Key insights from the conversation

Career Evolution and Modern Work

• Introduction to Career 1.0 (traditional single-company career), Career 2.0 (primary job + side gig), and Career 3.0 (multiple revenue streams and ecosystems)

• Discussion of how careers are evolving and the importance of developing multiple skills

• Emphasis that Career 3.0 isn't just for entrepreneurs - it's a mindset anyone can adopt

• The concept of "half-life of skills" and how to view it as an opportunity rather than a threat

Learning and Skill Development

• Why "follow your passion" might be misleading advice

• The relationship between skill mastery and passion development

• The importance of enjoying the practice and daily work

• The "Helsinki bus route" metaphor: staying on course long enough to see results

• The "10 at 10" method for building new habits (starting with just 10 minutes at 10 PM)

Personal Growth and Development

• Six key skills for career development in the modern world

• How to learn things you weren't formally taught

• The importance of teaching what you learn to deepen understanding

• Building your personal brand through unique combinations of skills

• The value of connecting different domains and experiences

Cross-Industry Learning

• The benefits of learning from different industries and domains

• How combining insights from various fields leads to innovation

• The importance of looking outside your immediate industry for inspiration

• Building connections between different skills and experiences

Approaching AI and Technology

• Viewing AI as an opportunity to augment and enhance work rather than replace it

• The importance of starting small with one AI tool rather than trying everything

• Taking a playful approach to learning new technologies

• Using AI to do creative work better rather than offloading work entirely

Practical Career Advice

• The value of "prototyping" careers by experiencing them firsthand

• How to start small when building new skills or habits

• The importance of enjoying the learning process without immediate pressure to monetize

• Building unique combinations of skills to create your personal brand

Mindset and Approach

• The importance of approaching learning from curiosity rather than fear

• How to balance persistence with knowing when to change direction

• The value of experimenting and trying new things

• The importance of enjoying the process rather than focusing solely on outcomes

Real-Life Examples

• Abhijit's personal journey through different career phases

• His experience with learning cartooning and incorporating it into his work

• How he used his law degree years after obtaining it

• Stories of how seemingly unrelated skills became valuable later in life

Full transcript

Here is the full conversation transcript, edited for clarity and conciseness. Here’s also the link to the conversation on LinkedIn live.

Roberto: Hello

Abhijit: Yeah, Roberto. pleasure to be here. It's really great to actually meet you after knowing you for how many, four, five years now. it's the first time, I'm seeing you. I've always been a great admirer of all your art and all the things you put up. I always look at it and think, gosh, it's so simple and so nice.

Why couldn't I think of it? I'm a big fan of the work that you do.

Roberto: Thank you you're a big inspiration to me I'm lucky to be here and hope by the way that the people connecting here and will be enjoying this conversation. We will not, by the way, be looking into

the chat until the middle of the conversation. If you want still, and we invite you to leave questions or say anything that you, or anything that you want to share with us or with Abhijit, send it in the chat or just say hi.

And then in the middle of conversation we'll see you checking and we'll see what are your question. So for this moment, close and, be here with you. first of all, I'm very lucky because, this conversation gave me the opportunity to go deeper into your work, because as you said we be following each other since a long time.

I got to know you in 2020 when Bill Fisher, an amazing, professor at IMD suggested, you in a list of people to follow. I'm very grateful for that because I discovered your ideas and your amazing, drawings and sketches, which are very original and very authentic.

It feels like a nice way to connect with the ideas. And then lastly, recently, I had the opportunity to read this book, which is career 3 dot 0.

Abhijit: Thank you So now I know that I sold one copy of that book.

Roberto: proof.

Abhijit: Yeah.

Roberto: Yeah. And one thing that if someone, after this conversation wants to go deeper, Into your work.

I would definitely recommend reading the book because what's fun and surprising that it was written one year ago and is exited in November, 2023 past and so many things are so real after one year. So my first question for you would be what's your story? And how does this story connect with the carreer 3 dot 0?

Abhijit: Oh, my God. That's a great beginning. I actually started working. After college, in the field of human resources. I worked as a journalist. Then, I worked in many different sectors and companies. in some I worked as a generalist and some I worked as a specialist in the area of talent development, specializing in some aspects.

For example, I did, five years of learning and development. I taught in a B school. to deepen my understanding of the subject and then started practicing. And so at a point of time, I was invited to be the chief learning officer for Wipro.

And, yeah, that's a massive company with almost 250 000 people. I was part of that and, then having put in so many years, I thought I'm going to try and see if I can, focus only on, talent management and then start to work with different companies. And so when you are, consultant the advantage is that you can do the same thing in many different contexts. Some startups and large companies are multinational. And as you do it, that becomes, something that, you could do only if you are on your own. So that's what I did. And, that was when Microsoft invited me to, come back and do some work in us for, the setup they had.

I worked with them for about two years. Little less than two years, and then, I decided to come back and continue my, old firm working in different parts of the world. in some sense, I did a. Career 1 dot 0 then I had a little side gig. career 2 dot 0, then I did a career 3 dot 0, then a career 1 dot 0, and now back to career 3 dot 0. So very inconsistent person.

Roberto: And from what I hear, there is one common thread, which is that you had a ton of fun at each and every one of these steps.

Abhijit: Oh, absolutely.

Roberto: I think I was very lucky. I did have a blast doing all that.

And this brings me to the one question, which is what's so important about enjoying what you do for you?

Abhijit: For me, I draw my enjoyment from a couple of different ways. One is to have variety in what I do. for example, when I read a book, I read more than one book. So at any given point of time, there's a book which I've done two percent of the book, one book I've almost finished reading some that I'm halfway through. I think I like to live life in that kind of a format, do multiple things. And then at some stage, I'll dig deeper and complete the entire thing. In some cases, I say that, okay, that doesn't hold my interest.

I'll switch to another book. For me, I wanted to Lead my career journey in a manner which felt really authentic to me. I thought that, I'm not answerable to anyone. I want to do things the way that I do it and take responsibility for, whether it works out well or not.

For me, I draw a lot of energy from engaging with a set of people, not just, if you're an organization, you can by and large, work, talk to anybody in that organization, but you have limited options to connect with the world outside.

that's something that social media lets me do I can connect with people who are not working in an organization or even people who I'm not, working with at this point the relationship has, been there for, many years now. I really cherish many of the, people I've connected with.

You are one such person. I've known you for five years now or four years. it's the first time that we are actually meeting and talking, in detail. it's so much fun. I feel that I've always known you, so you are not a stranger to me. That's how I think about the work that I do.

Roberto: Yeah, and that's beautiful. what you say about connecting outside of organization, I need a similar, way of thinking because I deeply think that everything that you do outside. Yeah. Somehow bring some novelty or something inside the organization. So the beauty of living something day to day and then going out and having different perspective.

Now I'm talking with you, but we are talking about. the same thing. We are talking about interest and what excites us. how do you improve yourself? How do you learn? And then you take these experiences into career 1 dot 0 and it adds value. it's beautiful. this is something that Many years ago was not possible, of course, this gives me one question for the people who don't know what is career 1 dot 0, what would you say?

Abhijit: Career 1 dot 0 is the traditional way in which people have always lived their lives. you join a company and you retire from that. So you finish your college, you work in a company and you retire from that. so you're using one skill in one ecosystem. that's learn, earn, and retire.

that's the way careers in the past have always been Career 2 dot 0 is, for example, you work in an organization and maybe use your drawings or your podcasting to earn revenue. so you hit a number of subscribers on YouTube, Google starts paying you for that.

so it's two totally different things. you might be working as a software engineer in one company, and you have a YouTube channel, which you talk about books. cooking, travel, any of the things that you do, and that gets you, so two ecosystems, two revenue streams, career 3 dot 0 is three or more ecosystems and multiple ecosystems, multiple revenue streams, think about, your revenue a pizza and then you slice up, one of the things that you do, so in my case, let's say the work that I do for talent management, advising organizations that gets me a certain, of money.

I also work as an executive coach to individuals. that gives me a certain sum of money. I do columns for different magazines and that gives me a sum of money. I work as a brand evangelist that gets me a sum of money. I work as a keynote speaker and that gets me a sum of money. some places you earn more, some places you earn less, but it's this Portfolio of revenue streams and portfolio of things that you do.

So that's really the essence of career 3 dot 0.

Roberto: And there is a beautiful metaphor. So besides the pizza, which of course I'm Italian, I love this metaphor.

there's a beautiful metaphor. you say it's like juggling objects. you start with two then you add one and then you add

what I hear from your story is that each of these objects that you are juggling is somehow contributing to the other. They are not so distant. So there is the keynote, the coaching, there are some skills that are a red thread. Through all of this, so you can expand one and experiment with that.

this also something that really connects with what you said in the beginning of looking at multiple things.

Abhijit: You do so many things as well. You are employed somewhere and you also do your, the, your drawings and all of that and you're also growing your, presence on social in different ways that in some sense, what happens is as you build your audience and refine your skill you become known for a body of work.

At the end of the day, that's when you suddenly start to see the, your ecosystem will start monetizing. You don't start off by monetizing on day one, but as you start to do something over and over again, you become good at it. That's when you really start to monetize. So I think that's.

There is a sequence in which you're doing.

Roberto: And there's one thing that you said in the book, which is, not follow your passion. Don't follow your passion. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Abhijit: The typical thing you hear people say when I was growing up, people would always say, you don't know what to do just follow your passion. And my first thought is, but I don't even know what I'm passionate about because, today I feel passionate about something tomorrow I feel passionate about something else. I used to think how do I discover the one thing that I'm really passionate about?

But the better way to think about it is that when you start to build your skill in something, that's when you really start to get noticed. You get appreciated. You are enjoying doing it because now you're really good at it. So imagine if I told you that, be a juggler and juggle 20 different things today, you wouldn't be able to do it and you'll feel frustrated.

Then you look at somebody who's a juggler and you say, this guy seems to be having a great time. Why am I not doing it? The reason is without the skill, you don't feel passionate about anything. You might want to do it. You enjoy doing it, but you can't be passionate because passion comes from being really good, being able to, juggle the way that you want to. those are the things that get built over time.

And I think that's the real magic of it, that as you start to, juggle different things, you build that capability and that's when you become passionate about it.

So it follows skills. The more skill you have, the more passionate you are. Think about it. When you start driving on the first day, you are not passionate about driving. You may want to do it. You are very keen to do it, but you're scared because you think that, okay, watch the traffic.

I have to look at this. We have people coming on both sides. You want to focus and it takes you a lot of effort. Once you become good at it, you enjoy the drive. Even when it's raining, you're not scared. You can get onto the highway. You can still listen to music and chat with your co passenger.

You're beginning to juggle with 20 different things. Being able to juggle is a sign of expertise, so that's the whole piece.

Roberto: Yeah, and there's one thing also that you say, which is do what you love. Or love what you do. In this case, you love what you do. And one more thing that you remind me when you said this about driving and being good at it, there is the metaphor of the Helsinki bus route, maybe you've heard of it, which is that all the bus routes, out of Helsinki, follow the same route in the beginning.

this route is boring and it's all the same, but then if you stay on the bus long enough, then the route goes to different places. Then you have beautiful sites and all these things. But if you get down the bus, because you say, oh, this is boring. Let's go to another way. You go back to the station, you take another bus, it's exactly the same.

This endless cycle of being bored and then getting to the start and you don't enjoy the long term results and at the same time, there is a challenge because, and this connects to one thing that you write in the book, which is thinking like a VC, because you cannot imagine you stay on the bus, but then there is a bus line, which is really boring and you don't like it.

So at a certain point, you have to think. Is this the bus I want to really want to be, or maybe I should go in another way. So it feels like a balance. you have to stay enough on the bus to see the results and to have this expertise that lets you enjoy. at the same time, you have to reevaluate to say, is this really giving me joy?

Do I still want to do it? Even if no one is looking. Yeah. And if not, what am I going to do?

Abhijit: Another way to think about it, first of all, I've never heard of this Helsinki bus route thing, so it's something new that I discovered today. when you start doing anything in the initial stages, one of the ways to discover whether you like it or not is to really say:

do I enjoy practicing it? To building your skill, like people who become musicians, play the same notes every day. So that's your Helsinki bus. athletes will practice every single day. But if you say that I want to be an Olympic athlete, but I don't like to practice every morning.

I don't want to do it, then one of the two needs to change. Either your ambition is the wrong ambition. You may want to do something different, or you have to find a way to start enjoying and doing that practice and doing all of that, because without that, you will not achieve what you really so desperately want to do.

So I think the ability to really start doing stuff, which you can practice without feeling bored. And a musician told me this, one way to think about, having whatever skill you want is to say that I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.

And do I enjoy it so much that I will be able to do it like a dentist. At one level, you say it's the same old teeth every day. You don't like to look at the teeth every day? Then maybe being a dentist is not something that you should do. Or you want to be a musician

Maybe this is not then for you to be a musician. So you have to decide what you are really looking at.

Roberto: Absolutely. And I will also add a twist to that, which is, I would love to do this. At the same time, you can have this and add another skill. maybe what I want, as you said, when you were describing your own career 3 dot 0, you say, Oh, now I want to max up this because this is what we enjoy, but I still have some joy from that. So you can balance one thing to the other and also experiment a little bit so you can adjust to whoever you are, because I also think that we change. So maybe now we genuinely think that we would love to do this all our life.

Abhijit: And then two years from now, we see that we're not enjoying this so much. I enjoy that. So it can be open also to these kind of changes. No. It also happens with your hobbies. I used to, do, watercolors earlier, but as a kid I used to do that, and then I found it boring.

Then I stopped doing it, but I made a little shift and started doing cartoons, I would do caricatures of people and I taught myself how to do that by really looking at how people are doing it and learning and deconstructing it. And then you start creating your own thing, And now I've gone back to doing some watercolor, coloring the cartoons that I've done. You can do many different things. Sometimes make a little twist, but maybe some things that you do are completely different. But the real fun is if you are able to connect whatever you're doing to the other stuff you're doing,

It becomes self sustaining. when I started doing cartoons, I started using the cartoons in my, as a L&D person, when I would run workshops, in my slides. then what happens is now, I don't need to say how I get no time to pursue my hobby, I like to do cartoons. when I put it as part of my work, I bring in a uniqueness because people look at the slides enjoy the cartoons and laugh It's also, I don't need to wait until Sunday to do my cartoons.

I can do it anytime. you then create a unique combination. That's your personal brand, which becomes so unique because you've brought in, some of your hobbies and that becomes great fun. So I think it's a way to build fun into what you do.

Roberto: Yeah. And it's a beautiful example. I'm curious if some of the people listening to this, conversation and I'm also curious, of course, myself, and they're working, maybe they, maybe there are someone who's working from the South career 3 dot 0, maybe someone is in career 1 dot 0, maybe it's 2 dot 0. What do you see relevant for everyone? today or what we are discussing. So to say in another way, why should someone for example, working in a company in the classic career 1 dot 0, which by the way, it's perfectly fine. You're not saying at the moment, which one is the better to the other.

Is there different ways? And you yourself just went in and out depending on your preference and the moment. And at the same time, since I think we are focusing a lot on these skills, what do you think is relevant? For people who are working in companies in career 1 dot 0 at this point.

Abhijit: I think, it's a myth to think that this career 3 dot 0 model is only for entrepreneurs or self employed people. Anyone can have that mindset. It's really the mindset and in the book, I talk about six skills. The first is how do you learn something that you've not been formally taught, for example, in my case, I learned about, doing cartoons.

I never went to school to learn that, but I, taught myself. I watched people do it. I, then followed some, very well known cartoonists. I spent time. So I said that I want to learn from you and they would all say, I don't teach anybody, then I would say, but I like the way that you do.

How do you think those conversations gave me opportunities to look at the way they build the craft? The second is once learn something, the best way to deepen your knowledge and be an expert is to start teaching it, once you start teaching something, you become good at it especially if you're teaching something online.

You have to make it interesting because otherwise nobody comes and listens to it. So you make it online and that gives you an option to think different things. As you are doing that, then, you improve in the process of doing it, you improve your third skill, which is how do you become a great storyteller. So you build, your third skill, the first three, learn what you don't know, teach what you have just learned, be a storyteller, that builds the fourth skill, which is you build your personal brand as somebody who can do these things in a unique way. the fifth is how do you navigate different ecosystems?

for example, what you're working on can be one ecosystem. But let's say you have a hobby, which could be painting, which could be baking stuff, which could be cooking, which could be sports, things that you do, when you're not doing the main thing that becomes, a different ecosystem.

You meet with other, for example, very simple thing, you go, to the gym, and that also can become. Part of the second thing that you're building that I learned about, anything which becomes a skill is when you learn how to go deeper and be an expert in that particular thing, because without that you are not learning anything new.

In the gym, you learn about how to. exercise. How do you lift weights the correct way? What is the way to take a rest? And what do you what is the way to, go deeper into that? How do you change your food? that becomes a different ecosystem by itself? And the only way you do that is you think like a VC, you try something, it works for a little bit, it doesn't work.

And then you come back and do something else. As you start to juggle these three things, one of them takes shape and becomes a part of you. Those are the ways you can keep reinventing yourself. So I think that is one of the pieces that I find useful to juggle with these six skills.

You actually run your life. Even if you're employed in an organization, you can do all six. Yes, absolutely.

Roberto: And one thing that when you explain this, what I hear is curiosity, enthusiasm and looking into the future. And I love this perspective because many times we hear that, the jobs we have will not be the same.

And then we have to, when you said reinvent ourself and, or upscale or all these words, maybe thought from a perspective of fear. I fear the future. I fear becoming, let's say, irrelevant and my knowledge and my skills are not useful anymore. I did all my, you remember that you said learn, earn and retire.

I did all my learning that you, there's a concept that you mention in the book, which is the half life of the skill. now my half life of my skills is so limited and I can see these from a perspective of fear and loss. Or I can see this from a perspective of, look at all these things I can self teach

I can follow my curiosity and as a by product, this can be something that can give me value on the job that I am now and on the job market of the future. So I don't need to fear the future, but I can play to win and see What's good

Oh, I don't want to lose my job. but I want to enjoy as you did Abhijit and you explain in your own life.

Abhijit: Yeah. And, when you try and approach something not from a place of fear, as you said, but from curiosity and having fun just learning something because it's fun.

You teach yourself, something you've never done before not because you need to write an exam. one of the big mistakes people do is before you start, building expertise and deepen your expertise, don't start measuring how far you've gone.

Am I doing, oh, I've already spent, 20 days and I've not learned anything. Maybe, Roberto can do it in two days. I may not be as smart as Roberto. I'll take 20 days, but then, once you build the skill, that's when you should evaluate that. Am I enjoying myself? Because if you start comparing, you start saying, Oh, I need to write an exam. I need to clear that exam. It's not fun people don't enjoy learning because, school and college and all of that. If you don't clear the exam, you are a failure. It kills the joy of learning. I've done a bunch of different things in my life, which I have had no use for at that stage and suddenly later it's come back.

I did a degree in law. people said, you already have an MBA. Why are you doing this degree in law? I just wanted to learn about different kinds of law and I didn't want to pursue a career as a lawyer. I had spent some time when I was studying law.

during the holidays, I went and spent time in a lawyer's office I want to see what the lawyer does every day. I saw that, this detailed orientation, reading all the briefs, marking those errors I don't see myself.

Not because I can't enjoy it, but I'm not a person who will look at every line and say, Oh, this is a mistake. This is this. So I'm not a person who will enjoy doing it full time, for a living. I wouldn't enjoy doing that. What it has done is now years later, as I'm on my own, it gives me the opportunity to read my own contracts and sign my own contracts because I'm my own lawyer, because I know enough to be able to do that.

The value of something. For, 15 years was useless. I didn't do anything with it then. And now I use it. So if you stop looking at learning from when will I start using a lot of people say, Oh, I did a degree in some subject, but my job doesn't let me use any of that.

That's fine. You learned it. We enjoyed it. And you just stick to that. That I think gives you a huge opportunity to do many different things. I approach learning from that point of view, not from an end goal, but just, explore this. I always try to teach myself something different, at any time.

Roberto: Yeah. And when you say this, it feels like more following your curiosity and following something you enjoy doing and then you never know what is going to be the result. For example, now that people are also read that people are going to coding class for kids, but there will be no coding in 10 years or 20 years.

So maybe if they enjoy, it's amazing. Because it's a way to structure, to problem solve. So for example, my kid is doing robotics and he's enjoying it so much. He's Whoa, I did this. I don't think he's ever going to do that in his life. Actually. I have no idea what life is going to be in 20 years.

Exactly. But what I know is that the enjoyment of how do I make this robot go this square and then that's the skill that he will need for whatever challenge life will bring to him. And that's worth.

Abhijit: And you're so right. You talk about your kid doing robotics.

maybe robotics as a field will be done differently, by the time he starts working, but the fact that he's enjoying it today, there is no pressure if you start to say, what's the use of doing all this robotics, you're not going to be a robotics engineer, stop doing this. You should actually continue to try out something. As long as you enjoy doing that, at some point when you're not doing it, maybe switch to something else that you enjoy the more you try out different kinds of things, the greater the opportunity to, create stuff that you really enjoy.

Because then you start to say, Oh, I learned this in robotics. Now I can apply it in geography. And you start to build connections. the more number of dots you connect, everything that you learned, it's a doc that you create, and the more you are able to do that, the more your ability to connect the dots.

If you know only one thing, you can't connect any dot, all your dots will be only in that one thing. But if you do four things you can connect it in many different ways. You can connect different shapes can happen. But if you have 10 dots, you can make infinite number of shapes.

So I think it's really that.

Roberto: Yeah, it's the combination. And also one thing that you said, when you explain that you went to the lawyer's office and you see the work, this is amazing. There is an idea, which I, it's not mine. It's from an amazing book from Bill Burnett, which is called design your life.

Design your life. Yeah. And what you described is like a prototype. So you went to see how a day in the life of a lawyer is. then before saying, I want to do this for my own life, but you say, do I really see myself doing this? And if yes, perfect, if not, you find your own way. There is a way to reduce the risk of these experiments because you can try different things.

You can go in a little and then you see if you like it, you see how life is for people who is doing this for their own life instead of going four years investing this and then see that. Oh, no, I don't like it

Abhijit: When you look at something from a distance, you don't really understand the behind the scenes approach, and that's what you really land up doing day in and day out.

For example, in the movies, the way they show a lawyer that, the lawyer is going out, he's solving this problem, is pleading before the judge and prosecuting the case. sounds so exciting and glamorous, but actually, when you look at it behind the scenes, it is completely different.

The ability to actually do something by following it behind the scenes, a friend of mine, who's a musician, very well known musician. When I see the amount of work this guy puts in behind the scenes. I think, yes, that's something I would love to do. So maybe I want to explore that element and say, okay, now that I've seen a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes, I still feel interested.

Now, I think there is a possibility that I will pick up something. I may not become a musician. I may not ever be as famous as this guy. I may not be as good as this guy. But when you sample many things, It's really saying, suppose you are Italian and you've had Italian food all your life, but maybe one day you try out Mexican food.

One day you try out, Spanish cuisine. One day you try out something else. the more you are able to stay open to those experiences, approaching your career in the same way is a great way to think about. Broadening your idea you might then decide, out of the 20 times I eat out, I'll eat out, in a Mexican restaurant once, and maybe I'll eat out in a Thai restaurant four times, but I'll eat in the Italian restaurant seven times you're creating a mix of different things that you can do.

it's really the same thing in everything. the more number of things that you try, the easier it becomes for you to really start

Roberto: doing many different things. there is one question that pops into my mind before we go on to the chat,

It's already 35 minutes into the conversation. imagine that I am in a company and I say, Oh, I would love to do this. But I don't have time. How do I push all of this? Because I have my full time job.

I have my family. I would love to try and I don't know how to start.

Abhijit: I'll give you an example.

Somebody came to me and said, I want to build the reading habit. How do I do it? I hate reading. I can't sit with a book. I feel sleepy if I read a book. How do I build that habit? And as just out of the blue, I said, I'm going to suggest a method called 10 at 10. So he said, what is 10 at 10?

And I said, every night at 10 o'clock, you read for 10 minutes. You are not allowed to read more than 10 minutes. You put a timer and you read. So he says, but suppose I can't read for 10 minutes. I said, okay, one at 10. So read for one minute at 10 o'clock. Put the timer for 60 seconds. You'll read whatever.

Maybe you'll read two lines, maybe five lines. you keep reading until one day you say, I can read a little more than this. So then you read for two at 10, then five then 10. And one day, you would have built that muscle. you don't lift up 50 kgs on the first day,

you lift. One kg. You do that a couple of times and say, okay, I can do this. Now I can lift five kgs. Then I do seven. So it's really the same thing in any skin. You start by lifting one kg.

Roberto: Yeah, absolutely. if you really want to do it, you will find some time, even these 10 minutes.

when I hear I don't have time, I hear that it's not my number one priority if my number one is my family, I want to give all the time to my family. It's my number one priority. Absolutely. And at the same time, in my case, for example, I don't watch movies. I don't watch television. I have to choose and I do all my personal things in this time. So if it's really important, you will find the time and if you enjoy it, you will do it more.

Abhijit: I just love your drawings and I want to what is your method I just saw something you did, recently on the difference between education and learning.

I just absolutely love that. And I thought I'm going to, seek your permission to use it in some article that I want to write. How do you turn an idea into a drawing? What's your method? Thank you.

Roberto: Thank you for this kind word. I receive it with a lot of, joy, especially coming from you.

Actually, as you mentioned the gym metaphor. for me, it was the same. I started doing this illustration on December 2021. it started like a game and I started with my daughter, we bought an iPad, we say, okay, this will be for you, Valentina, which now it's not for her, it's mine.

And then I started because I wanted to play and to have a little fun because I admire these people. Starting from Janis Ozolins, an amazing creator. as a kid, I used to do cartoons, as you said, also this thing that you living in the closet, then you get it again. And, oh this has some use today.

And then I started to play and it is a way to fix this knowledge. when I was reading your book, I was thinking of which of the 1000 illustrations. I could do a twist on, it's a way to do a shortcut for an idea Today I was preparing, a workshop on virtual communication.

I wanted to put my own illustration into the presentation. So it's unique to me. It's authentic. It's how I explain that. As I was reading all the chapters, I was thinking, what's the main idea here? And what can I illustrate? And so I remember one of the illustration that I did, and I change the caption and use the same metaphor because of course, when you have this, huge Of course, after three years, you have a lot of, assets and a lot of image so I can recombine and it is so much fun.

So now I'm getting so much fun at using my own illustration and combining them into different parts. as you said, the 10 points, the impossibilities are endless. Infinite. I can take it from one place and add another thing. I had this toolbox, illustration of all the toolbox and I needed the metaphor for the voice.

this is how I use it now. And I still enjoy from time to time, of course, but I do it less. I have to say, I enjoy to do something completely new. Because it's still fun to do it. And at the same time I can do, for example, tiny illustration in two hours, because it's like combining and making connection.

And this is so much fun.

Do you use some software to do paper and pen? What's your opinion? I do it, mostly on iPad with Affinity Designer, which is a little like figma which is Vector. And Vector had the beauty that you can scale them up and down and reuse it as many times as you want.

After some time, the huge library of assets that you can recombine, and this is the fun. So you build these things and say, wow, now what I'm going to do is this.

Abhijit: So much fun.

Roberto: Yeah,

Abhijit: Thank you.

Roberto: Thanks for asking. And as you said, one more thing, Avijit, you said that one of the Skills is to learn to teach yourself and then to teach it online.

when you explain and you teach and you share these things is also a way to double check if you really like it, because you have to put, much more effort to explain the concept.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Roberto: It's a test. If you really know your subject, you have to explain in five minutes, but then you have to have at least half an hour.

So I always believe that I should be able to talk about one topic to have two hours to be able to do a workshop of 50 or 30 minutes because you also want to give value. You just don't want to give one idea. You want to do the most. possible thing for the people who's there,

Let's see if we have any question. If you are there, if you want to shoot a question now, we invite you again. Now is the moment. Let me put the comments in the most recent. there is Susan who is saying that she's a believer that you learn for more from outside your industry that from within your industry.

What do you think?

Abhijit: It is very true. Susan, you're so spot on with that. Because what happens is when you. start to benchmark within your industry you find everybody's doing the same things if you are, let's say a sports person and you play tennis.

Then everything that you're doing in tennis, all the other tennis players are also doing, but if let's say you take, things from swimming, from basketball, from doing all of that, the way they do the training for that, you will bring in more, depth and rigor to become much better at your craft by looking outside.

One of the big motivators for me to be a consultant is you can actually learn from many different industries. What's happening in retail, you can bring into pharmaceutical, what's happening in manufacturing, you can bring into aeronautics, you can combine many different things. And draw those connections.

So as I said, you can draw with 10 different points. You can make infinite connections. That's the value of, doing the stuff which is specific, not just to your industry, but from outside. You bring the world into your work.

Roberto: Yes. And I will also add that it's so much fun and you have so many other inputs and ideas that not just are looking at yourself.

Abhijit: Yes.

Roberto: Thank you, Susan. We have one more question or comment Melinda says, when you push your curiosity by learning, you discover yourself and what you're capable of. And yeah that's a great point. And also we'll add one thing also taken by the book, which is designed on life, which is a beautiful exercise, which is thinking about all the key points.

Peak and low experiences. when you think about the thing you enjoy the most the highs of your life when you really was into something and your eyes was shining with your telling the story and then you see what's the common point? That can be a very good pointer of what you love to do and pursue.

Abhijit: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the opportunity to continue to do something which is so meaningful. you begin to find many different sources of meaning. So in that sense, it is a very powerful way to look at your own life.

Roberto: Exactly. Now I'm curious. Now we'll be talking about, industries and company. That's something that I'm curious about. Which is, you talk about the book in. In the book you talk about the AI iPhone moment, , which was one year ago. What do you think?

it looks like now the connection was cut so probably was a battery issue of something let's wait a little bit well anyway it's 51 so we were almost at the end of the conversation i'm gonna wait here if you are still there hang on a little bit with me it will be worth the

message into the chat

hey Hello back. Yeah. So if anyone was doubting that this was live, this is the proof.

Abhijit: I know this is a terrible way to offer proof, but yes, here it is. As you can see, I was on my laptop, which suddenly, blinked and just went off. And so now I'm on my phone and I've joined you.

Roberto: amazing.

Perfect. So no worry, because we are going to get it anyway. thank you for the people who are still there. You had trust in the technology and now we're here. And actually we were talking about AI and something happened to the technology.

Abhijit: That's the artificial part of it. The intelligence was missing.

The reason why I put that as a iPhone moment because, what AI is doing is fundamentally changing how we can work, the possibilities and the way we connect with each other, the way you can do creative work for any kind of work, whether it's analysis, whether it's creative work, the opportunity lies in, using AI to augment what you do, that is a massive opportunity you can create.

So I think that is the real opportunity that you can, look at and say, how do I leverage AI, to do my work better to not, offload my work, but to say how do I use it to brainstorm better? How do I use it to, change the repetitive things that I do And I think that's the opportunity that he is offering to everybody on this planet today.

You don't even have to take the subscription. You can use the free version of any of these AI tools. And start to play with it. then of course you think that it's worth seeing the subscription is different, but you don't need to, you can still get as much out of it. If you're doing anything, just learn about some stuff, use it as a way to, spend one minute to learn about something.

That's the opportunity.

Roberto: Exactly. And it connects so well with what you said about enjoying this. instead of feeling all of these things, it's an opportunity to see these things that I like. How can I do it more? How can I have? Even more impact. How can I have fun?

And there is one thing that one of my friends tells me, Marco and Andre, who's a great guy talking about AI, he says that don't go into 1000 up, pick one, go deep into that, learn how to do it and see what happens. So you build, as you said, in the beginning of the gym, so you do this repetition, you start and you get, and again, you don't do all things at the same time.

You start with one because we can be overwhelmed. We have an AI for everything. If you want to stay up to date, it's impossible. even if we go into one, we are of the few people that know that because we are so exposed to this, news and social media, then we think that everyone knows everything, but it's not true.

We could approach it with a playful attitude and see how what can I learn from here? How can I have fun? What can I of course take out the things that I don't like maybe automate and do more of what I like?

Abhijit: It's a lot like if you bought a new car then suddenly you see Another company has a model which is doing something different

you don't keep changing your car every day. you make the most of what you already have. You try the features you like and build on that it's really done in the same way for learning. Try out what you're working on, and that's what you go with.

Once you become an expert, you can have five different options. But until then, it's enough to just try the free version and play with that. That's good enough.

Roberto: Absolutely. Now that the connection is again, I think we could go on for hours at the same time, I'm conscious of the time.

I have one more question, Abhijit, which is what the thing that now is exciting you the most? What's the project or the thing that you are looking into?

Abhijit: I, get very excited with travel. I just love to, learn about new places. Even, when you go back to places that you've been to maybe two years back, noticing what is new about the place.

that's an exercise I've enjoyed doing. sometimes you go back to a place I've been to before and try to look at it from, let's say I've been to some place two years back in the two years. Lots of things have happened to me. Lots of things have happened to that place.

New people are there and you go back. That can be fun by itself, or, to pick up a new skill. I always try to, improve something in my own craft. So I'm going to try and work, to create short videos. I've never been very good at video, so I'm very awkward in that.

But what I want to do is to actually start creating videos to simplify what I know about talent management. To do that, put that, out there, so that people can learn from that and based on the feedback they like it or they don't like it. I will make those changes and start to build new things, invite people.

Invite experts to talk about that, based on the work I'm doing with my clients, put that work on social media. So others can benefit from it. So really to put back a lot more.

Roberto: It reminds me of community also. And one more thing, which is, as you mentioned the places and the changes reminded me that we are all work in progress all the time.

people change, places change, so we can never assume that what we know, Oh, I know a visit, I know a visit today, and I know something about, and then something happens to me or to you or to where we are, and then we have to discover again, which is also beautiful, because if not, would be very boring.

Abhijit: Absolutely. To discover that. and then when you start to look at the changes, you begin to see patterns, so I think that's the. beauty of it changes, but it doesn't change. So it, and it stays stable, but it changes. you don't see those as two different things.

They are both connected. you begin to see that as an end world, it's not an, or world you don't do change or continue discontinuity in that change and vice versa.

Roberto: Thank you, Abhijit, for your time, for being here, and for doing this. And thanks to the technology who allowed us to film this interview.

Abhijit: It was evidence that it was live. Exactly. And I was going to say that maybe we should have said in the beginning, to give you proof that, this is live, we will shut it and then come back.

Roberto: We can spoil the surprise.

Abhijit: That would have been a spoiler, but. Now people don't look at the positive.

Exactly. Thank you for having me. It's such a delight.

Roberto: Thank you. Yeah. And let me add one more thing. This is also proof that what we can do, it can also be fun. And how important it is humor in everything. And it's so important to be able to laugh at ourself and do what happens.

Oh, now let's see the doubt of the connection. But this is what happens. And now I'm thinking something in back of my mind is I'm worried because maybe we lost the recording, but it's what happens.

Abhijit: it'll give me a chance to come back and talk to you again. Yes, exactly. So we'll do that.

Roberto: Amazing. So thank you so much again, Abhijit. It was a pleasure.

Abhijit: Thank you.

Roberto: Wonderful day. I know it's early morning there in Seattle. Here is, almost, evening and thank you to everyone who connected, who stayed there during the tech blackout and it was worth, I hope it was worth. At least for me, it was 100%. You.

Abhijit: Thank you so much. And good luck to you as you end the year and best of luck to you for the next year. I hope you make lots more drawings, which I absolutely love. I look forward to continuing, chatting with you. Thank you so much to your listeners for being there. Thank you.

Roberto: Bye

Abhijit: Bye bye.

Where to find Abhijit, his work and projects

• LinkedIn

• Abhijit’s website