I was being recently asked to conduct few sessions to welcome our new joiners in Southeast Asia and again share my perspective of a “sales leader” to a closed group of elite super-hero delivery leads joining across the globe.
A common query with a bit of fear, that came in from both the sessions – what impact that “Agentic AI” is having in our daily jobs and how soon it would impact us? Also, I was being also asked that when faced with life decisions both big and small, what guides you ? emotion or intuition in sales and personal life?
While I answered that with to have a “creator/builder mindset and prioritizes on human connections” and the reason for my explanation was – super agents can be smart, cool and have swags and sways, but I can assure you in this human mankind, never in this thriving life, you will get a satisfaction after “hugging a Hugging Face AI model 🙂” Today am launching an “Unagentic AI model” which works on human connections which is not dominated by agents…Kindness, mindfulness, meditation, gratefulness, cultivating more humor and laughter, dedicated time to learning and developing a growth resilient mindset are very crucial in today’s world.
Personal Story – Few months back I had to forego an exciting opportunity where me and my family were very keen to migrate to a new land, getting a sense of certainty and frankly speaking the entire village came together to make it happen, but when that opportunity came knocking at the door, unfortunately I had to let it go. In that decisioning phase, my mom was watching me closely as I am brainstorming with my partner, sometimes heated discussions and finally my mom asked me am I really living life or life is just happening to me ? In this times of decisioning, many of us ponder existential questions about health, security, purpose, career, family and legacy. Such contemplation is short-lived. Demands of everyday life – the here and now – can overwhelm us, leaving little time to think about the long term and what we are working toward. That keeps me thinking how can I have a strategy where I will be able to navigate those transitions and difficult moments, ##buildingresilience in this Agentic AI world and finding more joy and fulfilment while minimizing stress. Thinking about what would be my story be ? Have I taken the right decision ? Time will tell but surprisingly, I have found a symmetry between my day to day daily job in sales and talking to clients and my own personal life ? Great life, Purpose, Vision, Portfolio. Benchmark, Choices and Actions. Probably life doesn’t always present golden path to happiness or life satisfaction, but as we share with our clients that everyone is unique, but we should be having some discipline to challenge ourselves and go beyond the obvious.
1st of all let’s understand a bit about life…!!! – World is divided between – “Focus on pleasure” or “Focus on virtues“. But in this social cosmo-politan world – question we need to ask ourselves – Is it dollars which we earn or the individual lives whom I have touched ?. Definitely both are needed. No right and wrong answer and I call is that we need to have PERMA-Vin our life.
Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement and Vitality. Do I have frequent feelings of pleasure and contentment through POSITIVE EMOTIONS, losing track of time and be in the continuous flow and ENGAGEMENT, In RELATIONSHIPS (both professional and personal) – do I have mutual feelings of caring, support and love ? Am I making a world a better place to live in (MEANING) ? Do I have a sense of ACHIEVEMENT (mastery or striving for success) and most importantly VITALITY meaning being healthy and energetic. In PERMA-V, I am adding my own category of autonomy or spirituality as well and you can add yours and then rate each one’s importance on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means not important and 10 meaning very important. Reason in strategy projects – we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the status quo, and this quick assessment gives a rough idea of how I define a great life and initial ideas about what we need to change.
Then we focus on Life purpose …!!! – As we ask business what are your core values and what you are good at and what does world needs and using these statements, we develop purpose statements and North Star for organization and in similar fashion we need to ask ourselves. What am I good at? Think about situations where I have demonstrated my critical strengths of creativity, teamwork and clarity. Then same about core values – honesty, fairness and integrity. What activities light me up? Like mentoring, problem-solving and engaging with different kinds of people. Ask family members about what you are good at and what values I live by.
What is that “Vision” we need to create about our Life ...!!! – As we ask leadership teams, where they want to be in terms of innovation, growth, product portfolio market presence etc. in 5 to 10 years. To a new CEO – we often ask this question what newspaper headline about your company would you to like to read 3 years from now and to a founding family business chairman a decade from now? Same for our own individual lives. I strongly believe – if we do not know which port we are sailing to? No wind is favorable and again at the same time luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Straeteging our own life is that preparation. So, need to ask yourself – What story would I like people to talk about me five to 10 years from now? What would I do if money wasn’t an issue? What will the 80-year-old me not want to have missed in life?
Then comes, how do I assess my life portfolio…??? – Companies typically use portfolio analysis to assess their business units on key parameters such as market growth or share and to decide where to invest capital? BCG is well-known for its 2 X2 growth-share matrix. But what is equivalent of a business unit in life? Six strategic life areas – I call it SLAs, same as what I used and discuss with IT Director or CIOs in Managed Services Deal context. 1. “Relationships”, 2. “Body, Mind and Spirituality”, 3. “Community and Society”, 4. “Job, Learning and Finances”, 5. “Interests and Entertainment”, 6. “Personal Care”. A week has 168 hours. How do you spend them? and on a scale of 0 to 10 and see how important they are to you and then rate the satisfaction you derive from each on the same scale.
Then what can I learn from benchmarking…??? – In almost every strategy project, we do a best practice and benchmarking analysis to understand what we can learn from leading companies. We can do the same for individuals by looking at role models and then more importantly do research on life satisfaction like a core worker caring for bed-ridden parent, mother of three at kids’s school who also manages payroll for a Fortune 500 company. What makes them admirable and what choices we would make if we were in their shoes?
Finally, what choices do we all have ? – We all have only 168 hours every week which means we must reduce, outsource, or bundle existing activities or make them efficient through productivity strategies and tools. While it i ok to be worried with Agentic AI but life strategy is not about filling every waking minute but setting priorities right for your mental muscle build. Like, corporate Strategy is about making choices between options: Should we keep our current portfolio, diversify, focus, acquire a company, or enter a new market? In life equivalent questions are: What happens if I continue to live my life the way I am now? What if I change my priorities? Equipped with my decision of a great life, what is my purpose, my vision, my SLA ratings and my benchmarks. With these data I need to be specific about what I want to change ? Examples – reconnecting with friends from school, college, engaging in weekly micro-adventure with my start-up friend Vijay, Anil, Sam and close group, focusing on execution, exercising every day for dopamine, lots of learning, practicing spirituality. 30 mins of free time each day for self-introspection and even a small change can have a big impact in 2 ways. Firstly, if I do it over and over, I take advantage of compound growth rate. Secondly, I am in a node of network of people, so my change not only affect those close to me but also ripples outward.
While you read ? Next steps – Call to Action – Signal and Noise Distinction in next 30 mins: Start Small- > Be Consistent -> Practice Self-Compassion -> Cultivate Mindfulness -> Identify Your Peak Productivity Times -> Minimize Multitasking: -> Practice Deep Work -> Set Clear Goals – > Visualize Success and finally reward yourself as you have beaten Superagents with this “#HuggingHumans” Model
#HuggingHumans #BYOS – Build Your Own Story #PERMA-V #Resiliency
