Key insights from the conversation

Starting on LinkedIn and creating visuals

• How it all started from an IMD program

• Engagement and community: sharing for personal benefit, and the joy of connecting with others.

• The initial discomfort with social media, changing perception of its value.

• Visual storytelling inspired by Janis Ozolins, an illustrator, and began creating and sharing illustrations.

• Family involvement, and how to turn the process into a playful activity.

Impact and learning through sharing

• Learning through sharing: sharing and summarizing content deepens understanding.

• Balancing impact with personal joy: focuses on sharing ideas, not just seeking attention.

• The role of community and feedback: importance of belonging to a group for feedback and motivation.

• Eternal validation vs. self-gratification: the human desire for external validation and personal satisfaction as the driver.

Responsibility and purpose

• Respecting audience’s time: feels a responsibility to provide genuinely interesting content.

• Life purpose and impact seeking a balance between focus and openness to opportunities.

• Success and recognition: subjective success, defined by personal fun, learning, and discovery.

• The beauty of connecting with people we admire.

• Expressing individuality: everyone has their unique version to share.

Full transcript

Here is the full conversation transcript, edited for clarity and conciseness.

Nadine

I don't know how long we have known each other, but it has been a while, so my first question is, how and when did you get the idea to start on LinkedIn and create these visuals? How did this all start?

Roberto

That's a fun story. I started a long time ago when I did a program at IMD called Disruptive Innovation. A fantastic professor, Bill Fisher, had an article called "Selfish Tweeting". I love how he explained it because he said: I don't tweet for others; I tweet for myself to have my mind clear to know what I like, to distil my ideas.

So it's selfish in this sense because it serves me, and at the same time, if someone likes it, if someone connects with it. I think it is a brilliant way to put it because you don't do it for external validation; you do it for your mind to be sure of what you like and share.

And then there is a second benefit: when people see the things you put out, and they like it, probably, someone will reach out or comment on something, and you will see that you have something in common, and then you start a conversation. So, this is the beautiful part of the process.

One of the most satisfying things is when I see that I put out something and a person adds something to it, and then I write it. I take it for the next time that I'm going to talk about this, or I incorporate it into my thinking, and this is great because I could have never found all these things all by myself.

I started sharing things about Innovation and management, and there was a challenge in the IMD course: tweet once a day. The professor invited us to tweet and start conversations. It was very uncomfortable, and I was not into social media; I thought it was more like self-promotion than anything else and a waste of time. But then, this experience changed my perception.

And the last part with the visuals: Janis Ozolins is a unique and brilliant illustrator; I started to follow him and appreciate his ability to simplify the complex things on his journey. To support him, I bought one of his NFTs and reached out to him and said: hey, Janis I bought your NFT. It's a way to support you; great work!

He said: Roberto, do you want access to the course too? I have a course to explain the idea visually, and everyone who buys an NFT can access that.

So, I tried it, then I started playing with my daughter more as a game than anything else. Fast forward to now, my daughter isn't just playing anymore; she's my consultant and sometimes has veto power over my illustrations 😊

Sometimes she says, "No, I don't like this one," and I start over.

Two years later, this has almost become a habit. It's not daily, but I try to do something every week and keep it as a game more than a chore.

For example, just today, I posted ten illustrations on management. One was the "Horror Bingo" from Halloween, and someone commented, "Oh, I had the Bingo," which I loved. So, I put it in the backlog for some time.

This is how it works: I share something, someone comments, I incorporate it, and the cycle continues.

I see the real connection and depth at this moment on LinkedIn. I'm much more focused on LinkedIn to connect with people and have conversations. Twitter and Instagram are different; they're more like a way to showcase your work and see others' work rather than having conversations, at least for me.

Nadine

It all started because of a challenge from your professor. You played it as a game, but is there ever a point where it felt like it wasn't picking up or that you should stop?

Roberto

Initially, you don't know if people will like what you do, so you always have doubts. But in the end, you think, "I like this; I'm having fun." Plus, one of the most exciting things is belonging to a community. It's a group, and in the group, you get feedback from each other. Your motivation isn't just for the result but learning the process.

As long as you're learning, giving feedback to others, and improving, who cares about the short-term outcomes? Most of the time, the results come eventually for people who do this kind of thing for a long time and really enjoy it.

Take PJ Milani, another amazing illustrator, for example. I remember when he posted one of his carousels from a year ago. It was the same quality as now, but suddenly, the algorithm decided it was good, and his followers doubled from 20 to 40 overnight. Does that mean he's better than the day before? No, he's the same; he’s as unique as the day before. So, the idea is to do it for yourself, to share ideas, to get more inspiration, and then if someone likes it, that's great; if not, it's okay, too.

Nadine

I find this interesting. There must be something in you that drives you to continue doing this, even when no one is watching, just because you want to share and you feel like doing it.

Roberto

When you spend time sharing, summarizing, and writing something, you learn it much better. So, it's a way to learn and integrate these things more deeply. This is the real value for me; ideas come much more quickly when discussing something you've been involved in for one or two years.

Nadine

Do you still do it for your learning, or is it now about looking at your number of followers?

Roberto

What's different now is that I have more impact and access to opportunities I didn't have two years ago. So, this is something valuable.

At the same time, I try to promote ideas rather than myself. I believe in promoting the ideas I believe in, and a way to promote them is to reach as many people as possible who care about them. I don't try to go viral at any cost because that would take away the fun, and the validation would be based on whether it's viral. I don't want the value to come from how many impressions it has.

That's the trap and a delicate balance, of course. When you see people like what you post, you get some external validation, reinforcing the internal validation that you like doing.

Another example is coaching, which I love. I always say what I want for myself; I wish for the world. So, everyone I talk to, I explain the beauty of being a coach, how amazing it is, and how you grow by being a coach. I approach everything from this perspective.

Nadine

With this impact comes a bit of responsibility. Do you ever feel it's heavy on your shoulders?

Roberto

The only responsibility I feel is to be respectful of people's time. When I put something out there, I want to respect the time of the people. Imagine if I post an article, and 1,000 people spend one minute reading it. That's a lot of time. So, I want to share things that, if someone else did it, I would love to see it.

That's my only responsibility: to make sure what I'm doing is genuinely interesting and would be interesting to me more than anything else.

Nadine

You're really special, Roberto. You mentioned you have a bigger idea and a goal. What is your goal?

Roberto

My definition of my life purpose in a co-active way is: I'm the energy that connects with you and multiplies your impact.

It's all about having the biggest impact possible, connecting with people, learning, and growing; this can be a thousand things simultaneously, which is great and, at the same time, a challenge because there are so many ways to have an impact, so many ways to connect, and so many opportunities. We have to be very focused at the same time on one or two things but also be open because opportunities are always there, and you can't close everything simultaneously.

Nadine

Do you consider yourself successful in what you do with visuals?

Roberto

Again, the definition of success is subjective and depends on what I feel. If I'm having fun, learning, and discovering new things, this is successful because it helps me and adds up. This would be a good definition. It's also an internal definition, which may not be successful for another person, but it has to make sense to me.

Of course, it's easy to say, and sometimes, we also want external validation in our daily work. We want to be liked and appreciated and have our efforts recognized. It's easy to be here and say, "My only definition of value depends on me," but I'm human. Sometimes I think about external validation too, but this helps me remember the importance of this, even though sometimes things happen, and you see what you're thinking, and then you go back to the “light side”.

Nadine

Interestingly, you bring this up. I didn't ask you explicitly what success means to you; it's just about your visuals. I ask this of every guest in my podcast, and it's fair to say everyone comes up with something like, "It means to do what I want to do, to live my purpose, to be effective," and all these things. You're saying yes, that's the same for you when you want to play and learn on LinkedIn and do your visuals, but there's also the other side, which is getting acknowledgement for this.

Roberto

Yes, that's the nature of humans. It's somehow a measure of the impact you have. If you don't have any acknowledgement, if you don't see the results sometimes, you wonder about the impact. Still, the more we focus on ourselves, the better. I like to think that the result is a consequence, and you must trust the process.

Nadine

That was fun. We talked about the impact we need to have. I find this interesting because it's one thing to do something. After all, we believe in it and find it essential for ourselves. But we are not living in this continuum just for ourselves; other people are involved.

So, are we going back to discussing whether being famous is important?

Roberto

I guess we go back to what the means are and what the end is.

The means to having an impact is reaching more people, but that's not the end goal.

Nadine

So, the bigger our audience, the more successful we become.

Roberto

And I can connect to more people who like these things and have more inspiration for them. Take, for example, illustration. The more people do this, the more inspiration I get for myself. We build on each other. It's all part of this, I think.

Nadine

One last question. What is your next goal now that you have this audience, maybe something different?

Roberto

From one side, working in a big company is a great way to see how things work – relationships, transformation projects, Innovation, all these things. At the same time, I see massive value in coaching, developing relationships, and humanizing organizations.

There's this complement between technology, which we need to be faster at, and the need for deeper relationships and for humanizing the organizations.

Communication is again a way to reach more people, connect, and get different experiences.

My ideal vision is to connect these aspects – transformation projects, Innovation, coaching, and broad access to ideas and experiences in different domains. This, again, is a way to have a better impact.

Nadine

That's a broad wish. Will we see this on LinkedIn, too, or is this something you do offside of social media?

Roberto

There is a connection because everything I share comes from my experience. Even if I don't discuss my day-to-day, it's there if it comes from experience. Also, when I interact in the community, I can get other ideas. We're managing people, projects, and conflicts and devising new ways to do stuff – these are always the same whether in banking, retail, or wholesale commerce. The beauty of this type of community is learning from others in similar roles but completely different fields.

Nadine

Very last question. Do you feel at least a bit famous?

Roberto

Haha! What's famous again?

I feel I have the privilege to connect with people I admire. That's what I like.

Nadine

You know there's always someone we look up to, and I bet there are people out there who look up to you.

Roberto

I would add one thing, taken from the co-active model, which is to believe that people are complete, full of resources and whole by default, so you simply need to express yourself and express what you like; everyone has their version, so it's again: who we are, who we want to be, and what we want to express.

Nadine

And that's it; I'm not saying that famous people are better than non-famous people, but they still have an impact and reach.

Roberto

Exactly: that's, again, the mean for having a bigger impact. I love this idea; thank you, Nadine, for helping me give it more shape.

It was a pleasure having this conversation.

Nadine

Thank you.