Finding Your Naked Ambition with Eric Schmidt

I'm a person who's, I don't know, they. In the old company, they called me Maverick because I'd kind of just go out and do get things done, you know, and, and that would sort of sometimes break company process, which create a lot of fuss for everyone. But for me, that really speaks to what is happiness for me internally. And for me, it's three things, right? I need to be excellent in whatever it is I'm doing. I need to have some level autonomy to do it and I need to see impact. If I can have those three things married together, I can be happy doing a lot of different things. But as I proceeded and the company got bigger, my autonomy kept shrinking, my impact kept shrinking, and that in turn made me less excellent at it overall. But I still had the great relationships with all the people that I had in the organization. That was really what prompted me to say, hey, no, I'm going to stick this out and continue with this group I'm with because I potentially see ways I could try and work around things done here.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey, Happiness Squad, it's Anil here in Ashish. Great to have you back. Here's a question for you. Do you find purpose in what you do or are you lacking an internal orientation that leads you through your day to day? Purpose and meaning are not only critical, but are also powerful motivators that allow us to unlock a commitment to something bigger than ourselves. Did you know that a company with a strong sense of purpose also has a history of of strong financial performance? So now, if you imagine as an individual, what can we foster if we create or find purpose amongst ourselves, what performance, what reward can we unlock for ourselves as individuals that we can release into the world? You know, we discussed this today with our guest who's very special to me. He is my oldest friend and my original advisor and guide on purpose. His name is Eric Schmidt. Eric has a master's in conservation biology, and he's worked with governmental institutions such as the US National Renewable Lab and various local and regional government entities focused primarily on grassland flora and fauna as well as large mammal wildlife management. What was interesting is while he had a taste of this, he decided to shift gears early in his career and enter the world of tech startups. He eventually led a large scale enterprise software development firm, leading Fortune 500 companies such as Hershey's, Kaiser, Boeing, intel, and many more. However, Eric realized that's not where he wanted to be. What he did, he pivoted. He's now applying those same skills he learned to conservation by leading Wildlife Protection Solutions, an international NGO focused on protecting endangered species and and ecosystems through the practical application of technology to field settings. Even from the comfort of a living room, Eric's technology allowed an elderly woman to save the life of a rhino all the way on the other side of the world in Africa. This conversation unlocks so much for me as I listened to Ashish and Eric explore the real value of finding meaning and purpose in what you do. As they said, finding your naked ambition by stripping it all back. Imagine the anxiety in saving a species versus working to get your name on a building. You can learn about the difference Eric and his team are making@wildlifeprotectionsolutions.org so let's get started. Please join Ashish and I as we welcome Eric to the Happiness Squad. Hey Ashish. Hey Eric. How are you guys doing?

Doing great.

I'm doing wonderful. We had a wonderful Christmas break, you know, as you know, not doing much, just relaxing. So it was wonderful to spend time with family and yeah, so delighted to be here talking to both of you.

No, likewise. I mean, you know, so I'm in Australia at the moment. Let's see, Ashish is in Boulder and Eric is in Lakewood. So we've got like a bit of a, you know, massive international, you know, post Christmas conversation happening here. Do you know what's really exciting about this conversation we're going to have around purpose and with my close friend Eric Ashish? Eric is actually one of my oldest friends. I've known him since the mid-90s and he's had a big impact in a positive way on my life, in my purpose and my journey and what I've been doing since college in Boulder. And Eric, as we come together today, what Ashish and I would love to do is just maybe ask you to share a bit of your story with our listeners and kind of tee us up. Tell us what you've done. And what happiness has meant to you along your way.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, thank you, Anil. I guess to kick things off, it's important to understand about me that I've always been a strong believer in the natural world and that we need to be doing what we can to protect life here on the planet. And when I went to study my undergraduate and eventually master's studies, that's really what I focused on at the University of Colorado in Boulder with kind of a combined bachelor's and master's accelerated degree program studying conservation biology. As I was doing that, I found several opportunities to get involved in the actual industry, wildlife management, and aspects related to that from a government or very public facing viewpoint. And as I did that, more and more, I got a little bit, I guess you might say disheartened by how government agencies typically have to respond to every whim of the public and be, you know, completely on level with what they're going about. And that gave me kind of a. A wake up call, just as I was after graduating, after working several different wildlife technical jobs for a while. And so part of what I did was I took a fallback position and I began working with what amounted to a tech startup company because I've always also been kind of a passionate technologist and have always been in the latest trends of that sort of thing. So I hired on with an organization that I eventually became person 12 of a company that grew up to about 400 people that were providing different types of communication, messaging solutions. And a huge part of what I was doing was serving the Fortune 500 marketplace. So clients of mine included, like Boeing and Intel and Kaiser Permanente and all these, you know, very large organizations that I was helping with their technology needs. And one morning, you know, on probably my, you know, 10th or 11th flight out to California, and it only been half of the year, you know, 5am I'm sitting on the airplane going, God, you know, this is, this is getting tough. And I keep flying across the country to have essentially the same meeting with a different group of people and just kind of keep doing these things over and over again. So when I got back from that trip, I took it upon myself to actually send an email to the founder of the company, who I'd become good friends with over the years. And we had sort of built a relationship based on a mutual love of wildlife and hiking and that sort of thing. And I'd gone on various activities with him, and I said, hey, Dave, you know, as the company's grown, it was up to about 400 at that time. And I haven't been in constant communication with him just because as an organization grows, it gets big and hard to keep in touch with everybody, everybody that you always used to have a great relationship with. So I just said, dave, I miss hanging around with you. We should get together sometime. At one point he said, hey, I agree. I'd love to, you know, sit down with you, join you for some dinner. And we kind of hatched the idea that maybe it's time to step back a little bit from the technology company, get back to what both of our passions have always been, which is, you know, the concept of protecting wildlife. We did some initial horizon scanning and found that there's not a lot of people playing in the joint spheres of wildlife conservation and technology. And we said, look, that might be a role we can fulfill. And let's, let's both step back from the, the software tech company and jump into this new thing together. And we've been up to that for the past 10 years now with Wildlife Protection Solutions, which is a 501C3 based here in the States, but with operations in Sub Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world as well.

I love it, Eric. So for our listeners, talk a little bit about your current company and what you're doing, because I think, you know, when you shared that with me, I just was blown away. And my son still looks at the photos and the camera feeds that you were sharing. So share a little bit about what your company does right now and the impact you're driving day to day in our life.

Absolutely, yeah. We really have two primary sides. The first is kind of field facing where we actually will use our technological expertise to deploy remote surveillance networks into protected areas. So, so think of African savannas, tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia, essentially setting up wireless long range remote cameras so that if they see, for example, a poacher coming in to an area that is core habitat for a species where people aren't supposed to be by official mandate, the wardens or people around the world can get instantaneous notification that there is an intruder in that space. They can then leverage the appropriate response people, whether that's a ranger team or an anti poaching unit or even community resources to just go and say, hey, listen, this area is off limits, or we need you to not, you know, be hunting here or what, what have you. The other aspect that we've been recently engaging in is dispatching VR film teams to capture 360 video of rare and endangered species around the world. In an effort to educate people and the public, especially on the plight of animals and what's going on and why they're important to conserve this rich ecological heritage that's all around us on the globe here.

It's fascinating. And, you know, and I loved also the story, you know, that you shared with me, Eric, when we had dinner together around this lady, right, like this lady who had actually found this, these poachers. And she was just somebody, you know, who was retired, sitting at her home, and she liked to kind of look at it and like basically called out and saved. Right? Was it rhinoceros or like, what was. What did she save that day?

Yeah, it was rhinos that they were actually after. And that's one of the reasons that I really love getting involved in the nonprofit world as opposed to kind of being stuck into the government kind of mode of thinking where it's always the same, essentially what the technology that we were able to do allowed one of our volunteers to sit and monitor the camera feed from her phone. And because of the fact that everything is time shifted, so daytime here is nighttime in Southeast Asia and Africa, she's able to, in the middle of the day, just kind of see cool animals scrolling through her phone. She saw a bad guy one time hit the button and, and was able to alert the wardens in the field because they didn't have 24 hour ops room. Not many places can afford that. And so that alert came to us and the warden concurrently. We got a hold of the warden, they said, hey, there's bad guys at camera six. Are you guys have a response team? And within 15 minutes, we were able to see the response team pass by that camera in hot pursuit. Now, that particular instance did involve a firefight between the, the rangers and the poachers. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it prompted the poachers to drop all of their equipment, which is a big deal in South Africa, especially because guns are hard to come by because it's so state controlled. They fled the area and we were able to even see the post crime scene analysis happening. But I love this idea that people around the world with the technology we're bringing, can get involved in conservation through even just something like monitoring the feed on your phone, as opposed to it being problems around the world that you can't do anything about. And we love to enable that sort of thing for people to really get involved in.

So, Eric, how old were you? This is amazing story, right? Like, amazing story. Like, oh my God. So Eric, how old were you when you decided to make this pivot to this amazing work that you're doing now.

I mean, I guess the weird part of my career is it's always I refer to it as the line that became a circle. And I didn't ever intend to kind of take that divergence into the world of startups per se. I always wanted to, you know, knew I wanted to be in the conservation world, but for a lot of reasons, in part because of my disillusionment with how government has to handle a lot of conservation issues, I did take that turn into the business world, and I learned a lot from that. But my bending back towards it came about 10 years ago. So I was about 34, 35.

So, Eric, if I actually think back to some conversations we had maybe about 15 years ago, and I don't know if you remember this, but there was a call we had, and you said to me, I was like, eric, how's it going? You're like, you know, man, I'm just. I'm frustrated here. Like, this is just, you know, the culture here is not great. People are, like, wondering what's going on. You know, like you said you were traveling, you just. I don't know, you just didn't feel at a good spot. And I kind of said, hey, man, why don't you exit? Why don't you take off? Why don't you do something different? But you stay put. You. You still stuck it out. Maybe this is where I want to kind of bring in a bit about happiness. Like, what was it that allowed you to stay until to actually support you pivoted? What brought you happiness? Like, what kept you going until you made this change?

It's a great question. And I guess in some ways I'd almost like to back up and talk a little bit about maybe some of the things that I was chafing against that didn't necessarily allow me to be in a comfortable position. As the company got big, I. I saw more bureaucracy. I could. I. I felt more things were getting in the way of me executing on even technology goals that I was excited about and things like that. And so I'm a person who's. I don't know, they. In the old company, they called me maverick because I'd kind of just go out and do get things done, you know, and. And that would sort of sometimes break company process, which create a lot of fuss for everyone. But for me, that really speaks to what is happiness for me internally. And for me, it's three things, right? I need to be excellent in whatever it is I'm doing, I need to have some level autonomy to do it, and I need to see impact. If I can have those three things married together, I can be happy doing a lot of different things. But as I proceeded and the company got bigger, my autonomy kept shrinking, my impact kept shrinking, and that in turn made me less excellent at it overall. But I still had the great relationships with all the people that I had in the organization. That was really what prompted me to say, hey, no, I'm going to stick this out and continue with this group I'm with, because I potentially see ways I could try and work around getting things done here.

So, you know, Eric, clearly now you're doing the opposite. You're in a small group. You're actually, what you're doing has positive contributions. This woman in her living room of her home, you know, 10,000 miles away, was able to make a difference. You know, how have you shared with your friends, with your peers, where you see them kind of going through similar patterns of anxiety burnout, where they feel a bit small in their organization, they feel a bit lost. What have you shared with them or what advice have you given them that you follow that allowed you to pivot that you think could help them in overcoming that burnout, that stress, that feeling small and unable to make a contribution?

I think a lot about that. In terms of the team dynamics I try and create in the organization. One of the biggest things is I try and encourage people to just frankly, be, I guess I might say, nakedly ambitious about what they want. I constantly try and engage people by saying, hey, you know, what's your magic wand five year plan look like? How can I help you get to that? And if there's. And I feel a listening ear for that sort of input, I think that helps create a good environment and it also allows me to try and push people to the goals that they have. Because I think the more we can get people with great ideas coming together in an additive way, the better.

Yeah, and I love this notion of, like you said, you know, just repeat that again, Eric. Like, what's your naked ambition? I love it, like, unadulterated, unfiltered. What is it that you want to do? What actually you love, Right?

Yeah. And I remember in my career having conversations where, you know, with my mentor and he said, you know, what do you want to do? And I said, well, frankly, I want to be the president of your next organization. And I think if I had said something else in those conversations, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Yeah, no, I love that. And it's crazy, right? Because, I mean, the stats are quite stark, right. For only, you know, in the US about 30% of people that engaged at work, which means the work that they're doing, they actually love. They, you know, it has meaning for them. For 70% of people, it's nothing more than a way to earn a living. In fact, there's a small percentage. I think the number is about 15 or 17% or 18%, something like that. But it's very, very small number where they're actually so miserable that it kind of bleeds into their other life outside of work. And often there is so much opportunity available in the companies we work in for profit or nonprofits to be able to take on activities that bring us joy. Right. That actually truly bring us joy, that we love, that leverage our strengths, or we can actually start at least to have conversations that help us find love and meaning in what we are doing, while we actually start to kind of pivot and think about something else that would align us even more with what is meaningful. But there is always meaning in what we, you know, it's about looking with a fresh set of eyes and engaging in conversations. Eric. Right. And I mentioned that you mentioned, and I think as a leader, I think you do that. Now, other mentors have done that for you, and that's terrific, because these notion of job crafting conversations that allow people to truly craft their job, to introduce what they love and what they're good at, are so often missing.

Yeah, no, I absolutely love that phrase, job crafting. I think that it really is valid and frankly, from a leadership perspective, it allows you to kind of horizon scan and find opportunities that you might otherwise not be able to, you know, take advantage of. For example, I know a fellow on my staff now. A huge passion of his is building drones and working with remote robotics. Well, I oftentimes run across little projects or, you know, kind of skunk works type things, and I call up this fellow and I say, hey, I've got something that might, you know, really interest you as kind of an extracurricular. Would you love to be involved? And that shows him that I'm looking out for his. His stuff. I'm also potentially filling a gap in the conservation community. We see everybody ends up happy. And it's also great for me to, you know, revert back to my leadership and the board and say, look, let's really celebrate what this person has brought into the world that otherwise we wouldn't take advantage of.

I love that. That's the other really powerful thing around creating environments of flourishing, this notion of celebrating people and thanking them and recognizing them for the contributions that they're making. Again, something that so many folks can learn from.

On that, Ashish, I think it's interesting because you mentioned something for our listeners. We talk about 30% of folks are engaged at work. So you think of that balance group, right? You know, there is something that Ashish and I are working on a bit more, Eric, and they we read a poll on LinkedIn members globally and they found that 37% on LinkedIn are actually feeling purpose oriented in their roles. Guess what? 70% of that group actually feel satisfied with their jobs. So if you think about that other group at 60 some percent that are not purpose oriented in their jobs, you can only imagine how many people out there are just not satisfied. And back to ashes point and what you just said, Eric, like you are not in a good spot, but now that you are in a better spot, you're able to allow members of your team to flourish. You're one of those leaders that is able to kind of think beyond just where their space is, what gives them meaning, what value they're creating. And you're actually able to set up people on your team to feel the same. And hopefully they pay it forward as they go. And I think, Eric, kind of just on that maybe is there anything that you've noticed from your own side within the nonprofit? Because I remember chatting with you and Nash and I was like, hey man, why aren't you doing this for profit? Like, why are you doing this not for profit? Maybe, Eric, has there been a shift or a reason why you've approached it the way you have versus trying to do this from a profit perspective?

I think the simplest answer is the industry. If I use air quotes around that, that we're playing in the conservation space, frankly, has no money or it's very hard to get them to let go of it. And so for one, it's, it's just not something that if you're going to approach conservation and say this is now a, you know, multi billion dollar sort of industry and I'm going to get X percent of that, it doesn't really fly too well because the sale, the cost of sales ends up being so expensive and your return on that investment ends up being so low just because of the economic realities that many of these places that we're introducing technology to don't have sufficient funds to necessarily, you know, keep boots on the, on the shoes of their rangers, all the time. And so we sometimes add in extra funds to that. So it has traditionally been a philanthropic mission. I'd love to see that change over time with the introduction of things like carbon and red credits and all these other economic models about trying to, you know, value ecosystem services. It's not there yet. So that's fundamentally the reason why. The other thing is because conservation has been such a, I guess you might say, philanthropic oriented thing, there's a perception of a ton of competition out there. And as a group, if you're coming in and wading into the space, you get a lot of people say, don't darken our doorway. You're here to steal our funding. And we wanted to come in it and say, no, we're here to be an additive effect. Let's add technology and we're not using. So this is what we bring to the table in a non threatening way.

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Eric. Talk to me a little bit. You had mentioned how on one of those trips, one of the many trips across the US and especially one of those trips is you were getting on the plane at 5:00am you were like, wow, this is getting old and I don't want to be doing anymore. Now you take flights across the globe. You're not just flying across us anymore. Talk to us a little bit about how life has changed. And frankly, as you have pivoted towards doing this amazing work that brings meaning, connects you back with what you love to do, how do you make sure. What are some practices that allow you to take care of the other two pillars in life, which is love and health? How do you take care of yourself and how do you protect time for those who are important in your life?

I guess fundamentally, with regard to recognizing that it does have to have that balance in the mix there. And I'm always. Not always the best that achieves that, I'll be one of the first to admit, but I do try and segment out pretty specifically when I'm working in. I'm on a plane or I'm traveling and I'm in meetings, it's almost full on. Of course, I'm calling back home whenever I can. But it's, you know, with time zones in the mix there, you know, your head is pretty much in that game around the world. But when I come back here, I really try and say, okay, the phone is off. Now I need to focus on, you know, well, for example, we just had to postpone this very call because of a surprise date night that my wife wanted to get together yesterday. And I appreciate you both for providing that flexibility. So really recognizing that it is a priority and a health as well. You know, trying to set some time aside each day. But getting back to your initial question, Ashish, with regard to the grind and how. How I deal with it or what the difference is. To me, it's getting back to seeing that bigger purpose of, you know, the impact that I can make now versus increased, you know, PO sizes or hitting quotas or things like that. That was all well and good, and I was compensated for that. But for me, it wasn't always, you know, I need a bigger paycheck. And it was more like, how can I fulfill the commitments that I made to myself as a child on wanting to do good for the environment and the animals that share this planet with us.

Yeah, no, I think it's. And it's really powerful. Right? Yeah. Go ahead, Anil. Sorry.

No, no, sorry. I was just gonna say, I just. You know, it's interesting, Ashish, how you mentioned, like, quotas and hitting sales targets. Like, Eric, when we've talked, it's not like you're like, hey, I need to save 20 animals this month or 20 animals this year. Like, every single animal you save counts. You know, every Every person that you work with, on the ground, with your technology, it counts. And it's. It's kind of powerful when you can remove numbers and quotas and just let the sphere of influence that you have really grow and expand and make a difference in people's lives. And that. I'm just powered up. As soon as I heard that, Ashra, sorry. So I had to jump in there, mate. Go back to you.

We'll even tell you one better. Neil. One of the most. One of the most insightful things that my mentor ever said to me, and he is on the board of wps, he says, you know, look, a lot of people can invest money and they'll build a building or whatever, and they'll get a name on that building. And that's well and good. But, you know, if. If I can save a species that lasts forever. And I was like, damn, Dave. Damn, damn.

Mic drop moment. That's awesome.

Well, you know, I think. I think what you mentioned, I think it resonated a lot with me, Eric, right. I think where I was both around a couple of elements to just kind of circle back here and re emphasize, you know, I think one is, you know, I have, as you mentioned, right, Like, I've seen this in nonprofits where there's more burnout, stress, and anxiety than even for profits, because truly, you're doing something that is meaningful and you can give everything you've got into it, right? And people often forget you can't pour from an empty cup. And so this notion of boundaries, right? Like, truly, as you said, like, when I'm there, I'm there, but you know, when I'm here, like, really protecting that time, you know, and being willing to actually reach out and say, hey, this is a priority for me right now. And I would love to talk to you guys in the podcast, but can we push this out? Because my wife is what matters to me right now, and I really want to go out with her and she wants to go out on a surprise date. So I think that's beautiful. I think also this notion of health you mentioned, right, like doing something for yourself, right. So I'd love to talk a little bit about what are some things that you do for yourself from a health point of view.

You.

Let's come to that in the next question. But I really powerful to say, you recognize and you want to take care of yourself because you are flying around. You know, it's actually quite an extensive international travel schedule to make sure that you're at your best. And so the fact that you do that, right. And you kind of make sure that you take time daily, you mentioned like almost every day, finding some time for yourself for that. And then I love this, what you just said, right. Which is, look, to some extent what you're doing now is probably more taxing, not less taxing than your old job. You probably have less resources. You don't have a 400% organization, which means there's a lot more on your shoulders. Your travel has shifted from the US to global in many shapes or form. The demands on you are much more now than before. But I think that is one thing that has shifted, that is allowing you to flourish so much more, which is you actually have real meaning in what you're doing. You know, as you said, even saving, as you know, you save an animal, you save a species, Right. Especially with the endangered ones. So I think this notion of you, you just kind of brought back for me this beautiful wisdom in the words of Nietzsche, right, Those who have a why can survive. Anyhow, I think you have a higher purpose, higher meaning, that kind of, I think is giving you an additional source of fuel to go out there and take on whatever the world throws at you.

Absolutely, that's 100% correct. And to be able to so directly link what we're doing, at least on the technology side, to results. For example, just this morning we got an image in from the cameras and then within two and a half hours we got word back from the people on the ground that said we caught these guys because of the cameras and the tracking dog that we had donated in. So that that one to one connection of like, I see the results and I make it, that was, that for me was not existent in the kind of government world. So much of what you do on the conservation side is oftentimes a, you know, part of a 10 year plan because that's what it takes to bring species back. But at least on some of the tech side you can get that immediate like source of gratification which I, I love about what we're doing right now.

Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about the plans, Eric, and what is in the works as you kind of, you know, scale this organization and also share a little bit about how if listeners, you know, have kind of are interested in getting involved in this amazing work that you're doing, how could they be involved? How could they learn more about what you're doing? How could they be involved in it?

How could they?

Yeah, absolutely. With regard to scale, we've got quite a few cool Things coming up for 2023, first and foremost, continuing our rapid expansion of cameras running around the globe and helping our partners get more and more of those field. We've got about a thousand out there right now. We're hoping that maybe we can as much as double that in 2023. We've certainly built the infrastructure for it. On the education and outreach side, we're just starting to get our footage into places like museums and zoos and aquariums and other natural places where we think people might be excited to see what animals are like when there are no people around and they're not in a zoo type environment to give kind of a new window of insight into the natural world that way. But you can always reach out to us by visiting our webpage@wildlifeprotectionsolutions.org Getting in touch there. We have opportunities to sign up to be a volunteer to monitor the camera feeds and other volunteer opportunities in the field as well. So we'd love to hear from anyone who has a passion for wildlife and an interest in helping it out.

I think it's powerful, man. And Eric, I think you sharing. Thanks for sharing that. While I was here in Australia, I went with my wife's nephews to the zoo and, you know, reading about, you know, how certain species are becoming endangered and like going to a zoo to get that, that's great. But I think it's quite cool that kids could actually get onto this and actually see animals live in their natural habitat and they could hopefully educate themselves and learn about. Because I think it's the next generation that really needs to step up and also find real meaning and purpose in what you're doing and how you're doing it. I did want to ask, actually, if you don't mind, how many other nonprofits are actually working in this space? Just for a bit of context, in.

The conservation technology space specifically, it ends up being kind of a tight knit community. There's actually some amazing sort of, I guess you might say, multipartite groups that have come together. For example, SMART Conservation Tools, which has created a parks management database tool called SMART. And that's a amalgamation of nine of the biggest wildlife NGOs, one of which we participate in, as there's also another group from the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence that's doing quite a lot. But the community of technology practitioners winds up being maybe 150 people globally that you sort of start seeing at conferences all over the place. And everybody knows everybody, so it's surprisingly small. And then of course, the bigger, broader Conservation community, of course, is many thousands. But for something that really is a trillion dollar problem that all of our lives, one way or another depend on, conservation is getting shockingly little primetime attention from the mass audiences.

I think I need to make a call to Elon Musk. Maybe getting him involved in this space might actually for better, for worse, no jokes.

We need all the help we can get.

Yeah, you know, over this, over the holidays I read, I. Over the holidays I read Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and oh my God, you know, what an inspirational story. And I mean, actually broad awareness, you know, around the importance of conservation, the struggles that that have, you know, that those who struggle, like, I mean, you know, it's a really hard fight and a big part of it is because people aren't even aware. You know, it's quite amazing. So talk to us a little bit, Eric, about, you know, some two or three stories around conservation that, you know, things that people might not know about. They might be statistics, they might be stories, they might be anecdotes, you know, what might be three things that our listeners might not have completely known about conservation or might be myths that they hold about conservation and they're actually not true that you could share.

Maybe.

I'd like to focus, if I could, on one that's maybe a little bit longer because I think it's so iconic and frankly unknown at all. It's what I refer to. And you know, frankly, the guy who made the story refers to as the white rhino saga. You may not be aware of this, but if you've ever seen a white rhino in a zoo, that animal was once considered extinct. Back in the 1890s, it was thought that they were completely shot out of Africa. And what happened was in a park called Umphelozi that people did not go into because of sleeping sickness and other insect borne diseases, a couple of hunters went in there, at one point, shot two animals, dragged these things back out and said, holy smokes, these are not black rhinos. Like we thought these are white rhinos. And we thought they were extinct like years ago. So that happened late 1890s. And that sort of was the call to biologists then to say, look, this species may have another chance. Let's quickly put some protections in place around Hlui and Fallozi and figure out how many rhinos are actually in that place. It turned out there were maybe a nascent population of about 20 to 40 animals. And from the late 1890s to about 1940, they were able to grow that population naturally. Through to about 400 animals. At that point, an incredible man named Dr. Ian Player, who I had the opportunity of meeting before he passed away, came in and I interviewed him extensively about this, talking to him about how did he recover this species. And he said, look, all our eggs were in one basket. This one park, you know, a flood, a disease, a fire, something terrible could have happened and this species would have been wiped out again. So he had to literally take it upon himself to develop every single method of how do you dart a rhino? How do you put a rhino on a moving object? How do you transport a rhino? How do you care for a rhino in, in transit? How do you reintroduce a rhino to another place? He figured all that out by himself effectively, and was able to reintroduce white rhinos not only throughout the rest of South Africa, but then upwards on the continent into sub Saharan Africa. And he said, we're still not done here. We've now got to get these things into parks around the world, safari parks, other places as insurance populations in case this issue with poaching and hunting comes back. He was able to grow that population from the nascent 400 up to 20,000 at the global, you know, tip top. And unfortunately, we're not doing a great job with that, his legacy, because we're now back down to maybe around 10 ish due to poaching and things like this. But it's an incredible story of a man getting involved, following his heart, bringing a species back. And now it's up to us to make sure that we maintain that legacy. And I'm happy to do what we can to, to help continue that.

Yeah, I find that story so powerful, right? Leno, like such a powerful story and there are probably so many others of, you know, so many other individuals and species and it's, it's also the power of the individual.

What I love about it is that it's, everybody has seen a rhino and they can in some way relate to the fact that, wow, I probably would never have had that opportunity to see that animal had it not been for Dr. Player and his efforts. You know, and to me, conservation is heavy on downers and light on success stories, so I always like to focus on that one specifically.

So tell me, Eric, as we wrap up this podcast, we've got two or three questions for you. One is like, listen, I think for you and the founder of the company that you were in, right, you know, you were, I'm assuming, hopefully at a good place where you could both say, hey, you know, what, let's, let's wrap up our, this journey and we're going to go back towards, you know, wildlife preservation and conservation, taking all the technology and gains that we've had. But, you know, for others who might also not be enjoying what they're doing, but they're not there financially to be able to make that offer hard pivot, what advice would you have for them?

You know, my advice would frankly be to figure out a way to take what it is that you love and figure out how you can begin doing little bits of it over time that add to your self satisfaction and keep growing that. And eventually I think you'll, you'll bend the, the line back toward the circle where you want it to be. You know, in my view, everything that you do is very rarely a switch on or switch off. And you have to sort of be taking those incremental steps so that the big steps then suggest themselves when the time is right and you're more comfortable making the leap.

So keep it front and center, keep it front and center what you love, right? Don't, don't let it die out. Don't let that flame of passion die out.

Exactly. And then continue to devote extra time to it because if it is truly special for you, that'll spend, that'll, the time you spend will end up recharging you as much as it will depleting you. And so I think you'll get more out of that time spent.

You know, what I also found interesting is, I think what you did is you actually used that love together, right? Together. You kind of explored that with your founder. And we didn't talk a lot about that, but I'm pretty sure that collectively, right. Like you both weren't wildlife lovers who kind of got together in the company serving big Boeing and Lockheed and what have you, right? But you found a common place and probably started with you sharing what you do and finding common ground there. So that's also an interesting one, right? Like of just, hey, share with your work colleagues what you're passionate about because you might find a kindred spirit that collectively opens that for you.

That is absolutely true. In fact, one of the things that I remember thinking after having had a few dinners with my mentor, I said, you know, it is interesting that he's wanting to stack up and grow this company into something that will eventually have an outcome that I can be very aligned with. And so every time I did hit a quota or got, you know, more pos, I was like, well, someday in the bank of good karma this will come out as a, a good opportunity for wildlife. And that always made me feel good while I was in the situation as well. I'm also extra glad that I get to, you know, be on the other end of that and be seeing the good that comes out of it. But you're absolutely right, Ashish, that's a great insight now.

It's, it's terrific. So, like, look, now, if you had to give, you know, as you look back at your life, Eric, starting from your 20 year old CU time where you were kind of studying, you know, conservation or you were in the space and then took this, as you said, a detour into the tech world to come back at you, what advice would you have given to your younger self as you reflect on your journey so far?

It's a great question, I think the biggest one, and I think we were just starting to see this when I was getting my education. But the world is incredibly flat now and you can go and become a deep expert on a lot of amazing subjects with the tools that are in front of you with just a laptop and an Internet connection. One of the great stories that I have is, again, this gets back to my mentor. His wife actually had a very serious thyroid cancer condition. He put his life on hold and he did a deep dive into the primary literature on this particular branch of thyroid cancer. And then he started attending the conferences from the doctors and all the doctors at the table were, you know, he was like interacting with them and talking to him and citing literature and they were like, oh, where did you go to med school? And he goes, no, I just been reading. And it was interesting because he ended up knowing more than the doctors because they had full, you know, surgical schedules all day long and so they couldn't keep up on the primary literature. And so what an illustration to say if you have a passion, you want to learn something, now is the time. And the tools are just out there. You can just grab them and make what you want with them with the time that you have.

Yeah, no, I love that, Eric. And you know, it resonates very closely with me. Right, because, you know, I don't know if I fully shared with you, but like, you know, five years ago I was pursuing, right. I was in a career, you know, there was some aspects of it around serving clients and making an impact on individuals that really, you know, resonated with who I was. It was always about relationships. But the nature of the work that I was doing was not fulfilling. And so, you know, I realized that what I really cared deeply about was actually unlocking human potential and unlocking flourishing. And you know, 500 books later, many courses online that I did over those five years, right? So, so true. I didn't go get a PhD. I didn't leave what I was doing. Just go out there and say, hey, you know what, I'm going to leave my career. I'm actually going to study. Because the only way to study is if I enroll in a PhD or a master's program. It is so not true today if you're passionate. I was passionate about flourishing. I studied books across spirituality, around happiness. I studied books written by positive psychologists, I read books by neuroscientists. I could enroll in courses online and I could start to actually integrate this work into my day to day work. You know, on my own, 20, 30, 40% of the time, I was actually coaching people and recognizing that this was really bringing me joy till the point last year, you know, earlier this year, where I decided to actually completely pivot and do this 100% of my time. And we're launching this podcast, Sunil and I together, and we've got other things coming. But it is so, so true, right? Which is, hey, listen, if you love something, even if your work doesn't afford it, enroll in a learning program to learn more about it. You truly can become an expert in that and create opportunities in our flat, technology enabled world.

You know, as I reflect on these conversations, guys, this is beautiful. I mean, I think, Eric, to Ashish's question about looking back 20 years, those were times when you and I would be walking back from campus to the dorms, right? And we'd have some of those deep conversations as we walk back and say, so hey, you know, what did that mean to you and what does that mean to me and where does that take us? And I think it's incredible, Eric, to hear your journey, where you are, where you were and where you're going. And it's one thing that stayed true is you really do keep it real, man. You really do. And I think that, you know, I look to our listeners and I say to all of you, as you hear Ashish and Eric kind of what they just said, you don't have to go back and get a degree to learn something in order to not only find, but to follow your purpose. You don't have to overly invest money or it's a matter of taking that passion, really being honest with yourself and looking back and saying, all right, this is what I want to do and how I want to move forward. And Eric, that's something that has resonated since the May late 90s at CU all the way till today. And so my one ask to all our listeners out there is find your naked ambition. Strip it all back. As Eric said, piece by piece, stay true to what it is you love and hopefully that curve takes you to or back to where you hope that you are going. And on the back of that Eric, I just want to say thank you mate for your friendship all this time, for keeping it real and for keeping me honest about what my why is and where. I hope with Ashish and our listeners, our futures of unlocking more better health, love, joy and meaning can truly happen. So thank you Eric.

Yeah, thank you both. It's an honor and I've appreciated it quite a lot.

Thank you my dear friend. So appreciate and hopefully we get to see you again very very soon. We have your have you all come home and we have dinner together. But meanwhile and have an amazing rest of your year and a wonderful 2023.

Likewise. Thank you both.

Cheers.

Best wishes guys.

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