Only one person will be able to have that. You would give it to the one who's most needy. So in the family, it operates in that. Utkarsh Narang (32:28.426) Right. Abhijit Bhaduri (32:34.468) model that it goes to, you know, the youngest or the needy and whatever, you know, it's somebody who's hungry. You would do that. It's not mathematical. So in the in the systems which are driven by, you know, if how would you divide, you know, two biscuits between seven people? If you sort of see that, the mathematical option is two by seven. Utkarsh Narang (32:45.323) you Utkarsh Narang (32:59.691) Yeah. Good day. Abhijit Bhaduri (33:04.082) The other is to give it to the person who needs it the most. Utkarsh Narang (33:09.003) Fascinating so interesting and it's almost like thriving in that gray zone because it's not about being black and white Abhijit Bhaduri (33:16.828) Yeah, absolutely. mean, Eastern philosophy is entirely in the gray zone. And therefore it's, you know, it's therefore a philosophy which has survived over thousands of years for exactly this reason. It has not given you one right answer and nothing else. If you do that one right answer, then that's the only way you are accepted. It's not, it's just, Utkarsh Narang (33:21.865) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (33:32.075) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (33:44.678) Like, I mean, you know, look at it like this. In my family, my mother was somebody who had, you know, who used to pray actively. You know, every, every day she had a ritual. Yeah. He never once said, need to do it. I would sometimes do it. Sometimes for years I didn't do it. Then I would do it. Then I wouldn't do it. And it never worked. My dad was always similar zone. He followed a completely different spiritual path altogether. He didn't believe in prayers and all of that. But we were all free in many ways. were free to explore whatever. And I remember at one point of time in my college, as I was reading, you know, I was trying to read about different religions and I said, I'm going to change my religion to something else. parent was shocked and said, OK, if that's what you want to do, go for it. And I expected them to really throw a fit and protest. why are you talking about this? said, yeah, that's a different matter. You know, I'm. Utkarsh Narang (34:52.543) Yeah. Abhijit Bhaduri (35:00.018) fairly indifferent to all of them, but that apart. Utkarsh Narang (35:02.847) Hmm. And, it, it beautifully like how you've connected it to creating that freedom, right? Because if you're, if there's no black and white, there's no right answer or there's no right or wrong answer, you have the freedom to explore. And, and it applies so beautifully to careers. It applies so beautifully to all aspects of our existence, whether that's work or life. Abhijit Bhaduri (35:24.356) Look at it like this, that you know the role that I did. So let's say in WIPRO I was a Chief Learning Officer. That role never existed when I was studying in college doing my MBA. That role never existed. Learning and development, that term, didn't exist. It was training. It was a training department. And then evolved to do something else. The field that, you know, human resource development was human resources management, human resources, then talent management, then... Employment has changed from being full-time employment to part-time contract, gig, days that offices moved from being one place to anywhere in the planet. Everything has changed. Now, the ones who have not changed are the ones who are either trying to bring back yesterday into today. Utkarsh Narang (36:01.515) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (36:05.321) Yeah, everything's changed. Utkarsh Narang (36:14.441) Yeah. Yeah. Abhijit Bhaduri (36:16.615) And therefore they're trying to say, I'm going to use my power to put a brakes on this change. And you can't. Utkarsh Narang (36:27.733) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can't. It's not even possible. And I think those are the people, Abhijit, that I'm scared for, who feel that they don't want to change. Change is not happening. They're not going to adapt to change. And they're going to stay in that black and white. Abhijit Bhaduri (36:44.645) You know, fear has two responses. Fear, in fact, I'm talking about it because also that's the topic of my next newsletter on LinkedIn. And so now what I do is I have a smaller version for those who are short on time, who can read just that. And then the deeper version is on substrack and it's a paid version. So what we are doing there is if you think about it, fear can either freeze me. I'm so afraid that I can't run. I'm frozen. Or fear can make me run. Yeah. I'm saying that the adaptable person actually says what is really the fear because from a behavioral lens, is my fear is loss aversion. It's a loss of my identity, right? I have built my expertise or whatever. Let's say as a journalist, I have done this over the years. I've written for like all kinds of newspapers, magazines. Everybody loves my writing. And then one fine day some But he types in a prompt and says, well, Chet, GPT can write this. The fear is loss of identity. It's not so much fear for AI or something else. But once you understand that it's a loss of my identity, I also know that I can re-craft my identity. It's not frozen in time. The people who, you know, so it's only when we are dead that Rieger Mortis sets in. You're completely rigid. You can't move. But the person who is alive, Utkarsh Narang (38:03.915) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (38:28.027) will move and do things. I'm therefore rarely alarmed that, what will human beings do? mean, we'll find ways. know, human beings are very, very adaptable creatures. Or at least the ones who are adaptable will thrive. Utkarsh Narang (38:41.771) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So, fear, the deeper fear is the loss of identity. And if you can figure that out, then it's easy to, at least there's a path that you can recraft your identity. And then what's the fear about? Amazing. Amazing. I want to get into AI, but I still want to talk more about dreamers and unicorns. Abhijit Bhaduri (39:01.575) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (39:13.279) What does navigating identity in this evolving AI driven world look like? Abhijit Bhaduri (39:19.815) You know, it's about the little ways in which we integrate the changes in ourselves. It's really, think about it, you know, you've always worn t-shirts. Now somebody's saying you need to wear a shirt to work, you know. So you try it on, you buy one and you say, yeah, okay, it's, yeah, it's a little weird, but okay, I'm going to give it a shot. And you slowly start using it and somebody says, that's a nice shirt. and you get used to it and that's really, you know, it's a little bit of comfort that you experience internally and it's validation to outside, which is why going back to what I said, if you're only dependent on yourself, you have no idea what you're doing is right, wrong, ugly, good, bad. You don't know. But when you have deep relationships, people will say, Oh, you know what? This is looking really nice. You should actually try this and this combination that look even nicer. So You grow with that. So the process of growth necessarily needs another human being, actually many other human beings. So the more you expand your world into a boundaryless piece and in boring from dreamers and unicorns, the book, you know, that's the whole thesis that the world is boundaryless. And so you are no longer in that aquarium. Today that aquarium has become part of the ocean. Utkarsh Narang (40:51.839) Yeah, Process of growth needs many other human beings and how you can become adaptable in this boundary-less world. Love it, love it. Career 3.0 was a few years ago and now I think with the last, say, I would say six months to one year with what Sam Altman and Chad GPT and OpenAI and whatever AI has done now. And I created like a website last week through AI and I have no idea how coding works. So I just love the possibilities that AI is creating. What does career in the AI world look like? Abhijit Bhaduri (41:29.134) Actually, the book was written at a time when, you know, because, I mentioned, I had a little bit of a head start in understanding what I was going to do. So I kind of really my view was careers will operate in these three archetypes, career one, career two, career three, which is why the six skills happen. Careers will really run like a portfolio of Utkarsh Narang (41:40.138) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (41:57.861) different things that you will do. And reinvention is going to become so common that we won't sort of really notice it. It's going to become like electricity. It'll be there all the time. You know, look at it like this, that it's only when it happens one of then you kind of say, my God, I mean, it's so amazing what has happened. But historically, if you look at it, you put all these changes, take a little bit of a bird's eye view. You take a bird's eye view. Change has always been, you know, from the last sort of first industrial revolution before that, agrarian economy, first industrial revolution, second, then of course, you know, all the IT related stuff, digital transformation, and now AI. It's all a continuum, you know. Each time it builds on something else, which is already there, and then you sort of, you know, apply it and then it triggers further growth. It is hard to imagine that say in a place like India, which, you know, as they say, you have three screens. So you have the television screen, the, you know, the laptop screen and your mobile screen. Because the laptop needed at that point of time, connectivity through, you know, wires and pipes and all of that, and just was very expensive. Ironically, India leapfrog from the wired economy of the telephone or, you know, like the television straight to the mobile. It's kept the laptop part of it altogether. So if you look at it today, it's digitally a really fast moving economy. mean, it's one of the cheapest places in the world to have digital connectivity. Yeah. So if you think about it, this kind of a process is continuously happening. So your careers will evolve in the same way when, you know, one kind of technology happens, it creates another kind of a skill set and organizations crop up to manage that. So in Career 3.0, it opens with this basic model where I say that your work and your worker and workplace have to be in tandem. So the nature of the work Abhijit Bhaduri (44:22.98) decides the kind of skills that the worker must have. If you're running a motor repair shop, you don't need a cook because you need a different skill. Even the best chef can't be employed there. So it's not about being good or bad. It's relevance to that job. Utkarsh Narang (44:40.299) Great. Abhijit Bhaduri (44:41.914) The workplace is basically a marketplace that brings the work and the worker together. And it does through policies. So you are creating the policies. Think about it in AI today. Just the other day, Facebook or Meta was actually hiring people with $300 million salaries and bonuses and all that stuff. This morning they say, we are no longer going to do that. Utkarsh Narang (44:50.219) Mm-hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (45:10.648) Okay, they've frozen that. They've also put an internal freeze on movements. So this process is a dynamic process. Tomorrow, some other place is going to really start doing something similar. So work workplace and work worker workplace will always move in tandem. The challenge comes because a lot of our workplace practices, which should have moved when, you know, Utkarsh Narang (45:18.623) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (45:23.019) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (45:36.47) work moved to the cloud, it moved to, you know, it became boundaryless in many ways. We didn't really change workplace practices. COVID forced us to do that because during the pandemic we said, okay, work can be done from home. Suddenly people said, gosh, yes, of course. Why am I going to the office five days a week? Now you kind of have that tug of war that some people say, well, you want to work with us? You'll land up here, right? Utkarsh Narang (45:44.171) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (45:54.281) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (46:05.132) Hmm. Abhijit Bhaduri (46:06.565) So yeah, that's the workplace norm. So they therefore will attract a certain kind of person and will not attract a certain kind of person. But my prediction is that very, very soon we will see that more people will be working outside as gig workers and freelancers and will earn more than what a full-time employee does. And you see a lot of that. 60 % of most companies workforce between 30 and 60, depending on the firm, 30 to 60 % of your workforce is in any case not on your rolls. Right? Utkarsh Narang (46:48.001) massive. Abhijit Bhaduri (46:48.549) And if this is the case and one day it is going to be, so today a lot of people, know, 30, 40 % people have two jobs for a range of reasons because of the money, because of what they are trying to learn, because what they do is passion, because of, know, they already have this going, it gives them more money, it allows this flexibility, it pays for their vacations, many reasons. This Today seems like such novelty. It's not going to be there. It's just that you don't know about it. You know, there are more people doing it than what you know. Right. And this is going to be so it's a very different workplace. The moment the economy slows down, the employer says, hey, listen, you're going to work the way I want you to. The reality is if you have the skills that Utkarsh Narang (47:23.5) Yeah. Yeah. Abhijit Bhaduri (47:47.45) the employer needs. The top chef can decide, I'm going to charge, I'm taking the same meta example. The top AI person is saying, hey, don't give me this regular salary structure and say, the marketplace doesn't pay more than this. I want 300 million. You don't jolly well pay me 300 million. Now everybody says that what is Utkash doing that he's getting 300? Utkarsh Narang (48:09.877) Yeah. Abhijit Bhaduri (48:16.387) I can't you get the skills you will get 300 if I don't pay you somebody else will so the it is the skills economy. Utkarsh Narang (48:24.512) Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it. So how you develop your skills and how this work workplace worker dynamic keeps evolving in tandem and how you evolve with it, the variability, the gray, the thriving in the adaptability, all of that comes in the six skills that you spoke on. And I know we are getting into time. I think we'll have a part two Abhijit where we'll speak about skills, but Abhijit Bhaduri (48:48.42) Yeah, yeah. Utkarsh Narang (48:50.454) Career 3.0, skills. What are those skills, six skills that you can just like, yeah, phrase them for us. Abhijit Bhaduri (48:55.513) Yeah. So one is, can you learn what you've never been formally taught? proof of learning is, are you able to teach it in your own words without using anything that helped you learn what you did? You know, you can't use that same content, simplify it and teach it. Three, can you become an outstanding storyteller? Four, Because you know, the more you are a store, each one is linked. So you become a great storyteller. You are more effective in your teaching and so on. And you're learning. Four is can you become a great personal brand? If you have a great storyteller, are chances are that you are an outstanding personal brand. Fifth is can you play in multiple ecosystems and operate flexibly with that? And sixth is think of your skills like a VC thinks of the portfolio. Some skills you are an expert, some skill you are a novice, it's all of that. Utkarsh Narang (49:52.077) So folks, we're definitely having episode part two of this because I want to dive into each one of them. Such fascinating. So learn, teach, storyteller, personal brand, play into multiple ecosystems and think of your skills like a VC. Epic. If you've not read the book, definitely buy the book. We'll put the link in the show notes. As we're getting towards the end of this conversation, I loved everything. I need to go back to my notes and I often tell the listeners that If you're listening and something sticks, write it down because memory is very short-lived. But if we now continue to our trajectory of meeting that 80-year-old Abhijit, a few decades into the future, career 7.0 or whatever that 80-year-old looks like, what advice, what one piece of advice would that 80-year-old have to your current self? Abhijit Bhaduri (50:45.123) You know, I just think the 80 year old must. has the curiosity of the eight year old. So that's the first thing that I want to say. And then since we did talk about the VC and the portfolio, building on that, can you be a novice in more areas than you're an expert in? So if I am an expert in I say one area or two areas. Can I be a novice in four areas? You know, so it's really, and finally, probably the most sort of powerful thing that I would recommend is be comfortable being forgotten. Abhijit Bhaduri (51:36.857) So. Utkarsh Narang (51:38.988) Let's take a moment. Let's take a moment. Have the curiosity of the eight-year-old be a novice in more areas than you're an expert in and comfortable being forgotten. This is worth in gold. This is worth in gold. I'm glad this conversation happened. I loved every bit of it. For all our listeners who are still listening 50 minutes into the conversation, I think this would have added value. That's why you're here. So if you're still here, then appease to the algorithm gods and like, share, subscribe, whatever you have to do on YouTube. If you're on a podcast platform, then send it to someone who you feel would find value in this conversation that Abhijit and I had. But Abhijit, we'll close with the promise that we will do a part two. Abhijit Bhaduri (52:25.9) Of course, I would love to be back. Thank you so much for having me. Utkarsh Narang (52:31.35) Thank you for being here. Loved all the things that you shared and yeah, you've left me in a place of reflection because these six skills plus everything that we spoke about is so on point in how one should lead and live their life. Signing off. Abhijit Bhaduri (52:46.894) Thank you very much. yeah, if you like it, I'll write about it on my LinkedIn newsletter and my Substack newsletter. So check it out. Utkarsh Narang (52:55.98) Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much. Have a good rest of your evening. Abhijit Bhaduri (52:59.045) Thank you.