Leaders and Their Stories

Richard Lowe: Hello. This is Richard Lowe. With the leaders and their stories. Podcast I am the Go, the ghostwriting, Guru and the writing King. I'm here with Nikhil.

Richard Lowe: and he's going to talk to us about his book, about his Ted Talk that he's done, and about how to transform a business.

Richard Lowe: Can you introduce yourself.

Nikhil Raval: Sure. It's a pleasure to be on this show, Richard, and I am Nikhil Ravel, based here in India and essentially, my background or my story, I could say, it's kind of broken up into 2 buckets.

Nikhil Raval: I spend my early childhood day growing up in India.

Nikhil Raval: which is one part of the story, and then I

Nikhil Raval: moved over to the Us. Where I have lots of extended family. So I finished my education, worked there for a good decade or so in financial services.

Nikhil Raval: And then came the next part of my life for the professional life when I moved back to Asia. And that's when I forwarded into consulting leadership.

Nikhil Raval: And that's sort of my second innings, if you will, making the pivot from the financial world to the leadership world designing program delivering programs. I headed a company which which did that globally for many, many years with Number One in their in their space.

Nikhil Raval: And I had a chance to meet lots of great leaders across Asia. I was visiting faculty at many good places, but

Nikhil Raval: over the years that's given me a perspective of you know, what? What is it like from the ringside? And you think about leadership? So we can talk to some of that. And of course, you know, I went from that corporate innings to the last part of my sort of now the next part of my working life which is on my own. And that's when I've done a bunch of other things which is one of them is of course, my book.

Nikhil Raval: A, podcast, A, Ted Talk, and and so on. So that's briefly, a little bit about me.

Richard Lowe: Gotcha. That's very, very interesting. It sounds like quite a career path, you know. I'm curious about something, he said. India is part of Asia, which I know it is officially, but I often think of it as his own continent, because of the Himalayas, and things are in the way. How do you think of it?

Nikhil Raval: It is absolutely correct. When you think about I mean, it is a country, but it's often also, you know, kind of labeled as the Indian subcontinent. For the simple reason it is, it is it is diverse, like no other place in terms of

Nikhil Raval: you know the languages and the dialects and the food and the religions. And and so I think it's country into many countries and and like any place. And I know, having lived in the Us. For many years. There's a culture and a subculture. If you go from, say New York to Texas.

Nikhil Raval: or to say California, or even Florida, for example. Right? But this, this takes it a few notches up. And yeah, it's very diverse. You could be from one part of the India traveling to the other part of the India and and have to worry about language, although there are some certain national language. English is also language, but

Nikhil Raval: just just gives you the perspective of diversity. And yeah, we're we're one country where it's we've got the ocean on 3 sides, and the Himalaya ranges on on one side. So it's quite beautiful as well.

Richard Lowe: Interesting. Yeah, I'm a geologist by background from when I was in school. That was my major. One of the things I know is the Himalayas a few 1 million years ago were their own continent, and they slammed into the Asian continent

Richard Lowe: recently. And that's why the Himalayas are there. That's the Con, the subcontinent, pushing the mountain up. We don't want to talk about this much, but it is fascinating to me how

Richard Lowe: it really is a continent that's butting up on another continent.

Richard Lowe: Interesting stuff.

Richard Lowe: But that's way off. Topic.

Nikhil Raval: No problem. We we can talk more, but that's that's fine. Well, maybe on another, on another day.

Richard Lowe: Yes, it's just interesting to me, all right. So have you written a book, and you're working on a second one. So what's that? Why did you write a book.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah. So the 1st book or the book that you're referring Richard is is called Target Gen. Z. And this was published in the year 2021, and this was right in the middle of Covid time, and it was done twofold. I, as I said, I had concluded my corporate innings in 2019 2020

Nikhil Raval: went on my own, and did a bunch of things. I had given a Ted Talk and 2020. I was a is a bit of a mixed year. I I lost my father, who was, you know, aging and and had some health issues, and immediately after

Nikhil Raval: is passing away. I I wanted to kind of do something a in in his honor, in his memory, and so I thought, a book is is one way to do it beyond some other things.

Nikhil Raval: and of course, but I had no idea where to begin, and I wish I'd known you to come to you and get some guidance. But but anyway, I took a course I learned from a few friends, and I actually went through you know how, how and what goes into writing a book. But when I began to think about a topic I was quite overwhelmed like with any time, 1st time author would be. So you know this, just the

Nikhil Raval: this mindset that. Yeah. What are you going to write when there's so many experts out there? But having looking back, I said, Look, I've got about 15 years in the leadership space. Now, what can I write which can be of more curiosity rather than just another book, and therefore I thought I'd talk about what isn't perhaps as much of a mainstream then, and it is still something that of curiosity which is the general.

Nikhil Raval: and so it's a cohort which we can talk a little bit about, which is entering into the workforce. The eldest of the Gens is probably about 27, which means that they're relatively younger than the other generations. And there is a lot of curiosity about them that okay, how do you hold on to them. How do you motivate them?

Nikhil Raval: You know all the stereotypes that are going? You know, about every generation. So I did the research. I saw that most of the books were sort of in the Western context. And so it wasn't a very typical academic kind of a book, but it was more like a memoir of what I saw from my leadership consulting over the last decade or so, and then I just I share my stories of what clients do

Nikhil Raval: to bring in young talent to hold on to young talent. And and so that's essentially what the book is about. It's it's it's a bird's eye view that is so much

Nikhil Raval: in the layering of understanding. Geng, but I really talk about the context of generations. I talk about certain topics like, how do they learn? How do they look at brands? And and you know, so on. So, yeah, it's it's been doing reasonably well. Incidentally, us is the number one market, where it's where it's highly followed by India.

Nikhil Raval: And that's a brief about the the Gen. Z. We have 2 Gen. Z boys at home and and given the Covid time. I was also getting a chance to know them a little more closely. And so that was another inspiration

Nikhil Raval: to look at the Gen. Z. Generation. So that's the what the book is about.

Richard Lowe: Well, I think that's a very, very good topic. 1st of all, condolences on your father.

Richard Lowe: you know. And and it sounds like a great topic for a book. One thing that I do in ghostwriting is, you find

Richard Lowe: the point of the spear you you can't make a book that's about everything. So you find something that's unique.

Richard Lowe: that you have an audience for that wants to hear that stuff. That's 1 of the 1st things that we search out when you engage me in a ghostwriting contract, and it sounds like you did that on your own which you know kudos to you. That's that's a hard thing to do, and most beginning authors

Richard Lowe: don't do that well, because they think

Richard Lowe: the common myth is, I want to write it to as many people as possible, because then obviously, they're getting. Obviously, there's more people who are gonna read it

Richard Lowe: that's counterintuitive, and that's completely wrong. You want to write it to a particular pinpoint audience.

Richard Lowe: which in this case, I gather, was corporate people who were going to hire Zen Gen. Z.

Richard Lowe: It would be your audience, and that's super valuable, because it's getting even bigger now.

Richard Lowe: But I'm sure that that when I was growing up, my parents

Richard Lowe: or the people I work for had some of the similar comments about us kids like they don't. They don't wanna work. They're lazy. La la! I'm sure that that all came up so a lot of what I'm hearing now is stuff that I heard my parents say, who were of the

Richard Lowe: boomer generation.

Richard Lowe: Actually, whatever the previous generation was, they were part of that. I think it was called the greatest generation

Richard Lowe: from World War. 2.

Nikhil Raval: Thailand generation. Yes.

Richard Lowe: Island generation and

Richard Lowe: that era. So they said the same kind of things. You know. My, that generation's lazy. That generation doesn't want to work. I don't understand these kids these days. That stupid music, you know.

Nikhil Raval: Yes.

Richard Lowe: So it's not different.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah.

Nikhil Raval: But every generation kind of thinks about you know how you know how hard or how tough they had it. And when they see the next generation right? But it's it's and we all have reasons to justify right. And I write this about it in my own book, too, that you know. When when I saw my father struggle, I don't think I did as much, because the second generation was much more blessed with the the effort that they took. And then.

Nikhil Raval: you know, I tell about how good even my son has it. He has it, even, you know he doesn't have to worry about anything.

Nikhil Raval: And so, yeah, it's it's it's the context which kind of.

Nikhil Raval: you know, creates creates the that mindset.

Richard Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. And you said difficulties. One thing that I do to keep things straight in my mind. Sometimes I think, Oh, my God, I have all these problems, and they're horrible and stuff. And a lot of people say that. But then I think.

Richard Lowe: okay, I'm not in Ukraine where bombs are falling on me every day, and I'm not in. I'm not in Nigeria, where people are starving, and I'm not in name. The country where people are having name the problem.

Richard Lowe: yeah, or name the city or whatever I've got 1st world problems. And it puts it in context, it's like, okay, yeah, I'm having a problem with this or this or this, but it's nowhere near what other people are going through. It's not to limit, not to lessen my problems. There's still problems to me.

Richard Lowe: but and not to lessen anybody else's problems. But

Richard Lowe: I don't have to worry about getting food tomorrow.

Richard Lowe: I don't have to worry about a sniper sitting on the roof waiting to shoot me. You know those things are not my problems.

Richard Lowe: Yeah. So.

Nikhil Raval: You said it so. Well, I think, Richard, I couldn't agree more. And I think, I think it's just a perspective that we need to build, and I mean pass it on to the next generation. Right? I think we we all have reasons to.

Nikhil Raval: you know, complain and and feel bad, and and you know, say, I had a bad day. But you know our bad day. It doesn't compare to the bad day of so many people around the world. Right? So I think, you're absolutely correct.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, we we have to look. I mean, even down the street. People are, you know, have worse problems than me.

Richard Lowe: So in one way we're we're blessed. And my parents were blessed. They never really took that attitude. Their problems were in their mind, were like horrible problems, but looking at them from an exterior point of view.

Richard Lowe: They weren't that horrible. They were. They had food on the table. They.

Richard Lowe: you know, they had issues getting finances and stuff. But it wasn't.

Richard Lowe: They weren't not getting food. They weren't not getting. They weren't getting evicted. They weren't. All these things weren't happening to them.

Richard Lowe: It's important to put it in context. And then if you have it in context, then you can make rational decisions based on what's real instead of what's your.

Richard Lowe: you're prejudiced against meaning. If you think that you have these deep, deep, deep problems.

Richard Lowe: Well.

Richard Lowe: then, you're gonna make decisions from those deep, deep problems. Well, maybe they aren't so deep, you know, and look at it for real

Richard Lowe: and for Gen. Z.

Richard Lowe: You know, they're they're going through. They have a lot of problems and a lot of them are

Richard Lowe: other people, I think, telling them they have problems. Of course, social media is part of that and then they accept those. And it it. I think it's important for us, as more

Richard Lowe: older generations have to look at Gen. Z. And help them understand that.

Richard Lowe: Let's look at it for real, you know.

Richard Lowe: Yes, you. You don't have a job, maybe, or you're having trouble finding a job. But you have a roof over your head. You're living with your parents, maybe, or you're living with a couple roommates, or whatever you're doing.

Richard Lowe: that's better.

Richard Lowe: That's that's a good place to start.

Richard Lowe: You can relax a little bit, breathe deep, don't give yourself a heart attack.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely

Nikhil Raval: absolutely. No. You're absolutely right. I think that the Gen. Z. Context is different. We can talk to that. Richard. But you know, they

Nikhil Raval: I mean their context. We can go into it. But their context is in a unique in its own way. They've seen things like

Nikhil Raval: You know the the Me. Too movement. They've they've been born into the Internet. They've seen the climate crisis they're seeing. you know. They've seen 9, 11 they've seen now. You know, a war a full blown pandemic. So there's a handful that they've seen, and they're seeing fake news.

Nikhil Raval: So I think.

Nikhil Raval: you know again one could say that. Well, how is it different? But and now the air revolution is there, and so much more so. But but yeah, I think I think every context has its own sort of positives as well like, you know, I think we look back from the past we can look at to say that the this generation is so much more tech savvy? Because they were they were surrounded and born into technology. Right? I mean, right? From childhood. They know devices. They cannot live without devices. So I think

Nikhil Raval: it's kind of a pro and a con, and like, you say, every generation makes it on the other side. It's it's it. It seems like the most toughest thing to do at the at the moment. Right? But retrospectively, it's it's

Nikhil Raval: It's it's something that we have to reflect and say that. No, that that wasn't as bad.

Richard Lowe: Well, I think Gen. Z. Has one advantage slash, disadvantage that we didn't have, and that is social media and the the massive amounts of media

Richard Lowe: from video games. We didn't have video games. I didn't video games to mobile phones. I mean, that's brand new. We had phones that were actually shared among the house. There were, there were party lines. This is what they were called, and you pick up the line. Your dad might be listening in the other room. We didn't have mobile phones at all. All this technology and all of the social changes that go along with it.

Richard Lowe: We didn't have to fight that, but even worse, that's changing fast.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah. Who do you believe?

Richard Lowe: That. That's 1 question that that

Richard Lowe: even I have. Even I have. I have, is there's so much media out there. Who do you believe it's getting harder and harder to find that primary source, the who has the truth?

Richard Lowe: What is the truth, I mean? Is it? Is it what you find out on social media is what you find out on Linkedin is what you find out from your friends, from your political group. What is the truth? Probably none of the above.

Nikhil Raval: No, that's such a good point, Richard. I think. I think one of the dangers which is the quite a severe danger. And again, it's it's just one of those things as you mentioned. It's it's, you know, technology has been a boom. But and I I don't limit this to just Gen. ZI mean, I think this applies to us as much. But perhaps

Nikhil Raval: we've seen we've never had to be so dependent or we're not become. I don't want to use the word slave, but now it seems like everything you know, the AI can give you an answer, and you can just turn out a reply to I mean, I see my son telling me, like even people drafting emails. And and you know assignments. And you know he was applying to colleges, and even there they say so. I think I think the need for critical thinking has gone

Nikhil Raval: gone up. So much for everybody, because, you you see one feed from Media. You see a counter view to that. And I think because our attention spans are shrinking right? I think we need to do the homework, and that's what I fear the most

Nikhil Raval: more for this generation, just simply because they have. I don't know. Maybe a 40, 50 year runway ahead of them like a work life runway of 4 decades, 3 decades, 4 decades, and therefore, you know, if they see something on a war on one channel, and they see something else on another channel like. And and can you get swayed by it? So I think

Nikhil Raval: you're absolutely right. You know, even this whole fact check mission was ultimately taken away because the fact checked

Nikhil Raval: the fact check. You know. They say that, you know, wasn't doing it as objectively as it could have been. And it's kind of becoming biased. But but you're right. I think that's just advice for everybody today, Richard, is that is to do the critical thinking, doing your homework. And and I think we should all kind of keep that in mind.

Richard Lowe: One of the problems that we have with that is critical thinking is not really taught in school anymore.

Richard Lowe: It used to be, what are logical fallacies. You. You approach

Richard Lowe: a younger person with logical fallacy, or even an older person about what was a logical fallacy. They're not going to be able to tell you what that is

Richard Lowe: like sunk cost fallacies. When you run in, you run into a lot. I've already spent

Richard Lowe: a thousand dollars on this.

Richard Lowe: I think it's only another 500, so I'll just go ahead and do the 500, because I already spent it. Well, that's not a reason to spend another 500, because just because you already spent 1,000. The reason to spend another 500 is, I think this is a valuable thing, or this is something I need or whatever it's working

Richard Lowe: all of the factual things, or even gut things. But just because I spend it is not. And I had to fight that a lot with my bosses in the past. Well, we've already spent a million and a half dollars on this, so we just need to finish it because blah blah blah! They didn't want to be embarrassed. They'd blah blah, you know. They'd want to back down

Richard Lowe: they whatever I think that a lot of things are sunk cost.

Richard Lowe: And there's other fallacies. And that's just not taught anymore and not understood.

Richard Lowe: You listen to a speech by any politician. Name, a politician, and you take out the logical fallacies and the just the plain emotion without any facts. You probably don't have a speech left. Probably not. And I did that exercise in several times in my life, and

Richard Lowe: there was nothing left. There was no facts. It was just emotion and fallacies, and that makes it.

Nikhil Raval: No, that's such a good point, I think again, so much work has been done. We've been, I can think of and tell you stories where we've had people recruiting people just like them and making decisions. Just they the one the way see it. And you know, we've seen this time and again, and and around the world, and I'm I know that us

Nikhil Raval: in the Us. And the banks have been guilty of this, and I've seen this in Asia, where you justify bad loans with more bad loans. And and then you say that oh, we're on the tip of, you know, recovering this wave. And so I think, I think I think it's not just important to know the biases. But I think it is important to understand.

Nikhil Raval: And becoming aware that. Okay, you've got some of these, and you need to pause. You need to step back. You need to kind of work objectively, to to be mindful that look, you're not gonna keep doing this because we we did this with a client where, you know, they used to take decisions in the same certain way every time.

Nikhil Raval: 4 out of 25 people in that room had the same decision making style. They always wanted structured data, and individually. So do you have structured and unstructured on 1 1 access, individual and group on the other axis. And and so, when they were wondering why? Why is it that they can't compete faster than their competitors, because everybody wanted to make decisions on their own. They couldn't do it as a group.

Nikhil Raval: So it was a revelation for them that okay, you've got 24 out of 25 people working in the same exact way. And then they're looking for people who are like that. Right?

Nikhil Raval: So you're right, I think. I think so. We then so then we have to kind of get them to see and log their decisions and get them to see how they can overcome it. But that's something. Yeah.

Richard Lowe: AI can help with that. What you can do with your chat, Gpt, or whatever your favorite AI of the month is, is, take transcript of something you listen to speech, or whatever put it in that chat. Gpt, or whatever, and say, Okay, tell me all the logical fallacies that are in this.

Nikhil Raval: Beautiful!

Richard Lowe: Boom. You've got a list of them all, or some of them. It's not always right. It doesn't always give them all we do that iteratively a couple of times. You'll get the logical fallacies from that, and you'll be able to then make some decisions, or you could say, Give me all of the the things that are based on emotion rather than fact. Give me the things here that don't have any factual basis. You can. You can actually ask it questions like that, and it'll tell you.

Richard Lowe: And it's amazing what you find out when you do that, when you put your favorite politicians speeches.

Nikhil Raval: Excellent.

Richard Lowe: Chat gpt, you're gonna find. Oh, interesting.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah.

Richard Lowe: And you won't like what you find if you probably. But that's okay. You don't have to like it. It's it's just facts.

Richard Lowe: So I'm gonna move. Move on from that a little bit. So you wrote this book and you wrote it because you wanted to make a name for yourself. You wanted to put your brand out there, I imagine.

Richard Lowe: Is that true?

Nikhil Raval: Yes, so I think the book. As I mentioned Richard, I was twofold one, of course. when I went on to my own journey, the solopreneur journey, I thought, okay, let's

Nikhil Raval: kind of build the you know I was. I was heading a company. I had a nice title. I was working for a American company in India, and everything was there. But when you go on your own all of a sudden, like, Okay, there is this? Okay? You were this in that world. And now, all of a sudden, you've become who. And so I had a kind of a bucket list that I wanted to go after one which was to deliver a Ted Talk. And I already seen people.

Nikhil Raval: you know, in the classroom, or but but I said, Okay, well, how do I do it? So that was a learning experience kind of anything on its own. And then I said, Okay, what more can I do

Nikhil Raval: all, both on the personal side and then professionally. So the book came out. And yeah, I felt that. Okay, this is I honestly didn't anticipate the amount of interest it will create. I just wanted a different topic. I think there wasn't much written about Gen. Z. In the Asian context, in the Indian context at all. I think I just saw one book.

Nikhil Raval: So it was trying to create a niche. And I honestly, I think I learned more about the Gen. Z. Generation. Post the book as as we can. All kind of as authors agree that

Nikhil Raval: the book becomes a platform. But then, you know, when I was invited to give talks, and, you know, deliver webinars and master classes and things like that, I think every company had its own little tweak and twist right where you know they're grappling to hold on, or they're grappling to, you know, not getting excited with manufacturing versus, let's say consulting. So.

Nikhil Raval: So I think what I learned from it is that it is just good to have a good book than a perfect book, as I've seen it in some other interviews, because you could take several years, and I don't discount. You know some of the best authors who've written.

Nikhil Raval: you know the books that we all can admire. But but the purpose of this was to to say that you're an author. Get the experience of doing a structured writing, and then, of course, you know, build yourself through the journey right? So,

Nikhil Raval: you know I you can go on my Linkedin and I posted some 50 articles on Gen. Z. So every week I would have something on a different aspect of Gen. Z. And then of course, I did a podcast which was building on what I did at the book. So yeah, it it turned out that way. It was never planned.

Richard Lowe: Well, the interesting thing is is when you have a book, you become the expert, and you just you just demonstrated that. And and what you just said. You started getting asking on talks you did your. You did all these other things that were related that were because of the book you're now the expert. You've written a book.

Richard Lowe: it sometimes doesn't even matter how good the book is, although quality, of course, is better. It just matters that you have one that resonates with people that you pick the right audience and things like that. That's what I do in my ghostwriting

Richard Lowe: service is. I write books for people that do exactly what you you said, and it's great. It's great to see that you accomplish that

Richard Lowe: because

Richard Lowe: it's important. If you're a coach. You need a book. If you're a solopreneur you need a book, doesn't have to be a long book.

Richard Lowe: doesn't have to, you know. Doesn't the the little book of sales, I think, is only

Richard Lowe: 100 pages long or something. It's a little red book of sales, and it tells you all about sales. It's very famous. Zig Ziglar is famous for small books, a lot of these authors. They write small books. That's fine. It'd be a long book, could be anything.

Richard Lowe: I'm releasing a book called the Ghostwriting Advantage. It's releasing on the 24.th

Richard Lowe: And it's the same thing. It's from ghostwriting, from the client point of view.

Richard Lowe: And I've only found 0 books. Maybe one book out there on Amazon. That's about that.

Richard Lowe: And it's everything about the claim. Everything from the idea

Richard Lowe: to the marketing and beyond. It's 400 pages long. It's it's a nice book, and it has all the information that you need to make a decision and

Richard Lowe: how to take advantage of that book and turn it into something real

Richard Lowe: that goes on sale on the 24.th And you have a second book coming as well.

Nikhil Raval: Yes, I do. And but I think, Richard, just to your point. I wanna I wanna underscore what you've said just for all our you know. Sort of you know, aspiring authors. And I say this because

Nikhil Raval: it it you can. You can get into this you know. You know. Imposter syndrome, right? That's the word. Always used that. Oh, gosh! What can I write? What will I do but but like you say you don't. It doesn't have to be a big thick, you know, kind of a a big book, and that's what the approach that I took is to think it like a memoir. So I wrote the stories that I knew and I could just talk to that. But yeah, but to but even go to go further to have someone like you who who

Nikhil Raval: does it as a passion. You've done it for yourself. But even from the client perspective, you know, just to get the end to end perspective, because, you know, you could have a a great big book, but but not do anything after it. Then there's a problem. You could have a conversely, a small book, but you, if you can get it out and market it like we know many authors have, then it, it could be just just what you want.

Nikhil Raval: And so you're absolutely correct. I think when I wrote the Gen. Z book, the podcast, which is doing like globally in the top, 10 in the in the Gen. Z. Category, because it's very niche. It's very focused. It's heard in over 65 countries. Now and then I saw that there is a clear niche in this space. So my second book is about multi-generation workforce. So I move away from Gen. Z to talk about

Nikhil Raval: the all the dynamics of the multi-generation workforce. So, as we alluded in the beginning that you you've got in every company at least 3 generations. You got the Z. The Gen. Y. Or the millennials, and then the Gen. Xers.

Nikhil Raval: You know I'm a Gen. Xer, and then in many instances you may even have a boomer in the workplace who are in their late sixties, or, let's say, even seventies, because people are living longer. So there are some clear dynamics that come about, you know. How do they see communication? How do they see careers?

Nikhil Raval: We talk about some of the biases that come on both sides, on on the experience side and on the younger side. And then how do we overcome it? And

Nikhil Raval: And I'm seeing more and more companies like the younger people are either leaving because they don't get along with the boss or or the or the experience generation is is feeling frustrated because they're not able to communicate either way. I I think so. We go, we. I dive. I dive into some of those aspects, into the into the second book, and it's called Generational Fusion.

Nikhil Raval: And yeah, that's the title, Generational Fusion.

Nikhil Raval: and and you know, creating strength from ages, and that's the full title. But it's it's releasing in May. And again, the audience is everybody from Hr. Colleagues to just a simple manager, right? Who's managing someone of a different generation below or above.

Nikhil Raval: And yeah, hopefully, hopefully, this that'll also be useful to everybody.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, it. It sounds interesting. I'm I'm

Richard Lowe: at the tail end of baby boomer, and like, I think, in the last year or 2 of baby boomer, and or maybe even the 1st year of millennials. I mean, I'm right on the edge.

Richard Lowe: And

Richard Lowe: it's interesting. 1st of all, ageism comes into play a lot a lot more than I would have thought.

Richard Lowe: One of the one of the minor factors is why I went on on my own as a solopreneur is.

Richard Lowe: It's hard to find a job when you're older. I mean, really, really, really hard, like, virtually impossible.

Richard Lowe: even though you've you've got the experience, and you've got the name, and you've got the abilities, and you've got

Richard Lowe: lots and lots of experiments. I'll give you an example

Richard Lowe: in the United States. What do you think the most used programming or most prolific programming languages? What is what powers most of the computers in the United States?

Richard Lowe: Little surprising.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah. And football.

Nikhil Raval: Oh, okay, wow, okay.

Richard Lowe: Percent of programming is in Cobol.

Richard Lowe: Well, who's going to take a class in Cobol?

Richard Lowe: So over, people do cobol? Well, they're they're retiring out.

Richard Lowe: So that runs the banks

Richard Lowe: and all the financial institutions. So what's going to happen when there is nobody left? And it's not that long off.

Richard Lowe: isn't there to do the cobol.

Richard Lowe: You're gonna have to scramble and do some. I mean, you've probably forgotten that you have a million lines of cobolt and your financials running your company.

Richard Lowe: And

Richard Lowe: because it's code that nobody ever wants to look at, it's icky code. You know, icky code. It's off doing stuff that you don't even care. Don't you care about it runs your company, but

Richard Lowe: it's been doing it fine for 30 years. 40 years.

Richard Lowe: That's that was an amazing I don't have. That's not the exact numbers. But that's an amazing statistic is that these older languages, Fortran Cobalt, Ada CC. Plus plus these things.

Richard Lowe: still run the world.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah.

Richard Lowe: And they're underneath everything else.

Richard Lowe: Who's gonna do it? Who wants to do it? I mean, I can't even see somebody who's Gen. Z. Going to college to learn cobal or fortran. That ain't gonna happen not much.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah.

Richard Lowe: Bet you there's some jobs there, though.

Nikhil Raval: Okay, no. But you make a good point. I think ageism Richard exists.

Nikhil Raval: It is, and what I call in the there's a there's a there's a there's a entire chapter on it. I call it the Silent Discriminator, and I say that it. It cuts both ways. So I give examples of all the biases that can happen for experienced people. Let's like you and me, where as you rightly said, we have the we have the ability to. We've seen, and we've led teams. We've done it

Nikhil Raval: yet, for whatever reason, if if we still have the desire. But I think there's there's always this sort of invisible wall that says. And and here I give specific examples of how either at a certain age in the company, people are not given promotions or not, they're not hired, and and the reverse is also true where where a young person who's was very capable sometimes isn't given the opportunity, because they say that you don't have enough experience. So I think it's.

Richard Lowe: Exactly.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah, yeah, so it's a, it's a it's it's 1 of those things where? You know, you have to create a good culture. You have to be a good manager, but ageism, as you rightly said, ageism, it exists, I mean, in every sense of the word, and I think, depending upon which end of the spectrum you are in.

Nikhil Raval: I am sure, like people are experiencing at some point or not. And and yeah, so yeah, that.

Richard Lowe: It's just sorry. It's just like any other discrimination.

Richard Lowe: except it's more silent because sometimes you don't even need to interview the guy to know that he's older or younger. It's just apparent in his resume. I don't even want to interview him. He's 60 years old, you know, or I don't want to interview him. He's he's only 21

Richard Lowe: or she, you know, whatever

Richard Lowe: and it's it's sad because you're basing it. It's sad as it's all forms of discrimination are sad in that way, because

Richard Lowe: you're not judging the person's abilities or their ability to get along with others or things like that. You're judging something that I mean. I can't change. How old I am. Wish I could.

Nikhil Raval: For that.

Richard Lowe: Well, I don't know.

Richard Lowe: I I was pretty stupid when I was younger, so I can't. I don't want to go back to being younger. I want to be younger from where I am now.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah, no. So you're right, I think. I think. You know, all the reasons why a promotion is not given. All the reasons why training stops all the reasons why an assignment is not given right. And we see stories on each side. And you're you're right. And I think I think I think you know, I I say that for the Gen. Z. Generation that

Nikhil Raval: you have an advantage, because you know the technology. But you also have a disadvantage. Right? I think, somebody can say that. Okay, you know, what? What does? What does he bring to the table? I don't want him to become good at AI. I want him to be good, right? And you know, the other day I mean just to your point. You know my my son's interviewing for some of the schools that he's applying, and you know he had a 1 on one meeting with one of the admissions officer, and and this school is in the Us. And they just

Nikhil Raval: they just allow you to do that as a as an interaction. One of the things that they do is that they don't want a face to face conversation. So it's an audio conversation, and we were just starting to think that. Why would somebody do an audio conversation in today's day and age? And and I think we kind of realized that look. It can influence it can influence somebody right good or bad way based on you know, if I see somebody and I may have a preconceived notion about, you know he or she, and how he dresses and speaks, and so on. So

Nikhil Raval: I think it was done deliberately to to say that. Look, I just wanna independently from a distance. Listen to you, help you, and that's it and not get biased. Yeah.

Richard Lowe: All right. Well, we've been going for about 40 min, so

Richard Lowe: How would you like to if you have anything you'd like to say to the listeners, and sum it up in a few sentences. What would you say.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah, I think. Just in our conversation for Gen. Z. Richard, I I would say that, look, there is

Nikhil Raval: This is going to be a cohort which is going to become more and more mainstream in the coming years, depending upon where you are, whether in the Us. Or whether you're in Asia, I mean in India. It's a very young demographic country, so, but but you know, in most working economies, they say by 2030, 2040, you know, close to 50% of that cohort will be kind of, you know.

Nikhil Raval: become mainstream. And I only say this, that okay, if you're in a room, a conference room today. And if you got 20 people there's a chance that you know, a majority of the people could be Xers and y's and a few Gen. Z. But if you fast forward out 10 years out, I think that composition would be very different. Right? You will have.

Richard Lowe: Of course.

Nikhil Raval: Probably half of the room filled with Gen. Z. Pure, Gen. Wise, and maybe even fewer. Gen. X's like me. And so what I what that says is that simply that look. It's incumbent upon the manager to get to know them, get to know what inspires them. And and I think just as much for the Gen. Z. To understand the other generations.

Nikhil Raval: Again, I think. Do not get, as you say, go by the hype. I think generations have always existed from our our time to, you know, think from our children, and you know, take the time to know yourself, take the time to know others. And and I think the more you can just keep it simple like that. I think all generations can thrive and work together.

Richard Lowe: Well, of course, that's what we all have to do is work together. Well, this has been the leaders in their stories. Podcast i'm here with

Richard Lowe: Nicole, and how can people reach you.

Nikhil Raval: Yeah, so easiest way average to reach me would be on Linkedin. You can look me up, Nikhil Pavel, and

Nikhil Raval: is got the work that I do. I also have a Youtube channel

Nikhil Raval: which is basically the videos of all my podcasts. So you can see the video versions of the podcast but the podcast itself is called working with Gen. Z. And that's available on all the major platforms and then of course. There is my personal website, which is, www.learnwisely.in. And this is where you can find what I do, and all the resources and the information about the second book coming up soon.

Richard Lowe: Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on the podcast appreciate it.

Richard Lowe: Like, it's

Richard Lowe: like, I said, this has been the leaders in their stories. Podcast I'm Richard Lowe, the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru and this is a daily. Podcast so come back and check in it's on Youtube and all the other places just like he did like you did I have a website, the writing king or ghostwriting? Guru? I have 2,

Richard Lowe: and you can find me on Linkedin, Richard Lowe, Jr. And there you go. Thank you for coming.

Nikhil Raval: Alright, thank you, Richard. Have a great day bye.