164: Angeliki Galanopoulou - The Millennial Career Reckoning: Adaptability and Agency in the Age of AI

Speaker A: Welcome to Transforming Work with Sophie Wade. Exploring the future of work. Find out what's going on, disruptions, evolutions, opportunities, challenges and interventions in our multi generational distributed organizations. With the new tech and talent focus, discover what you need to know to stay upskilled and relevant and ensure your business keeps its competitive edge. Sofi investigates the promise and reality of the future of work now. And as we look ahead, she interviews people who are changing work experiences and practices and shares how we can each transition smoothly and successfully to effective and more productive new ways of working.

Speaker B: Hi.

Speaker C: Uh, this episode is about the adaptability and agency we need as AI transforms our job opportunities and careers, and how millennials, as a result, are rethinking what comes next. I'm delighted to be discussing these issues with Angeliki Galanopoulou, founder and host of the new podcast the Adaptive Times. She's also taking a career break after more than seven years at Google. Hi, Angeliki, how are you?

Speaker B: Hi, Sophie.

Speaker C: I'm good.

Speaker B: I'm very well.

Speaker C: Excellent. And you're coming from Greece right now, which is fantastic.

Speaker B: I'm normally based in London, but I'm spending summer, ah, in my home country and my hometown in Athens.

Speaker C: In you started off, you studied economics.

Speaker B: Why that economics? I studied a specific part of economics, which is management science and technology in the economic Business Business, uh, School of Athens. And that was a very simple reason why? Because I didn't know what I want to do, uh, when I was 17 and that was the most generic technology base, which I thought it was the future back then to pick. And then I was like, management science, okay. It has to do with M. Business management and then technology because it's about how do you use technology to accelerate operations and applications. So it's a very practical degree. And back then it was the only one that actually had a whole major around E commerce, around using algorithms and tech in business operations and how you can transform the way you do things.

Speaker C: So you're already like tech focused. You're kind of like, this is the future. So then you go after, after your degree, you go into marketing. Why was that the one that you picked on after in all of these sort of span of things that you could do after a degree like that?

Speaker B: If I remember correctly, there were two things. One is that I was particularly fascinated by digital marketing because during my years in uni, I was using Google extensively. And uh, I was thinking it's amazing that you're going to ask something and the information comes to you. So, uh, I want to do something with the Internet now, I wasn't a software engineer, I wasn't coder, statician, data scientist, whatever. So what is the easiest way to get into it is marketing. And on the flip side of that, the reason I like marketing, it's always because it has to do with decisions consumers make. And I'm very fascinated by how our brain as people works in whatever aspect. Yes. So that was what kind of brought together the digital space with a human space.

Speaker C: So you do some marketing and that actually brings you to Google. And whilst you're at Google and you're working a lot with customers, helping upskill customers, and then you actually start sort of helping with careers and upskilling employees, you know, fellow employees. How did that evolution happen in terms of how you were focused on sort of helping customers in their evolution and then how did that transition to actually focus internally?

Speaker B: When I joined Google, interestingly, I went with a hat of I know the products, I know digital marketing, I know what the customers do. Right. But the hat that I had to learn and put on was the sales and client relationship hat that I never wore before. So the way I was taught sales, it's a very structured way of do this, first, then do this, then do that, then do that, which I started doing. That's how I learned. And then a couple of years into that, um, I realized that because I had this fascination of how brain works. And I went and studied my own coaching degree for my own curiosity, not to become a coach, but to understand better how our brain works and what are the hidden things we think, how we ask better questions. And I started bringing that into my work and I realized that when I deviate from how you should do sales and I actually focus on the person which is understanding their objections, understanding what they're scared of, understanding what it drives them, their personal goals, beyond just what the business has based on the goal.

Speaker C: Empathy. You're speaking my language.

Speaker B: Exactly. I can get so many more results done that actually we need to rethink how we approach sales, which is just a cold process, but at the end of the day, it's about convincing and influencing people. Right. And being fun to work with and bringing the energy at work and creating a relationship and being memorable. And so that was the first point that I started switching more to internal upskilling when it comes to soft skills at Google. And then it was also around the time the pandemic and after the pandemic that I went through a burnout personally. So I had to completely rethink my priorities, my boundaries, How I say no. So I started also bringing the element of how do you start from knowing who you are, what are your limits? What are your strengths? What do you do?

Speaker C: So this is pre. Okay, so this was during the pandemic, pre AI, you were just, okay, just burned out. All right.

Speaker B: These are the two things that kind of came at a similar time. My realization because of my coaching hat and then my own burnout that I had to rethink. Look internally. And those things came into, okay, how do we upskill ourselves? Whether it's the mindset, whether it's the practical thing, whether it's the soft skills, or whether we completely, uh, change how we approach client relationship and sales. Because the impact can be bigger when you connect on a human level having

Speaker C: these difficult moments that one learns from. You know what, what were the things that you then had learned and then put in place?

Speaker B: So one thing that was quite an aha moment for me, I was going in an extreme pace. And the pace never stops here either now, right? It's even more now because you actually need to learn new things every day and keep up with tech. But it was the pace that was going to just be the best, the highest performer, best at my job. Proof, proof, proof. I'm at Google now, imposter syndrome, and before Google, trying to make it to Google and all of this pace for like almost 10 years by that point. And that is not sustainable. I hadn't stopped to actually think, do I still want it? Is that exactly the setup of my life that I still want? And my burnout? Funnily enough, that was the big aha moment, was not because of the workload. I enjoyed my job. It was because of all of the other parts of my life where I just wanted to be everywhere and everything from social interactions to my hobbies, to excel at everything. So what I had to learn is looking inside, understanding what gives me energy, what doesn't give me energy. I discovered an amazing calendar energy exercise back then, which I keep sharing since with my colleagues, my friends or outside, I'm happy to share. I realized that majority of the stuff that I do the way I did them were red 8% of my week. So it was inevitable that I wouldn't keep up with pace. So what I started changing is how I do things at work. So the projects that I do, it doesn't necessarily mean changing the work, but it's how you do it. If I enjoy more social interaction and people, how can I bring more team interactions, team collaboration, extra version instead of operations and admin stuff, shifting your emphasis

Speaker C: and your focus and also recognizing that that's what you enjoy when you're actually doing it.

Speaker B: So the first is self awareness, the second is optimizing and do something about it. Yes, exactly the thing I want to leave. It's not just the workload. Burnout can come from anything that just depletes you and you feel it's not aligned. And you haven't stopped and asked if I actually want to do this and I enjoy it.

Speaker C: And then you had a moment, a personal situation that was very difficult. I myself have been through, um, you know, more than a couple of those, including um, you know, my parents who passed away. And I know that, you know, your father became ill and that really changed things for you. We all go through some very difficult moments, whatever it may be related to. Personally, if you might share some elements of that and what that then caused you to look at in a different way.

Speaker B: I did a podcast episode on my podcast on grief and I was trying to find the answer from a grief specialist on how to prepare for grief. But you can actually cannot prepare for grief until it happens. No one prepares you for that. You cannot hack the system. And unfortunately, yeah, and unfortunately a lot of the times you need to have a, um. And you, you know, that probably like a. An extreme situation where it makes you calibrate things and rethink things. And for me, the biggest impact that losing my dad last year and grief had for me was one. If I thought I was burned out, that was nothing compared to the survival mode I just went into while the process was going. And I'm thankful I had gone through burnout because when I realized I'm in that survival mode, I could very easily shut down things that would deplete me even more because I already had this awareness from the previous burnout. Which means that during survival mode I just focus on the emotions that I had. Family time, staying with it, feeling it, not closing the door, going to work and avoiding. And thankfully I was at a company, Google, that could allow me the space and time. Right. I feel very fortunate. The second thing that Griff has for me, it was that kind of tipping point of a silent, ah, curiosity I had going for years, which was, is that it? Is that enough? What do I want next? And that shock because my dad was perfectly young, fine, and it just happened out of nowhere. It was three months that terminally ill and then we lost it.

Speaker C: I'm so sorry.

Speaker B: And then. Thank you. And then the tipping point was, okay, if I wake up tomorrow and I don't have my health and something happens like this, Is that how I want to spend my days? Or will I look back and have some regrets of what choices did I make? And not necessarily regret of the choices I made, but regrets for the things I didn't do because I was scared or because I was not that curious, or because I was comfortable. And that was a feeling that I couldn't shake off. And I still don't know what, what form is going to. Is going to take. But it was. It was a tipping point that I started questioning whether the setup that I have with a corporate job is what I want. That was the first question.

Speaker C: So at this point, then, um, still grieving. Um, it's a long process, um, and it comes and goes. It hits you at moments that you couldn't imagine. Um, and it does also create this, I find this realization of what to focus on or compels you to think things over differently. You're thinking things over not just for you, but for so many people in your position. When we met, we were talking about the fact that, um, AI itself has generated a lot of disruption, and that is causing a lot of people to be thinking, particularly in the millennial generation who have responsibilities and mortgages and families. Um, and yet there's insecurities, incredible amount of change. So there's a lot of disruption, which is therefore elevating for everybody. The consideration, the rethinking, like reimagining. What is it that I want to do? Am I doing the right thing? So this has propelled you to a certain point. How are you now thinking about that for yourself and more broadly about, you know, it's generated this new podcast, the Adaptive Times. How are you thinking now about what everybody is going through and how you can show up differently or need to show up differently. And obviously you're trying to help other people do this, you know, go through some of that same thinking process.

Speaker B: The concept of work as we know it, which was, you're going to be in a company, you're going to be there for 20, 30, 40 years. That in big tech companies, by the way, it still exists to a point. A lot of people are 20 years there or plus, it doesn't exist. And not because everyone's going to lay off or no one's going to have a job. I'm an optimist. I don't think that we might go through some waves, but I think eventually societal, there's going to be a correction. Anyway, that's a whole different point. But the safety doesn't really exist, the job safety. Which means that it's on us selfishly and personally to arm ourselves and do what we can to stay relevant and be on top and succeed and thrive in the rest of our careers as millennials. Because we do still have 30 years in the job market right now. What that looks for each one is very different. Now the first one is that uh, when I was in uh, in corporate, eight of 10 people that I was doing the upscaler or coaching or anything, they were feeling stuck and they had this feeling of something else is out there, especially the last two years. But only one of those eight would actually leave. So living is not for everyone, right? But even if you stay in corporate, which is very good and safe and secure and stable in that sense, um, it's your responsibility to keep up with AI for two reasons. Either to be super up to date, relevant and always top of mind, uh, when it comes to doing your job more effectively and performing highly. Second, to actually improve your own well being. Because how can you cut time with the things you do to maybe work less and still produce the same amount if you can? The flip side is the people that they leave, the reason people leave is because of AI. The barrier to entry in anything you want to build is minimal. Anyone can build and launch anything with almost minimal cost except for your tokens. So really if you have this nudge gut feeling like I had, which is what if I was doing that? What if I was doing my own thing? What is out there? You can do it more easily than ever. So it's not one evil versus the other. But in any case it's AI has accelerated the doing your own thing solopreneur move. Or if you're staying in corporate, it's a very, very high pace. You need to keep up and you need to be responsible and don't wait anyone to pick you up from a hunt.

Speaker C: Is that still a lingering feeling that a corporate job is safe for many people, maybe more Gen Zs than um, millennials, that there isn't much safety, much feeling of safety in corporate jobs. There's also the sort of disorientation that I find. There was an interesting article um, about software engineers feeling disoriented because their roles are changing so much. And it's much more about oversight than actually doing. They were becoming like service drones rather than actually doing satisfying deep coding work. Friends of yours in other industries and other sectors and other types of tech based companies, how are they um, adjusting to these new dynamics just in terms of how they're doing their daily work, but also considering some of these options about do I stay, do I try and move within the organization to a different area because that might be safer or um, build my side hustle, for example.

Speaker B: Funny story, majority of the people don't actually spend so much time upskilling themselves with AI. So if I think when I was at Google that you had to rely on individuals that would just want to be champions and just wanted to play in their own free time and then show us how things were done. It was very peers driven and I know the same goes in other companies. Okay. So it's on the individuals and thinking of me because you always run behind something and you don't have time. That's the classic excuse, I don't have time. So I use it as a chat based or whatever. I use it. So I think I use it. But I think it's a very small talking with my peers and everything. I think it's a very small percentage that actually in their core job have agents or full workflow automation have really, really freed up time or accelerate 10x their performance.

Speaker C: Right. And done the work that we design that is necessary to do that. You and I talked about that and it was really interesting to me that because potentially working at Google you knew enough that you weren't so comfortable or weren't so uh, clued into kind of like how to break down your task. But then you knew to actually ask Gemini to help you break it down by watching what you did. So I'm uh, just curious for a second, just because work design is so important, how did that work design actually help you? It was on you. You took it on board and you went with it. And then how did that actually change your workload and what you manage to achieve on a daily basis?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I fell very often into the trap of I don't have time as well. Two things on taking the responsibility on yourself, I think one is treat it as, you know how you would factor out time to go to a certificate course or whatever and take two days study leaves and that's okay. And that's acceptable because you go and study a course. Why don't we do that into just upskilling ourselves? And I say that because the biggest for me change in how I use it in my work, it's actually after I left Google that I had all of the time and I sat down, heads down, two weeks and then I realized, okay, now I get it now. If I was going back, I would do so much more in my day, work.

Speaker C: Okay, so it actually took you leaving Google to take that time. Oh wow. Oh my goodness. That's very interesting.

Speaker B: So while I was at work I was doing some basic stuff like email automations research, being more prepared for clients. What I now consider basic.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, three months later, you know, it's not even that time ago. So the upscaling is really on your hand and you don't need anyone to drag you. It's uh, just spending the time. So treat it like you were going for a mini MBA course and you by default need to take the time off. That's the only way I can think of because I don't think uh, how you say, work design. I don't think anyone will actually spend the time, any, you know, company to just take you from the hand. And even if you take you from the hand for webinars or workshops, you still have to do it on your own.

Speaker C: What we're talking about with AI is in order to embed it, we need it. It's AI Enhanced digital transformation. Digital transformation does not happen without work to redesign. It just does not. It can't. So it's going to be pretty messy Data saying that they laid off some people because of AI and then they realized they didn't have the key skills that they needed and they didn't think about how to redeploy people in different areas. Uh, some of your friends, whether at Google or elsewhere, are ah, they trying to move elsewhere, uh, within the organization to try and use their skills differently as they're trying to reimagine what they want to do. I mean let's go to this career piece of it. If they, if they're not satisfied where they are or they're finding, you know, this is burning me out or this is, you know, I'm now having this moment to try and work out what it is that I want to do. Are uh, they able to do that?

Speaker B: So the most common moves that I see, whether it's planning them or actually have done them, it's people either moving closer to tech, as in like product roles, closer to engineering, but not engineering if you're not an engineer obviously, but closer to uh, how do we train and form the models and how do the services that we use take into consideration policies, ethics and everything. And you have more of a saying and control and impact. So how can you bring your business knowledge into how the tech product is shaped? That's one move there is because you're closer to AI and the tech as a non Coder. Right. The other move that I see is towards client facing, sales type roles because the closer you are to revenue and the numerical target impact you have, the safer you are. Because at the end of the day we all want to connect and speak with a human. So to take this path you need to build your communication skills and influence skills, which is a whole other point I think we should all be building. The third move. Let me go into that. The third move, it's actually building a side hustle. Whatever they had on their mind, you just build it while you have the stable income. So I like to talk about corporate, not necessarily as safe, but as stable.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Because when you're a solopreneur, that's not stable unless you're at a very mature stage. Um, and for software engineers, I had this discussion, my partner is a software engineer and the last few weeks has been thinking about will I have a job in five years? And I'm like, I think you need to really sharpen your communication skills, start connecting tech with business and go into the more architect language. Because someone we need to ask the AI what to do when, what to write, even if it's not the actual code. So there is a pattern on human skills.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And to that point we've discussed this in terms of this being very much about the mindset. There's the self awareness and the so why am I here? What's in it for me? You have called that selfish. That does have a negative connotation. There needs to be a balance in terms of what business needs, but also personal needs that make sense and they're aligned with what they're doing and therefore they also know, need to know for themselves. How do you see that evolving and this change in mindset or more emphasis on these decisions that you are now helping with.

Speaker B: So the buzzword is adaptability. We should all be adaptable. That's the skill we should all build. But what does this mean in practice? Uh, that's a harder one to answer. The easiest way to explain adaptability and the mindset impact that we need M2 things. One is be very comfortable saying I don't know because you want. Because there is something new every day and we don't know. You literally don't know. Uh, you cannot play expert, you can play thought leader, you can play judgment and critical thinking based on your experience, but you cannot play the no knowledge based expert anymore. Right. So the more you treat I don't know with a curious, childlike mindset, the more likely you're going to Keep up with the space and we should make, I don't know, very accessible and drop the ego taboo that goes with it. Because I think that's just the era we live in. So treat, I don't know whether it's for when you go to your chatbot, whatever, Claude Gemini, ChatGPT, um, even you don't know what you don't know. So explain what you do as a human. Ask it that I don't know where you can help me, but tell me as an advisor, even the simplest thing, but also with your colleagues, right? In what you don't know. Uh, sorry, excuse me, you dropped that question. But what is that? Um, that is because that immediately takes the ego down, opens the curiosity. It connects to the child. Like we're born with curiosity, right? We just forget it on the way, I think because of our ego.

Speaker C: And it helps the communication with the other person because they know that you're trying to sort of, um, contradict them or you know, confront them about something. You actually just ask to draw for what they know, right?

Speaker B: And you know what? You drop the expectations that actually make the burnout bigger. Because the moment you admit that you don't know, no one can hold it against you. You drop the expectation of having to deliver something you don't understand. Okay, you know what I mean? That you would just say, yeah, yeah, I got it, and then spend 10 hours trying to figure it out while you could have just, let's be honest, right? Workload wise, right? It's good for well being, it's good for learning more, it's good for communication with people, for everything. The second, um, way, mindset wise, I, I like to always think about as, uh, how can I look at something in a different way? So you know the example that I mentioned before, which is I don't have time, right? Okay, fine. I can complain that I don't have time to keep up and blame my company that doesn't put training hours for me. How could I look at it differently? How could I see from that and uh, do something different? How can I look at the positive in it? As in like, oh, is it maybe my opportunity to show off and be the best in my team? And that's what to be known for. Mhm. Should I take it as a personal free time task for a week, you know, or, or another classic example, an email comes in. That's something that came up with my colleagues. A lot of times an email comes in, you're pissed off because someone tells you something that hits a nerve, okay? M. You can be pissed off or you can choose to take it as a learning opportunity of how you could have shaped your email differently so you don't come up with that question or with that reaction. What is something in your communication that you could improve on? Uh, so that doesn't come again instead of you being pissed off. So there is something in the control we have. The more the moment something happens that triggers our resistance. Whether it's on being annoyed about something, whether it's blaming someone, whether it's feeling like a victim. Okay, how what in that moment, realize it, first of all. And second, how can you change the question to be on the control seat and not the victim seat?

Speaker C: These are so important elements of empathy for a start. Um, uh, in terms of understanding other people. And it goes towards the reframing, which I think is so helpful when feeling it sometimes overwhelmed for what's going on. There's so much change, I can't take it. And then sort of saying, well, what is it that I can do? How can I shift how I'm thinking in order to be able to approach it differently in a more productive way? How do we get to a place where we are communicating in a different way? That's also a shift, particularly when moving so fast, particularly when there's so much fear and uncertainty, to also be more vulnerable, more open. People can easily be more reticent, more reserved, more kind of. I'm just trying to protect myself, protective.

Speaker B: For me, the communication starts not when you're talking, but actually when you're listening. Let's start with that. And that's something I learned during my coaching, uh, degree times. And that is because if you really deeply listen, you can read behind the lines and the words that the other person says and the other person you have across, you might have the same defensive mechanisms, uh, ego on top and everything. But if you care to listen really deeply, listen. Level three, as we call it in coaching, which is getting all the cues and not just staying in words and feeling the feel and the vibe the other person gives you. You can actually understand more than what the words say, which maybe will allow you to feel ready to be more vulnerable because the other person feels like this no matter what they say. So it brings in a more level playing field. Let's put it this way. So I think it starts with listening. The second thing on communication is knowing who are you? It goes back inside to self awareness. And who are you sometimes means your strengths, sometimes means your weaknesses. But, uh, if you, if you can, you know, position Them in a way that they're actually making your strengths higher. It's an easy way. Your strength's bigger. It's an easy way to just not feel that vulnerable, defensive thing because it's part of your story. So, so, so knowing yourself is actually, I think everyone should go inside and see what are the superpowers, what are the weaknesses, what are the things that I'm genuinely are. They're blocking me or keeping me awake at night. And the ego might be that. The, the lack of exposure might be that. Right. I would say work on it because that will allow your communication. But the third practical piece, so listening, looking inside, the practical piece is that, uh, ah, at the very least we should all have one, uh, a positioning of who are we? What do we stand for to use in different conditions? Is it the inside corporate, our job? Is it the other department I want to cross? Is it externally what I want to say on LinkedIn, on a networking event, on whenever. Right. We should have an elevator pitch, which is again, right. And the elevator pitch, the easiest communication hack is what's in for the audience, for the listener, not for you. Not how awesome you are, but what's up. Yeah, but what's in for you? Right? It's like I can talk about a lot of things about my life, but I'm actually gonna ask. Answer the questions that are helpful for this podcast that you ask me. You know what I mean? So it's how you position yourself, it's how you make it for the audience, first and at the very least. And third, I think we should all take the courage and practice, the courage to put ourselves out there. Whether it's speaking in internal communication channels at work, whether it's posting on LinkedIn, whether it's publishing articles in third parties. I think the only way to stand out is showing the personality on top of whatever polished expertise you think you have. So we need to at least get comfortable with exposure, the role of the future.

Speaker C: I'm not going to say the work, but it's not over the job. But how I position myself should be both internal and external at the same time. Always. Right? So it is that, um, I'm not just a corporate person, I'm an inside and outside person on a professional basis. And then there's my personal life, which also is also blended obviously with that. So.

Speaker B: And you know what's the best, one of the best advice I've received from one of the Google leaders, actually, they told me, and that was quite controversial at the time. They told me a few Years ago. Like interview, uh, externally at least once a year and not in just one company. Just test your waters, test your worth. And if you're still relevant to the market. Oh, and that has nothing to do with whether you want to stay or irrelevant.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's you polishing your positioning and always be ready whatever happens, even if you decide to stay.

Speaker C: How do you see the role of the organization? Many people who are, you know, have a side hustle, developing a side hustle, you know, thinking about and maybe leaving. To what degree are corporations aware of it, concerned about it, or they just kind of like, oh, don't mind leaving people, you know, losing people or we're going to be firing them anyway. But of course if they're going to be losing some of their best people and, and you obviously have had a great career at uh, Google so far. You're taking a very decided and specific career break to think through all kinds of things. I think you're not the only person for sure. How do they need to be thinking about people in your position, others like you, who are the rising leaders, um, about making themselves relevant and um, for, for the leaders that they want in the future to be places where people want to stay, to, to really engage. What are the things that they can do? Um, and you know, are they paying attention?

Speaker B: Um, number one that goes up there for me, I think it's internal mobility. So if you do want to keep them acknowledging that uh, interests change and everyone wants to stay sharp and either change directions or stay relevant. How do you make it easy for people to move around rather than being stuck in either a uh, never ending workload that you never want to lose them so you cannot afford to put them somewhere else, to place them somewhere else. Or how can you maybe make it easy to swap, you know, in an, in a average size or organization, one might go from that from X to Y and another one from Y to X, you know, so what if you do it for. So like create norms that people can follow their interests internally more easily even if it's not a permanent job change necessarily. M. In that sense, that is the one thing. The second thing I think there should be an element of uh, yes you can. Everyone. Everyone's responsibility to upskill when it comes to AI, I think it's very personal. But that being said, you should create the space to allow them to do so. Whether it's funding, whether it's training, whether it's uh, day for personal education for the next three months, whatever it is, like give them the time if the excuse is always there, I don't have time. And any tool that is repeatedly, uh, like time sucking thing that you know, in your team. So build it on an enterprise level. Right. Make their life easier. So actually it can allow the time. The third thing comes back to culture. I, I truly believe that companies, uh, know the millennial career crisis we're going through and that people might want to live and they live and. But the bigger name you are or the bigger company you are, I don't think you mind because there is so much great talent right now available out there. Right. So do you really want to solve it? I'm not sure it's my honest answer. That being said, smaller companies, they're easier to move. So I think they should take into consideration about all of this mobility, the culture, the more human conditions, listening to the younger, because they will want to keep that talent. Right, Right. So I think what you will do has a lot to do with your size in my very personal opinion.

Speaker C: Right. And that makes sense. I mean then they can also attract great talent because they can actually bring people out of or you know, coax people out of large organizations by being able to give them some of these things which they won't necessarily feel that they're getting or are getting, um, in large organizations. Very interesting. In the past we certainly, we were on a track, boomers and exes, we were sort of on a track. We didn't need to make many decisions in our life. We didn't have any choices. There weren't that many professions that we could go into. And now there are infinite number almost, um, and more every day. So a lot of people haven't learned agency. It wasn't taught at school. It isn't something that is, uh, coming from one's parents necessarily. How do you help people in your sphere, having gone through some of these things also caused by certain events to help people create their own agency and whether it's shifting from victim mindset to just. I don't even know how to start.

Speaker B: For me it goes back to that moment of awareness. The question and the easiest way to do all of the self listening, self awareness, change, mindset exercise is the moment something happens. Let's not even talk about agency yet. The moment something happens. See what triggers in you the email that pissed you off that we said the thing that you blame the company about and ask yourself, is there a better way that will not ruin my mood for the day that I can look at it and then can I do something about it? Like I cannot Think of it. I cannot think of an easier way to practice agency, because it happens.

Speaker C: Because those sort of things happen every single day.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: You know, somebody, like, pushes past you, you know, getting onto the tube, or. I mean, there are endless things that. That are irritating. That it is. It is your reaction that affects your mood.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: As. As much as or more than what somebody actually did. Love that. So what haven't I asked you that I should have done? Apart from listening to your new podcast, which I have.

Speaker B: My podcast, the Adaptive Times, uh, for millennials navigating modern work and covering all of these angles with different practical tips from peers. If it's one thing to leave people with, is practice your communication skills. And that means storytelling, positioning yourself, and actually trialing and getting the cards to show somewhere, either in internal channels or publicly on LinkedIn or somewhere. Trial the courage. Because we need a lot of courage in this era. And only through courage, we're gonna demystify the exposure, and we're also going to demystify the. Oh, what if I show? I don't know. It's fine. No one does, you know, this is so true.

Speaker C: This is so true. All right, um, Angeliki, thank you so much for everything that you shared, um, and the journey that you've been on. Ah, because we've all been on some elements of this journey, but it's really pushing us all, really, to be rethinking so much about our lives and to be recognizing what is different and how much that we actually need to be proactive and intentional and have that agency and communicate, too.

Speaker B: Thank you so much and thank you for the work you're doing and, uh, making us all think how modern work is shaped for millennials and beyond. So I love this.

Speaker C: Thanks again so much to Angeliki Ganonopoulou, founder and host of the Adaptive Times podcast. You can find out more About Angeliki on LinkedIn and go to the YouTube channel the Adaptive Times. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and like it. You can also write a quick review wherever you watch or listen for regular video updates, curated useful articles, research and information. Follow me on LinkedIn and sign up for my work in progress newsletter on substack or LinkedIn. Thanks for watching. Until next time.