Hi everyone, and welcome back to For the Curious and Confused, a podcast for people who want
to understand different perspectives of the world through the people who inhabit it.
I'm your host Don McTaggart, and today I'm joined by Bob Dana, a physicist, engineer,
naval officer, consultant, and author.
Bob holds master's degrees in physics and engineering and started his career in the
U.S. Navy's nuclear reactor program.
He later moved into the field of consulting, where he held many senior positions among
an impressive collection of companies for 45 years.
He also served as a member of the Dean's Advisory Board for the University of Central Florida's
Business School from 2014 to 2022.
Bob recently published a memoir called My Curious Life.
If my grandkids ask me about this, tell them this, where he details his collection of stories
and hard-earned insights.
A quote from Bob's website says that, curiosity propels you to places you never knew you could
reach.
So Bob, thank you for sharing your time today, and I'm looking forward to learning more about
how your curiosity has propelled you.
Great.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to join you, Don, in this conversation.
Really looking forward to it.
For sure, me too.
So starting off, could you give us a bit of a quick two-minute elevator pitch of who is
Bob Dana and what motivates him?
Sure.
Actually, I kind of was born in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island, and then have spent
a kind of a lifetime kind of bouncing around, living throughout the US, but then traveling
worldwide for a number of companies and then also personally.
And so it's been about 50 years since graduating with my master's in physics from Hunter College.
I had City University in New York and just retired the beginning of last year.
And my definition of retirement is I no longer take any compensation for anything I do.
So no longer can hold me accountable for milestones and deliverables and calls at five o'clock
in the morning with Europe or anything else.
So I make the call on what I'm going to do and who I'm going to do it for.
And it's all kind of based on my own personal interest.
So what I'm doing now of significance is I was asked to join the Global Curiosity Institute
out of Belgium about now seven months ago or so.
And I'm a fellow there.
And just to kind of set a theme for today, it's all around curiosity and what actually
motivates individuals to be curious and then how does curiosity materially contribute to
both personal and professional and business success.
And so the Global Curiosity Institute is, if you can check it out, it's really interesting.
They have a diagnostic and then they focus on individuals' curiosity about the world,
about other people and about themselves.
And if you start kind of thinking about curiosity and then compartmentalize it around those
three things, it really starts to help you understand how that can contribute to you
starting to make decisions.
So that's kind of about me.
I mean, that's where I am right now.
And one of the things that is a major theme over the last year and for the rest of my
life will be give back.
And so one of the things that I'm doing is spending a lot of time with Gen Zers.
And so, and I'll mention a couple of things that I am doing, but mentoring, helping individuals
with their own initiatives and then providing as much as I can in terms of helping the Gen
Z individuals be successful and help them with some of the decisions and give them feedback
and provide them support is my kind of mission in life for as much as I've got left.
Well, as a Gen Zer, I hope that I can speak for all of us in saying that we appreciate
your efforts here and to dig in a little bit to the first theme or the main theme you talked
about of curiosity.
How can we foster curiosity in ourselves?
And then how can we also encourage it in other people?
Yeah, I think one of the big things about curiosity is to be open-minded and really
embrace the idea that you don't know everything.
And you may have been raised one way or another, been kind of exposed to a certain set of values
and principles, et cetera, but by being kind of open-minded and especially dedicated to
exploring the world.
Everybody kind of lives in their own little world, but the world is a big place.
And so in terms of being curious, if you want to know more about the world and the people
in the world and the cultures in the world and what drives individuals around the world,
we have so many things in common, but as you start to look at all the nuances and the like,
it really is very interesting and it drives a lot of who I am plus.
And then just the curiosity about other people.
Why do they think the way they think?
And specifically, how does that kind of shape the way that you need to communicate and explore
and what options you have available in working with other people?
And then finally, self-reflection, curiosity about yourself.
Because I think the big thing that a lot of people don't do is reflect.
I reflect on what they're doing, what their past history has been, what their relationships
are.
I mean, all of those kinds of things I think are incredibly important.
So if you start to compartmentalize and think in maybe those three different elements, it
really starts to give you a basis for thinking more curiously.
The other thing I will give you is a little maybe to do, and that is if you actually go
to the Global Curiosity Institute, you'll see me as one of the fellows, but there's
a free diagnostic, and you can actually take a diagnostic on the Global Curiosity Institute's
website.
It's free.
And then it's a great diagnostic.
It will give you a report and some things that you might want to consider doing in order
to become more curious about the world, about other people and yourself.
And so it is really a very nice thing to do.
And I think it adds to the way that it starts to prompt you in thinking more curiously.
Fantastic.
Yeah, the part about the curious about self-reflection part, this has already thrown me off of my
script of questions I have, but I'm so happy it's happening.
So this is great.
I'm just going to skip to one that I had later on.
So in terms of how we think about becoming the best version of ourselves, kind of in
quotes, how do we balance kind of a constructive self-criticism, but also with the need for
self-compassion, and how does that fit in with being curious about self-reflection?
Yeah, I think we have to kind of probably watch about being too self-critical.
So I think you're always kind of working, hopefully, on the best version of yourself.
And so I think the thing in terms of reflection is probably reflection about where I am in
my life, my relationships, kind of the journey.
I always think of life, and especially now a 73-year-old guy, I think about the journey
that I've taken and the journey, even more important, that all of you, the Gen Zers,
are going to be entering into because most of you are going to live to 100 or more years
old.
So that's a long journey.
And the more self-reflection you can have about, so where am I?
Where do I want to go?
Do I have the relationships that I want in place?
How do I make those better?
How do I explore more?
All of those kinds of things will drive the ability to then come up with more of a strategy,
you know, are my values and guiding principles appropriate?
Where do I want to go in life?
The best thing you can do is probably guess for the next five or 10 years.
That's the best you can do.
Okay?
You're not going to lay out the next 50 years.
No way on earth.
Okay?
So you might guess the next five or 10 years, kind of directionally.
Great.
Okay?
What kind of relationships do you have?
Do you want to make them stronger?
You know, how do you want to change those?
But you always kind of expect that the reflection will, in fact, drive you to maybe a little
bit more of, so what does that roadmap look like?
For my life, at least in the near term?
And then what kind of changes do I want to do?
Or what kind of things do I want to explore that I may never have considered as an option,
but now starts to become something that might be interesting in terms of the path that I'm
taking?
Yeah, there's an idea that I like about in terms of kind of what you said, we can't really
figure out what we want to do, definitely in the next five or 10 years, but we can kind
of dance around and figure out what we don't want to do by doing different experiences.
And so that to me feels like part of your guessing game of trying things out.
And then if we don't like it, then we can maybe do a full 180 or maybe we can do a 90
degree turn depending on how much we don't like it.
So yeah, I think that's a great thing to think about.
Yeah, one more thing, Don, because the beauty is that the experiences that you have, the
insights that you gain, the wisdom that you gain, the degrees that you have, I mean, all
of those things, nobody can take that away from you.
That all builds on who you are.
So the fact that I completed a bachelor's and master's in physics, I'm not a physicist
today, but man, I still read physics.
I love to look at science and what's going on.
And I'm kind of open to a lot of different ideas based on the education that I had in
physics and used it probably for the first maybe 10, 15 years of my career.
But then after that, probably never touched it other than some of the basic principles
that come along with a good science background.
So nobody can take any of that away from you.
So it all kind of builds who you are.
And so even though you might pivot to something different, you might say, well, look, I wasted
all of that time.
Absolutely not.
You did not waste a moment.
It all is who you are.
It's built you.
And you're going to be tapping that over and over again, whether you know it or not.
And so it's the pivot points, the kind of the things that you might want to consider
as potential changes are all going to add to you, not take anything away.
So I'm not one who tends to regret a lot.
And so I'm a no regrets type of a person.
I've done things.
I've done them.
I've done the best I can.
I've learned.
I've accumulated more knowledge and experience.
That's all great.
That's a great way to reframe decisions we might think of as not ideal in the moment,
but then further on down the line can see the value they had.
So you mentioned physics and your background in science.
So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that background in science has
translated into skills that in general contribute to your development as a general problem solver.
Yeah, that is a great question because I actually have reflected on that a number of times.
And I'm so, so grateful that I actually made the choice to go into physics at the beginning
because when and pretty much any of the hard sciences in math.
OK, so if in fact I consider myself a STEM guy.
So you know, science, technology, engineering and math.
And so I've been a STEM guy my entire my entire life.
But you know, so why does physics actually contribute?
Because I think that that, you know, physics and science, the hard sciences in general
are fact and data driven.
OK, you're always always skeptical.
OK, you're always kind of challenging.
Well, does that even make any sense?
OK, and why not?
And let me look for the facts, not speculation.
I want to look for facts.
I want to look at data.
Data is everything.
If you have data driving any business decision, any even life decision that you can tap to
actually help you with that, that's a big plus up.
That's all physics.
It has to be logical and rational.
OK, yeah, emotions might come in, but emotions don't tend to come in very often in physics.
And so I tend to be generally one who relies on on logic and rational thinking.
And then finally, I think in the sciences, I think there's a very, very high level of
integrity.
You know, integrity is something that that I don't think in general is ever compromised
by a real scientist.
You know, and so when you when you're thinking about being a scientist, working in a scientific
field, integrity is everything.
And engineering, I mean, you don't build a bridge and think you're going to compromise
your integrity and kind of, I will just cut a corner over here.
No, no, no, you're not going to you're not going to do that.
And so so again, science, engineering all drives to an incredible focus on integrity
and not ever compromising integrity.
When you think of all of those things and then how do I take that into consulting?
How do I take that into business leadership?
Yeah, if I can actually take all of that stuff into any of those other areas, management
consulting, I'm going to be successful because that is the underpinning of a great consultant,
an engineering consultant or great management consultant or a great leader.
OK, because if you if in fact you take all of those things into those other other areas,
you'll you'll you'll be recognized as a as a as a fabulous consultant or leader or the
like.
When you look back over your career and are implementing these logical rational kind of
scientific background approaches.
And then we talked earlier about open mindedness and curiosity, is there any tension between
those two ideas in your head of being logical and rational and skeptical while also being
open minded and curious?
How do those manifest as any sort of tension?
That's a great question.
I'm not sure there's there there is that much tension between those two.
I think they're really complementary.
I think if in fact, you know, you are curious, but you know, the quote, you know, curiosity
killed the cat.
You know, but OK, you know, you may or may not know the next part of that, you know,
but satisfaction brought him back or brought it back.
So it's curiosity drives you to gain more knowledge.
And now with that greater knowledge, you have greater satisfaction.
OK, and that drives you continuing on with your life.
And so take a look at the whole quote, because the whole quote is really not what most people
think.
OK, it's like, well, curiosity killed the cat.
So I really shouldn't be curious.
Well, no, just the opposite.
OK, you need to be curious because curiosity is going to drive that additional accumulation
of knowledge and give you that bigger base.
OK, for you now to be, you know, again, more logical and more skeptical, because now you're
now not relying on just some some vapor.
OK, you're actually relying on something that has substantial basis in fact.
OK, and data, et cetera.
So all of it is linked together really in terms of the way that I think of it.
And I think most people who spend some time thinking about this whole kind of linkage
between curiosity and all of the other elements are is truly complementary.
I totally agree.
I just want to play Dylan's advocate for a little bit.
Yeah, the quote of the devil away.
Devil away.
I love it.
That's a great question.
Yeah, that's the first time I've heard the rest of that quote.
The curiosity killed the satisfaction bottom back.
That was the last part of that.
Yeah, OK.
That also reminds me of the other one of Jack of all trades, master of none.
That's the one that people sort of hear.
But the rest of that one is but oftentimes better than a master of one.
I like that one a lot.
That one kind of reminds me of the.
I could quote that one too.
Absolutely.
Because most people just look at the very first part and they go, I know, yeah, I'm
not going to do anything.
It's a it's a it's a reason for you doing nothing.
And it's just just the opposite in terms of what those quotes actually are trying to drive.
Yeah, perfect.
Yes.
So getting into the consulting bit a little bit and we think about personality types,
when you think about what kind of personalities thrive in sort of the high level consulting
that you are engaged with versus what kind of personality struggle a little bit more,
what stands out for you?
Yeah, that's that's an interesting thing.
Well, I'm going to say one thing first.
OK.
And that is all personality types in consulting can thrive.
Yeah, they are all it's nuanced.
Right.
Because we always have teams.
So really, you know, people kind of look at individual strengths and weaknesses on a team.
You know, what are you bringing to the team?
How do you actually take advantage of all of that?
Well, all of that does drive to different personalities.
I am you know what Myers Briggs is.
You know, I am an ENTJ, which is, you know, extrovert, intuitive, the thinking and then
judgmental, but not in a judgmental way that most people think about judgmental.
But I am ENTJ, which is is is, you know, probably it's only like two percent of us out there.
But it's it's you know, dealing with me is not always not always pleasant.
And I know my life partner and partner in brain and in body is Lacey Lowe.
And funny that she is an ENTJ, too.
And so we did we do a lot of stuff together and have been been both working together and
then being together for quite a while.
And so our our interactions tend to be fiery in general because we're both both very, very
strong and like I said, a two percenter.
But you look at all of the others that that are, you know, introverted.
OK, well, you know, introverts and extroverts, you know, can interact very well and work
very well.
But you have to actually understand that.
So one of the big things that I've done for literally my entire career is, number one,
really rely on knowing everybody's personality.
So what is everybody's personality?
And then look at look at how they interact with one another.
Because, you know, a lot of times if you have very different personalities, you're going
to speak across one another.
You're not going to be able to actually understand what you're and then one dominates, one doesn't
have a million things that go on.
And so being able to just say, well, all of these personalities can in fact thrive.
They might have different roles.
They might have different expectations of success.
They might have different ways that they get satisfaction out of the job.
It's really, really, really important to understand that.
And so as you're putting the teams together, you're looking at the different personalities,
you're looking for what what's going to give satisfaction to all of the individuals.
What are the expectations of success for these different individuals?
It all works.
I'll give you one additional example.
And that is, and you probably don't don't have this because it's kind of internal to
Deloitte, but Deloitte Consulting does what they call business chemistry.
Again, it's a personality and then they chart everyone in terms of all of these different
personality traits against everybody else's and then understand how they communicate and
actually produce a card, do workshops, get everybody working together.
And it's an outstanding, outstanding effort.
But to say, well, ENTJs are going to be the ones that are going to be successful in leaders.
Well, you can go on and Google who is an ENTJ.
And there's some obvious leaders.
But if you look at some of the other leadership traits in terms of personalities, you'll find
them too.
So anyway, it's a long answer to a short question, but hopefully that kind of gives you the way
I feel at least.
Yeah.
Thank you for expanding on that.
So the thing that popped in my head is the everybody being a puzzle piece for a part
of the team and you described yourself as kind of fiery to an extent.
What were areas where you were working with a team where there were some maybe not necessarily
weaknesses in yourself, but something that somebody else in the team had more strength
in and could help supplement whatever part of your personality was not needing whatever
was needed?
Perfect, perfect question.
OK.
Number one is I'll give you two different elements.
So one, ENTJs can, I mean, they're very strong in terms of their opinions.
They think that they actually have the answer and they will tend in many cases to dominate
a group.
So I figured that out in myself probably 30 years ago.
And a lot of what I've had to do is because it's always a balancing act between personality
and attitude.
And so I've had to adjust my attitude to make sure that when I'm thinking my personality
is becoming Dr. Hyde, I mean, no, Hyde, Mr. Hyde, OK, Vice Dr. Jekyll, I've got to have
my attitude start to adjust for that.
So I'd say the one thing that absolutely positively I've had to rely on other individuals on the
team to do is I'm not a, even though I'm a physicist, a data driven guy, I'm not a detail
guy.
I hate detail.
OK.
If you give me, oh, the next three days you're going to be working on this spreadsheet, I
will just run out screaming like my hair was on fire.
I cannot sit and do high levels of detail.
Now that could be editing something or going through detail spreadsheets or doing whatever
I need to say, OK, let's cut to the bottom line.
So let's understand what that is.
And then I'll ask questions if I need more information.
Well, somebody's got to do all that I need more information stuff.
OK.
So that's a different personality that loves to do the detailed work.
And so as you're putting a team together, if you only had me's on the team, we probably
would fail.
So you need to put on the team those that are much more detail oriented, have personalities
that love doing that kind of stuff along with the kind of me's stuff.
And I think those two things are elements that pop out of this whole discussion of personality.
Great.
So when you encounter those kind of, I guess you may say a personality obstacle, something
that you are not really drawn to necessarily, what goes on in your head when you decide
if that's an opportunity for you to grow and get more in on that detail oriented thing
or it's a signal to say, you know what, this is where the balance of my personality is.
This is something that somebody else could go do better.
How do you reconcile that?
I think after the probably I'm trying to think when I really kind of started to understand
that myself, probably when I was 35, 40 years old.
So probably what is that 30, 35 years ago?
I probably figured that out.
At which point it was like, well, every time I'm faced with that type of situation, I'm
going to look for a team, put a team together that actually has individuals who are going
to actually complement each other in driving that forward.
So I think it takes a little time for you to number one, do enough in terms of reflecting
on your own personality up to and including taking some of these personality tests and
then really understand what you love to do and what you hate to do.
And then once you start to zero in on that, then I think it becomes more of your nature
in terms of how you're going to approach a given problem, a given situation and really
kind of put that team together that makes sense.
So I think after you come to that realization, which like I said, for me was probably 35
years ago, maybe more, but probably around that, I've always kind of reflected on it
and made sure that when I was given a situation that I had to address, I did not just rely
on myself.
I made sure that I surrounded myself with folks as part of a team or I became part of
a team that could actually get this done because of the need of all of these different aspects
in the team to be successful.
Yeah, I asked that because I've been having a little bit of internal conflict slightly
about how to accept those limitations.
For your example of the spreadsheets and detail oriented, I'm realizing there are some things
I just really don't like doing.
And then the kind of internal model I can sometimes be, well, you should do it because
it's your job and then that plays into the self criticism and then that starts to impact
the confidence.
And so being able to authentically accept that something is not your strength while
also recognizing that you have things to add in other areas is something I'm on the pathway
of right now.
And so it's great to get insights on that.
And again, you're a young guy.
So what are you probably 26, 27, 28?
26.
There you go.
You're a young guy.
Another five or six or seven years, I think you'll have zeroed in on that.
And don't think you need to be everything.
That is probably the biggest false conception that people have.
Did you ever feel like you had to be everything at any point?
Did I?
No.
Okay.
I mean, my strengths were kind of early on and I was able to really hone in on those
strengths and where I knew, I knew, knew, knew that I had specific weaknesses, I made
sure that I had partners, team members.
I was part of a team that actually had those capabilities in other individuals to get that
done.
And so you don't get extra credit for trying to do it all, especially when you hate to
do something.
Because I'll tell you, if you really hate to do something, where does it fall on your
to-do list?
Last, exactly.
Way down there.
And that might be the most important thing that has to get done on that project.
And so one of the key things is, if in fact you do try to do that, you're going to fail.
And I don't like failure.
So I will make sure that I've got everything covered in terms of this.
And if I hate to do something, I'm getting somebody to make sure that they're part of
the team, that they love to do it.
Because then it's going to be at the top of their list.
And then what's on the top of my list and what's on the top of their list and other
lists, if you look at that all up on the team, yeah, exactly.
You can't help but be successful.
That's a great way to reframe that.
I'm going to be reflecting on that one after this conversation.
Okay.
So to shift gears a little bit, but still in the same similar vein of curiosity and
open-mindedness, to what extent did your willingness to embrace new tools shape your success throughout
your career?
Everything.
If I did not, I could have never, never, ever succeeded.
So let me just tell you where I started.
Okay.
I've never seen one of these things, but in the 1960s in high school and then first couple
years in college, I started on a slide rule.
So yeah, and you probably have seen it if you've gone to the Smithsonian and Washington
or other museums.
My dad has one.
Yeah.
Okay.
There you go.
Yeah.
And proud of it, I'm sure.
Oh, yeah.
He loves it.
So yeah, you're doing calculations that are incredibly sophisticated on a piece of bamboo.
And so that's where I started.
I actually had the first scientific calculator, the Hewlett Packard 35 back, which would have
been like 1971 maybe.
Before that, everything's kind of hand calculated on a slide rule and or with kind of your pencil
and paper.
And so it was really, really good because I have a gut feel for mathematics that today,
I think most individuals probably like yourself or younger have no real gut feel for, you
know, I can look at something and say, but that doesn't make any sense.
Because gut feel, the mathematics is kind of in my head and I'm not just accepting what's
on a calculator or a computer output.
But I also then started programming using FORTRAN, which is formula translation back
in the day.
That was the language of science.
And then, you know, like I said, I was carrying the first scientific calculator.
I actually carried the first portable computer, the compact computer back in the, that would
have been the 80s, early 80s, evolved time and time again, you know, every single revolution.
So whether it was for business, so pagers and smartphones, not smartphones, you know,
bag phones, you know, just normal phones or the like, every evolution of technology I've
embraced.
So I'm carrying now an iPhone, you know, I've got the 15 Pro Max, you know, I can literally
do everything that I would ever want to do on a computer or whatever, right in my pocket.
And so if I didn't, I could not have been the engineering consultant I was in the 80s
and 90s and 2000s.
I couldn't have been the management consultant or the IT consultant because in between I
actually was focused on IT with all of the enterprise resource planning software that
went in place and the Y2K crisis and all of that kind of stuff.
I was right in the middle of all of that.
I couldn't have done any of that without embracing technology.
So I would say, you know, anyone who does not want to embrace technology, especially
today, probably going to get left behind.
Especially with AI showing up and everything else that's going on, unless you want to play,
you're going to be left behind.
Yeah, that was going to be my next question about AI.
Yeah, I'm preparing a presentation now about when we can ethically decide to use AI as
scientists and if there is a boundary for that.
So first with your, you mentioned that you have an intuition for some of the mathematical
aspects that some of my age might not have anymore.
How do we embrace the new technology?
Let's use AI in this case while also keeping guardrails for not losing all intuition on
whatever task they're performing for us.
Okay.
Well, I tell you the one thing that I would recommend, especially honing your skills is
in being a skeptic.
I think that's going to be the major thing that's going to be an important trait of individuals
if they are skeptical, if they question, okay, if they don't accept just what they're seeing,
okay, I think you will be stronger in every aspect of your personal, professional and
business life.
I think that is the key because especially with AI, it's going to take over, you're
going to ask a question, it's going to give you an answer and I'd say 90% of the population
will go, thank you.
I think the ones that actually will succeed long-term will go, does that actually make
sense, okay, and sit for a moment, maybe more and actually contemplate whether or not what
you just got from AI actually makes intuitive sense.
If it does, okay, I'd still be skeptical but maybe kind of move to the next level.
If it doesn't make sense, keep asking questions and get more data and really kind of delve
into it so that you can assure yourself that what you're getting out of the technology
actually is something that you're going to kind of like bet your life, bet your business,
bet your career on, do you want to really do that without questioning?
Probably not.
So I think being skeptical is going to be something that's going to be curiosity is
one side, okay, that kind of drives you to be open-minded, etc. AI is kind of in the
middle, okay, these days, okay, it's going to give you a lot of information, a lot of
stuff, okay, and then I think on the back end, if you're skeptical and say, whoa, just
wait one moment there, let me ask a couple more questions and I think that's going to
be the thing that's going to really make a difference.
Yeah, definitely.
What do you think are the most important ways that AI will impact society in the coming
years?
I think actually the most significant thing that's going to go on is going to be, most
people don't realize this yet, but they will very shortly, is not the benefit of AI and
what AI is going to do for us or, oh, the singularity is coming and they're going to
be smarter than us and whatever.
Actually all of that stuff is, yeah, it's interesting, but it's not really the thing
that's going to be dislocating for the majority of the population.
What I think is going to be dislocating is the fact that AI is going to take away, okay,
going to take over all of the entry-level journeyman type of jobs, especially the knowledge
working worker jobs, which is the biggest part, right?
Service industry, knowledge workers, scientists, engineers, accountants, fill in the blank,
doctors, nurses, lawyers.
AI is going to take over all of the jobs that were really available for the first five,
seven, 10 years of an individual's career.
All of those are going to be gone as jobs.
AI is going to be doing all of those.
Now the question is, how does someone getting a college degree, all of that knowledge, et
cetera, normally they would enter a business and then they kind of learn over the first
three, five, seven years kind of the business, right?
I mean, they'd be doing some of the grunt work, they'd be doing some of the attend
a few meetings through this, through that.
Well, AI is doing all of that now.
So now how do you jump from getting a college degree and maybe everything has to change
about college or education or high school or whatever, and jump to a point where now
you can actually make a contribution in an organization where now you probably need to
be more consultative.
You need to be more knowledgeable.
You need to have wisdom experience and the like.
Well, you couldn't get that, right?
Those first five or seven or eight years is where you got all of that.
But now if the machines are doing it, AI is doing it, what happens?
I'm not sure I'm going to live long enough to see that, but I probably will because I
think it's going to happen in the next five or 10 years.
If that's the case, I think that's going to be the thing that's going to be the real issue
associated with truly AI taking over all of the or getting a complete footprint in our
economy, in our culture and everything.
I'll stop talking.
I guess some questions, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about this.
And actually with my last few years at Deloitte, I was working on this for Deloitte.
And so it really, I think a lot of organizations are struggling with this very fact as to how
I get individuals who are highly educated, but now I'm not going to have an opportunity
to really indoctrinate them into what this is because I don't need them to do that.
I've got a machine doing it.
I would love to unpack this more.
So essentially what I'm hearing you say is that it is going to remove the entry ramp
for whatever that job is.
That also relates to, I think what I was mentioning earlier of when we draw the line for allowing
AI to do scientific research either with or for us.
And you said that, well, we can combat that by having proper skepticism.
And in an expert field, that skepticism is kind of informed by an intuition of the field
that you can't really gain without going on that entry ramp that you're mentioning there.
And so I agree.
It sounds like such a potential problem where if that five to seven years or whatever time
period that is where we're building an intuition and understanding of the things that maybe
aren't going to make huge impacts in the field, but let you speak on it knowledgeably, we
can't have proper skepticism for what the AI is doing if we don't have that experience.
It's scary, isn't it, Don?
Yeah.
So that, I think, is the scary part, not the singularity, not all of the other stuff that
they talk about.
I think that's really the scary part that I think most people don't realize or are not
talking about or even worse, not planning for.
Wow.
Great.
Okay.
Shifting direction a little bit.
So moving on to some of relationship type of stuff.
So you went to a lot of companies, had a lot of high level positions.
What impacts did the demands of your career have on your relationships with your family?
Oh, geez.
Well, maybe I am the right person to talk about because I've been divorced twice and
one child, she's almost 40 now, a couple of grandkids.
Obviously, the book, as you mentioned.
But I did dedicate very large portions of my attention to my career and it had certainly
impact on the relationships.
And so everybody kind of talked about work-life balance and blah, blah, blah, all of that kind
of stuff.
It is incredibly, incredibly stressful for somebody who in fact has a job that does require
enormous amounts of your time, energy, focus, et cetera, because the one thing that will
always suffer is your relationships, your family.
And so was I successful at navigating that?
Probably not.
So I'm older now trying to do a better job, but still I look back on my whole life and
career and I probably could have done a better job, but then would I have done a worse job
with my professional career in life?
Yeah.
So I think it's tough.
There's not a secret sauce out there.
They'd say, well, if you did it this way.
I mean, plenty of people want to tell you about that.
But if in fact you do dedicate a lot of time to the work-life balance, personal life, your
family, et cetera, it will in fact impact your professional life.
It does.
I live, Don, my whole life I've lived with trying not to have a zero sum game, that everything
is win-win.
I've lived my life trying to do win-win.
The work-life balance is in fact a zero sum game.
It's really, really, really hard for you to both win at work and win with your life.
But I've done as good as I can.
I haven't rejected one, but it's hard getting that balance right.
I appreciate your honesty there.
Yeah.
Because that's a hard thing to be, to perform at the highest level in any field.
You have to sacrifice other areas and yeah, that's hard.
One last probing question to that, if you're open to it.
I am totally open.
I am totally enjoying this conversation, Don.
I'm totally enjoying it.
You were great.
Thank you.
Great.
I'm loving this too.
Yeah.
So earlier you mentioned that you're a no regrets kind of guy and I wouldn't go as far
as to say that would be like regret, but on a scale of zero to 10, where 10 is the highest
level of regret, zero is no regret at all.
Where would you put how you approach the work life balance aspect of that?
Probably a five.
About a five.
Yeah.
So yeah.
So like I said, I did the best I can with the hand that I was dealt.
And the hand that I was dealt is I was in very, very challenging roles in the Navy and
my straight away when I went into engineering consulting and I mean, I challenging roles
that required an enormous amount of focus and energy.
And so I certainly tried to kind of focus on my relationships with my wife and my kid
and my friends, but I wasn't there for them 24 seven, I can guarantee that.
I don't know if anybody really can be in actuality.
So yeah.
So thinking about those really challenging situations in a work environment, are there
any examples you can think of that have kind of that really visceral stress sort of response
to them that would give somebody who doesn't know a lot about the field of consulting to
kind of give them a sense of what kind of environment you're existing in, in those really
high level situations?
Yeah.
And especially as a young person, I'll go with the young person.
So after active duty in the Navy, I stayed on in the reserves, but I joined a consulting
firm and it was right after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.
So that happened in 79.
I joined a consulting firm in February of 80 and that consulting firm, most of the work
they were doing was on all of the addressing of the consequences of all of the lessons
learned from the Three Mile Island accident.
So I was using engineering, I was using my physics degrees, I was using everything.
And so now I'm, so 1980, so I'm 28 years old.
And I'm kind of the smartest guy in the room when it comes to addressing a lot of this
because of my degrees, the Navy and what I did there.
And then just actually the thesis that I wrote for my master's degree in engineering was
all about this, that particular aspect of nuclear power accidents.
And then I went into a company that was focused on not only nuclear accidents and mitigation
of it, but also any of the high hazard accidents.
So rocket launches, rocket engine test facilities, wind tunnels, space simulators.
I was working on all of that stuff.
Again, I'm a 28, 29, 30 year old.
I actually knew the stuff better than the folks that are sitting across from me that
are 40s, 50s years old.
They kind of focused on getting whatever they were getting done in nuclear power, in NASA,
the Air Force space program, whatever.
But I know better than anybody the aspects of failure.
What happens when something fails and how do you prevent it from failing?
But now again, I'm a 28, 29, 30, 32 year old, no gray hair.
Now consulting individuals who...
My mama was still wiping my butt when they were building rockets or getting into nuclear
power.
And so that was probably the most stressful.
Once I turned 40 and got a little gray hair and had some additional credentials under
my belt, that was more accepting.
But initially, even though I knew it all, it was a little bit difficult to get accepted
as the consulting engineer and effectively scientist that I was in the field that I was.
But I did it.
That took incredible, incredible amount of energy and focus and study.
And I had to have everything right because the last thing you wanted to do is have any
of them question what you were saying and what you were recommending because we were
recommending things that were going to effectively change the way that folks were building and
operating nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants, building and operating rocket launch
facilities, not the rockets, but everything associated to get that rocket up into the
air.
That's what I focused on.
And so that was not easy.
That is not a low-stake situation at all.
No, no.
Did you ever feel burnt out?
Well, it was not an option, actually getting it right, you needed to get it right 100%
of the time.
Did you ever feel burnt out in your work life when you're doing that?
I don't think I ever felt burnt out.
Sometimes overwhelmed.
So I kind of define burnt out as you're doing something and repetitive and it's maybe kind
of getting bored with it or again, you're doing something and it's no longer really
interesting.
I was probably often overwhelmed because I was kind of pushing myself beyond what would
be probably reasonable, but I never felt burnt out.
I never felt burnt out.
And if you're feeling overwhelmed, that's good because you can step back, kind of regroup
and then again, move forward.
So I think there's a nuance in there, but I think it's an important nuance when you
say, you know, do you feel burnt out?
Have you felt overwhelmed?
Yeah, right.
Well, if it's overwhelmed, then you should be able to address that or have a mentor or
somebody who can coach you through feeling overwhelmed.
If you're burnt out, you probably don't like your job and you probably should do something
different.
Definitely.
When we think about those really challenging moments of overwhelming this or just in general
having done all of that, were there any internal narratives that either helped or hindered
your ability to perform the task or to grow in general?
Yes.
One of the other things that I did early on, and it's actually in the book and it gets
kind of reiterated in the book, is I think it's really, really important for you to get
centered around your own set of values and guiding principles.
I think that's so important.
Everybody wants to impose their values and guiding principles on you.
But ultimately, I rejected that early on, even as a teenager.
And then over my 20s, I think really honed a set of values and guiding principles.
And like I said, it's in the book and I expand on it kind of all through the book.
But I think that's probably the most important thing to do as early as you can, is truly
say, so what are my core values?
And then what principles do I always allow myself to fall back on when I am feeling overwhelmed
or taxed in a way that I need to reflect and determine a direction based on where I'm being
challenged.
Great.
Thank you.
I've got two more questions for you.
How can we integrate playfulness into our routines so that our jobs or our careers don't
become just a purely kind of task oriented thing to do?
Yeah.
Well, and I'll go back to something I said right at the start of our conversation.
And it's going to go right back to curiosity.
Because I think the key is when you're interacting with folks, and this drives me insane, is
I go out to a business dinner or lunch or something like that, and we've been talking
about business all day.
So what is the leader that is there or some of the other members of the team that we're
going to at the lunch or dinner or breakfast with?
What do they want to talk about?
Business.
It's like, oh my, no, no, no.
We are now in a social setting trying to actually enjoy each other as people, as individuals.
So no.
And I usually stop it in terms of, no, we're going to go back and talk more business.
Let's have a conversation.
And I always kind of go back to that whole concept of curiosity.
Hey, where did you travel to on vacation this past year?
Hey, I've been there too.
Did you see blah, blah, blah?
So this whole curiosity about the world and travel and other people.
Oh, you went to Japan?
What did you think about the culture when you went to Japan?
And just open up that conversation.
And then even open up yourself, the being curious about yourself.
Like I said, even sharing some of the kind of craziness about your personality or attitude
or values or whatever.
And then just have a good laugh about it.
I mean, just sit around and enjoy each other as human beings, I think, is the key.
So as much as when you go out with folks, whether it's in a social setting, it's lunch
or dinner or breakfast, you're traveling together or whatever, try to avoid talking
business because if that's the case, then I think you'll be a generally unhappy person
because you'll be so immersed in business, business, business, and you'll never really
feel satisfied that you have any kind of relationship with any of the folks that you spend most
of your life with, those that are working with you.
That's the easy thing you forget sometimes.
Yeah, I'm glad that after all this talk of having really intense careers and leaning
into all of that, that at the end of the day, we're all just people who are trying to make
it to the world best we can.
And yeah, business is only a one dimension of that.
So yeah.
One last question for you.
Thank you.
This has been fantastic.
So if you were to distill all of your experiences and insights down into a set of advice for
how individual people like you and me can, what we can do to bring about the best version
of the future they were capable of living, what would that distilled insight be?
Yeah.
We are challenged these days for sure.
I think number one is don't compromise your values, your principles, or your integrity.
It's really, really easy these days to compromise and say, ah, somebody else's problem.
Ah, you know, hey, I really can't control this.
Ah, you know.
I'm just going to focus on my own little world and let everything else take its own path.
I think that would be a bad thing.
So especially for folks like us with kind of deep scientific and technical backgrounds,
having been trained to think logically based on data, think as a skeptic, ask questions,
use the scientific method, I think we are still the ones that people rely on ultimately
to be kind of the voice of reason.
So I think these days and probably for all the time that you got left, I think this is
going to be the challenge that I'll throw out to you is I think your generation is going
to have to do what I just described, which is not going to be easy.
And especially somebody with, again, a technical background who's been trained, like I said,
in the scientific method to value data, to value logic, to value all of that.
I think it's important to speak up and be part of the group that actually kind of represents
reason.
That's scary, but also sounds like an adventure worth having.
Yeah.
Well, Bob, this has been fantastic.
I've really enjoyed our conversation.
So thank you so much for all of your insights and openness and this has been great.
Don, loved it.
Thank you so much.