#105: Reinvention in the Age of AI: When Identity holds you Back

Speaker A: Welcome to Stepsero. Modern work is a lot. Let's take it one conversation at a time. My guest today is Niki Barua, serial entrepreneur, best selling author, keynote speaker and co founder of flipwork. In this episode we talk about why identity is the number one blocker to reinvention. What it means to find your zone of genius alongside AI, why there is no such thing as a safe career anymore and more. Let's get into it. Niki, welcome to Stepsero. Thank you so much for making the time, Matteo.

Speaker B: I've been so looking forward to our conversation. It's been great to get to know you and uh, I'm excited about this conversation today.

Speaker A: Niki, you're impressive. You're, ah, a transformational leader. You're the CEO of uh, flipwork, you're an author, you're a serial entrepreneur. And not just that. I just told you prior to the recording, you're everywhere on YouTube. So I looked you up these days and I thought, oh my God. So the next 15, 20 minutes will be for the, I think three to five people who don't know you yet. Look, you, you are quite the AI expert, you know, especially with Flipwork, you address a gap between technology growing faster than people evolve. And essentially you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, we tend to optimize processes, we fuel these technological progression. I mean, see AI these days, but we tend to forget people, people are often left behind. And this is something that I know you deeply care about and I know that it uh, essentially lies at the foundation of what you do at flipwork. Can I start by asking you, is the goal ultimately to narrow that gap down or to prevent it from growing further?

Speaker B: That's a great question. At my core, I truly believe that human beings have limitless potential. I think for me that's the starting point of everything I've ever done in my life or my career. I genuinely believe we have limitless potential. But there's things that prevent that potential from being unlocked. And what excites me about AI is that it is the key to unlocking that limitless potential. If you are able to figure out how humans and machines can collaborate and co evolve, that's what makes people exponentially capable. But that's not going to happen if either people avoid AI, they're afraid of AI, or they're using it in a superficial way, or AI starts to replace the things that humans have traditionally done and we haven't figured out how to operate in an entirely new way. So this whole idea of co Evolution is really what flip work is about and what our mission is. Because if you figure out the right way to amplify what makes us uniquely human and let go of the things that machines will always do better than us, then you can kind of create this, you know, sort of what I call, you know, people become people squared. That's what amplifies us. That is the limitless potential getting unlocked. And once that happens, imagine having the creativity and the wisdom of human minds combined with the agentic scale of machines. You can solve any problem. All of the things that society has been challenged by curing diseases, taking care of the planet, or education and healthcare and employment, all of those problems can be solved if we figure out the right way to co evolve and operate with AI as our partner. And that's really what I'm on a mission to achieve.

Speaker A: Which leads me to a topic that I know is very dear to you, and you are a true expert at that, which is reinvention, right? I mean, your position on AI is quite clear. You say AI is this amplifier of human potential, but you yourself, you have quite the reinvention story. You came to the us, you went from corporate to being an entrepreneur, and among many other things, you, you are big on, I'd say, agency ownership, accountability essentially. You don't really strike me as someone who's just waiting for life to happen. May I ask you, along this reinvention process and, uh, I know you help people and companies with that. Was it more difficult for you to say, add new skills, new tools to your arsenal, or unlearn what got you to that point?

Speaker B: So reinvention requires many different things to fall into place. You know, that process. And for me it was sort of coming from personal experience because I've had to reinvent myself so many times. Most of those times were because the environment forced it. For example, as an immigrant, you go to a new place, you're forced to reinvent. You don't have the luxury of holding onto your past self. You know, previous habits, mindsets, values. All of those things have to shift to adapt to a new environment. Sometimes it happens because of circumstances. For example, you lose your job, you have to reinvent to find new ways to make a living. Right? All of those things happen to people. And for the most part, we look for external catalyst to force that reinvention. What I believe the future requires is to have an internal catalyst to choose that reinvention instead of waiting for it to happen to you. And for that reinvention to be possible, yes, you need New skillset. Yes, you need new mindset. Yes, you need new habits. Yes, you need new environment. But the most important blocker that I found over and over again in working with thousands of people worldwide, across different industries, different career stages, is that the number one blocker is your identity. We hold onto our identity because it gives us our sense of self, our sense of worth, you know, it gives us our confidence and credentializes us. It's a source of power. If you've made it to a certain point in your career and you have this big title and people recognize you and respect you because of, you know, that identity, it's very hard to let it go because you kind of feel naked after that. You feel exposed. Who am I without that identity? And so what is the natural thing you're going to do? You're going to hold onto it, because it is the thing that gives you significance. And that is the number one bottleneck in reinventing. Unless you shed that identity, unless you're willing to unlearn everything that came with that identity, you can step into that next version of yourself. And that's what makes reinvention in the AI age so challenging, because it's affecting people that are at senior stages of their career. They're highly experienced, they have the power and status and hierarchy, all of those things. Unfortunately, that's what you got to let go. And you have to step into this beginner's mindset and be willing to walk into uncertainty and be uncomfortable and figure out who do you need to become alongside AI and what does that look like? And that's that what that reinvention process entails.

Speaker A: Let's talk about if you're, if you're okay with that, with, you know, about people who actually pass me. Pass me the term. Haven't had the chance to build a strong identity at, uh, work yet. So I know you work, you work with large companies. You, you mentioned in one of the most recent podcasts that you want to make elephants run, which was, which was really cool. There is, however, a cluster of people specifically that I think would find your thoughts, your advice, your experience extremely valuable. And these are the more junior professionals or people who are early in their career stage, or maybe even the ones who are fresh out of studies, fresh out of school. Now, I guess my question is, if you were at an early stage in your career, now, knowing what you know, is there anything you would double down on?

Speaker B: Yes. First of all, when we look at all of the projections, early career is one of the most impacted, because there's a lot of jobs at that first stage, that first rung of your career that are disappearing. That doesn't mean nobody's hiring young graduates. It just means that the traditional job definition of starting your career with grunt work, that's going away because AI can do that grunt work. I remember when I was starting out, uh, right out of business school, in my very first job, it was a ton of grunt work. It was all nighters. It was all of those kind of things. And today, when I look back at all the work that I'd done back then, I can do it in minutes that I spent weeks doing. So obviously those kind of opportunities are gone. But that's a good thing. The good news is that the new kind of opportunities that are emerging are tapping into your creativity or, you know, drive, your willingness to innovate, and all of those along with your AI fluency. So as long as you're making yourself AI fluent and you're, in fact, you know, the advantage that someone, um, who's starting out has is that they're naturally more bound to be AI native compared to someone who has 30 years of experience. So you're starting out, you know, very digitally savvy. You're an AI native, you know, expert. Now tap into what makes you uniquely human. What is your zone of genius? Are you someone who's great with relationships? Are you someone who's great pattern recognition? Are you creative? Are you someone that is great at storytelling? Whatever those qualities and natural abilities you have, that is your zone of genius. People kind of figure that out even in high school. Like, you kind of have a sense of what that is. Hone in and double down on that. But really figure out how can you now amplify that alongside AI Instead of avoiding AI in that context of competing with humans? Think about how does that play out when you combine it all together? And then how does that create exponential value? Even in your very first job? Don't wait for permission from the company or from your manager or your boss about how to create value. Think about how you can take ownership and create value in your zone of genius with AI. And when you can do that, that gives you such a huge advantage to skip all those, like, long years of tedious grunt work. And you can actually advance much faster in your career. So I think that's the good news, is that people can advance a faster than what my generation did. You don't have to pay that grunt work tax anymore. You can actually advance if you play it right. But also the most important thing rule to keep in mind, don't look for safety. The worst advice any parent can give their child graduating right now is to look for a safe career. There's no such thing as a safe career anymore. That was true in the industrial era. Today it's about getting a portfolio of experiences where it all allows you to shine and demonstrate what is the value that you can create and allow yourself to go through that journey instead of looking for a linear career ladder that you're climbing one step at a time.

Speaker A: Nick, you made me think of one thing. I love the idea of ikigai. You know, this Japanese concept of stands for a reason of being. And essentially you look at the overlap of these four questions. What is it that I love? What am I good at? What can I be paid for? And what does the world need? Do you think there is a specific question that, uh, people who are early in their career stage or just left school should seek an answer to?

Speaker B: I think it's the journey to discovering your ikigai that should take a priority because it's not often that you know in your. When before you've had your first job. If you're just graduating, you may have a sense of what your natural talents are, um, but you don't necessarily have answers to all those other parts of the hickey guy, right? What, what will the world pay me for? What is the huge need? And matching that to where my zone of genius is. For example, you may be someone who's just naturally great at storytelling, but you don't know if that translates into becoming a Hollywood writer. Does it turn you into a public speaker and corporate? Does it turn you into an author? There's many different applications of that same natural talent. And the only way to find where you find that natural fit and where that icky guy emerges and is to expose yourself to a lot of different things and get experience in it. So don't be afraid to try out a lot of things and then you'll know when it just clicks. And that was something I'm very grateful I did. In my early career years, I was always very right brain, left brain. And at first I used to envy people that just had the super linear trajectory where they were good at one thing. They chose an industry, they chose a, uh, function, and they just stayed with it for 30 years. Meanwhile, I had this crazy checkered experience. I was all over the place. But today, that's what gives me an advantage because I can connect dots across so many intersectional areas and I can see patterns that other people miss. But Most importantly, I know my ikigai. I know exactly where I belong. And I wouldn't have discovered it had I not tried out a lot of things.

Speaker A: What do you think is the role of education in all of this?

Speaker B: I think it needs to evolve. First of all, I think the traditional role of education was about preparing people to step into a productive career, careers that they can contribute to society and make a living off of it. Today, the role of education, beyond imparting knowledge of specific areas, more importantly needs to be about teaching people how to think and how to deal with uncertainty. It's the resiliency and the, uh, creativity unlock that needs to happen during the academic experience. Because in the absence of that, you can graduate with a degree in engineering or in business or whatever, but you're not really prepared to navigate the reality of such a disruptive environment because you're going to keep looking for the straight path that has ceased to exist.

Speaker A: Do you think there is right now any specific university degree path that people should be chasing or. That's not exactly the question that people should be asking themselves.

Speaker B: I think what would be most valuable is figuring out where you can get the right experience that allows you to test yourself in a real environment. If that happens in the right kind of university environment, great. Because in certain scientific fields that is necessary. Right? You're not going to get that opportunity just directly in a, uh, corporate environment. But find out what it is that drives you. And I think now more than ever before. There was a time, you know, uh, in previous generations where the idea of just making a living and being responsible for your family was the primary driver. And people chose to do things that got them a paycheck and got them stability that allowed them to pay their bills. Today, that would be a terrible way to live because there is no certainty, especially if you're doing things that don't fill you, uh, know, that don't set your soul on fire and don't light you up. That's a terrible waste of a life. So the most important thing you can do is really that inner work. What is it that lights you up? What is it that you were put on this earth for? What is it that you are uniquely gifted at? What is it that you want to create in this world and who do you want to serve? And once you explore that, find the environments, whether academic or corporate or entrepreneurial, where you can get that exposure and apply it. Because it's only when you take action and apply it that it starts to make sense and starts to become real.

Speaker A: Look we have a couple of minutes left, but I'm trying to avoid jumping into. Into the final question. There is one thing I really would love your opinion on. So when I was very early into my career, one of the, I assume, most senior people in the company took me on the side and told me that networking was one back then, by far the most important skill. And it stuck with me. How important is it, you think, to build alliances today along your. Your progression, your journey, your. Your evolution?

Speaker B: So it's interesting because I got the. When I was starting out in my career, and I never followed it, and here's why. Um, I am a painfully shy introvert. So something like the idea of networking and going to conferences and events and exchanging business cards and asking people to do coffee chats, it just feels superficial to me, and it drains my energy. Just don't like it. I've never done it, and I will never do it. What I believe in is friendships. I believe in building real connections with real people. And that has served me well because I don't need to know a million people in my Rolodex. I don't need to have, you know, thousands of followers. What I need is people that, you know, see me for who I am, who I see for who they are, and there's a natural alliance and connection, and we just help each other. That's it. So to answer your question, today more than ever, authentic relationships matter because we are so cognitively overloaded with everything digital and all of the intelligence that exists in this world that we're. We're high on intelligence and low on wisdom, and wisdom can only come from real relationships and real friendships. So let go of the idea of networking and building alliances, and just focus on being yourself and meeting people who you naturally connect with, and the opportunities will emerge from that final question.

Speaker A: Nikki, and thank you so much for. For all these incredible answers. You've made a few references in the past, and I've seen it along a few podcasts and videos. Like I said, you're everywhere. So you use video games sometimes as an analogy for life, right? Um, you say we go through different levels. You get stronger, you get better, you level up. I wonder, what level are you at right now? And, um, who's the final boss? And what is your weapon of choice?

Speaker B: Um. Um. So, first of all, just as I believe that human beings have limitless potential, I believe life gives you limitless levels. There's. There's no final level you can achieve. You can climb endless levels, but you do have a timer. Uh, that's your lifespan. So if I'm, um, fortunate enough to live until I'm 80 or 90 years old, I'm still gonna be aspiring to higher levels, not competing against anyone else, but simply getting better than my previous level, building that skill, the mindset, the confidence. Because every level that you climb equips you with more that you can give to other people. The purpose of climbing those levels isn't about accumulating things for yourself. The purpose of climbing those levels is gaining a perspective and gaining the skills and talents that allows you to serve more people in more ways and from a higher caliber. And to me, that's an endless quest, and that's simply what I'm going to continue doing. So I'm not measuring where I'm at. I just know that there's many, many more levels for me to climb and, uh, and big mission that inspires me to do it every day.

Speaker A: Nick, you're fantastic. I will do whatever I can to bring you back on the podcast in the future, but until then, thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.