Enter the Mission Generation: Redefining Career, Contribution, and Calling

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor Elise Cortez.

1:05 Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen. Nice tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Most leaders are sitting on untapped human energy, and I help them unlock it. I'm an organizational psychologist, local therapist, workforce advisor and the founder of the Gusto Now movement. But the title I live by is much simpler. I traffic and energy, not the surface level motivation or another engagement initiative, but the deeper force what I call Gusto, the life force for performance that drives the commitment, perseverance, and genuine ownership of a shared mission in the clients we serve. You can learn more about on how we can work together at Gusto dashnow dot com or my personal site, Eliscortes dot com.

1:45 Getting into today's program we have with us are run Gupta, who is the CEO of Noble Reach Foundation, a public charity with a mission to develop and mobilize America's top talent and innovation networks across academia, industry, and government for high impact solutions that strengthened the security and prosperity of our nation. He's also a venture capitalist lecturer at Stanford University and adjunct Entrepreneurship professor at Georgetown University and author of Venture Meets Mission and The Mission Generation. Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite Success, Rebuild Our Future, which is what we're talking about today. His home is Washington, TC, but he joined it today from San Francisco, a ruin a hearty welcome to Working on Purpose.

2:27 Thank you so much for having me, Elisa. Eric, so welcome. I'm so happy to meet you. And I told you before we got an air that I absolutely devoured and loved your book and totally aligned with Mission Generation. I meant it, you wrote it for me. Thank you for that. As I told you, I learned and got more pearls and insights about myself just reading your book too, and help me better understand just why I've been on the path that I've been on. So a lot of personal gain that I got out of it too, and I'm so happy to share this with our listeners and viewers around the world. I'm very kind to you the conversation well. And I also say this, as I shared before we got on air, in the last ten years, I have read more than five hundred books, and this book is outstanding.

3:08 Okay, I mean a lot. I appreciate it. So so welcome. Well, listeners and viewers haven't snuggled up with your background and your experiences I have. So let's just open the conversation with you sharing a bit about your background and just why you were so compelled to write this book. Yeah, so the lens that I got to write this book, it's important for folks to understand. So, my father was in public service. He was in an Avy for forty five years. To public service was in our family. I grew up. In my professional career was in venture capital, so I started Carlisle and was at Columbia Capital. So the power of innovation and the power of entrepreneurship, and in the latter half of my career there was really mapping how that I could bring the entrepreneurle ecosystem to solve mission driven problems in government in areas like cybersecurity and national security.

4:02 Uh. And you saw both the challenges of making that happen, but you also saw the magic when you could make it happen. And I think that really kind of it was hard to go back to just typical venture investing that you could do felt had both purpose to an and profit. Uh. After that, I started teaching uh and uh Georgetown, I was teaching in business school, and I was teaching at Stanford Stanford in Washington and created a class called Valley meets Mission Really around again, how do you take the entrepreneural spirit of the Valley but not wasted on candy Cross three point zero? Like, how do we take that that talent, that spirit, that vibrancy, but you pointed at solving large societal problems but any core profit way. And uh, you know what I saw is that students, when shown the opportunity, you know, naturally gravitated to it, but that the academic institutions themselves were kind of siloing students into you know, one of two lanes.

5:03 Either you're going to go make money but you know your career may be hollow, or you go solve meaningful problems but then you you forego financial security. Uh. And those felt like two very unsustainable paths, and that, you know, showing them that there was a place in between was what inspired writing the first book, Venture Meets Mission, Uh, to highlight to them that there's a world there where you could try to do both. Around that, we raised a foundation where we have now half a billion dollar endowment. Uh. Really around two of the core tenants of that book, which was the superpowers of our country here in the US, is that we create talent better than anyone elsonal world, and we innovate better than any realsonal world. And the evidence is that everyone from around the world comes here to do. Both we haven't done is really invest in modernizing the infrastructure so that those two ecosystems are connect to government to solve problems at scale. So we're not getting our best talent going into government, and we're not getting our best innovators to collaborate with government to solve problems at scale. One a stack that brings that to life is less than seven percent of tech workers in government today or under the age of thirty. We have four times over the age of sixty. And if we really believe we need to tech forward government to meet our citizen demands but also maintain global leadership, that should feel like we're alert to people. And so we really

6:34 set out to build a program that did that. And that's what Noble reached us today, which is like, how do we inspire this next generation around national service, but especially our top tech talent to go into government, and we can talk more about what that program is as we go forward. All I will say though, in tying it to the book, is that part of what inspired to write the second book, The Mission Generation, was really based on the energy, the positivity, the optimism, the desires of young folks wanting to serve right now, and we felt it was important to get that story out there. We talk about it not only in the young in terms of young folks, but mid career and late career folks as well, because we define the Mission Generation it's not about being about age, but about being about agency and a growing groups that really want to combine civic responsibility with personally ambition. They don't want the ore, they want the end. And I think there's a lot going on right now, which is why the time is now to really talk about that, highlight it and also have them not feel alone in feeling that way, And so we can chat more about that.

7:46 Well, first, let me say that was beautifully articulated and incredibly inspiring, certainly up to something I don't know how how many Apparently you've been issued more hours in a day than most of us. That's what I'm getting out of this. So for otherseners and viewers who haven't read the book, like I have, you part of what you just said there towards the end starts to speak to what you mean by mission generation, But can you speak to that just more directly? Sure? You know, really, what we were really trying to get at and talking about the Mission generation was the spirit of folks that we're seeing out there that are really don't want to subscribe to the two binary choices that they feel like are put in front of them.

8:28 One is going into a world where you can do meaningful work and have some responsibility and impact people, but in that path there's not a way to really establish financial security. And the other is to pursue a path of financial security in making money. But in that pathway you give up the opportunity to really have impact and have meaning. And what we were really highlighting is that, you know, what we were seeing is that people no longer wanted to subscribe to both either of those. They wanted to integrate those together into a meaningful career. And we started writing it arguably for early career folks, but saw that the same questions existed for mid career and late career folks, They just manifest themselves differently given the environments that they're in. And the reason we think now is the time to be talking about this again and why this is surfacing up again is that, you know, look, as I said, my dad had one job for forty years.

9:33 I had one career, multiple employers, but I stayed in my lane. Going forward, you know, we believe people will have four to six careers over sixty years. So careers are extending longer and you'll have more of them, and so we don't have the scaffolding to support that. And the reason I say people will be working longer is, you know, I think most people would agree that people are just going to be living longer. We're just the early stages of a lot of advancements and life sciences and all the work that's being done around longevity. And so in that process, you know, we will need to be thinking about new scripts of how do we do this.

10:13 The scripts we have today are built for a more stable world, and they're built for shorter careers, and so we tend to create career pathways that are singular, you know, you know, and that you're going to get on and you stay on for thirty years. I'm going to go and be in the private sector. I'm going to be in the public sector. I'm going to go in academia. I'm going to go into the not for profit sector. And we attach ourselves to institutions, and we attach ourselves to titles. Those are getting disrupted, and that's that's disconcerting the folks, right, Like you know, with AI and everything happening, there's a squirrel around that. Having said that, you know, the only thing that will be stable, We argue then is purpose and meaning And you know, what is the why you're doing what you're doing. What's the problem that you're solving that you care about, Right, That's how you need to be building your career, not about the institution that you want to attached to, but what the what's the problem that really gives you energy, as you said, really kind of like gets you up in the morning, right and as you thinking about it even late at night.

11:21 And those problems are going to transcend sectors, and so building your career off that will be a more stable way to deal with the ever changing world that we're walking into in a meaningful way. And so you know, we we argue that stability is the new risk, right, It's it's riskier today to do the more stable thing because in that process you're also giving away agency, And in a process, in a time that's changing so quickly, you know, building your career and what you care about and maintaining that agency becomes incredibly important. And so what we try to talk about in the book is, you know, is right like, how do we think about career pathways differently as people have four to six careers over an extended period of time, and what's the scaffolding that we need to support that?

12:13 So much good stuff in that ruin. So you're right now speaking of this topic from the vantage point of people and their individual's careers, and I want to now kind of pull it a little bit differently from the vantage point of how these organizations that are going to count on that talent to pull them forward can attract them. And so the numbers that you provide in the book are incredible, and I've seen them many of them in other forms before, but we just share a couple of them and let you comment on them. You have one cis you say that the data confirmed what we were seeing firsthand. Eighty six percent of gen Z and eighty nine percent of millennials consider a sense of purpose as essential to job satisfaction. Other researchers found that two thirds of older workers delay retirement specifically to do meaningful work, and your own National Service found that four out of five people believe that doing purpose work helps you live longer. And you say, the mission generation isn't a passing trend. It's a fundamental shift spanning every career stage. So why I want you to bring that up and speak to that is, of course, the work that we do at GUSTO now is helping to activate media, purpose and organizations and culture so that people will be able to be ignited like that you'll be able to attract that kind of talent to pull you forward. So can you speak a little bit to some of these numbers that you have here and that I just shared.

13:25 Yeah, So you know, context is the why now right? Context is like why are people feeling this right now? Yep? And you know the pisis on that is. Look, we're coming off with COVID. We're seeing geopolitical conflict like we haven't seen in decades. We are seeing environmental conflict engage around us. Great power competition with an adversary is back in a way that we again have not seen in decades, and then we've got Ai. It's creating a very disruptive force. That's a lot of swirl, that's a lot of history in a short period of time. As one of my friends likes to say. And the belief is that when things are stable, when things are fine, the ground is solid, you focus. It's easy to focus on yourself. It's easy just to do your own thing. But when it gets shaky, when the sand shift, and when it gets rocky, you reach out to others for support. That's that's it's a very human reaction. It's the world we're in right now.

14:30 And that's the world when people feel uncertainty, when they feel like there's not there's not clarity of what tomorrow is going to look like. You want to be part of something larger than yourself, yes, And I think that's what's driving these numbers. At least that's why young folks today are sitting there going, you know, coming off of COVID like, I want to do something that's meaningful. I don't know what tomorrow holds, you know, how do I how do I get that satisfaction in some capacity, and purpose place an important role in that. You know, they want to be able to not only be able to tell their friends or doing things purposely. They internally care about this now right in a way they've had time to reflect on it, and uh, you know, I we we write and it was great that you kind of called it out. You know, this line about how you know mission is kind of like stock options. You know, everyone wants to be part of something mission oriented. They don't know why exactly. They don't even know how valuable it's going to be. But it's no different than like people going like I just want to go get equity and they don't know what that is, but like they know there's upside to it. There's a lot more upside than what you know it's going to be coming from just their cash comp And so the same way people ask for cash plus equity, you know, I think they're looking for you know, income plus mission because that mission they don't know what it upside is, you know, is it transformative upside or is it just marginal upside? But they know it's good for them. They know it will give them energy. You know, it's an and and so I think that's the explanation that we're seeing with the

16:02 numbers that you that you highlighted. And again, I don't think this is something that's only for early career folks. I think mid career folks, you know, again, are asking these same questions. You know, you've been at a firm for fifteen years and you get to a certain spot, you're a VP, and you're going like, this is it? Like I thought there was going to be more to this manifest itself differently because you may have a mortgage and a couple kids in the family, but you're asking yourself some of the same fundamental questions. And then you take folks that are you know, mid fifties, you know, early sixties and maybe empty nesting now, and they're asking themselves the same things. Right, Like, wait a second, Like the scripts we've been given have been all about stability.

16:52 You show a lease and you know this better than I that. You know, humans are wired to seek stability and security over even happiness. So we will, we will, you know, index towards that and are so we shouldn't be surprised that our systems have been have been wired that way as well. The issue is that as we get into those scripts of like stability and comfort, you know, again speaking of someone over fifty five, you get there and you're like, all right, you're supposed to slow down and just kind of be comfortable and do your thing, and you're like, what if the energy I get is from the discomfort and the vulnerability that I was having putting myself out there.

17:35 Yes, speaking my love language are oude. And so it's that that I think is really the question we put out there, which is like, maybe the scripts that we've been given just aren't applying to us now in the same way because they need to be retired, and uh, you know, I think that's what people are feeling. I also think, and you know, we talk about this as well, which is, you know, part of the script used to be, you know, life had three phases. You learned for your first thirty your life, and then you earned, you monetized what you learned in a working capacity for the middle thirty your life, and then you waited till the last thirty your life to return to give back.

18:25 And you know, in a world where you're living longer and things are changing really rapidly, I think what we're finding is this idea of like learning and monetizing that for twenty years, that that's collapsed, right, because whatever skill you've learned, usually by the two years out of school, it's already obsolete. So learning is continuous and likewise this idea of waiting till the end for purpose, I think folks are feeling like, I want to do that. I want to integrate that now. Ye. So I think what we're seeing is like, uh, you know, three threads getting it woven together is what the what people want their career to look like. Yeah, I think that's the transition that we're in right now.

19:15 Beautiful. Let's let our listeners and viewers reflect on that as we take our first break. That's a good place for them to consider what you just shared. That there was quite a bit. I'm your host, doctor Reli's Cortes. We are on the air with Arun Gupta, who is the CEO of Noble Reach Foundation, a public charity with a mission to develop and mobilize America's top talent and innovation networks across academia, industry, and government for high impact solutions that strengthen the security and prosperity of our nation. He's also a Venture Capitalist lecture at Stanford University. We've been talking a bit about what's under the Mission generation, why it's so important, how it's coming, how it's coalescing. After the raak, we're going to talk a little bit about We're going to start talking about how you can use what they've written in the book to help mobilize you toward.

19:55 This mission generation yourself. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

21:04 Thanks for saying well us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I am dedicated to helping create a world where organizations thrive because they're people thrive. They're led by inspirational leaders that help them find in contribute their greatness, and we do business that betters the world. I keep researching and writing my own books, and oftentimes the fodder and research comes from this program and what I learned from my guests. So one of my last books that came out is called The Great Revitalization, How activating meaning and Purpose can radically and liven your business. And I wrote it to help leaders understand what today's discerning workforce wants from you to be able to give their very best and stick around for you. And then I provide you twenty two best practices to equip you, through your leadership and your culture to provide that for them. You can find my books on Amazon or at Leastcortes dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is Arun Gupta. He is the co author of the Mission Generation, Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite Success, Rebuild our Future. Okay, so I would love to dive in now that we've really set a really nice table for why this is so important and have people leaning in. Let's also give them some of the tools from your book. But first, I think it might be useful to just start just briefly talking about the four forms of resistance that often block people from pursuing meaningfulk I thought that was really really powerful if we could hit on that.

22:18 Yeah, So as we lay into how do we get to wanting to do more mission driven work and why people want to do it? The first thing we felt like we needed to address up front, so what keeps us from doing it? It seems so obvious that everyone should be doing it, Like why doesn't everyone just jump into it? And we called out four sets of resistances, which are really layers, starting from the inside working out The first and probably the most important is you know a psychological layer, you know inside of you what keeps you from doing it? Meaning fair failure is it? You know, can I do this? Imposter syndrome? Those are all things that you know, individual rules have to grapple with when they start to look at making these transitions. The second is more relational resistance, where what we talk about is more actually the people that are actually your friends and family that you're close to people that care about you, so it's coming from a place of love, but may may bring resistance in by the language that they use, you know, saying hey, at least that seems a little risky, would you really want to do that? You know, those kinds of things can stop people from really wanting to move the next forward because you're looking for almost a sense of approval from those closest to you, and if you don't feel like you get it, you may not pursue it in the same way. The third is societal working out here, we're talking more about like a concern

23:49 that like will people value this, will will it be a prestige marker? Will it be meaningful to others? But again, all of those, you know, like relational societal, those are external that works right, Those are looking for external validation in different capacities. And then the final one is institutional, like once you get into an industry, whether it again be academia, government, industry, the idea that like I've been here now five years or ten years, can I just leave? Is there's a level of lock in that keeps people from you know, pivoting or moving across sectors. And that's real people within your colleagues, for example, going like, well why would you leave this? And what you don't realize many times is you know them saying that is less about what you're doing. It's more of a commentary on the decisions they made, them questioning their own decisions, right, And so the fact that you're looking to do something different can surface those feelings, you know, one hundred percent, And that's what is the institutional resistance.

25:05 Okay, that was I think our listeners and viewers, I encourage you to consider which of those resistances you might be experiencing. Now, then let's move on to start showcasing some of the beautiful tools you have in your book around So starting with a compass capital. I thought that were compass capitals. There are six of them, and two that you start within the book, of course, our Mission and Money. And I love how you talk about it, as you've been saying already, is that you know that they're not at odds with each other. They can they can compound and reinforce each other, and I appreciate that. So let's go through the six compass capitals if we can. And so what we in defining the compass capitals the lens.

25:49 We tried to bring to this. Once we've identified the resistances, once you can name it and know what you want to do, we also need to think about like how do we how do we define success? Yeah, and which is why part of the subtitle includes rewriting success right, Like how do we think about success differently? And the reason we think that's important is because our systems are wired for a certain definition of success. We talk about the idea of net worth we were in a larger room, or if we had your ask to your audience, everyone kind of tell us what your net worth is? People would probably scribble down some you know, approximation of their savings account, investment in portfolio and real estate aspects. It's a financial number. It's the way we think about it and accepted when someone says what's your networth? That that's what they're talking about. And the problem is that you know if it, well, this is what your crew in networks is what you bring in a table. We all know that we bring much more than just that, as as far as value and what we bring each day, and as we think about that, we need to put words around it. The problem is we don't put words around it, and so what are those other capitals and in that context what we create define There were five other capitals that go with financial and we, as you stated, are very clear that financial capital is important. So this is not a he don't worry about finances, go do

27:20 what you need to go do. Hey, we recognize it's important because if you don't feel a sense of financial security, that's going to dwarf other feelings. But all we're saying is that can't be the only dominant feeling. And also in that way, financial becomes goes from being a place that can give you autonomy to do what you want to becoming a scoreboard. And once financial becomes a scoreboard that has its own downside to it. And so you start with wanting to have financial security so you can create autonomy, I think many get swept up in it then and becomes a scoreboard, which then doesn't lead to a more balanced way of creating the capital. So what are the other capitals? So we talk about, for example, in a world that we're going into, especially in AI experiential capital, the different experiences that you have in a world where AI goes after IQ over EQ, meaning AI can go deep and you can codify expertise. Well, what's harder to do is unique human experiences that lead to judgment.

28:32 You know, So the more unique experiences you have that are different, a more unique human lens you bring to the table in any discussion analysis that takes place. So experiential capital, we think in the world we're walking into becomes incredibly more valuable. And being able to make sure you're putting yourselves in new experiences that push you out of your comfort zone. The second learning capital, what not about learning skills, but how do you drive curiosity right in a world of AI? Uh you are, It's less about the having the right answers. It's about knowing the right questions to ask. And you know, arguably the limitation around what humans and a I can do together is about imagination of what humans bring the table and not really at the core of that is curiosity. The third is trust capital and are arguably, and you know, when I look back on my own career, I think it's probably the most valuable one, and that's relationships that you build, uh.

29:36 And you know, we talk about like trust capital is the only capital you really don't own, right because it's bestowed upon you by people around you earn it. Yeah, you earn it, but you don't own it. But trust capital is incredibly important, and I would argue again in the world of AI that human trust element will become even more valuable. And I look at my career and things I'm able to do today, a lot of it was based on relationships that we invested in and grew over a thirty year span. That's hard to replicate. And so that's where trust capital comes from. Health capital here we talk about the context of self care and taking care of yourself. If you are going to be working now for sixty years and seventy years, it becomes important to make sure you're taking care of yourself, not physically, mentally, emotionally, and that may even include taking you know, career transition breaks to re energize and recharge to get back into it.

30:47 And so we think health capital is incredibly important. And then the finally the one that you know, the book ended with the financial capital is really mission and meaning because at the end of the day, you know, people want to have meaning in what they do. Uh, it doesn't all of these don't have to be equal at all times, but we intentionally use the word capitals in there, because like financial capital, we wanted to draw the parallel that if you even invest a little bit early and a little bit consistently, it'll compound over time, and that compounding effect will give you an ability to do things that you would have never thought were possible and bring a sense of balance, but also be a navigation tool for you as you in a world that's changing really rapidly, because it's going to be less about having the right pathways, but it's more about being able to, you know, navigate with the right direction.

31:47 Beautifully explained to thank you around again, Let's let our listeners and viewers reflect on that as we take our second break. I'm your host, doctor Earle's Cortes. We go on the air with Arun Gupta, who is the CEO of Noble Reach Foundation, which is a public charity with a mission to develop and mobilize America's top talent and innovation networks across academia, industry, and government for high impact solutions that strengthen the security and prosperity of our nation. He's also a venture capitalist lecture at Stanford University. We've been talking a bit about some of the tools he has in the book. They have on the book here after the break, We're first going to cue up some of the cohort of investors that are seeing no longer just content to see the mission and returns of its rival, of these rival goals of just financial but also put in their money where their mouth is, to pay able to extend this reach. Just really really fascinating and inspiring.

32:36 We'll be right back. Doctor release Courts has as a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies vision for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

33:43 Thanks for saying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned in the last break that the great Revitalization came out, and I mentioned the twenty two best precreases that are I used to equip you to create that destination workplace. On gustodeshnow dot com, you can find a simple three page assessment to learn just how you're faring as a destination workplace if you are just now joining us. My guest is Aroun Gupta. He's the co author of the Mission Generation, Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite Success, Rebuild Our Future. So, as I queued up before the break, here a round. I've seen this and other of my other guests. But the list of organizations and investor investment groups that you list in your book here of course we won't with them all is incredible. And so this idea that I mentioned that there's this cohort of investors are no longer wanting to see mission and returns as rival goals. And what we're seeing too, what I've been seeing is that they're actually more attracted to mission oriented organizations because of their resiliency, their fervor their united workforce around that cause.

34:48 And so if you could there's a whole bunch in here. Just if you could just share with us a couple of them to help us understand who they are and what they're investing in and maybe why. Yeah, so it's important, maybe look at it from different asset classes. So you have the large financial institutions, you know, like the investment banks, and there you see the JP Morgans, the Golden Sacks in the world taking a real leading ship role and wanting to say, we want to support national resilience companies. You know, Jamie Diamond and JP Morgan's announced that they've got a strategic Resilience initiative whereby they're going to dedicate one point five trillion dollars over the next ten years the companies that are working at this intersection of national resilience because you know, no longer do we think that national security problems or national resilience problems are really government's problems. It's an all of country issue.

35:45 You see firms like giving Goldman Sacks taking a real leader to the role with how they bring in talent and wanting to support these kinds of companies in a meaningful way. And so you're seeing, you know, the most prominent in financial institutions taking that. In addition, you know, you're starting to see or are seeing venture capital firms play a leadership role here and recognizing that it and they're not doing it. And look, let's just be clear, this isn't just altruism like you said, this is this is good business sense, right, and and that's fine, and that's the whole point, Like, we need a world where we can have mission driven capitalism, where we could be doing good and in the process of doing well, we're doing good for people around us. And and so in those kinds of firms that we're seeing, you know, you see UH firms like and recent Horowitz, UH firms like General Catalysts, Founder's Fund taking a real role of building you know, some of the biggest companies that we see today, in the largest companies around things like national security, healthcare, energy and solving space and solving these big problems. And you know, they require different kinds of capital, the require different kind of patients. But what they're also seeing is that the fervor of being able to attract great talent is also much easier here because you're able to show

37:18 that you're making a real difference. And back to the idea of having stock options, that equity that you may get in one of these companies. And you know, we just saw one of the largest IPOs ever as an example, you know, can be also really financially rewarding for you in the process. And so I think as though success stories are coming out and people are seeing that more, we're starting to see, you know, more funding go into these kinds of companies. As more funding goes in, you see better talent come in. As better talent comes in, the ecosystem gets stronger. As the ecosystem gets stronger, you see better success stories. You see better success stories. The early investors make money, and when they make money, money goes back in. It's a virtuous cycle, right. It's the story of the valley, and in a weird way, it is the valley going back to its roots. You know, Silicon Valley started as a government initiative, right, it was, it was DARPA. It was a lot of federal funding that was going in those early kind of venture deals.

38:24 And so the fact that it's now the valley that's it's leading the innovation ecosystem is I think incredibly important to note. But also I think one of the key differentiators. Why I remain optimistic for where we're going because I think two things that are really hard to replicate anywhere else in the world is our education ecosystem and our innovation ecosystem, And largely because those are both deeply cultural. You don't just put up, you know, one hundred universities and say, hey, they're just going to operate the same way, and you're not going to just create a venture ecosystem because people have tried for the last thirty forty years.

39:05 It's not like people are holding a secret. People try, but it's a deeply cultural thing, and I think it's a very American thing. It's an American spirit where you can try, you can fail, you dust yourself up, you get up again. People around you ask you what did you learn, and if you, you know, have good answers to that, they want to give you another shot. And then you do it again. In many places you fail and it's kind of you got a scarlet letter on you and you know no one's going to give you funding again. And so that's a hard cultural thing to unwind. And I think that's, you know, what makes you know this country great? I think it is, you know, look, we're at the two fiftieth right now, and so it really is kind of you know, I proposed to talk about the fact that, you know, our founding fathers were entrepreneurs.

40:02 When you think about it, right right, right, right, we call them founders. They created a document, you know, like a definitive document. We called it a declaration of independence. They had a vision, but they didn't have a pathway. So there was a lot of testing and learning along the way, and they've created a remarkable system for us today. And you know, what we try to pose in the book at the two hundred and fiftieth juncture is that it's the mission generations now opportunity to step up and either an opportunity or a challenge to build a system of interdependence. So the same way our founding fathers created a system of independence, now we've got to if we're going to continue progressing in the way that we'd like to see, we have to recognize that it's going to be the interdependence of these sectors, the interdependence of how we work in the community, the interdependence of how we go solve problems that will enable us to reach our highest potential.

41:04 I think that's why I just need to say amen, let me just add that, okay. So also since I want it, part of what we do in the show aroun is is we want to introduce the ideas, inspire something bigger for people to reachtore, but also enable them or equip them with tools from what we get from the book. So if you could introduce the mission flywheel, that's powerful. So we once we talk about the capital, if we really wanted to push the into the how do you do it? How do you implement it? Right? Well, let's get out of theory and at the core is in the world that's changing rapidly that we've been somewhat architected or educated to think, you know, wait for clarity and then go act. And what we the overarching theme of the Mission Flywheel and then I'll talk about it subcomponents, really is that like the world we're going into, you need to start acting and then you get signals and then that will bring you clarity. So again we're used to waiting for clarity before we act, and what we're now saying is we need to flip that you need to start acting and doing things and the signals you get from those actions will give you clarity on what you should go do. And part of the reason we say that is in the world that's changing really rapidly.

42:26 By the time if you wait for clarity, by the time you get that clarity, the conditions that you used to get that clarity have changed, and so you're going to find yourself in always a uncertain paralysis of never acting. Whereas if you just start doing, and it's very much an entrepreneurial way of thinking, you will then you know, figure out, test and learn, but you'll have to also acknowledge that like everything that you do isn't intended or should work, and that can't be viewed as wasted time. That's a signal to say that's not good for me, that's fine. And again I think many times we get wired to like, I don't want to do something if I don't think it's going to work, and you've got to get over that is what we try to talk about.

43:10 So in the mission flywheel to your questional is, you know, we talk about like, you know, starting to think about what does give you that energy? Right? What what what would fill your mission capital bucket? What are the things that really matter to you? Right? And then around that, think about how do you reframe your experiences? Like, think about what you're doing, what you know, what what's that learning capital? What are the curiosity? What are the questions? But like how do you think about I think what holds many people back is that they're worried that doing something different means I'm starting from ground zero again, right, And the reason we say reframe your experience is that that's just not true in that you know, you may have been doing something different, but you were building as we talked about in the capitals, either experiences or relationships or trust or impact, and you're building assets, you're building things.

44:13 How do we reframe that to where you want to go? And so that's the reframing your experience piece. Finally, then we talk about not finally, but next we talk about running experiments back to the idea of like act and then get clarity start thinking about like what are three or four things that you can start to do to test out like where is this Where would I get my energy from? It could be volunteering, It could be a side hustle. It could be being an advisor to someone. It could just be networking with people that are outside your comfort zone in different areas to see what they're doing. But running those experience, you know, will give you. Running those experiments will give you a sense of like where do I get positive and negative signals that give me the energy that I want going forward. The next one, I think arguably is an important one that gets overlooked.

45:06 Absolutely, and that is recruit allies. And I say that because you can do all the first three or four things and it's it's what you'll find is that it's very vulnerable and it's hard, and he can feel lonely. And when if you can recruit allies though, and when I say allies, these are the people that when you tell them, like I'll use myself a thing sample. I was thinking about writing a book. I've never read a book before. I don't know I have any business writing a book. And tell some friends you're thinking of writing a book, and they react in one of two ways you're writing a book, like why would you write a book? And then would you have another group that it's like, wow, that's kind of cool you're thinking of writing a book. That latter group. You know, then you get more energy from right because they're they're kind of wanting to see you succeed. They're just kind of like, now, you know, that doesn't mean you will, but you do need that energy, right, you need to feel like you've got some people that are kind of believing in what you're pursuing, uh, you know. And then from that, as you kind of run these experiments, you get your allies, you know, then you can start to think about like, how do you scale what it is now that you really want to go do. How do you scale it? And then how do you, you know, make it something that you can be, make sustainable through your health capital and incorporate it in a way that you know, becomes something that's extendable over an extended period

46:37 of time. And then the last one, of course, is well being. Right, regenerate your well being because this is the engine that's going to keep this train moving. Yep. Well, so, An, we've come close, very close. To the end of the show. Went by so fast, and there's so much more I could have gotten out of you, which is why listeners and viewers you just got to pick up the book. But say, in like a minute or so, what would you like to leave our listeners with. That? I couldn't be more optimistic in the time that we're in right now, despite the fact that it can feel very uncertain, and that I feel that uncertainty comes from us striving to hold onto the old scripts then and seeking stability, and that if one can start to think about ways to embrace the change that we're entering into and embrace the new scripts that are in front of us, once we get through that unsettling period, it can be very empowering because I think it puts agency back into the individuals to build the kind of careers that they want, as opposed to having that agency in the hands of institutions.

47:43 So my big thing with folks right now is you know, lean in, lean in hard, think about risk, but don't obsess about downside. Also think about the upside and think about what could this mean if it goes right for me, and if it can be transformational, you should go do it. Thank you Aaron for writing the book, for coming on air to share about it. I'm so grateful that our path cross that we've met that have you have totally positively lifted me and reinforced my journey as well. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about this. Elise, Thank you so much for your kind words. It was great to be on this have this discussion with you and greatly appreciate your questions.

48:30 Most welcome listeners and viewers. You are going to want to learn more about our own group, Ton the work he's doing in the emerging technology entrepreneurship, public policy, and venture finance communities, and his books The Mission Mission Generation. You can start there learning more by going to Themission Generation dot com. Last week we missed the live show you can always catch via recorded podcast. We were on area with Owen O'Kaine, who was recognized as one of the United Kingdom's leading mental health experts. He is a practicing psyc with therapist and a former National Health Security clinical lead. We talked about his latest book, Addicted to Anxiety, How to Break Brick the Habit. It was just layered full of all ways as you start to recognize how you are attached to anxiety and how you can move away from that. Next week, we'll be on air with Tonil Miller once again talking about her latest book, Flourishing from Within, Reclaiming who you came to be and the life that's actually yours. See you, then let's continue learning how to help more people flourish, elevate their operating systems as leaders, and create destination workplaces where legendary business takes place. Let's work on Purpose.

49:39 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C. Why. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.