Part Two: Unlocking Your True Vocation with Florian Kemmerich

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Investment. Where you are today, with the experience you have, the skill set you have, how you can bring these two things together in your real life and start building from there. And that's actually step one. And then you have an awareness and you start thinking. So for me, message is cut out the noise, go inside, Go to the past, to the future, and then the present, and think about what makes life worth living.

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This also maps back to, you know, not just being mindset coach, but you've also deployed close to $1 billion in impact capital. So what is the business cost of misalignment when people haven't done the inner work of vocating? What does show up in the company, and how do you then mitigate those business losses?

Hoo, that's a pretty profound question, Anika Jackson, and I love it. So first, There is a misunderstanding. People say, oh, you do impact, it's philanthropy. It is not. There is a portion of philanthropy. There's a portion of catalytic capital where you are okay to lose it because it's more donation, but you reduce the risk for other investors. So you have a whole spectrum of the way you can deploy money, yeah, from donation over concessionally, less concessionally, more commercial, and these things. So that's the possibility. And I've done all of that. The second thing is, if you do not know what capital does, because the only focus is on a return, you might do something which harms you and your community, humanity in the long run, but you don't care. I want my yield and I want my return. When you have the conscious saying, hold a second, how can I use capital on the intentionality to resolve something, but also the additionality, something to get it flowing where it normally would be more difficult to flow, things change and it's actually contagious. It's not straightforward, takes some time, but that's on the capital side. If you go into the company, the same. If you're only focusing on shareholder value, it's very different to stakeholder value. If you look at stakeholder value, you look at, okay, the team dynamic, egos down, empathy up. Diverse groups, because they're much better than heterogeneous groups are more better than homogeneous groups as a team performing. You then look at, okay, how do you foster intrinsic motivation? Because everybody is adhering to it. It's so amazing. And you have an alignment on the cause and whatever you want to, the good you are, let's say the wrong you're righting. It's a little bit in the same sense. And then also the net promoter score goes through the roof. So the performance of the company is better. It doesn't matter what the company does. It's just a shift of the core values. And you go from a shareholder value to a stakeholder value, and then certain things change. Yeah. And it's because, oh yeah, but this is only for these, and that company doesn't. You can apply this in pretty much every sector, and things change because people are no longer there just or a job and to get paid for a salary and asking for a raise every year. And it's only until, and if not, they go elsewhere because they get paid more. Because it is a self-realization being in an organization, which is actually my second book on vocation organizations. Or you can use it at leadership as a force for good. If you know how to vocate, you want to take it over to your organization. And if you are made with money, you want to use the money to leverage and trigger change. So those are the components, which is initially an awareness. And after having the awareness, you see actually how to do this. And then it becomes really self-fulfilling because if you see and measure the outcome, yeah, you have the impact you create on the ground. It is really amazing. Yeah, and yes, you make money, and yes, you're doing, you know, you can dedicate yourself to that, but at the end, you're doing something, you're contributing to society and to the planet.

Fantastic. So when you think about, I mean, you went through burnout. Many people who've been on my podcast frankly have the story of having the golden handcuffs, getting to a point in their business, in their corporate life, where they experience that burnout moment when they realize they are misaligned. But burnout usually is framed as a problem from the individual, right? Our individual productivity. But you also suggest that it's a signal of something deeper. So what is signaling and what does a smart entrepreneur, business person do with that signal to create change and get out of that burnout state?

Okay, so whether you an entrepreneur or an employee doesn't really matter, or independent, you know, doing something. You end up in a burnout. Basically, you normally have a burnout because you are stuck in a situation you don't know how you got there and you don't want to be there and you want to get out of there. And if you have the feeling you cannot get out of there, you burn out, which is very different. For example, if you— I go back to— you have two types of decisions you can take. You can make a decision based on fear or make based on love. Two decisions. And the expression of fear is, I need fame, fortune, and power because that's my ego. I protect myself and I'm strong. I'm successful. Or you can go intuition. That's me. I live my life and I don't owe anything to anyone. Sometimes it can be confusing. Let's say I'm a musician. As a musician, I could say, oh, I want to be a rock star. That's fame, fortune, and power. And even if I am there, I most likely end up in drugs to numb out my pain because I'm not being fulfilled. Or I might say, I love doing music, whether there's someone or not. Doesn't really matter. I don't rely on the feedback of others. And if they love me and it's fine, fine. But it doesn't nourish my ego because I'm not doing them for only for them. I'm doing it primarily for me because it's an expression of love on the music side. So that's a basic differentiator. And that you can apply that to any job. You might be a doctor because your father is a— mother is a doctor, or because you believe it's someone in the society well received, or somebody tells you, oh, you're smart, you'd be good at it. You go for the path, if you do not have a vocation to heal people, it's a bad decision. It's a hard job. It's not gratifying. If you are based on love, because that's what you like and love and do, it's very different. So there are many, many things. Typically, the dip part is finance. You do finance because you're good in math and because you want to earn money. You don't care with what. But you want to earn money and then you end up saying, oh, hold a second, money, I made money. Yeah, but again, what I'm doing here. But you could do the same if it is made saying, I use because I'm good in finance based on love. So I might have a cause, I might have my vocation and express my vocation. It's very different. So in the same sense, this is something which I also, I got stuck. I ended up somewhere. So when at the age of 18, I want to become a stand-up comedian, yeah, because I love that. And I look at a comedian to entertain myself, and I numb out my pain, and I want to do this. Others, my father told me, no, there's so many artists out there not making a living. Maybe you want to study something normal. So I studied the normal. I ended up at the end in a burnout saying, I'm not where I'm here, what I'm doing. Yeah. And maybe for many other people, it would have been amazing job and amazing thing to be in healthcare and to do that. It wasn't for me. And that's the part where you stuck in something where you're saying, this is not me. How did I get there? Because we're educated on fame, fortune, and power, only externally related, only to our ego. And that puts us at a high risk, which is very different saying, this is me, this is my path, and that's what I want to do. And so, Anika Jackson Jackson, if I listen to your story, you're most on that side than the fame, fortune, and power, which I envy you because for me, it took me a long time to figure that out.

I think it takes everybody time to figure things out and to really feel like we live in our truth. But I do think if you live in your truth, you find your path to making the money that you want to make, being able to make impact the way you want to. I also do some work on a much smaller scale in Ghana with an organization there. So I'm, there are many things I'm gonna be touching base with you after this interview, 'cause I wanna, I just wanna be involved in all of these great things that you're doing. But going back to the Vocating Framework, your book introduces a 7-step framework rather than giving away all the secret sauce and running through all 7. If somebody is listening right now, they're at a crossroads. You know, they feel very externally validated, but they feel hollow inside. What 1 or 2 steps would they start with to start going down this process of really feeling full?

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Beautiful question. So, Anika, usually with people, when there is a question, not sure what it is, I do 3 exercises. And it's not me doing it, it's just I recommend people to do. First exercise is, by the way, you need to cut out the noise. No people, no internet, no nothing, no music around, just you with yourself. And you can do this by walking, by contemplation, by meditation, by prayers, or whatever you want to do it. Yeah? Or exercise or something like that so that That's the moment so that you are just with you. And then 3 different moments. The first one is I ask people to remember what is your earliest childhood memory. And with many people that triggers already, oh, because it's most likely your imprint, the moment which makes your life meaningful, and then you can peel the onion from there. Once that happens, I say, okay, now go to your deathbed. Imagine yourself at a deathbed. And I do a meditation around end-of-life meditation, just to understand what are the things you want to have done which made your life worth living. And then reflections come up. And then I bring it in today and say, okay, where you are today, with the experience you have, the skill set you have, how you can bring these two things together in your real life and start building from there. And that's actually step one. And then you have an awareness and you start thinking. So for me, message is cut out the noise, go inside, go to the past, to the future, and then the present, and think about what makes life worth living.

It's very Zen-like when you put it that way. I do, I work with a former Zen monk and there's a lot of work on connecting with your present, doing the evaluation of assessing where you are, forgiveness of the past, not just of other people and the wrongs that they feel, that you feel that they performed or whatever on you, but also the wrongs that you what you did to yourself, right? So, so a little bit of that inner child work, but not fully in the way that you've described. And then connecting with your future. What is that future state? When you look at yourself, what do you hope to have achieved? So this is just really beautiful to me, and I love so much the mirroring of science and artificial intelligence and agentic AI with these other concepts about who we are as our whole selves. And you do— we talked about ikigai. We didn't touch on— you also integrate Enneagram and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. So those look very disparate, right? Japanese philosophy, personality typing, and global policy. How did you decide to fuse them into a single practice?

It is an empirical development. It's my learning step by step by step. I had to first understand who am I. Yeah, and then I did a lot of different methodologies, which some of them I cite in the book. But for me, the ones which give me a lot of clarity is the Enneagram. Yeah, it's 27 types actually. So it's a type and subtypes. And the type comes essentially in 9 plus 3 subtypes, which are on the imprint level, on the script level. When you're young, you get marked on the subtypes, and then you understand. And once you have that, you get a clarity of How you take in who you are mentally, emotionally, instinctively, it's really amazing. And then I said, okay, let's build on that. And then you said, okay, if you are thinking geeky guy, what the world needs, how do I know what the world needs? Said, yeah, fortunately the UN developed this UN Development Sustainable Development Goals 17. So actually gives me, and at this time when I was in impact investing, you know, we did the impact investing reports when they came out in the mid-'20s.

Oh, amazing.

It gives actually a name and I have an understanding of what to do and how to do, how to contribute to the world. And each of the 17 SDGs have a whole different subset of things and opportunities and possibilities. And it's beautiful because suddenly, you know, you have options to choose from. So that's where the, after the Ikigai, the SDG came in. And so those are the things where I'm I developed this empirically, also the 7 steps with people one by one by one, and then test it out, and then reshuffle a little bit, and then help them. And now what we're doing is basically with a platform, a privacy-first platform, Agentic AI, the blessing on that one, to basically leapfrog the whole thing for people around the world.

Very nice. So we're obviously in the AI era, and this is something my students, I talk a lot about is, and even reflecting on a year ago, my students, when I would ask, how do you use AI and generative AI specifically, right? Or a little bit of machine learning when it comes to algorithms, but how do you use it? Are you afraid of it? Do you like it? And the answers have changed drastically from, few months ago to today, where now all of my students use it. Maybe they're not so keen on some parts of it, you know, environmental impact, human impact of the data labeling and all of that. But one thing that you have said is that in the AI era, vocational education is essential. So most of our conversations are about automations, about the job losses you mentioned earlier, about efficiencies, competitive threat. So you're making a very different case. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that philosophy and why this is now essential for every student so they can actually be prepared and be doing the things that they're supposed to be doing in the world and not as worried about some of these very real, you know, issues that we're experiencing.

So it is relevant. So we are going through the next industrial revolution. The other one was, yeah, 100 years ago. And 100 years ago, it was about the knowledge economy. Privileged people with access to knowledge. If not, you had to move where you could access to knowledge. And it took over years in time and the studies and universities and seniority level on jobs to acquire knowledge which had an economic value. And that has been disrupted entirely. So mankind, my mom is a historian, you know, she says these cycles, yeah, whenever something new comes in and changes the entire situation for humans, they have to grasp with it. Unfortunately, normally there is a certain portion who benefits from, the vast majority doesn't. Then it goes into economic depression, then a war, and then you shovel things out. We hope it will not be the case, but it doesn't look very good. So therefore, my answer is I am concerned and I'm afraid. That's why I'm actually doing, at my age, an Energetic AI startup, not as a 20-year-old, not having a family and stuff, you know, because there's a calling behind, because there's a real problem, and I want to just mitigate as much as I can as an individual with a solution I have, which I know it works. So because of that happening, for me was aha moment last year. Last year I did a management buyout of an impact investing advisory firm, and we were not profitable of the portion I bought out. And in order to flip it, We automated everything end to end, which meant 70% of the people out, all youngsters, which meant better performance, lower cost, really faster, amazing, very positive things for the business. But then I said, uh-oh, this was one year ago, that if this will do Everyone, which is just a matter of time, if you can lower the cost of doing your business, you will. And if those who do not will not be able to compete, everybody has to do. So this will be affecting millions of people and it's middle-class people, white-collar educated people which have a mortgage and a home. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's woo. And then you have these privileged old system where you have to pay to get the knowledge, especially in the US. You know, Switzerland is different.

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Yes, I was going to say, in the US also, student loan debt Yes.

And these things. And if student loan, because if the parent cannot pay otherwise, the parent. But why would you pay $300,000, $500,000 to an Ivy League something if there is no job afterwards? Right, exactly. And then if you understand that the skill set you need to succeed might be 5 months, not 5 years, maybe $50K, not $500K. I don't know, just to make up a number. So this is a fundamental shift. And then suddenly I was thinking about, if you do not know what you want, everybody will ask the machine and you will inevitably end up in a burnout because it's not your choice. It's just something someone in the old time was a person or an institution or a professor or the parents telling you. Now it's an algorithm. So, and you can see that already because of social media and these things, mental health problems, these things. But this will go only worse. Yeah. And then some people were afraid of the youngsters only sitting in the basement, you know, living off porn and gaming. Yeah. And it is even worse. So then was for me clearly saying, if what is the differentiator? How can I compete with AI? It's because I'm a human. And if you look at the Harvard study on longevity, Number one of the factors is social interactions of a long life. Not the family, not everything, social interaction. And if this is in jeopardy because of AI or technology, so first I need to know who am I, and then I need to know how to use the technology. And that's where I get really concerned. So yes, I am afraid. But the blessing in disguise is AI. Thanks to AI, you know, you don't have to be privileged anymore. And then about 6 weeks ago, out of all the companies, the CEO of Palantir said 2 people will have success economically in the AI era, which is neurodivergent people, which in the old system were always kind of set outside, and purpose-driven people. Because these two know what they want and technology caters to them. All the others will ask technology to resolve their problem. So it's a difference between technology being a tool or a crutch. And that's a big statement. Therefore, my key— and this goes to my kids and now with the platform, whatever— Yeah, it doesn't matter whether this is evocating or not, but I'm just telling you, if you don't figure out what you want in life, it's very tough.

Well, as somebody who is very purpose-driven and has ADHD, I completely co-sign on what you just said. So I have to bring a little levity to this conversation because it is very deep and intense, but this has been also very meaningful. To have this discourse. And we mentioned your book on vocation, how to align with your purpose with your profession. And then you mentioned the second book coming out on vocation and organizations. When is that scheduled to come out to us?

So I finalized it in January, February. It's now in the editorial. They're going to the proofreading. They should come out again in September, October. So one year after the previous book. And the structure is pretty the same. I tell— to make the case, I tell my story, then I talk about the science of vocating and the 7 steps. And here it's just in the context of organizations, of the things I've been doing for many years in the past. Yeah, just— and it's meant for more business leaders to think about how to leverage vocation for the competitiveness and the meaning of a company.

Yeah, I can see that being a class that's being taught right along with MBA classes in creativity and strategy and, yeah, innovation. So I'll look forward to that. Maybe I can have you pitch that to my university. That would be wonderful.

Anytime. I did some courses in the past with Oxford University, you know, the MBA students. I love to engage that, and absolutely. A seed to plant in people's mind. Yeah. And then usually life is different afterwards.

Yeah. Florian, I always ask my guests, do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto?

So, yes, I have to check this very quickly because it's too difficult to remember too long because that's my favorite one. So this is the one. Let me just very quickly in English. Okay, I don't have it here, but the special is so Saint Antoine d'Exupéry, who wrote The Little Prince, has a quote, and I might make mistakes, I don't know exactly, but basically the quote is, if you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people, to tell them what to do when they bring the wood together, but rather have them to yearn for the endless immensity of the sea. And that's something which stick for me many, many years, my favorite quote. And it's not exactly, have always mistakes in there, but from the messages, before getting together and just doing something, get aligned on the vision long term and to see what you want to achieve. And that's what Saint-Exupéry so nicely tells, not to just in action and doing something and then see where we are, but really, you know, if you have a team and the alignment is there and you have the vision where you're going to go to, things fall into place. Yeah, because you don't have to one architect telling everyone what to do to make sure that everything is executed the way you want, because things fall into place. And that's my favorite quote of Saint-Exupéry.

That's really wonderful, and it really gives us a vision of who you are as well. Florian, this has been such a genuine gift, not just because of the framework and the book and the tools, but you've also just helped us realize that everybody must come from purpose. It is the foundation we build success on. And for anybody who's an entrepreneur, a leader, brand builder, or even works in an organization, they all need to understand we do measure success by many of the wrong metrics, and we need to give ourselves permission to recalibrate, to think about our own vocations. And of course, we'll have all the links in the show notes for people to be able to reach out to you, learn more about your work. Get the app, buy the book on Amazon, Apple Books, many other places. So this is just one of the most heartfelt conversations that I've just enjoyed so immensely. And I appreciate you so much for giving us your time, even though it's, I know, so late at night for you compared to me being in California right now.

Thank you, Anika, for having me, and you wrapped it up so nicely.

Thank you.

Yeah. So precisely. I really am grateful for the time with you and the conversation, and it meant a means a lot to me.

Yes. And I encourage everybody to think deeply about this because if you are one of my many listeners, thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being one of the hundreds of thousands of downloads we get every month. But take time to make sure that you, you know, are living in your vocation because almost every story has that pivot point. Every person I talk to there's some moment when they realized that they were not living their true authentic selves. They weren't doing what they were put here to do. They weren't living in that space that was actually providing something to others instead of just to themselves. So think about this as you're moving into your next step, your next week, your next year, and make sure to check out all of Florian's great information for us because I know that I haven't read the book yet, but I'm going to be getting it as soon as we get off this conversation. And I'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story and their journey very shortly. Until then, be beautiful.

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