Blocking & Tackling CEO Fundamentals/Rajiv Parikh - Goal-Setting, Vulnerability, Predictions ~ Spark of Ages Ep. 6

For this kickoff to 2024 Episode, Sandeep Parikh takes over the hosting duties in a special "Ask My Brother Anything" edition of Spark of Ages.  We tackle the art of goal setting and team dynamics with a personal twist you won't want to miss.  Join us on a journey with Rajiv exploring how his leadership and transformation as a CEO over the years have changed his personal philosophies about the nitty-gritty of entrepreneurship. From the impact of vulnerability on team cohesion to the pursuit of work-life balance, we'll guide you through the strategies that are reshaping the business landscape.

Navigating the currents of business isn't just about hitting targets; it's about crafting a culture where accountability meets trust. In this episode, we'll share the secrets behind setting goals that resonate on an individual level and echo through the entire team, and how embracing the human aspect of leadership can fortify bonds and inspire success. We also delve into the practical tactics of setting goals that spur connection and joy, while touching on the thrill of hosting events like the Growth Marketing Summit to strengthen community ties.

Finally, we peer into the crystal ball, weighing the implications of AI's role in creative industries against the backdrop of the 2024 election year. As we ponder the economic forecasts and the geopolitical dance between superpowers, we contrast the ominous with the optimistic, sharing a vision of a future shaped by global cooperation and technological brilliance. So settle in, and prepare to engage with a conversation that promises foresight, strategy, and a touch of the future on 'Spark of Ages'.


References:
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-Bestseller/dp/1585424331


Producer: Anand Shah & Sandeep Parikh
Technical Director & Sound Designer: Sandeep Parikh
Executive Producers: Sandeep Parikh & Anand Shah
Associate Producers: Taryn Talley & Jesse Diep
Editor: Sean Meagher & Mat Greenleaf


#entrepreneur #innovation #management #artificialintelligence #growth #saas #saasmarketing  #marketoutlook  #sales #ai #consultant #consulting #technology #innovatorsmindset #innovators #innovator #product #revenue #revenuegrowth #managementconsulting #founder #entrepreneurship #data #analytics #dataanalytics #growth #growthmindset #growthhacking #salestechniques #salestips #enterprise  #business #bschools #bschoolscholarship #siliconvalley #company #companies #smartgrowth #efficiency #money #sustainability #sustainablegrowth #process #processimprovement #customerexperience #value #valuecreation #funny #podcast #comedy #desi #indian #community

Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/

Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/

Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/

Transcript

Sandeep Parikh: 0:07

Hello, welcome, oh my gosh, welcome to our spark of ages. Kickoff 2024 kickoff. I'm Sandeep Parikh, and I'm here with my brother, Rajiv Parikh, the host, the usual host, but today, rajiv, I'm doing a little takeover and I'm calling this the ask my brother anything like the AMBA podcast. What do?

Rajiv Parikh: 0:35

you think you like that. It's the coup de spark of ages.

Sandeep Parikh: 0:40

Yes, that's right, it's a hostile takeover when the guy that barely speaks is now going to speak a lot but mostly going to be asking you a bunch about this year coming up, maybe some reflections on last year, but more about like kind of like, where we're headed, where we're going, and we'll get into some predictions and stuff like that.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:04

But you know, we're going to test. I mean, one of the big things I've implemented in my company is a greater, more explicit experimentation method. So that's what we're doing with this we're experimenting with the experiment.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:16

Yeah, enough with these great interviews with industry leaders.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:23

Time to go on.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:25

Yeah, time to dig into my own brother's innovative brain, and you know. So I want to start because I'm thinking a lot about my company, Effinfunny, and we're doing a lot of goal, setting a goal setting to start the year. You know I run this company. We're a content company. We produce shows like this, spark of Ages and Desi Quest, a whole bunch of other shows. We have a lot of initiatives, a lot of ambitions for the year and I, as you know, the CEO of the company and we're a small operation. We got three people. This is not a position square size company and you know we're I don't want to say rag tag, but we are a bootstrapping startup and so I feel efficient, fuel efficient, exactly.

Sandeep Parikh: 2:21

That's a nice, that's a good euphemism, I like it. But look, you know, you've been an advisor to me my entire life, being my 12 year older brother. But I was going to have this conversation with you anyway.

Sandeep Parikh: 2:36

So what a, what a best way to record and to gift the rest of the world with some of your advice here. So, like you know, I'm trying to think of how to really, you know, approach goal setting in a way that and really bring some cohesion to the, to the team. We're a small team but, you know, do you have any approaches or do you have any tricks or tips to how you think about you know, your, your team and and really not just setting you know goals based on metrics, but how do you get buy in from your, from the folks in, you know, in leadership, in your company?

Rajiv Parikh: 3:23

I find it to be one of the most challenging parts of what you're supposed to do as a leader. It's very easy every day to go to work and just respond to requests from clients or customers or prospects and let things happen to you.

Sandeep Parikh: 3:39

It's just right.

Rajiv Parikh: 3:40

It's. It's much more challenging for you to set, to set a goal and then have everybody truly buy in and then actually execute to it and check in on it and make adjustments in a way where it's clear to everybody. There's so many hidden, implicit ways that people think, so many assumptions that they make, and so this year in particular. Well, anyways, I'll go through my process. Every year I do set a, I set a set of goals. It's guided by the CEO group that I'm part of, so it's aligned with that. Every year we set these goals, and there's goals that are so there's a CEO group.

Sandeep Parikh: 4:23

Obviously these are folks from other companies, so you're saying that you like have this group. You guys are meeting a lot and then you align your company's goals with this group's goals, Like how does that we work?

Rajiv Parikh: 4:35

Well, we do have group goals as part of that group, but we also we're in it for our own, our own leadership development and our own personal development. So the I. So why not just align the way we do our work altogether with a calendar year and so as so, I think it is great to join a CEO group or some kind of leadership group or a group of like minds, because it's easier to learn from each other and motivate each other than simply listening to podcasts or reading the latest HBR article.

Sandeep Parikh: 5:12

I thought there's anything wrong with listening to podcasts.

Rajiv Parikh: 5:14

Please do you get a lot of ideas, but I think it's great to have an active group of people who can bounce things off of. Like Napoleon Hill of Think and Grow Rich talked about having a mastermind community and this is your mastermind community, right? So you?

Sandeep Parikh: 5:28

have the whole like surround yourself with the yeah, the five people that you want to be like. Yeah, who?

Rajiv Parikh: 5:33

can help you. Who can?

Rajiv Parikh: 5:34

be the dumbest person in the room, yeah, who could think objectively, objectively in their care for you, without any, without anything that they know, without any hidden agenda. So we sit there, we, we have this document that talks about what did we experience last year personally, company wise, as a leader, professionally, health wise. We look at three different areas. We look at your company, your, your health and your personal, and and then we break it down further in terms of your company related goals, your professional goals, your various health and personal goals, your relationship goals. And then, of all these categories, you, you come up with as many as you feel makes sense, and most people are within somewhere between five and 10.

Rajiv Parikh: 6:29

I actually have 15 things that I that I like to track to or that I've decided to track to for the year, and there's a, there's a set of company specific financial goals. There's a set of companies specific non financial goals. There's my own professional leader leadership goals. There's my there's specific personal goals and there's things that I want to start or stop, and I've actually I've I like that. I have this document and in previous years I would just set it aside and then, well, what one of the things we do is we take of those goals, we have four that the whole group tracks to. So these are four that are on the board every time you meet, every month.

Sandeep Parikh: 7:10

It's all there. These are personally aligned to like this four for Rajeev and four for Jim and four, or is it?

Rajiv Parikh: 7:16

for for bill for for Jan and they're all different. They're all different and so you have to choose like one can be a company financial goal one is a company leadership or non financial goal. One is a personal goal, one is a health related goal.

Rajiv Parikh: 7:30

So actually like one can be a while you generate that you generate, oh those are the four that you put in front of everybody and then we, per month, we rate them as blue or I'm sorry it's green or red, whether we're on track or off track, and then it's like on a board where we all see the four that we care, that we care to present to the rest of the group, and then the rest of the group assess how, when we're falling off, how we're holding ourselves accountable and, in and of itself, making it public, and in and of and having people comment on it, you know you're gonna own up to it.

Sandeep Parikh: 8:03

You have to own up to it this month, this meeting. So you kind of start probably to write the ship beforehand because you want to flip that red to green before you get to that meeting. That's your goal.

Rajiv Parikh: 8:13

But you know what. You feel open enough with that group that when you are going red and many of the many of the group's goals become red because sometimes there's things they can't control or things they've decided to prioritize differently that they become that way. And then we you actively and you try to reframe them so, like you may have a financial goal and because of the market or something that happened in your business, you decided you know what, I can't hit that revenue goal. So you know what I'm going to focus on my profit goal and you may turn yourself red on it and stick with it. It's up to you.

Sandeep Parikh: 8:47

But you can trade out.

Rajiv Parikh: 8:49

you can trade out midstream if you want or you have to sort of things are changing dramatically or you can decide no, I'm going to stick with it. I usually my method is whatever I've decided for at the beginning of the year is what I'm going to stick to, even if and if I miss it, I miss it, but I'm going to. It's my way of helping me the next year to set goals that are more achievable or help me break down. So, like, if I'm going to miss a particular revenue goal or and I've done this before I've set goals that are way higher than was achievable for whatever reason, then I'll go back and I'll use that as a motivator for really digging into something.

Rajiv Parikh: 9:28

Is it the way we've set up our new revenue? Is it a way that we've set up our current revenue? Are we experiencing too much churn? Is it just the system couldn't, or it's a services where primarily a services company have a significant technology investment as well, so there may be a. The company can't handle certain types of clients. So I've used it saying you know what? I can't handle too many early stage, seed stage clients, because even if everything goes right, it may go wrong. We do a great job in running their marketing campaign, but their management team is not ready or they're not willing to put down the investment necessary, or they're not willing to make the messaging changes or the product changes necessary. And if you take on too many of those, they'll break your company. So we've moved progressively as a company to larger and larger clients.

Sandeep Parikh: 10:23

And so, while it's just a few smaller ones and it's a force, is you think about it? Yeah, so, even if you're not meeting it, it's like. It's less about like oh it's red and I'm failing. It's more about oh, it's red, and I should be asking myself some questions and getting more curious about you know why it's red? Or why did I set the goal too high? What was I thinking then? That I know now that I can do two differently. That's cool. I love that idea of just like.

Rajiv Parikh: 10:51

rather than it being this discouraging thing, it's more about sparking curiosity. It's not about beating yourself up and I, for years, have beaten myself up. I had a certain plan in my mind. One of the great part about the spark of ages is I find that a lot of people were not as planned as I was about the things I was supposed to do in my life. And so what I would miss these?

Sandeep Parikh: 11:13

milestone points.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:15

I'd get very frustrated with myself. And so what I've learned to do.

Sandeep Parikh: 11:20

I remember that I listened. Hey, listen, listen, listeners. I've known Rajiv obviously my entire life and I remember you're like I got to be a millionaire by this age. You had all these big, big goals and, yeah, it would be tough for you, right, like when you know that it took maybe 10 more years to do the thing. It's challenging when you feel like you set these expectations for yourself. I think it's much easier when you're.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:51

it's about what's controllable, so in school. A lot of things are controllable. It's a defined system. That's right. That defined system it's. I can game it to get the A.

Sandeep Parikh: 12:00

You know what?

Rajiv Parikh: 12:01

it takes to get an A. Yeah right, I mean not everybody, but like I for me it was I knew what it took to get an A, and I knew what it took when I would work in different companies, how to overachieve on whatever goals I was given or I had negotiated. In running my own company, I was setting my own rules dealing with my own my own challenges.

Rajiv Parikh: 12:25

You're the principal, you're like every, you know all the year, and so I'm missing my own goals and because I inevitably would set them high, like I always did in every other situation, and there was no break, there was no feedback on no, that's unrealistic. And so I learned how to deal with myself and my own frustration as part of running these goals, and so that's what I do. Every year. I set these goals and now I've refined it further so that, like to your original question, how do you take it to your team? I run a quarterly process with every year as the major reset. I find there was a great book called Breakthrough Strategies, I think it's by a guy named Blanchard. He basically talked about how companies spend way too much time overdoing their yearly plan, their strategy, their strategy and their plan, and they write these elaborate documents and then inevitably, just like when you get into the field of fog of war or you get into any game it happens.

Rajiv Parikh: 13:30

And as stuff happens you've got to change and it's too wooden, it's too stuck. So really a looser quarterly system tends to work better. Where I do have a yearly plan, we all go and put them together and we put them together with sufficient detail and with multiple scenarios so that as things adjust we can adjust with it and then every quarter we reset. So this year we looked at where we were, we were heading and we came up with eight focus areas for our company. They are aligned with my personal goals, my professional and personal goals.

Rajiv Parikh: 14:08

I've made it so that I don't have time to have a life at work and a life outside of work, so I make them all similar, yeah, make them all work together, and by doing that it allows me to put my the most energy into it. So I put that down like communicate with the team. We go back and forth. I've worked on this whole new initiative on what it's called team accountability, where we really open up about ourselves and open up about our issues and fears and all that, and we talk it through.

Sandeep Parikh: 14:38

So we all tell it. I want to look at that for a second to it. How do you double click on the team accountability thing? Because that's really interesting to me, because it's starting to speak to you. I mean, even when you talk about the CEO group, you're basically talking about you know this underlying sense of trust that you need to develop with that group, where you can be vulnerable and you can be real about your failings and you know you can be honest with each other. And you also said you know that there's no alter your motive, or you know there's no hidden agendas kind of a thing, do you? How do you create that culture within? You know your teammates as well, like in your company as well. Do you try to do that? Have that same, you know that same sense of oh hey, we can be brutally honest with each other, like, how much do you share versus not share?

Rajiv Parikh: 15:31

That's a great question I generally have aired. It took me a long time. I had a lot of I still have a lot of ego, but I had a lot of ego. I was always brought up with that kind of Indian notion, or maybe worldwide notion, of saving face. And so right, you know you criticize in private and you praise in public, and you're always concerned about where a person's feelings are, where they are and yeah, and I and I had my own concerns about my own I.

Rajiv Parikh: 16:02

when people criticize me in public, I didn't like the feeling.

Rajiv Parikh: 16:05

And so I, having not generated that level of trust with someone in some of the teams I've worked in, I didn't do the same for my folks. But over time I've been running the company. This is my third stint at running a company and my only one that I've run this long over 15 years I've moved more towards being very open about myself and open about my team and just like you talked about like we get into our fears and it hurt and they don't like it at first actually to hear that their leader has vulnerabilities or has fears.

Rajiv Parikh: 16:43

And sometimes you say, well, is that a? Is that a Silicon Valley versus rest of country versus? I have a lot of folks in India India thing. I think it's just in general, people do want to feel like their leader is infallible and that leader Like why do we like all these Marvel movies or all these hero movies? Because you think the hero is the hero. God right, you want someone to believe in. And so my folks. I could see them wince when I would express some vulnerability or some fear that I have, and I've learned to be much more like that Now. My team has been with me, many of whom have been with me 15 plus years. The most junior person is most least tenured person. She's not junior, is my CFO, who just joined mid this year.

Rajiv Parikh: 17:30

But I've treated her like everyone else because now, like most of the team, has been with us for a long time and then they just blend right in and they become part of it. So we reveal, I reveal what I'm fearful of or I'm concerned about, and that's that's accountable teams notion that my friend, eric Corial brought up. That's just about how do we move from hiding when it's when someone's not performing, letting them do it covering for them, to gossiping about them, to expecting the boss to fix it, to just addressing it straight out.

Sandeep Parikh: 18:05

Yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 18:06

So I've moved much more to that throughout the year, gradually, and now I've been feeling so force and how's that been more working out?

Sandeep Parikh: 18:16

Has there have been bumps in the road? Has there been people quitting at all? Or like, what's the because you're saying? You know that they're wincing at first when you're, when you're out there being vulnerable, but have they taken to that? Have they warmed up to it? Does it allow them to be vulnerable? Has it built a center's trust?

Rajiv Parikh: 18:35

I think they have, especially when I provide validating information for the vulnerabilities. So when folks learn that the best leaders tend to be more vulnerable, they feel more accepting of it.

Sandeep Parikh: 18:50

Yeah, so they have that reference brown yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 18:53

They say, okay, this is what the best leaders doing. And then they say, oh, okay, then that it's acceptable for me. At least, this is how my group is. I'm not saying every group's like this. And and over time they're getting much more and more open and I'm like this is, after so many years, so right. If you remember Jim Cascade's discussion, he I mean he when he comes into a company, he's like in the first six months he does this with a whole new, with a current and executive team.

Sandeep Parikh: 19:21

Yes, he's able to pull it off. I love that.

Rajiv Parikh: 19:23

That purple unicorn thing between effort and capability across nine, nine different elements, and I'm blown away at what he's been able to pull off.

Sandeep Parikh: 19:37

I'll tell you what I'll go forward around anything that we can out up our mind and then we'll talk it over and then we'll think again this is how much we're losing in an older world of the many society. Yeah, and obviously this book doesn't shape or shape the f形 of a leader. Any of this goes for that. I mean, it runs me this. So this there's a book I'm reading called the culture code right now, which, by the way, I think everyone should pick up if they're interested in this kind of thing.

Sandeep Parikh: 20:05

It talks a lot about Greg Popovich as a the you know, the leader of the Spurs, and why he's such a, you know, standard deviations above the rest coach in terms of. They analyze, really interesting. They analyze it in terms of Not just like wins, but wins above expect expectations or expected wins. So they, they, they analyze all these successful coaches and they figured, they somehow figure out metrics around, like what their teams were expected to win based upon the talent that they had, and then which coaches performed, you know better than that, like which ones had wins above those expectations, expected returns based upon their teams talent.

Sandeep Parikh: 20:48

And Greg Popovich was far and above, like, above, like Bill Belichick, above, like, you know, phil Phil Jackson, like the biggest coaches. And so the question they beg the question of like, why? Right, obviously, and so they did a deeper dive into the, the, the culture around the Spurs, and and when. The culture that he promoted and it was like what it talked about is Amongst a number of things was the ability to Like, because you see him on the court, court, he is swearing and yelling at his players. He is like get your ass.

Rajiv Parikh: 21:20

And so yeah, all the rules about. Well, you're supposed to be calm and cool. Not about being calm, not about being nice and you can't be yelling at the ref and you're supposed to model a certain behavior. That athlete blow all that up, so what?

Sandeep Parikh: 21:33

was it if you?

Rajiv Parikh: 21:34

look at like. If you look at great leaders up and down the line right, there could be a Belichick who's fairly stoic, to a John Madden who's Very demonstrative, right to Popovich, as you talk about. I don't think that matters.

Sandeep Parikh: 21:48

I've learned that it doesn't matter, right so at least with this, what this book talks about.

Rajiv Parikh: 21:53

I feel like I can be as emotional as I want to be.

Sandeep Parikh: 21:55

It's not yeah, it's not about necessarily keeping all your emotions perfectly and check it all times and just and yeah, and having this, it's a. The reason he is able to pull that off and still maintain team morale and in fact probably improve team morale With it, is because he is brutally honest in that way to everybody. It didn't matter if you were the highest paid player on the team or total a benchwarmer. He would scream at Tim Duncan and Manage no believe, the same way he would, you know, his 12th man. So it's like so that. So there was like an across Accountability aspect to it where everybody's like well, everybody's getting this treatment.

Sandeep Parikh: 22:33

And then the other part is the biggest part was is that he demonstrated tremendous care and love for each of his players throughout the season in all sorts of wildly interesting ways in terms of like not making about basketball. He'd go to you know he has dinners with them. He spent when he first drafted Tim Duncan. He spent four days with him before they even drafted him, like Flying out to whatever island country he's from I can't remember right now but like he does all these things that develop this culture of trust and of sincere, authentic, like I care about you as a human being that when he is out there screaming at them, he, they know he's being authentic and they know that behind all that there is love, and trust, that, like we have this common Goal together I want you to be the best because the best you can be. And so he just sort of creates all these like belonging cues. You're a part of this team. That is that is what undergirds all of that.

Rajiv Parikh: 23:38

There's a team goal of winning a championship. There's a, but at the same time, there's a goal about I'm developing you as the player. I'm here for your best interest and and it's clear and open to everyone however he achieves it.

Rajiv Parikh: 23:56

Right, yeah, there's a he's decided to take a personal approach to build that rapport by being with him. Bill Belichick, I don't think, meets anyone anyone, for he never bet Brady for dinner, right, he's. Except he did have multiple meetings a week in their office, yeah. So everyone has their way of pulling it off my way, yeah, what's your way I have.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:15

I do care about my Folks's lives. I care about what they do. I try to get to know their family. I try to get to know what they care about. I Every quarter spend, like as part of our review process, we do something off-site where we are spending one-on-one unplanned time together. That's how I get to know folks.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:40

Just sometimes it's just sitting in the car for six hours driving to some to some Safari place and learning about, like my head of creative he he grew up on a farm and how he lived his life on a farm and what he thought about growing up and how he just brought himself up from from very modest means to where he is today, and I just enjoy learning about him like that. So I think everyone's got their method. I'm not saying mine is perfect. I love getting to know them for who they are and I believe, because my belief is, when push comes to shove, anyone can get paid a lot more than they're making in whatever job they're in. But there's more to life than that. It's about who you're with, who you're around, who you're going with. Does that person really, does that group really care about you? Do they really want to be around you? And when it's just about money Transactional Leader or Trump people who are there because they're the highest paid of whatever, it'll work for a while, but I don't think it'll endure.

Rajiv Parikh: 25:46

Maybe it doesn't sustain.

Sandeep Parikh: 25:47

If you want to end, you know that's something we we were gabbing about Earlier in the pre-show was Was talking about building the, the hundred year company versus the. You know the exit strategy. I want to IPO and make a bunch of cash kind of Maybe we can get it into that a little bit. I let's get into that. After that, I want to ask you one more question about this, which is, like what would you say is your like percentage split of attention paid to? You know team glue, chemistry, stuff versus the? Like client services, grow the business. You know maybe more typical CEO Stuff, ceo, and look, what percentage do you think you're at now and what percentage do you do you think you're going towards?

Rajiv Parikh: 26:44

It's a great question. I I don't know how much is spent on one versus the other. I'd say, is it 25, 30% on the individuals versus the day-to-day stuff that you do? But I will say I am thinking about all the time About things to help the person, a person on my team.

Rajiv Parikh: 27:09

And it's mostly because I enjoy it and it's less. It's not about being programmed like. It took me a long time but I finally figured out. My purpose in life is to connect great souls together. You I found that more appealing than hitting a financial number, and for me personally, and so I get the greatest joy when I see anyone on my team doing really well at anything that they do. It's just, it's the greatest. It's like your kids you feel great joy when you see your kid perform, and I feel the same kind of joy for my own team. So when I see them taking leadership, when I see them grabbing the reins, when I see them even when I see them bringing up difficult issues and confronting them, I may get annoyed at first because it's not where I wanted to have the conversation, but I have learned to let that happen and respect it and show appreciation for them when they do that, even after I battle them.

Sandeep Parikh: 28:09

So how do you measure the or do you even bother to measure to the goal of wanting to connect great souls together. Are you like I'm gonna make, like do you make sure that you go to certain networking events, do you? I mean, you guys, I know you guys are putting on some big events like I guess, what have you been doing to sort of yeah, the measurement of that is very difficult and so yeah, but it's.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:32

But you know when you're on and you know when you're off, and so I've set up a bunch of goals around it. So one is reach out to 12 people a month that I. That's outside of my normal circle. So I know, I've gotten to know thousands of people over the years randomly call my college roommate Marty Right.

Sandeep Parikh: 28:56

I know, marty, you know, marty, marty, you know he's awesome.

Rajiv Parikh: 29:01

Randomly reach out to Dennis, my one of my best friends in high school that I haven't talked to in five years.

Sandeep Parikh: 29:07

Right, and I'm just.

Rajiv Parikh: 29:08

I'm not gonna plan like oh this person Are there reconnections that you're focusing? On yeah, yeah or whole relationships, Reconnections and then sometimes, well, because serendipity happens all the time with me. I've put my part of how I've decided to succeed in growth. Marketing is to build a community, and so you. I end up meeting a lot of people anyways. It's creating a connection with them and then feeling like you're doing something special with them or at least talking with them.

Sandeep Parikh: 29:39

So maybe your point it is a reconnection Make memories, make your memories together.

Rajiv Parikh: 29:42

Right, so one of the goals is reconnection, but then as part of it, like one of our goals is, as part of building new business, build it from our partnerships. Don't just go out and go out and say, oh, I'm gonna target this large security company, is it part?

Sandeep Parikh: 30:00

of our-.

Rajiv Parikh: 30:00

Land and expand. Is it part of my partnership?

Sandeep Parikh: 30:02

network Right on it, and all the partners are people.

Rajiv Parikh: 30:05

I like personally, by the way.

Sandeep Parikh: 30:07

Land and expand yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 30:08

Technology partners or services partners or media partners. Is it someone that it comes through that relationship and that?

Rajiv Parikh: 30:14

because then you get the reputational uplift from someone knowing someone and then if it comes through that, it's part of building that network and we run multiple events a year, Like we have this event we call the Growth Marketing Summit, which is a once a year very exclusive event Only 30 people in Park City, Utah, where we bring together key leaders and just have a super four day fun experience with them. But then we have tons of other events throughout the year where they're just networking sessions around growth marketing leaders and then through my friends network they're doing similar kinds of things and we're co-sponsoring and we're running those events with them. So it's like a series there's a leading one and then there's a series of them and, frankly, this podcast is part of broadcasting that further, because I love sharing. So this is part of that share.

Sandeep Parikh: 31:08

So I get to meet all these people.

Rajiv Parikh: 31:10

I wish I had access to this when I was younger, when I was starting my company. I'd like to you know you can always read about the best. There's tons of books about the best.

Sandeep Parikh: 31:20

But I feel like a lot of people are the best and I want them to know about it.

Rajiv Parikh: 31:24

So that's one person's perspective. This is my perspective who the best are?

Sandeep Parikh: 31:27

Yeah, you know. When you just mentioned the making sure you do 12 a day or 12 a month, it reminded me of this distinction I heard recently I can't remember if it was Bernadette Brown, but it's one of those kind of self-help gurus who said you know, rather than like make sure you know, the distinction between a goal and an ambition, and maybe even call that out for yourself. So, rather than saying my goal is to make $2 million this month in revenue, because that's not something you can really control necessarily, it's that's more of an ambition. What is your goal to do that? Well, it's the. I'm going to make the 25 calls a week to, you know, to my network. I'm going to make sure my health is in order and I'm going to go running every day and like what are the actual concrete things that you have a hundred percent control of?

Sandeep Parikh: 32:17

Call those your goals. Like the you know, reaching out outside of my network 12 times a month, kind of a thing. That's like that's what you call a goal versus the ambition, which is, oh, I'm going to sign up, you know 10 new clients this quarter and it's fine. Like label your ambitions, call them ambitions. That is what I'm striving to do. But my goal is this concrete, more concrete thing. It was interesting. I'm not necessarily saying you have to do it that way. I think it's a great idea. I thought it was a cool thing.

Rajiv Parikh: 32:47

I've implemented it in this way. So we are I'm taking like a portion. I think there's a tie between, of course, there's a tie between activity and results, and you have to do them that way, like, say you, you said you know you want to lose 10 pounds right, and you think that the way you're going to get there is by running three times a week for 30 minutes, right, and. But at the same time, you're going to eat. You're going to eat like lots of pizzas and drink a lot of beer, right.

Rajiv Parikh: 33:23

So I think it's good for you to have the goal of yeah, I want to lose this, and lose it at a reasonable rate, specific, measurable, achievable, whatever rate. But you're going to do certain activities, but you're. But at the same time, you're not going to trick yourself. So, and I see this in terms of how events are run a lot of PDB firms run events and I can hit my goal. That I hit I created four events of a hundred people, but the people who may go there may not be the right quality you need for your company. So you've hit a goal, but it's a fake goal, but it's a fake result, and so it's like you've gained your own goal, just to hit the goal.

Sandeep Parikh: 33:57

Who?

Rajiv Parikh: 33:58

wants the game of your game Right. And frankly, the way the world works is, even when they trust you, they're going to do things. They're going to do little cheats and that's it, and they're going to try that. And part of having an open and accountable discussion is to create a team of folks, not just the boss, is to say for the team, like no, we're all tied to a certain group result, and so that group then says, hey, you know what the goal you set up about those 10 events.

Sandeep Parikh: 34:29

I think the way you're hitting it it needs to be better, yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:32

Needs to be improved, and same thing with your weight?

Sandeep Parikh: 34:34

Yeah, hitting a larger goal.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:36

Right, I'm not going to eat a bunch of pizza. I'm not going to have a pizza every day and then hit my running goal and hit my weight goal. It's not going to happen, right. So I have a goal to hit to meet so many. So I have I put in three buckets.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:46

There's activity-based goals that you set as a group or as an individual, and that's a certain percentage of your bonus, and bonus is a good percentage of your overall comp. And then you're there's a middle one which is your group goal, group financial goal, whether it's, in our case, it's gross margin as the goal, cause you can't, it's harder to gain gross margin than it is to gain revenue. And then there's company profit, which everybody shares, so there's a that's 40%, right, so it's 30, 30, 40.

Sandeep Parikh: 35:15

So it's going to force I was activity. What was the?

Rajiv Parikh: 35:17

second one, activity-based goals, is 30%. 30% is my group's goal. So you group maybe you're the group that runs paid advertising and you have a gross margin goal. So as the leader of that, you have to make sure you want to hit a certain level of revenue, but you also want to control your costs, or keep the costs at the right level so that you're generating a margin for the business. And then that then ties into a company related goal, cause each one of those have to be in balance for them to work out.

Rajiv Parikh: 35:46

You could easily blow one away or the other, but if they don't balance themselves out, you're going to hurt yourself Eventually, or even in the and so. But then you have to have. That's not good enough. You need to have a system where, or a culture, as you talked about something a culture where your people feel like they're not going to engage in that hidden code that they have between each other. Right, you know what the hidden code is. No, well, say, you have a set of goals and Anne has a set of goals, and Jean has a set of goals, and they all bring up those goals. Are you going to critique Anne's goals?

Sandeep Parikh: 36:30

Yeah, I guess not what you mean. What you mean, right, that's that implicit.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:35

there's an implicit like mutually assured destruction. If you criticize mine, I'm coming at yours. I'm going to ask for yours.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:40

Yeah, I'm going to tell you why you're shit so but then if your culture is such that you're like that real team, like a Popovich style team where people are open to giving each other strong feedback that may seem ego destroying on the outside, then they are likely to critique each other and then say you know what? I see your goals. I just I don't see how it's working. Can you help me how you thought about them? Right, yeah, like stating where you're coming from and then saying to them asking them a question. Don't just ask a question that no one can understand. Just say like hey, here's where I'm thinking.

Rajiv Parikh: 37:20

Yeah, I don't see how this connects with this and this, yeah, yeah, and then asking the question like, is there something that you're seeing that I don't see?

Sandeep Parikh: 37:30

Right, yeah, right, trying to get, trying to get cause maybe there is a blind spot, rather, you know, rather than just coming in hard with criticism, but also feeling safe enough. I think that's the thing. It's a feeling safe enough, having enough trust in the team that you know they got your backs at the end of the day, and like being able to create that culture that, even if I don't hit all my goals, yeah, I don't have to save face. I can, actually I can come to everybody for some help. You know, ultimately being able to like genuinely ask how can I better achieve these goals? You know, not necessarily having all the answers, that's that.

Rajiv Parikh: 38:11

I think that, like you're saying, that's the hardest part, that's the big your ego is there for your protection. It's been there a long time and and it's not a bad thing, so it's normal. It's just in the context of a goal of achieving a group result that you should feel emotionally open enough to do that and it's, I think it's, it's I'm not perfect at it and I think it's a it's a continuous process.

Sandeep Parikh: 38:36

Yeah, well, cool. These were a lot of really good tips and sort of. It's really just cool to hear your framework of how you run, how you run a team You've been doing it for so long and how that is just constantly evolving too, like always remembering, at least for me, that I think that, as as folks who are leaders or or you know, sort of label themselves as leaders, it is easy to get into this mindset of like you got to have all the answers and you got to show all this confidence and you can't show any cracks in the arm or kind of a thing, and it is like just you need the constant reminder. It's not just hearing the one podcast or the one seminar or reading the one book, it's like this constant reminder. That is actually okay and often beneficial to show your cracks in the armor, as long as you still maintain, I think, a sense of purpose, a sense of group purpose, and that you can, you know, sort of create a set of values and actually demonstrate, model, how you live by them.

Rajiv Parikh: 39:39

I think yeah, I think to your point. Like, if you get to the point where your group truly trust each other, trust each other, knows the issues that you're trying to work on, then you project it's. It's easier to outwardly project confidence because you trust the other person on your team. Like, think about any game that you've played. When does a group, any kind of group sport that you've played? When do things get screwed up? Right, they get screwed up when you don't want to pass the ball because you don't trust that the guy's going to do the right thing with it.

Rajiv Parikh: 40:09

Yeah, you don't trust that they're going to pass the ball. You don't trust that they're going to make the stop. You don't trust, like you know, what you're doing on one side of the field is going to work on the other side of the field. As soon as you, as soon as you trust your team, then they may. They may and will screw up, but at least you know that they're competent and they're trying their hardest and that you've worked things out to the best of your ability to make it happen.

Rajiv Parikh: 40:36

So I'll say, in addition to what you're talking about and set these goals and how we run them, we have frequent meetings. Every week, we have a leadership meeting. I have one-on-one meetings every once, every couple of weeks at least for 15 minutes with everybody. So there's a whole bunch of ways of reinforcing it. But I, like you say, I am much as a because I'm running a services firm and even if I was running a tech firm, I'm very heavily customer, client centric. I'm in front of clients and prospects all the time. I know I have to bring in a lot of the biggest clients and the biggest relationships and I'm happy to shoulder that, knowing that my team is gonna take it and drive it ["The Last Song of the Year"].

Sandeep Parikh: 41:21

You know, reggie, if you've been up you've been up to this company for 15 plus years like what's your exit strategy? Like what do you think? How are you gonna golden parachute your way out of this thing?

Rajiv Parikh: 41:33

I'm always. I'm amazed about it and I think it it's a fair question, because I sit here in Silicon Valley and in Silicon Valley people think about three, four, five year plans. Rarely does someone think about a 10 year plan, unless you're investing in a venture capital fund. And most people think about exits. And they think about entries and exits because it works well out here to think that way. Right, because you're you're driving to an outcome and that outcome usually, like people aren't scalable between one milestone to the next, like someone's an early stage person, someone's a mid-stage, someone's a large kind of company person. So then they wonder when they see me, they're like ah, you seem like you seem like you know what you're talking about. Why are you still at the same thing? Right, and because there's this expectation, like, well, this originally was venture back. Now it's not venture back. You guys are owned by your, by really nice, friendly investors, great people. Why are you doing this?

Sandeep Parikh: 42:29

And I think for me that doesn't answer it. Right. There is that it's owned by friendly nice people.

Rajiv Parikh: 42:35

They do expect a return and I will get them a return in my own way. I think the part that it's some maybe I'm projecting too much in that they look at my face and they're like oh, you're old, why are you still doing this shit? Or it's you know some other thing that I you know, but for me it's more about-.

Rajiv Parikh: 42:57

Yes, when I started Position Squared, I thought I would do it for about four to five years and I would sell it or grow it or get it to a point where there's an outcome in an exit which fit along the typical venture capital guidelines.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:11

And as I got into it and this was the construct of the business I picked something that I would enjoy doing.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:16

I love marketing, I love thinking about things in a structured way, I like technology and in this job I've been able to work with marketing, technology, innovation, growth, and I get to do like I enjoyed my MBA I get to do a business case every day across multiple businesses, across my own business, and I actually like the people I work with and I still like them, and so I haven't felt the need to go start something new, because I'm having so much fun with what I'm doing with and I really want to build and I've worked to build this business so that it runs itself, or runs itself with great people over time, based on a culture that we've developed. So why can't it be a 100-year company that endures over time, like Sony or some of the greatest companies that have been built over time? They weren't built to exit. They were built to endure and provide its customers and its people that work there, or its partners and investors, with all kinds of great benefits that all mutually self-reinforce.

Sandeep Parikh: 44:26

So is that now the new sort of? I mean, it sounds like your goal shifted after those four and five years. So is the new goal like yeah, I want this to be a brand name that endures for your generations, kind of a thing I'm building it that way.

Rajiv Parikh: 44:41

I am building it that way with succession planning. So, like everyone on the team, every group on the team has to have a succession plan and has to have designated people and a training plan for them. So I may not run this forever, but I'm having fun as I do it and I'm building my folks, like the people that work in the company, so they can run this place, and a lot of times I'll see some of these 20 and 30-year-olds that come in and I look at them and I see how they're performing, like, ah, here's someone I could maybe give this business to someday or how to run this business, and I'm so excited when I get to meet that right person. So this is driving for that. But like, look, I get to work with the greatest financial companies in the world doing all kinds of innovation. I get to work with AI companies and security companies, even digital health companies, and so this is the fun, this is the perique thing.

Sandeep Parikh: 45:33

We dabble. We love to order all appetizers at a dinner and have a little to stabling everything. So that is interesting. So you kind of are getting your rocks off, so to speak, from being able to jump into your clients' companies and sort of experience the successes of a whole new field through.

Rajiv Parikh: 45:57

I'm ordering off the small plates menu and the top of this menu.

Sandeep Parikh: 46:02

That's the perique thing. I just want a ton of small plates If I order a large plate.

Rajiv Parikh: 46:06

I hope it's to share. So this is where my wife and I are feeling the conflicts.

Sandeep Parikh: 46:10

The entrees are always the work, the entrees. You're always like, oh man, the appetizer was bomb. And then you finally get the lamb shank or whatever and you're like, yeah, it's pretty dry and I kind of wish I could go back to those appetizers the best part of a wedding. Past apps come on.

Rajiv Parikh: 46:24

I love it. I think the best meals are shared. I think all restaurants should go family style and just let us share off each other's plates.

Sandeep Parikh: 46:34

So this is like your way of being able to run a family business, because, listen, I always thought that too. I mean, when you started a position squared, I always thought, oh yeah, this is a digital marketing company. I just always assumed that you were going to be this product guy. That's kind of like it was going to be more about making a cool technology that explodes, and so that, oh, maybe you do this for a little while and get out.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:02

And maybe if one of those products had exploded, maybe it would be a different story. But what I've built with the team and the clients over the years is multiple great initiatives that are mostly services-oriented, that we've built technology around, and I could see, with what's happening in AI and these large language models, something that we're building today that could explode. But I haven't. I've worked with around many technologies that have exploded, not one that we've built ourselves, other than our utilization of them for our clients. So it could happen and maybe then there'd be some other thought. I can't forecast, but probably not. I'd probably have so much fun doing that. I'd probably adjust to it and enjoy that next rise Nice.

Sandeep Parikh: 47:59

Cool. Let's close this podcast out with some predictions. Some people love oh, people love the 2024 predictions. You know, cnn's got predictions, the New York Times has predictions. Everybody's got a predictions thing. You know, I guess I wanted to do something a little different than your average. Bear on that and I'm going to give you a prediction, okay, from a source. Are you going to do this?

Rajiv Parikh: 48:31

versus chat GPT, like you did with John Miller.

Sandeep Parikh: 48:35

Well, first of all, I did do a chat GPT. I asked chat GPT to predict 2024. But it was so vague. I mean we could go through like what their things are, let's see here. Because all it did chat GPT this is what it spit out. It was like technology advancements in AI and machine learning could lead to more sophisticated and personalized digital assistance. Well, I'm in climate change. I can't believe that. Yeah, it's like social political trends, potential shifts in global political landscapes which, with elections in key countries, might change in international dynamics, and I'm like that's not really a prediction. That's sort of like yeah, what's their elections coming up?

Rajiv Parikh: 49:19

They didn't say like, oh, Putin's going to lose the war in Ukraine and he's going to be taken out.

Sandeep Parikh: 49:26

No, it's not. Yeah, because the concern is is that if it starts predicting that way, that it'll want its predictions to come true, and then it'll start, you know, becoming sentient enough to make sure that to enable that that's so cool.

Rajiv Parikh: 49:41

Scary but cool.

Sandeep Parikh: 49:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean I was going to basically just pop open some of these other. You know this like a CNN prediction. Let's do it and just see what you think about what their predictions are. We can rate their predictions, basically. I think that's more fun, it's more fun to be the PMI gallery. Yeah, and just you know, maybe we can also hear, of course, where you're thinking. Do you think the Patriots will have better than four and eventually 13?

Sandeep Parikh: 50:10

Oh my gosh, I hope so, man. Okay, let's start right. There Is Belichick coming back. I hope so Are you on that?

Rajiv Parikh: 50:20

I hope so, but it looks like no, because Kraft is so good at subtly putting out messages.

Sandeep Parikh: 50:28

Interesting. I feel like he's coming back. I want him to come back. I feel like they're not giving up on him. He's got a great defense a good culture.

Rajiv Parikh: 50:37

He screwed up on offense. He's going to get Josh McDaniels back somehow, some way, and things will write itself.

Sandeep Parikh: 50:45

Okay, all right, let's, let's, let's we ever hope in.

Rajiv Parikh: 50:52

I hope in February the Niners win the Super Bowl, let's have a one. I've already bought my tickets.

Sandeep Parikh: 50:57

Okay, sorry, the. I'm having a weird little tech issue here, so I think go fun times. Okay, sorry. Well, why don't we just start with the listen? 2024 is going to be the year for me of trying to figure out how to engage with the news cycle. Enough to know what's happening in the world, but not so much that it drowns me in all that's happening, because it's obviously election.

Rajiv Parikh: 51:37

It's election year, the last time in 2020, we were all you and I were so into it because, of course, of our political meanings, and we definitely wanted that to happen. And then we've had this. At least, it took me about a year to get off of minute by minute news and I kind of want that, I not kind of I want that to continue.

Rajiv Parikh: 52:05

But getting off of minute by minute, but yeah, yeah, I think it's profoundly damaging to our brains to read about stuff that really we can't run or we can't influence. It doesn't matter, and it enables us to live in a world of victimhood, where things are done to us as opposed to us having ownership of what we do for ourselves.

Sandeep Parikh: 52:28

Yeah, yeah. So in that vein, starting with CNN, they asked the question of who's going to be elected president, obviously in 2024, in the US election, and the numbers don't look great for anyone who does not want Donald Trump to be president at this stage. Overwhelmingly, though, because they asked sort of a bunch of authors and legal analysts and stuff like that, people pick Joe Biden. Maybe that's hope springs eternal energy. What's your take on that? What are you feeling?

Rajiv Parikh: 53:11

I hope it's Biden, mostly because I actually like his policies. I think he's more of a centrist than other candidates and I believe he's implemented policies that drive for a better union. It's gotten us off of news. It's kept Russia from creating a new order in Europe. There's investments in clean energy. It's enabled investments in our high tech capability for ourselves and around the world.

Sandeep Parikh: 53:45

He's got budgets so past so there's so many things You're picking because you actually like him, not because of what I think those people pick.

Sandeep Parikh: 53:54

But no, not because he's old, no, that's why people are not picking him, I think but because people are just like because he's not Trump and he's the only one that can. You know, he's beaten Trump before, so he'll, and he's just the incumbent at this point. And so how? How are we going to possibly, you know, onboard somebody new that we get excited about enough to be able to beat the Trump machine? So, but it's interesting, you're actually picking Biden because you like Biden. That's weird. What a weird take that's very fast.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:26

I do believe that when you get, if you're healthy and you're 80, you can get to 100. Yeah somehow Warren Buffett still running his company. His partner, charlie Munger, didn't die till he was 99. And he was still going strong all the way to the end.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:42

And I think part of the president is about having is about having a great team and when they whenever I've seen the Biden administration run into any difficulties they've got a well thought through plan for how to execute. And I know if we ever publish this, that'll be hard for a lot of people to accept, because I do read the Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal comments and editorials. But if you looked at it objectively versus other leaders, because of his 40 plus years experience in government, he's able to move at a rate that most people can't because he's seen so much.

Sandeep Parikh: 55:22

That's true. He's a wealth of information. Can he access that information quick enough in his brain?

Rajiv Parikh: 55:27

That's, I guess, the question, so part of the problem is having a great team.

Sandeep Parikh: 55:32

Having a great team, absolutely Having the right culture, right the only downside, I'd say, is the only potential for him to lose.

Rajiv Parikh: 55:38

The big potential for him to lose is if Trump somehow gets excluded from running the election because he's convicted of something and Nikki Haley runs against him and she is a very good debater speaker.

Sandeep Parikh: 55:50

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Here's my bold prediction. It is that Donald Trump something happens with Donald Trump in his convictions and he's disqualified, and then maybe something happens with Joe Biden where he actually has to retire, and it ends up being Kamala. Kamala Aunty versus Nikki Aunty. There's two half-daisy women head to head Aunty versus Aunty.

Rajiv Parikh: 56:20

My prediction is that Aunty will be president. For me it's for my sister. They're my age, so Ben versus Ben, Ben versus Aunty. For me it's Aunty versus Aunty.

Sandeep Parikh: 56:27

I'm just barely on the cusp of Aunty. My big prediction is that an Aunty will be president of the United States after 2024. That would be amazing. One way or the other, I would say okay but what happens if it's?

Rajiv Parikh: 56:45

unfortunately, kamala has gotten, kamala Ben has gotten a lot of negative press undeserved I believe and she and say, for whatever reason Biden can't run and there's still a pseudo-open primary, does Gavin Newsom jump in?

Sandeep Parikh: 57:06

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't answering the question with real sincerity.

Rajiv Parikh: 57:14

But I would love Aunty to know it could be open season.

Sandeep Parikh: 57:20

Who knows what a crazy year it's going to be in that regard. All right, we got to jump to AI, because everybody's AI crazy.

Sandeep Parikh: 57:31

And so let's see here Everybody's making an AI prediction. Ai anchors invade waiting rooms this is from wearedeveloperscom's random website that I found but that generative artificial intelligence is going to create entire personalized movies. It's one of their predictions, and I think this is obviously a huge anxiety. In Hollywood, we always felt like we were the safest ones because we were the creative ones, and it's like well, we'll never be automated out of creativity. That's the thing that you need humans for the most. Now that there's all this fear around AI being able to literally generate scripts or totally impersonate actors, what do you think? What's your AI? How is AI going to most impact us in 2024? What's your prediction?

Rajiv Parikh: 58:54

For my business, AI is crucial because, just like your business and the creative business, we're already doing a lot with AI based messaging. So for us, we use it to ideate. We don't accept it whatever it says straight up, but we use it to ideate. We use it to validate, for data and use it to solve problems. So for the creative side, I can't imagine a great blockbuster movie or a great artistic movie being created primarily via AI. I could see just a run of the mill formulaic movie being done via AI.

Sandeep Parikh: 59:40

It does come up with a lot of jobs. It does come up with amazing ideas.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:47

A lot of garbage. It could do a reality show with. I could see a reality show being created by AI.

Sandeep Parikh: 59:52

I didn't complete the thought here, which is what we developers were talking about the whole thing about the AI anchors invading waiting rooms. Their prediction was that news will be AI generated and the person telling it to you will be fake, tripling or quadrupling down on the authenticity of the news and fake news and views around that it's already in the New York Times.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:20

The New York Times lawsuit against open AI is about copyright violation in that their models were being trained on unauthorized use to the New York Times. The New York Times when it puts out its content, it's for your personal use. It's not for your professional use. They use it professionally. When they said that AI, when they would have chat GPT for turbo produce an article versus a typical New York Times article, they looked almost the same. That's already possible today. In fact, google is talking to various news publishers about their use of AI, using their content to train their AI to produce the content. That is absolutely doable.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:01:00

I could see you write a base article. You write an outline of what you want to get across. The article itself generates itself. You get a bunch of options and you pick. It's an iterative process with you going back and forth. It already is complete for financial articles certain financial business articles when they come out with their 10Ks or their quarterly reports. It could easily be for more insightful articles. I don't believe that's a stretch because I think it's already being done Now. I think the content creator should be paid for it. That's the hard part.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:01:38

Yeah, how do you attribute how much was from their source versus another source and that kind of thing? Yeah, that's going to be challenging. From thefinancialtimescom will the US achieve a soft landing? This is an area that I know very little about. I know you're pretty well versed in financial stuff. It's talking about inflation and consumer spending. What do you think in terms of inflation raising and growth slowing, or the opposite? Will we have a softer landing or a more painful landing?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:02:31

I think a lot of the dye has been cast for that. I think even Biden administration, as part of their running of the economy, did not get in the way of the Fed, not only because it's good policy, but because they realized that whatever pain had to be exerted the year before the election not during the election people make decisions based on where they are at the moment. Where they are at the moment is that inflation is dropping. The indexes that the Fed uses say that we're already at or below 2% in terms of that form of inflation that they look at. The numbers that are reported may be higher, but it's still much lower than they were just a year or two ago.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:16

The supply chain is basically repaired itself. People are back to normal behaviors and how they buy goods and services. Interest rates are high and were high on purpose. It went from what? 0% to 5%. They've already factored in about three rate cuts for next year. That rate cut optimism is already what's propelling the stock market up. It had a nice end of year rise and should continue into the next year. If the Fed is cutting, people will feel confident. They'll start investing. They'll start buying homes again. 70% of the economy is the consumer. Businesses will feel confident about investing. That's not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars that are coming in as a result of the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which was mostly about clean energy and educational and R&D investments. All those things will propel us to have some industries will be impacted by a softer landing than we originally projected. We were supposed to have a recession this year and it didn't happen.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:04:28

I think next year it's likely to not happen.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:04:32

Interesting. You're going against the financial times, which is predicting that a rougher landing, essentially, and that it will probably become more painful. Here's what they're saying. Since consumer spending remains robust and wage growth fairly well contained, a soft landing could continue for several months, but don't bet on it lasting through to 2024. There'll be less fiscal support as COVID-era handouts to households have been consumed, higher interest rates are sparking bankruptcies, us debt worries are rising and geopolitical stresses are fracturing global trade, which could raise inflation and slow growth. Let's see. I'm voting for what you said. I like your words better.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:05:22

I think we've already experienced a set of rolling mini recessions across many industries. Tech was hit first and they've rolled themselves out. I know those in the FinTech field have started spending again. There's just so many areas that are spending. Home housing was impacted. If interest rates start dropping, people start refinancing. People start selling their homes. There's a lot of folks not selling their homes because they're at 2% or 3% interest rates. They'll start selling once interest rates start dropping.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:05:54

All right, love it. I'm under a train. We'll see. It's Perique versus the Financial Times. We'll see.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:03

I think Goldman does believe it will not be a recession. I got the super smart people by me Nice.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:06:14

Last one, speaking of super smart, or at least famous, people, the most famous predictor of all times, nostradamus, has predictions for 2024. I'm going to tell you what this is, nostradamus. I'll just say this they're not rosy, they're not soft landing predictions. Apparently, there's a couple of quad trains about 2024. I didn't know this until I researched this. Now he has all these quad trains about the year after year.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:54

He just picked up 2024 as one of his quad trains. I love it.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:06:57

At first, the way I read it was like wait, did he pass down the Nostradamus? Is there still a Nostradamus making predictions today? It's just a title that's passed down, but then no, I guess this is actual quad trains that are written into his notes or something that they read after years. Okay, all right, here we go. Do you agree or not? He says the red adversary will become pale with fear, putting the great ocean in dread Is that China and Russia basically.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:07:33

That's what they're saying. That's what they're saying Exactly. People are extrapolating that to mean that China and Russia and apparently that our relationships will become more fraught, that there's more potential opportunity for a greater war, the whole putting the great ocean in dread, meaning that, oh, is this going to have such a global effect on our climate in some way? Nuclear weapons?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:09

Yeah, I guess I guess the Nostradamus knew about them too.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:08:14

Well, what do you think about China and Russia and global relations? What's your prediction? I think head to head Ruggie versus Nostradamus.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:24

Yeah, good luck with this one. I believe most of these prognosticators are full of shit, so that's just in general. I've spent my life getting sucked into and then learning whether it's astrology or elite wave or all this, those who do technical trading on Wall Street. I think they're just dealing in fake numbers, in fake waves, so anyways.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:52

I mean I just think in general that China and the US are learning how to adjust to each other. China has a demographic problem, has a real estate issue, but is a very dynamic economy, dynamic people. It's not just one monolithic leader, like sometimes we want it to be, and the US and China are dependent on each other. China is still the greatest manufacturing power in the world. The US is one of the greatest IP destinations and services entities in the world in terms of consuming. All this and the countries as they grow will find a way to work together, so that's already happening. You hear about increasing contacts between Biden and Xi's administration, so that's less likely to go badly. But you never know if China gets really. If they see an issue with their economy and they need a distraction, then Taiwan is a ready distraction Russia, but whether they actually wanna go to war as a country, they have not. The US has gone to war much more than China Much more than China.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:10:01

So let's see. Russia is obviously has placed their bet, and they are having a difficult time of it. They are projecting strength when they are dramatically weakened, and you've seen that they have depleted a lot of their most sophisticated weapons in a war against a much weaker power on paper, and so the hopeful thought is they come up with an accommodation across the stalemate. It could go badly. I'm more confident that right now, oil prices are what $70 a barrel Supposed to be a hundred, supposed to be a hundred.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:10:45

Supposed to be a hundred and fifty.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:10:46

It's actually. Gas prices in California are four bucks a gallon Around the US. It's in the threes, so it's not what it was supposed to be. It's not at the five or sixes, so somehow the world has found a way to manage through it. I did notice that.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:10:58

I did notice my yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's what it's well-forbidant to.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:11:02

Gas prices are actually down this year since the beginning of the year, and that's the thing people notice, and so I believe that the collective powers that wanna keep the world stable will find a way to create an accommodation.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:11:16

To do it. Yeah, I hope so. Here's another one of his quaterins that he predicts the dry earth will grow more parched and there'll be great floods when in a scene so obviously everyone is going climate, climate, climate, and you know they probably should be. So he's not predicting great things for climate and war for 2024. I don't know if you do you any any client climate hope from you for 2024? Are we gonna find more?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:11:46

efficient ways to.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:11:48

So I read something just the other day about how I wish I could reference it later how we were, the way things were going. We were originally gonna deal with a four degree centigrade rise and because of all the collective action by the world and eventually, that now we're looking at more like two and a half to three. Still very bad, but it's progress, and with the US taking leadership, europe's continued leadership, and even China actually has 40% of the cars that they sell today are electric cars. So there is it's now less expensive to deploy solar and wind. Then it is for fossil fuels, coal, especially coal. That's the amazing part, and so if now it's actually just not subsidy, it's actually becoming economic, and so that pretends, for that enables great hope. The other part that we don't talk about is that companies, a lot of large companies, like the big digital ones that we know of, like Amazon, apple and Google, have dedicated. Basically they have zero carbon initiatives. They're gonna go to zero carbon in what they do, to either offsets or really they're gonna really do it.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:13:16

They are on that track. Today. They're actually. They have dramatically decreased, and this is due to pressure. This is the part that's really cool. This is due to pressure from their consumers, more so the government pressure, and that's the interesting point that people want it and they see it in their interest to do it, and that creates a great force amongst itself 11.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:13:43

All right, well, this is why.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:13:45

I love hanging out with my brother. I tend to be more optimistic than most people. Yeah, I know.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:13:49

This is why I love hanging out with my brother, because I hear a lot of gloom and doom, I read a lot of gloom and doom and then eventually I start asking my brother questions and you find a way to make me feel somewhat hopeful about stuff. I guess I don't do all the source checking to see if you're accurate, but it does. I walk away going well, my brother thinks it's gonna be all right, so I think we can live to fight another day. Yeah, we're gonna close out here. But the last thing that Nostradamus predicted is apparently some of his quatrain's reference Prince Harry taking over Charles III as king. And my prediction on that is who cares? I don't care. I literally don't care about the monarchy I never have. I can't wait to wait. Don't stop caring about that. But okay, I think it's great.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:14:43

By the way, I think it's great, of course, here we go you got an optimistic take on the British monarchy. I think it's great Every country needs a reason for being and for the British beyond an immense impact on global history.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:14:57

Whatever you believe about it, they have a cultural touchstone of their monarchy and it's interesting and look a lot of the American democracy right From 1635, Magna Carta comes from English-derived law and the way precedent runs and the way the people run things, even in the face of a constitutional monarch, that eventually became totally people run so a lot of great. There's a lot of, of course, tough history, but there's also some great things for them.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:15:31

To put it mildly, and every country needs a reason for being.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:15:34

Everyone needs a purpose when we run our teams. We need a purpose, not just making money, and so they have that purpose and that's kind of cool. Yeah, I could care less about it. I don't watch any of the monarch shows.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:15:47

I find that is quite some spin.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:15:49

I tend to no offense to some of my friends.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:15:53

I'm not a big fan of those who inherit their way to anything, so yeah, exactly, but still you found a way to put a positive spin on the monarchy. So well done. This is a pleasure.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:16:04

Always fun. Love hanging out with my brother.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:16:06

Thank you so much for listening to this very special Ask my Brother Anything? Edition of the Spark of Ages podcast. I had a blast. I hope you did too. Why don't you take that little moment there to hit the likes and the subscribes and drop us a comment? I'd love to hear your predictions on Nostradamus' predictions or the Financial Times or our predictions. What do you think? Where are we headed in 2024? Let's get love to hear your insight on that Challenge us.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:16:34

We probably will, we'll probably respond and please just press that like button. We will like this button the plus like button yeah yeah, yeah, even if you don't like it, just press it.

Sandeep Parikh: 1:16:45

You gotta like it, All those things, and then join us, for we're releasing biweekly. You can hit us up at the spark, at sparkofagespodcastcom, and also Apple Spotify Stitcher all those places. Youtube YouTube if you've heard of it, and it's a place that has podcasts. We're on it, so thank you so much for listening. In 2023, as we started our first year doing this, and now, as we grow into 2024, hope we can count on you as being part of the team.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:17:22

Whoever? Do that we would ever do a broadcast. So we ever curious and listen to more and give us some ideas. Dance mad'.