Future-proofing: Lisa Corduff talks disruption, AI, resilience & joy

Transcript

Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life. I’m your host Brook McCarthy and I’m a business coach, trainer and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Camargo people here in Sydney, Australia.

In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love and money, magnifying your impact and doing work you feel born to do. We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work and the meanings we derive from work. G’day. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Is this how you start all your interviews? Look, only with you, you’re just inspiring me. What can I say? What can I say? So we were having dinner recently at your house in Melbourne and you showed me your soon to be created and now created backyard veg Patch.

My veggie planter boxes would be the correct term. Sorry. Apologies. Veggie planter boxes because you are prepping for the future. And how are you feeling about the future today? So, well, I mean, today we’re just, what are we, what are we even witnessing in the U S is fascinating.

So last year I’ve been on a bit of a journey, a bit of a personal journey over the years, as you know, and I, took me deep into myself, deep into self reflection, deep into learning about, you know, life just kind of. blew up, a lot of grief to work through, children to raise, you know, all the things.

And then last year, 2024, I just started to just quietly pay some attention to what was happening in the world. Like I just started to look around and literally just tune in, dial in to real life beyond the life of Lisa. And I started to just come across stuff that was a bit confronting. And also really validating in terms of what I felt was going on as well.

So I created a TV show back in 2007 about sustainability, just like how everyday people could just make more sustainable choices. I’ve been very interested in climate change for a very long time. And I knew last year that we hit the 1.5 degree of warming, which Everyone’s like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. We can’t, cannot go beyond that. That’s our limit. And yet nothing’s changing. like, but I know what, happens when we start to get to that two degree, like this is not, this is not made up. This is real. It’s going to have real actual impacts.

That I just don’t understand why we’re not sort of a bit more shocked and why this isn’t sort of front page news every day. the same time, I run my own business. run it all online. I’ve been in online business and I’ve been showing up on social media since 2012 and big things were starting to change because of the arrival of AI. And suddenly, you know, what was kind of dialled in or what was like an expected future, the ability to plan. This was like, hang on. What? I really started to deep dive on not just what AI is, but what. are going to be some of the consequences here. So I’m looking at these two hugely disruptive forces happening right now in real time. And I’m, starting to listen to people who know a lot more than I do about this stuff. And I’m hearing words like meta crisis and civilisation collapse.

And I’m like, you guys, what? Why are we not talking about this? I am a widow. I have three children. They’re 11, 13 and 14. My son is going to be, he’s trying to pick subjects for the final few years of school. I don’t have a backup plan. I, I got to, I’m paying attention because I’m a parent and I’m a business owner and, and we need to have a sense of what’s coming, like it as humans.

We like to sort of understand and plan and feel certainty even although nothing is certain, literally never. And I’m like, this feels really tricky. And I want to put us in the best position to be able to do okay in this next phase. So I launched a podcast. called this moment in time. I have had a podcast for years, don’t know, 2015 did I start my podcast?

And it’s been all sorts of different things. And right now I’m talking about this moment in time because I feel very, very strongly that we have agency when we understand. And I do not, I am not a techie person. And what AI is going to do to how we do life. and work and all sorts of things, everything, education is like, it’s a fundamental shift. It is huge and it is disruptive and it is going to make things kind of scary for a lot of people.

And I just felt like we need to be talking about this, that, and, know, the impacts of, of, of climate change. want to know. And I’m just, I’m not anyone special. And I think that. I have a community of women who I felt like deserved to know and understand. And we need to talk about this because it’s fascinating and challenging and there’s opportunities as well. yeah, that was a long winded way of answering your question.

No, I love it. and, uh, you know, I’m, I’m good at butting in when I, uh, when I need to, you said something that I think was a great, kind of jumping off point, said we have agency when we understand. And I agree with you to a point, but I think for a lot of us, a lot of particular personality types, the need to know all the things about all the things before we make a move can actually be really paralyzing. And if we’re talking about something like AI and I’m a philosophy major, know, I’m philosophy and history and culture and religion, you know, science, STEM, forget about it.

So, you know, when it comes to kind of knowing the thing before we do the thing, how much is enough before we make it, we make a step, make a decision, make a change. I found what I was learning last year did paralyze me for a while. Yeah. Because of what I sell in particular. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing to understand the context in which you are creating and selling. think it’s important. It should, but it shouldn’t stop you.

What is happening right now, especially for people like us who teach about marketing and visibility, authenticity, anything to do with sales. If you don’t understand how it’s all shifting, then you might be preparing a product or a service that in six months time is not going to be needed. Or you’re going to spend a lot of time creating something that was probably helpful two years ago, but not quite for now.

I think we all have to recognize being quick to market, testing. fast and being nimble is an important part of business right now. Responding to changing needs of your communities. And so I don’t think it should stop you doing anything. I don’t think staying in paralysis is helpful. think building a general understanding of the context and creating from there is where we want to be. I think people in small business have no choice. We are always on the front lines of these changes and adaptations.

We feel it because we are so connected to our sales process. Yeah. To the people that we sell to, we feel the changes very quickly. We all knew stuff was going down in COVID. We knew everyone was changing. We didn’t quite know how, but we knew it. And right now we are in that again. The thing that we don’t have anymore is a sense that things will return to a way that they were. We’re on this path of a fundamental shift.

This technology will change just so, so much. And the road is going to be a bit bumpy. And so I feel like being able to kind of almost go through the stages of grief as a business owner. get bit freaking angry. Like you need to be angry. My brother was at a talk at his co-working space a few weeks ago. He’s like, sis, they’re talking about AI. Whoa, this is fascinating. I’m like, of mine, I’ve been talking about this.

And then he sent me messages. He’s like, whoa, the Q &A section, the session is fascinating. Everyone’s really angry. And he’s like, hey, this guy at the front of the room is like, Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you what this is.” And they’re like, but how, this isn’t right that it will just change, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What are you saying? That I’m not going to be needed anymore. And they’re having this big reaction because they’ve suddenly found out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That this is a really disruptive technology to a lot of people. And, and then you’ve got to be angry and you’ve got to go home.

You’ve got to be like, and then you got to feel a bit sad and scared and wonder what the hell you’re going to do until you get to a place of acceptance. Like, okay, this is happening. This is the context in which I work right now. I might hate it, but what’s my take? How can I serve? How can I show up? How can I help? Like what problems still need to be solved? What don’t and where do I fit in? Yeah. I like how you use the word grief because I think that’s a great analogy. Because

I think we don’t talk about that enough in change. Like when you’re making a real sustainable change, for that to actually stick, for that to actually be a sustainable change, there is a process of grieving that’s really, really useful and really, really necessary, even if it’s not a lot of fun.

So, you know, we need to grieve what we’re leaving in order for us to step into the next precipice, the next stage. So how did you in 2024, like what happened? get you out of that grief and analysis paralysis and into action and change? That’s a really, really good question. Because I have experienced big grief, I kind of knew that’s where I was.

And in fact, I’m creating a keynote on grief, especially collective grief. don’t think Particularly I live in Melbourne. I don’t think that Melbourne stopped to grieve what we lost in those COVID years. And I think that did damage. We didn’t take inventory and really reflect on, the sadness that so many of us felt and still continue to feel for our, our, our kids, our, businesses, our city.

Anyway, I guess because I knew this feeling like I am really sad that my kids. will not have stability in the way that we have benefited from in the last, you know, 30 or 40 years in a lot of ways. I am sad about the challenges that they’re going to face with mass migration, uh, with climate events, that AI is going to become so ingrained in how we do life that we might be the last generation who knew an analog childhood in meaningful ways.

then What happens with me is, and what grief taught me, is that you have to relentlessly seek out joy. You have to look at where you’ve got choices every single day to be open to the next phase. It’s not going to be the same, but it doesn’t have to be worse.

And that’s where I’ve landed now with our kids. Like how exciting that this system, the way that we’ve done things, hello, I mean… Brook, do you know many people who are really healthy, really happy, like vibing life at their best? You the systems haven’t been great at delivering just contentedness. Yeah. No. Connectedness.

And, and so what if this is the bumpy period that we need to go through in order to create something awesome? What if it was meant to break? We’ve been trying to bring down the patriarchy for a very long time. All right. Okay. So what are we going to create next? And so I think that entrepreneurial part of me that’s always like, right, okay. What do we do here then? What are we, what are we talking about? What’s next? That’s how I talk to my kids.

And that started to activate me. Okay. Right. I’m not going to be able to change everything overnight, but I’ve always, I’ve always had this kind of little dream when my husband was alive, we used to talk about living on a property and you know, being able to grow our own staff and you know, in my mind, the kids were always in gumboots and you know, we had animals and all of that sort of thing.

I haven’t been able to do that, but the dream is still there. And I had to acknowledge in myself, if I want that, if I want us to be a bit more self-sufficient, I know nothing. Nothing about anything. I don’t even know where the oil is in my car. Would I be able to get us places?

I just sort of, and my first business was small steps living and it was all about everything that I’d learned about behavior change, which is like the most sustainable change happens when you just take it one little bit at a time and you integrate that and you grow and you grow and you grow from that. I thought, right, what’s the what’s literally the first step I can take here to start to feel empowered and like whatever happens, even if it’s just business as usual, which it’s not going to be, anyway,

I’ll, I’ve got this, we’ve got this as a family. I’ve got my kids, I’ve got myself. And so I thought, right, the first place I’m going to start is we’re going to start growing our own food. I’m just, I just need to learn how things grow. can’t keep indoor plants that aren’t meant to die alive.

But and then and then so I thought, OK, if I’m going to grow my own stuff, yeah, then I’m going to need to put it somewhere. And I went down this path of figuring out, right, I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to make these planter boxes. And I wanted to use reclaimed timber and just doing that, just deciding on that one thing. Yeah. got me using a power drill. bought my first drill.

Yeah. I had to measure stuff and make sense of perimeters and insiders. I know. And it challenges me so much. It’s been a very slow process, but in the meantime also I’m sharing it with my community and I’m realizing I’m not the only one who is thinking like this.

You’re going in so many different directions and I want to pull out the threads. No, no, no. I just want to pull out the threads because I don’t want to overlook anything. I think one of the things that you touched upon was the nostalgia that comes with looking at the childhood that you had and the childhood that your kids are having and going, this childhood, there was something special about climbing trees and riding bikes.

You know, the vinyl records and the tape recorders and making a mix tape where you hold down play and record at the same time, you know, and you’ve got to, oh my God, the height of technology was to have a double cassette player where you can have two cassettes, you know, all of the nostalgia that comes with that, which any generation has, right? Every generation. It doesn’t matter AI, forget AI.

Every generation has that. And I think part of that is. holding tight to things and thinking this was the golden age, right? And then if we take that further with the advent of AI and you said we’re taking off to the country, we’re gonna start a property, again, please take me with you. T

here are many of us who have had dreams for a long time. I had some hippie friends in my late teens, early 20s. We were always gonna start a commune. We were saving cash, we’re gonna start this commune in the Northern Rivers. Of course it never happened. It is urbanified ourselves. Exactly.

So, and I know that like for a lot of business owners where they’re getting into training with me and coaching with me and they’re realizing the path ahead of them to create the online business that they dream about.

There is a backlash. Multiple people, multiple times have gone, okay, I just need to step away from the computer and go and live in the bush in a cave and pretend the internet doesn’t exist. because it’s so complicated and it’s so big and it’s so hard and I don’t want to, I just want to grow potatoes.

But the other thing that you touched on, which I’d love to further explore with you, is the skills that we need, not just to navigate the drills and the planter boxes and the oil change in the car so that we can get away when the zombies invade, but. Like what are the skills that we need to actually use the AI effectively to get us where we want to go? Can we go into that direction? So I am using AI in my business and I’m also, I’m battling myself big time in, some aspects of it because I do worry about like brain atrophy. not using certain muscles. Like it’s a real thing.

And I, I think I have been saying it for ages. I took my kids traveling in 2023 for like four and a half months. And I was very aware that they were very comfortable kids. You know, I want them to feel a little bit uncomfortable. wanted them to be challenged a bit because I know, and you know, when we, when we experienced discomfort and challenge, we grow.

I think about these kids and, and, and, and what they are going to need for their future. And I’m like, Oh, so do I. So things like when my kids get a report home from school and you can look at that rubric, you know, the different things that they’re kind of tested on. The first things that I go to the two top things that I go to are creative thinking and critical thinking.

So have they been able to look at information and think critically about it? that is going to be key and we need to be good at that too. But what we have is years of experience, getting gritty, learning through real time. This works, this doesn’t work, you know. When we have access to knowledge and to the final stage output, how are we going to know if it’s actually telling us something good or something not?

We have to keep questioning everything beyond the way we did with Google. It’s going to become more more more important. But isn’t the way that it’s currently set up going to discourage that further? Yep. So what do do? This is a thing, Brook. Like, and in terms of creativity, like I was thinking about even just the term brainstorming.

Like, why do we call it brainstorm? Isn’t that a strange term? But I was thinking about how everyone’s using ChatGPT to help them brainstorm. Yeah. But I’m like, no, we need a brainstorm. We need to stretch our brains. We need unique insights. need lived experience. We need something to come through us, not be given to us. That is such a critical thing to not lose.

Yes, of course. It’s great to get help with all sorts of things in our business. And some people might really struggle with fresh ideas. Absolutely. So do I. But if we give it away all the time, if we never brainstorm. What do we, I always think like, what am I prepared to lose? I remember when bloody GPS came out and I’m a maps girl. I bloody love maps.

I had a job in radio when I was 21 in the triple M rock patrols and we would, I would have to drive all around Melbourne in these big black cars and I used the Melways. I would, I would figure it out and I am sure that not having to do that. I can’t remember. how to get to my daughter’s aerobics and I’ve driven there 10 times because I just use maps and it’s like in the next suburb. What’s wrong with me? yeah, I’m the kind of dag that’s, oh you traveled from Leica, what route did you take? Did you go down that street or did go down, oh you went down that, oh interesting choice.

But the thing is that we won’t have to think in certain ways anymore unless we stay committed. So I think critical and creative thinking are essential. And I also think just good old fashioned connecting. we have to be with people. And I think that there will be this swing. do. think that there will be. I interviewed a futurist on the podcast and the episode went live last week and she was talking about Gen Z and how they, she’s like, they like to line up like in queues for things.

I like, I’ve noticed that the cinnamon scroll place, like I walked going past on a Saturday with my daughter to her netball. I’m like, why are they lining up for those cinnamon scrolls? But she said, it’s because, you you bump into people. You are having a real life experience with people. They’ll do it like they know the value of it. you’re suggesting it just to make sure I’m clear and our listeners are clear.

You’re suggesting that Jen said are so keen on conversations with randoms that they’ll go out of their way to find a busy bakery so they can specifically queue up and make chat with the person in front or behind them. Have you noticed people queuing for things? outside shops. might’ve noticed I’m not a queueer myself. I don’t love queuing. I feel like I’m too old to queue. I’m too old.

But look at the rise of hobbies. Look at the rise of walking groups. Look at the rise of all of that sort of thing. I think we’re going to see more and more and more of that. And I think it’s a huge business opportunity. If you can bring people together in community. Yeah. It’s everything. Have you ever been to pub choir? No, but I was just talking to one of my clients about pub choir because she’s a singing teacher. said, okay, your homework is to go to pub choir. it’s extraordinary what Astrid has created. Yeah.

A collective joyful experience. She’s, she is a genius. And I do think that we’re going to seek this out more and more. But I kind of feel like we are in the depths of the paradox, right? Because what you’re talking about here is like, we need creative skills, but AI is taking creative skills away from us. We need critical thinking skills, but AI is taking critical thinking skills away from us. We need people, but technology is making us more alienated, more lonely than ever before. where do you think, like, is the pendulum going to swing one way and then the other way?

Do you think that that like, are you ultimately pessimistic or optimistic? Is there some way to navigate through these paradoxes? Are we going to have a centralization of power, do you think, or are we going to have a decentralization and a disbursement of power?

And you sent me something on Instagram. Was it yesterday? I send people stuff all the time. Remind me what I sent you, It was a woman that was saying there are six potential outcomes. The social media. for social media and one of the outcomes was, and this was the one that struck me, was that the internet is going to become a useless place, which must have struck me because for 17 years I’ve been earning an income on the internet.

And if I didn’t have the internet, if the internet became a useless place because it was full of deep fakes and AI generated influences and misinformation. then where, you know, how are we, how am I making a livelihood for myself and you? You are getting people off, like you’re getting people onto an email list. It has never, ever, ever been more important.

started a sub stack. would say sub stack isn’t filled with deep fakes yet. It’s a real place. People are looking for community. They’re looking for real voices. there will be a flooding, a flooding. on social media. do think, look, don’t think, this is the thing, no one actually knows what’s going to happen and everyone will be scrambling.

Ultimately, I am optimistic about humans, but I am not, I think personally myself, there’s going to be an event In the next two to three years, there’ll be something that happens that just kind of people will not be able to deny that we’re in a very different time. I really think people understate and are not focused enough on the impacts of climate change and just how confronting and disruptive that’s going to be to supply of basic things like food.

I mean, we saw in. in Melbourne and everywhere really like remember when lockdowns happened and how crazy people went about toilet paper. Yeah. When people can’t access the necessities for their family, what’s going to happen? Similarly, when you get a very like a significant portion of the white collar workforce, unable to retrain fast enough for new careers because certain jobs are going to disappear.

I mean, we’re seeing it like the law, like I think about all the lawyers, like here in Melbourne, I think about the highly geared to house in lovely suburb house on the peninsula, fancy cars, kids in private schools, unable to find employment. Yeah. Not just for a period. Yeah. Forever. And they need to retrain. What will happen? Why aren’t we talking about?

Like the bigger impacts of this stuff. What happens when people get scared? fear drives crazy kind of behavior and this is coming. It’s just, it’s happening. And we’re all skirting around the edges and I’m thinking, I don’t even own a house. I, I can’t like what, what bloody hell.

I live in a, suburb also that’s right. That’s built on marshlands. It’s a great suburban Melbourne. People want to be here. It’s right by the bay. Yeah. And the houses are all falling down because it’s sand underneath us, but it will be uninsurable to live here. Yeah. Once we have this moment where people are like, shit, maybe those predictions are true. Quick sell.

Let’s move. But what happens when that happens en masse? Yeah. And also like if the insurance industry is going to collapse because an increasing amount of things cannot be insured, especially with extreme weather events, that’s going to lead to the collapse of the finance industry. Correct.

Not to mention, you know, that all of these jobs are being taken by AI anyway, and that the increasing demands of AI on energy are going to accelerate, you know, the the climate change effects. So that’s likely to lead to mass migrations as well. are looking at systems collapse.

We are looking. Yay. Yay. Let’s keep this optimistic and proactive. But this is the thing is, didn’t we want, haven’t we all been saying that capitalism is not like, like we are dying vestitudes of rotten capitalism. We are in an extraction. growth model on a finite planet, it doesn’t work. It was always going to have to shift. Yeah. Yeah. So what that looks like, I, I do feel, I do feel worried about that. But then I also look at what’s going to happen in terms of AI and its ability with biotech. Yeah.

And do we want longevity? Do we want to live forever? I don’t know about you, but I’m not too sure about that for me, but like what they’re doing in terms of research into degenerative diseases and, and, and chronic conditions. That’s exciting. Right. But then also population crises and declining fertility rate. Like we’re in a messy time and I just need to figure out how to ride this while feeling empowered in myself.

Like I’ve got this. Yeah. We’ve got each other. Yeah. How are we going to connect and how are we going to do this? Like I even think like locally in my community, as I’ve realized building my veggie planter boxes and now the wicking beds to go with it, which are a very water friendly way to keep my soil hydrated. I don’t have, am I going to go out and buy every little bloody tool? We should have tool libraries. are tool libraries. I do not need to know.

I didn’t. Okay. Well, I don’t have one. Or we need to sharing to neighborhoods. want to highlight a couple of things here is you ha you made a point earlier on in the conversation, which we kind of bypassed, which was about joy and you know, apologies for paraphrasing you and for putting words in your mouth. But the impression that you gave me is that joy is something that you actually have to work for.

And I feel this very keenly because what I see is a lot of miserable people who wonder why they’re miserable. And it’s like, well, let me show you the evidence. You’ve done nothing to actually create any joy in your life and sitting in the backseat waiting for shit to come and, you know, swirl around you. Naturally you’re miserable.

That is a normal human response to your conditions. But one thing I really want to highlight is your proactivity in looking at this, you know, impending crisis. And I think we could probably spend hours just detailing how shockingly terrible it’s going to be. And yet despite that we meant laugh, right? Despite that we have to laugh. Yes. is a good stress response.

This is how we make ourselves feel more proactive and more resilient and that there is some choice. So the question that I’m heading towards, and I think that this is a question that relates as well to online business and to building, you know, a thriving livelihood from your own sweat and smarts is how does one do that when you don’t know the answers, when the future is uncertain, when you’re still learning, when you feel like an absolute doofus and like everybody’s judging you and thinking you’re a fool.

How do you create out loud? How do you keep making decisions and choices and keep, you know, moving despite the fact that you know, everything is uncertain. think acknowledging that everything always has been and always will be uncertain is good. You’ve been operating in uncertainty the whole time. You’ve just had a false sense of control.

So I guess what I would say there is I started to do this practice when my husband was in recovery for alcohol addiction and every single day, I mean, hello uncertainty. mean, It used to get to the point where I’d like, Oh my God, yes, he’s, he’s been sober now for a while. can so plan and then bang relapse. Yeah. Everything thrown into chaos. Yeah. There were three little kids. I was the sole income earner for our family.

I had to find ways to hold it together in absolute crisis. And so every morning I just started to do this thing. I don’t even know what really, where it came from. But I would wake up, I’d sort of look over at him and I’d think, I don’t know what today’s going to bring. Like, I just want to feel good today.

Like what’s one thing I can do today to feel good for me? And it would be something like just sitting in a cafe and having my coffee there instead of having a takeaway. Or, you know what, I really need to reach out and phone a friend. Or like just simple things, go for a bloody walk, Lisa.

Just do something for you. And. Because, because when we do that, when we acknowledge we have needs, when we acknowledge I can find ways to feel good amongst this, it’s like a superpower because suddenly you can cope with things and you can navigate things with, you know, and that word agency, I don’t know why I kept using that word, but with a sense of, can be okay amongst this.

My husband died and five days after he died, I was meant to be getting on the plane, a plane with my kids to Bali for my 40th birthday. I was like, I can’t go on a holiday. We had been separated for nine months. And so it was something we were all looking forward to it and he died in India. So there was not going to be a funeral anytime soon.

And I decided to get on that plane and go. And that trip taught me that grief and joy can coexist. Because I watched my kids. Like squealing with delight at the buffet three times a day. And their dad had just died. We were marrying this absolute worst case scenario outcome.

Yeah. With, they showed me that you can’t, you can’t hold, they couldn’t stay in the energy of grief all the time. They were naturally moving into it and out of it as they got to just experience the grief. Like. Yeah, we just had two hours lying in bed together, asking questions and crying and doing all of that. And then do want to go to the water park? All right. And then then we’re screaming in water slides and having the best time of our life. And my cheeks hurt because I was smiling so much.

And it sounds crazy, right? But it taught me that you have to honor the feelings and then you get to also have a good life, even if bad things are happening in uncertainty. Ground yourself. call it my daily prayer. Now, like I go out for a run in the mornings because the kids are finally old enough for me to leave them while they’re sleeping.

And I don’t even care about the run. It’s that I get to see the sun come up and the sky change color and the ocean in the morning. And I’m listening to eighties rock and and live my best life basically dancing down the Esplanade because that’s what makes me feel good. And if I can do one thing for myself, I’m still, proving that life can be okay, even if other things are turning to shit.

I love that. And you know what you said about joy and grief. I mean, it’s like awake, right? Awake after a funeral. Like we wonder why we’re having a great time and laughing. Yeah. And you just, you’re so in love with love and awake. You’re like, wow. And life. Like everything’s more potent. Exactly. Friends, I love these people and I love the person who died and I wouldn’t have the grief if I didn’t have the depth of that love. I love that. I love that. I love love for you.

So you said something about reflecting and I think that this is kind of obvious, right? Is because you’re a storyteller and because we have online businesses, we get the opportunity to revisit things that happen to us. And I think that this is part and parcel of it.

I love the proactivity that you’re talking about there and that focus on kind of building resilience through actions. But it’s also the fact that through storytelling, you’re able to reflect and reflect and reflect. And just to tell that story, which I’ve heard you tell before of going on holidays five days after Nick died, like it becomes a restoring a way to turn a story that could have been shockingly shit and left you feeling helpless and hopeless into resilience and into thriving and into joy and into, my God, how amazing that we did that, that I did that. pick our stories.

Everything’s a story. And so I choose stories that serve me. I do that literally every single day. And I know that. through conversation, like the conversation with the futurist the other day, I had a total reframe on the story that I was telling myself about our kids and this future. Yeah. Because she said she was at Stanford in the design section. She was working with these students and she said, they don’t see things. They don’t see the future as problems that they need to solve. Yeah.

That is our language. Oh, serious. Oh, that. It’s just even the idea that these are problems. It’s like, they’re just like, well, this is the context that I live in and this is the future I want to build. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s just do the thing. Yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s just create from here instead of us going, we need to just like fix this. Yeah. Yeah. Problem.

The problem here, the problem that that that’s not how they see things. I mean, I do think kids are these days are a bit anxious about the future in ways that we maybe weren’t. And so now that’s the story that I choose. The story that I choose is that we’re here and we create from here and, there’s challenges. are going to face challenges, but who, who do I choose to be?

So the little image that AI created that’s right behind me that kind of informs the podcast and the way that I am talking about this is that we get to, we’re going on this road. We’re on it. Yeah. Humanity is on this path, right? Collectively, we’re doing it.

And for some people, it’s going to be bumpier than others. And we get to pave that road with roses. get to connect, laugh, be human, have dinner parties, know, create beauty, build skills, like actual real life skills. I think it’s just going to be like. The thing that that’s the next phase of female empowerment, I believe. And kids too. My kids never did bloody scouts.

I’m excited for all of that stuff. What it means, like what we’re going to return to, but also what we’re going to create from here. I mean, I remember too, like you can read statistics about what happens when kids grow up in two different households and marriages end and I was reading all this stuff like that is not, am not choosing that story for my kids. I am not, no, no, no, no, no, not my kids. And then I would, I would choose the story that I would tell myself about this. And I think we need the storytellers right now.

We need to be hearing even just honest reflections of how weird this is, strange this is right now. Tell me why I want to connect with you. We will never as humans want to stop connecting with something. We get to choose if that is an AI bot or a real human.

And we don’t know the path that’s going to go down now. I’m actually interviewing someone about AI and intimacy for the podcast soon, but I believe, I don’t know, humans, we’re awesome. We’re where it’s at. We are where it’s at. Does anything make you feel the way that you feel when Like your kid does something completely unexpected and quite amazing. Yeah.

I don’t get the same hit from many other things, you know? Yeah. And I look at maybe part of that is the fact that kids are so much more willing to be vulnerable and to look stupid than adults are. They still, they play. Yeah, they play. And this is part of the kind of, this is part of the paradox of it, of course, because when you can’t be open and vulnerable and make yourself look like a bit of an idiot and potentially risk other people judging you.

You never experienced the upside of that, which is the depth and the connection and the real relationships that you have. And if the future is uncertain, which I think we both agree on that, then having these real relationships and that depth and that intimacy with people beyond our own nuclear family is going to be crucial. It’s going to be absolutely crucial to have that social capital to lean on when the zombies come knocking and the neighbor lets us in through our, I don’t know, basement tunnel thing.

You know you can’t build houses in Germany without basements these days. Is that right? 100%. Because of climate change or? Well, I think all sorts of different. reasons, the EU has, is starting to prepare its citizens. starting to attempt to build some resilience in its population by, know, they’re saying always have three days worth of supplies on standby.

Always be able to go without for three days. Yeah. I’ll have to let my parents know cause they got the fridge of a pensioners. There’s like two pieces of fruit and a cucumber. So. And some cheese slices. Maybe some cheese slices. They’re very expensive these days.

But, but I mean, this is the thing. I think in Australia, we’re very protected from a lot of these conversations. It sounds radical, but over, over see they’re just like, yeah, we, we’ve recognized things have been pretty, cruisy for a long time. And you know, there’s climate stuff, there’s nuclear stuff that, you know, there’s real mass geopolitical craziness going on right now.

So let’s just, let’s just slowly just build up that. so. I hear that and I’m like, I need to do that for myself. I need to figure out like, I want to feel okay. If I can’t access people, power, the internet. All right guys, like what needs to happen? And that doesn’t feel like an exceptional thing to do anymore. It feels just pretty smart. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I love the way this conversation has gone. And I love that kind of emphasis on human connection and that those interpersonal skills. Maybe I’m full of, you know, ridiculous delusional optimism, which I am. But I honestly think one that my job is protected because that interpersonal relationships, those deep interpersonal relationships, I think that’s going to become only more precious.

And learning these kinds of human skills, right? Like relearning them. think that being able to stay steady in a storm is going to be an essential skill for leaders. Yeah.

Finding your steady so that you can lead others because there’s going to be a lot of fear and there’s going to be a lot of disruption and people are going to. Yeah. And, and, and, and a reorganization and change is messy. Yeah. And so I think if you are in a position where you hold lead others then, haven’t we been doing this work?

Haven’t we been learning about nervous system regulation and emotional regulation and, um, the ability to feel strong in our bodies and in our minds. Like I don’t, I don’t, I don’t go for strength, but I. She says as she runs along the seafront in the dark. But I do it because it feels so nice. It feels I’ve never been a runner ever in my entire life.

But I, I want to have a level of agility, fitness. want to keep moving my body so that, you know, if I’m going to be bloody, you know, well doing all sorts of things. I don’t know what, what we’re going to be doing. I just plucking weeds because I can’t see the robots plucking weeds from the garden beds. They’ve already got gardening robots. do.

You just watch this stuff is just going to roll out and it is going to feel very strange until it feels normal. And, we are going to be the generation sitting there. won’t be like our parents going, well, I used to ride through snow to school on my bike. It’ll be like, we used to go to school. Yeah. These places. I’m looking forward to school being done. Wouldn’t that be. fabulous when that is kids talk about interpersonal stuff and the importance of socialization and connection. We will need to maintain that for our kids.

But yes, the education system is going. Yeah, not it’s it is not fit for purpose. It hasn’t been for a long time. I think we’ve known that. Yes, many decades it has not been fit for purpose. And there’s still so many systems that it, you know, quite antiquated that I’m looking forward to seeing the end of. So let’s just party our way through this. feel paved the road with roses.

We get to choose who we’re going to be and how to stay steady and, know, learn how to skin rabbits or something, you know? delicious. absolutely delicious. Well, thank you so much for helping me and our listeners to make meaning out of these times of, you know, acute change. And the unknown evolving future. love what you said at the start about, know, it’s all been a bit of a delusion to imagine that we have control anyway, but we do like that. Right.

It’s a very human tendency to want stability and certainty and simplicity. But I think, yeah, we have to find, we have to find that in ourselves, in our homes, in our communities, bring back really simple stuff. You know, there will be a simplification, whether you want there to be or not.

There will be the need for that. like starting, like even just flexing that muscle and for business as well. But I think also acknowledging that with business, it is just going to be a constant evolution. As these times change, we’re just going to have to continue to, mean, that word pivot, no one likes it, but we’re going to have to keep evolving. Oh, a hundred percent.

What we sell, how we sell it, how we talk about it, connect, like all those things. It’s like, Get fit for that. Yeah. Fit for purpose. Yeah. And don’t stop selling because you’re going to need to buy toilet paper and bread. You’re going to need. But then like if there’s a run on financial systems, don’t have you. Yeah. Like I’ve got friends who now are buying like rings that have little diamonds on them so that they can just pick off the diamonds and use that to trade.

I mean. The people who entrepreneurs in the US who are all talking about that they’re all selling their properties. They don’t want to have wealth somewhere that they can’t access that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a really, really fascinating time. That is indeed. I’ve got no diamonds. I’ve got no gold. So I’m going to have to just cash it all up. Buy silver coins.

Like all of this sort of stuff sounds crazy now, but I think, you know, also in business is like they would, I would think about a portfolio career now and have been doing, know, like we need multiple streams of income. We need to not have all our eggs in one basket. Wealth creation and generation doesn’t look like it used to look for our parents.

And we have to be honest with ourselves about that. There needs to be multiple streams. Yeah. And that’s been true for a long time now, I think. Like we need multiple income streams. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You know, really, um, you know, these are good kind of solid things, right? To think about. But I think just beyond like a house and a job and a retirement plan, you know, awesome shares it needs. Yeah.

We need an investment portfolio of potatoes. Potatoes. We’ll always want potatoes. I’m going to, I’m going to try and grow some and I’ll send you a, send you some.

Oh, please do. I don’t know how it’s going to get to me. I’ll have to put it on, I don’t know. Horseback. We’ll put it on the back of a donkey. Send it up the freeway. We need a fast train between Melbourne and Sydney. We just need donkeys. Well, you need electricity to run the fast trains and when the, you know, when the grids go down. Yeah, exactly.

So I know. And those electric vehicles too. What a hybrid. You just do not want to rely on electricity. Yes. Like are people thinking about this? Anyway. Oh, well, they are now, hopefully. are now. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s been such a fun. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it as always.

Ah, my pleasure. think I haven’t freaked anyone out. Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited or has you changing the way that you do business or life, would you do me a super quick favor and write me a short review? Your podcast review means so much to me and it helps other values based business owners just like you. to find this show, which is a fantastic gift to me.