The PXO Manifesto

[00:00:44] Mike Richardson : Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the "PXO" podcast, and we're looking forward to being back again together, uh, to, uh, continue this conversation, Zed, about everything that it takes to be successful as a portfolio professional. How are you doing today, Zed?

[00:01:03] Zed Vakil: I'm very good, Mike. Um, I've had a very busy week, but, um, I'm, I'm hanging in there.

[00:01:09] Mike Richardson : Excellent. Well, I'm working through the boxes. I am progressively unpacking. You know what that's like when you move house.

[00:01:16] Zed Vakil: Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:17] Mike Richardson: So,

[00:01:18] Zed Vakil: Your lovely new house. Yeah,

[00:01:19] Mike Richardson : for sure I'm I'm experiencing a portfolio life this week. I'm doing all of that, and of course, keeping my clients happy and my boards happy and my forums happy and all of that great stuff and, you know, uh, enjoying, enjoying the whole flow.

So hey, everybody, welcome back. We are so excited to be beginning this journey, uh, with the "PXO" podcast here. Uh, as you already know, uh, if you listened to the last one, we've got a sort of ecosystem taking shape on LinkedIn. We're gonna be launching a website real soon. Uh, we've got exciting, uh, future episodes, not least of all with guests being lined up for the podcast.

What else have we got cooking, Zed?

[00:02:03] Zed Vakil: Yeah. Um, wow. Where shall I start, Mike? You can reel me in if you want. But look, I would start with the fact that, uh, I have to, don't I? I know I'm showing off a little bit, but I've been working extensively on building what you have done and, and perhaps you can say a few words about, um, the PXO exchange on LinkedIn.

But I've been working with the corresponding work that, of course, uh, we have to do in this day and age on, on a, a website. Um, you'll kill me for this, Mike, as an agility professional because I've gone straight onto 2.0 rather than 1.0. So I'm hoping that when this comes out, people will recognize that it is not just a MVP, but we've really put some work behind, uh, seriously put some work behind, uh, getting out something that is going to be of instant use, uh, instant, instant resource and instant result, uh, for portfolio professionals, uh, looking at it.

Uh, it is built fundamentally around our mani- manifesto, which I think is, um, is something that you, uh, worked on extensively a couple of months, three months ago. And, uh, yeah, I'm really, really looking forward to, uh... We've slated that for the 1st of October. Looks like it's gonna be on schedule, uh, and, uh, we'll, we'll go from there.

What about you, Mike?

[00:03:17] Mike Richardson : Yeah, no. So, uh, Z-Zed just touched upon the, the ecosystem that we're building out in LinkedIn. We, we, we love the power of LinkedIn, and we figured why would we reinvent the wheel when it's already right there? So as we launch everybody on October the 1st, you'll see, uh, obviously a company page on LinkedIn.

You'll see a group on LinkedIn. You'll see newsletters on LinkedIn, uh, articles. Uh, we will of course, uh, be, you know, um, posting the podcasts on LinkedIn and, and so much more. So, so keep an eye on all of that, everybody. Uh, October 1st is the, is the big day, and we're looking forward to it. So, so Zed, you just mentioned all the work that we're doing on the PXO Manifesto, and I think that's a good thing to focus on today, everybody, and sort of double-click on this PXO, um, acronym that we've come up with in all kinds of different ways.

And, um, if you remember, um, you know, we use the phrase CXO, right? We rattle that off to refer to the different kinds of functional leaders that we find in the C-suite. Uh, the CFO, the CMO, the chief sales officer, the chief HR officer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so we've used PXO to refer to the same kind of idea for portfolio professionals because we use so many different kinds of X's to describe what we do.

We might say self-employed, we might say consultant, we might say, uh, you know, coach, trainer, speaker, poly worker, squiggly careerist. What, what other ones come to the top of your mind, Zed?

[00:04:58] Zed Vakil: It's absolutely crazy. And Mike, you know, we, we have contributed to, uh, acronym city, haven't we? But hey, we, we can't escape. Um, you know, we started where the business world had kind of already solved it as smaller chiefs and no collective nouns, and they invented CXO, so that was one letter doing a heck of a lot of job titles, right?

As, as we probably have those job titles ourselves. But, um, nobody ever did that. And, and I guess we've also come to this quite late. Nobody ever did this, this for people who- whose company is themselves and their, their offer is themselves, uh, quite often. And PXO is really CXO, isn't it? With the C taken out and the people p- put in instead.

But I think something that is, um, quite, uh, important to, for me to say at this point is, I think the definition here, uh, and I, I won't get too complicated with it, but I think if we look at those acronyms, I'd like those acronyms to stand for two things each. Uh, P for passion and portfolio. Bit of license here, but X for expe- expertise and exchange, and the O is for your ownership and offer of what you're doing.

We're calling that, uh, and a little bit of, um, uh, spoiler alert here, we're calling that p- the portfolio equation. And sorry for the algebra, Mike, but it's

[00:06:19] Mike Richardson : That's okay.

[00:06:20] Zed Vakil: a hell of a

[00:06:21] Mike Richardson: I'm good at math.

[00:06:22] Zed Vakil: But, but, you know, I, I think the, you know, I, I'm really proud of what, where we're going here. And the reason for that is, uh, if I give you a short anecdote.

When I went portfolio at 39, after a decade being a VC partner, there was no word for this. I mean, I don't think we even called it portfolio, let alone

[00:06:43] Mike Richardson: did not. No, we did not. No, we didn't

[00:06:45] Zed Vakil: Right? Exactly. And I kept saying to people, slightly embarrassed, when they asked me at a networking event or a dinner party or whatever it is, what y- what I did, and I said, "I kind of just regressed to, I'm between things."

Uh, and that's not good enough, right? And, and that's why, Mike, uh, the LinkedIn, uh, census matters, uh, what we're doing through, uh, that, people reaching out for their own X, if you like, unprompted. We didn't invent the impulse, we just came here to name it.

[00:07:19] Mike Richardson: Yeah, exactly. And as Zed just mentioned, we're-- we, we got started on LinkedIn, and we'll continue on the new website that we're launching to take a census of all of the different Xs, if you like, all of the different ways in which people describe their portfolio career bec- because it is mind-boggling, frankly.

It's incredibly confusing and confounding, and we just want to embrace that and, and be okay with that, and just let the sort of idea of PXO sort of live above that. And what we've begun to discover, Zed, is that the X of PXO really, when you double-click on that, it really opens a door to some very rich thinking and rich narrative about some of the aspects, some of the dimensions, some of the colors of success, uh, when you go portfolio, everybody.

And, and as you came into this podcast, everybody, you heard the sort of audio intro which, which begins to tease, uh, some of that. Um, we talk about, uh, being ex-corporate, we talk about the X factor, we talk about going exponential, and actually then we boil that down, don't we, Zed, to kind of are you X-ing your career?

And so we just wanna explore all of that a little bit more today, everybody. A little bit of a teaser of the PXO manifesto that we will be publishing, uh, a first version with the launch of the website, and then more extensive versions as we go down the path. But, uh, how does that all land with you, Zed?

The, the whole richness behind the X of PXO

[00:09:08] Zed Vakil: Well, Mike, if someone slaps me for all these, uh, near puns, I think they are, aren't they? I'll forgive them. But look, I, I just, just go back to that ex corporate. I think that's worth a little bit of time in a sentence because that sounds like, and, and this goes to the heart of, of the folks who will be listening, 'cause it sounds like a subtraction in some way.

But actually for us here in this discussion, it is a start line. And I'm gonna show off a bit after my basic al- algebra earlier on with my equations, uh, Mike. But ex is Latin for out of,

[00:09:43] Mike Richardson: Oh, come on. Wait, wait, wait. You, you, did you do Latin at school? I did at grammar school.

[00:09:48] Zed Vakil: I, I, I just Googled it. I didn't go to a good enough school, Mike, clearly. it also, by extension, is beyond, out of the box, out the building, and experience starts with it, expertise starts with it, so does exodus, which is what the workforce is currently doing and staging worldwide. And the second panel of our new website, sorry to plug that again, shows some amazing statistics, uh, on that, which I won't share with you now 'cause w- statistics are not great on a podcast.

But, um, it's the labels, like you said, Mike, that fragment you, right? X this, X that, X something, former whatever. And what we're trying to do here, uh, Mike, to double down on what you just said, the, it's the X that should be embracing you, the mark, all of it at the same time. Um, and I think that is something, as you correctly said, which starts this, um, narrative in a very rich vein, um, and should not be too simplified as simply being a, a play on words or a pun

[00:10:55] Mike Richardson: Yeah. No, I love that. And, and, and the f- the idea of the X factor.

Um, you know, I, I'm on a board and, and, uh, here locally, I'm on a number of boards, but I'm on a board locally, and we have, uh, uh, a, a daughter who is the heir apparent to the CEO, and we're now dev- you know, getting her on a development roadmap and a succession plan and all of that.

And we have a lot of conversations about the it factor, and does she have the it factor? And she does, uh, you know, big time. And how many times do we, do we find ourselves pondering whether somebody has it, and we're not quite sure what it is. It's the X factor. It's that difference maker between portfolio professionals who, you know, have a modicum of success, but they're sort of stumble bumbling along perhaps, and those that just seem to break through and get on a great trajectory going onwards and upwards to higher and higher order levels of success and prosperity and happiness and all of those kinds of things.

So we want to really double-click everybody on what is that X factor and, and as you're doing, Zed, how do we sort of look at the equations behind the scenes of that? Um, and then so that's the ex-corporate, everybody. We also talked about, going exponential, Zed. What does that mean to you? What does that mean to you?

[00:12:36] Zed Vakil: Well, uh, I'm glad you, uh, brought that one up because I think this is the, uh, I guess the door opener, the key to what, um, our narrative is all about. That exponential means that it's a job, it's ad- an addition, one role, one line of revenue, one identity. A portfolio multiplies that. It becomes the sum of the parts that feed each other, that overlap each other, synergize from each other.

And you, you didn't leave whatever you were doing before to be called an X. You left to be exponential. And I think that's why that word appears a lot in the narrative, uh, Mike. And I think, uh, we make no apologies for that because that is exactly what will happen when we really solve this X and, and get ourselves up on exponential, get ourselves synergizing with all the various, um, multiplications we can do in our lives.

Um, and- Yeah ... and we'll come to that later.

[00:13:38] Mike Richardson : Yeah, I love that, that fact and the, the idea of exponential is this accumulation, this compounding, this sort of almost logarithmic acceleration that happens as things layer in, as they build on each other, as they feed each other. As you said, Zed, when you have a, a really strong portfolio business model that isn't just a loose collection of parts, it's, uh, like an olde worlde conglomerate, right?

It's a tight collection of parts, like a contemporary, uh, corporation all aligned around a common mission and a common vision, and all fermenting with each other. And I remember distinctly what, what you're saying really is apart from how your resume compounds over time in a corporate job, when you leave one job and go to another, the prior job, apart from being on your resume and maybe it was a brand name, it doesn't have any real value to your new job.

Yes, of course, it's all part of your progression of your resume and your experience base and your wisdom, but there's no, there's no strategic value, if you like, over and above that. Whereas in the different parts of a portfolio business model, each is feeding strategic value to the other, and that's what causes the sort of snowball effect to go exponential and really take off when it, when it starts to click.

So I think this exponential concept, everybody, is something that we're really gonna, we're really gonna double click. So let me throw you a curve ball, Zed. So we've touched upon the, we've touched upon the X's that, you know, are in the audio intro. Why don't we each, uh, come up with three more of our favorites, and Matt perhaps we'll, we'll alternate.

We'll do them one at a time.

[00:15:33] Zed Vakil: Oh

yeah

[00:15:34] Mike Richardson : a, what's another one of your X favorites, Zed?

[00:15:37] Zed Vakil: poor, our poor listeners. So just imagine the, all these X's we're talking about actually spell the word correctly, but with an E-X. Uh, and whilst we're making X our mark, we, we use a bit of, um, uh, literature license, I suppose, to, to u- make these, um, make these words up.

[00:15:56] Mike Richardson: Hey, we're portfolio professionals. We're, we're allowed to do that.

[00:15:59] Zed Vakil: Indeed, indeed. Of course, we can do what we want now, can't we?

No one to tell us. But my three, excavate, exchange, expedition. And let me just quickly unpack those three. Uh, excavate is actually Chip Conley's charge, uh, to midlifers. Um, dig up what is already you rather than re- re- than retrain into somebody else. It is also an incredibly honest description of what the first two years practically are in, in, in portfolio life, is digging down and excavating who you are, what you offer, what your expertise is, a- and how you can bring that into another version.

Uh, exchange... Go on.

[00:16:43] Mike Richardson: hop on that one though first, Zed. I love, love, love that idea, everybody. It's, it's the same kind of idea that, you know, the, the marble statuette, you know, gets chiseled out from a block of marble, but the statuette was on the inside all along, right? And, and the, the, the, you know, artist that created this phenomenal thing sort of let it reveal itself to the world, um, sort of inside out.

And for us it's the same, uh, with how you discover the, the essence, the core, the center of gravity, the springboard, uh, for your portfolio career, and it's already there.

Uh, you've got to sort of forensically, um, dig it up, dig around it, dig it out, you know. Um, you get down in there with a fine-tooth comb and a brush and sort of, you know, um, do the last little bits of excavation to find the detail and the features and all of those kinds of things.

Um, and, uh, it really, that's

[00:17:59] Zed Vakil: yeah, I would say, uh, that that's, uh, exactly right. And I would say that it, it, it kinda tees up nicely, uh, my, my second word exchange, which is our company name or part of our company name, Px Exchange. But it's the name and the mechanism in one word, is it not? Uh, value changing hands between peers, um, not sold down a hierarchy of any kind.

And I think this whole element of, um, exchanging p- a portfolio, um, life together with a bunch of peers, however that is done, has gotta be the most enriching way of becoming exponential. And my-- just my third one, um, e- expedition because that, that kind of follows on, because it has that direction, doesn't it?

And a, and a kind of, you know, you have to have your kit with you, and you're not just drifting. Uh, it's still a bit uncertain, but both can be true at once, that you're heading into this uncertain future, but you're very, very well-equipped on this expedition, uh, because of the exchange you've had, uh, with others

[00:19:09] Mike Richardson : Yeah. And so it will be an adventure, everybody. Gosh, it's been an adventure for me and Zed now, who, who as you heard in the previ- previous exer- uh, episode, both went portfolio at age 39. Uh, we're, we're, we're almost the same age, so 20, you know, 25, 26, 27 years ago. And, um, boy, oh boy, oh boy, has it been an adventure, an expedition of

[00:19:37] Zed Vakil: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:37] Mike Richardson : much exchange, uh, with, you know, trusted peers and colleagues, not least of all you, Zed.

And very much excavating the discovery and the, and the exploration of what emerged for me as my core focus, my center of gravity, my passionate purpose. And I remember distinctly in the early days, I went down some dead-end streets. I went down some, you know, cul-de-sacs, some blind alleys, and, and I had to, you know, do a U-turn and back up 'cause I realized, "No, this isn't it."

Um, and because I had other things in motion at the same time, it wasn't like I was going back to square one and starting again. I was able to, to morph, and morph, and morph, and continue finding a pathway through. And it, it's absolutely been an expedition, Zed, because I would never, ever, ever have predicted that I would end up where I am today.

[00:20:46] Zed Vakil: Eh, indeed

[00:20:47] Mike Richardson: at, stood at A, I would not have predicted Z, where I am today. But now that I'm at Z and I look back to A, I can s- I can understand the twisty, turny journey that I came. I love that saying that we live life forwards, but we understand it backwards, and now I can understand how I managed to evolve here.

What about yourself?

[00:21:13] Zed Vakil: Yeah. Li- likewise, very much. And, and, um, uh, don't tell everyone how old we are, Mike. Um, um, but yes, I think with that experience... And, and look, w- with fear of embarrassing you, Mike, um, I'll tell you folks that, um, about, uh, when was it? Just post-COVID, Mike and I, uh, uh, got to know each other. And, uh, it was Mike actually who first pointed out to me that with all my various activities, the worst mistake I was making, and this is something we will probably talk about a- in future episodes, the worst mistake I was making is with a huge passion for all the things that I was doing, I wasn't putting myself in the center of those and synergizing them.

What I was doing was operating in each of those silos separately, and there goes the first lesson of portfolio life. Do not try and stack, uh, because that just becomes a pile of things, um, and they're not a portfolio life. What we're aiming for is getting that synergy between all the activities that we're doing, Mike.

And, uh, you know, I have to credit you for having me- shown me the light on that one because I might still be, um, looking to the horizon wondering what I was getting wrong.

[00:22:26] Mike Richardson: Yeah, and I learned that, Zed. Thank you for that. I learned that, Zed, you know, when I was in the latter phases of my corporate career. I was running the aerospace division of a British public company, and I was putting together an integrated business model of different business units, and I made three acquisitions in North America, which is what brought me to North America, to sort of put the pieces of the puzzle together such that we would have this integrated business model that was differentiated from anybody else, and all of the component parts added up to a greater whole.

So, so when we talk about a portfolio business model, everybody, we mean an integrated business model as a portfolio professional, where all of the parts add up to a greater whole. And absolutely, Zed, the biggest mistake we both see now, as we mentioned earlier, is when a portfolio professional has stacked a loose collection of parts that don't have much to do with each other, like an olde worlde conglomerate, you know, back in the '70s and the '80s and the '90s, compared to a contemporary corporation that has a tight collection of parts that do add up to a greater whole, not least of all because each part is a feeder system with every other part.

So that's what we're talking about, everybody. I love those three. I love those three, and I can't, I can't-- I love Chip Conley's work. I listen to Chip Conley's, uh, podcast. We mentioned it, uh, in the last episode. Uh, he calls it "The Midlife Chrysalis," not midlife crisis, midlife chrysalis.

How do you morph?

How do you transform? How do you give birth to something else that can then take flight? And, and, uh, that's what we're talking about, everybody. And I just love, love, love this idea of excavating and f- you know, forensically, as it were, inquiring and, and, and discovering, uh, you know, the, the long thread of your career to date and where that long thread can go in the future.

So my three, my three, Zed, are-- I'm, I'm gonna go back to exodus 'cause I, I, I really wanna dig into that a bit more. Now I'm gonna go to experiment, and then I'm gonna go to-- I'm gonna flip the script a little bit here. I'm gonna go to paradox. Paradox. So exodus, I, I, I couldn't agree more with you, Zed, and we've seen this.

We talked about this a little bit in the last episode. Pre-COVID, there was already an exodus. During COVID, there was even more of an exodus. Post-COVID, that exodus is continuing and l- and going exponential. Um, n-not least of all with older generations who are now facing the reality that they perhaps are not as prepared for, um, you know, a classical retirement, uh, financially, and they're not as interested in a classical retirement sort of mentally.

Um, uh, you and I, I think, we have a never retirement plan. I certainly do. It's like, why would I ever want to retire from my passionate purpose? That doesn't end well.

And, um, and we mentioned the book "The 100-Year Life," in which they, they talk about the fact that you will have no choice in which to have a long tail to your income-generating potential.

And because of ageism, that is likely to have to be a portfolio income stream, not a corporate income stream. So I think that exodus will continue, I think not only in older generations, but also younger generations, you know, who, who are s-some of whom, more of whom are going portfolio from day one

[00:26:25] Zed Vakil: Yeah, Mike, if, if I can just jump in there. So it is worth actually saying that, you know, a lot of people when they first hear about this, they think it's quite, quite a niche of people who are doing this. It stretches to millions. Um, we're, we're not talking about some kind of, um, uh, weird niche going on here.

It is widespread, it is mainstream, and it is in millions. Uh, and it, it's probably worth saying that at that point

[00:26:54] Mike Richardson : Yeah. And then, so that's the, uh, the exodus everybody, and we'll, we'll come back to that. Then of course, experiment. You know, you know, Zed, that I've spent the last 25 years, uh, excavating my passion around everything agility, enterprise agility, business agility, organizational agility, team agility, leadership agility, and indeed I've created, you know, some, some unique intellectual property around all of that, that, that comes from the long thread of my career back into corporate and before that, you know, working on offshore oil and gas drilling rigs.

It was... It's just been amazing, those epiphanies that I've had where I realized, "Oh, that's, that's what I learned back there that's now relevant to what I'm doing." Um, that idea that everything y- you ever did was preparation to do this. Um, but in the field of agility, of course, everybody, we know that to be agile, and boy, oh boy, oh boy, as a portfolio professional, you're gonna have to be agile.

To be agile, whether you're a big corporate or you're a startup or you're a mid-market company, the secret is to run a fast series of parallel experiments. And so getting your mindset into an experimental mode and l- l- you know, launching early and iterating often, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, as Zed mentioned earlier, even though he's skipping straight to 2.0 with the website, which by the way is looking fabulous, I can't wait to launch it.

Um, uh, but the real key is to run a fast series of experiments, and boy oh boy, have I done that, and has Zed done that, and are we still doing that today. Everything we do is an experiment, and so I love, I love that.

[00:28:47] Zed Vakil: dare we say in this week of weeks where AI seems to have not escaped any news channel, uh, in any country, I think it's worth saying at this point that these experiments are so enabled by the tools that we've now got at our disposal. And, uh, something for the, the older, uh, listeners, those of a certain age, shall, shall we say, Mike, like you and I, when you get confronted by a, a millennial relative, for example, who says, "Why are you such a big fan of AI?"

And I've got an easy answer for that now, Mike, is because we can now experiment with all the IP that we have accumulated over decades now, and we now have the receptacles to play, the sandboxes to play in, where we can make this IP count for the stuff that we're doing. And I can feel another equation going on but, you know, these are all going to build on one another.

But your point about experimentation, boy, oh boy, oh boy, have we been given an opportunity now to experiment without risk. And also, you don't have to be perfect, right, Mike? Uh, in, in agility, we're talking about making progressions, uh, not making it perfect.

[00:30:06] Mike Richardson : Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, it, it's, it's, you know, get out there with a, what we call an MVP, a minimum viable product or process or program or proposition. Get out there with an MVP, put the real thing in front of real people who have a real experience of it and give you real feedback, and then iterate from there.

And, um, you know, Zed's been working on the PXO website. I've been working on a website for, uh, an event that I ran last year in November, and I'm running again this year in, in here in Temecula, uh, where I live, called CXO Exchange Temecula Valley, and this is where we get mid-market, big, small company and corporation CEOs and C-suite executives, you know, into peer groups, but also into a peer community.

And last year I just survived, you know, putting some PDFs and flyers together. But this year I thought, "You know, I really need a, a website."

So like Zed is doing with PXO, I just did the same with CXO and, and I released it progressively. I put a 1.0 together with Claude. I, I published it, uh, on Netlify, which, which is fantastic because it doesn't cost anything and you can do it instantaneously.

And I shared it with some real people who put their real eyeballs on it, and they gave me real feedback, and it was all positive.

and and they said because they could see it and they could feel it and they could comprehend it because they were interacting with a real thing, I wasn't just showing them mock-ups in PowerPoint, um, they could really give me, you know, real feedback.

And so I've probably, like you Zed, I'm probably now on iteration 30 and, and I'm progressively sharing it with more and more people, and more and more people are coming on board and wanting to be involved, and so I've got this snowball effect rolling. So awesome. Awesome.

[00:32:13] Zed Vakil: I'm not gonna let you get away with that. T- tell the folks where you have this CxO Exchange please, and make us all jealous

[00:32:20] Mike Richardson : In Temecula Valley Wine Country, uh, which is in the triangulation between San Diego, where it's about 65 miles from the airport, Los Angeles, where it's about 100 miles from the airport, and Palm Springs, where it's about a 90-minute cross-country drive through the mountains, eventually dropping down into Palm Springs.

So it's a beautiful area called Temecula Valley, yeah, Wine Country. Thanks for doing that,

Zed. And my last one, Zed, is, is one of my favorite words, and that's the word paradox. And, and of course, this word applies in corporate careers, of course, but also even more so in a portfolio career. And I think the, the best, uh, phraseology for this, for this came from Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great," where he talked about a, a, a concept, what he, what he was talking about level five leadership.

He said was a paradoxical blend of professional willpower and personal humility. A paradoxical blend, which is another way of describing, you know, what we might also call the and proposition

of professional willpower and personal humility. And when you go portfolio, everybody, even more than you already have to in your corporate career, you're going to change your relationship with the and proposition like never before.

Um, you're gonna have to be simultaneously, you know, strategic and tactical. You're gonna have to be simultaneously a one-person operation and a highly networked person and collaborative person. You're gonna have to be, uh, a s- a micro, you know, thinker. How do you get the details right? How do you dot the I's and cross the T's?

And a macro thinker of, well, what's the concept that we're tr- that I'm trying to cook up? How do I bring that alive? How do we architect it? And how do we take it to market and everything in between? And not least of all, um, it's the and proposition of the outer journey of strategies and tactics and offers and propositions, but also the inner journey as an and proposition of, you know, one's sense of, of identity, one's sense of self-worth, uh, avoiding, you know, fear, uncertainty and doubt, avoiding imposter syndrome, avoiding excuses and poor discipline and, and, you know, letting oneself, you know, drift, as you said earlier.

So for me, uh, any career, any, any role in corporate is already paradoxical because you've, you've got to be balancing many, many, many and propositions all at the same time. We, we recall that from our respective corporate careers, even more so in a portfolio career. What are your thoughts about that, Zed?

[00:35:28] Zed Vakil: you put it so well, uh, Mike, and, you know, I, I reach back to some of my experiences in corporate life and, and the kind of the exodus I, I had. But it, it is true, um, that your, uh, portfolio life takes- starts taking shape. And, and of course you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but you do have this, um, I guess, huge vein, huge mine of, um, experiences, uh, intellect, uh, expertise that you can excavate and go back.

But you bring that to the fore in your portfolio life in a much different way, a progressive way, and one that is going to be very personal, very passionate, uh, to you. And Mike, it would be remiss of me t- not to, to say this. I think many of us coming out of corporate life have to get over ourselves, uh, a little bit. Because w- we, we have spent decades probably playing a part rather than playing our real selves. And I think there was one big difference that I've seen in myself and many, many others in, in all the different communities and platforms and, and, and groups that you and I, Mike, have be- be- belong to, is this whole element of showing up as yourself in your new portfolio life, but without the baggage, political or otherwise, that you've carried for decades and acted out a role which really wasn't you.

Uh, and, and that great source of unhappiness for a lot of people, and I think if there's one thing I'd like to bring into this conversation is happiness. Your success is derived from your happiness. Um, and y- you know, you can't really do that if you're acting

[00:37:29] Mike Richardson: Beautiful. I, I think that's so well said. I'm, I'm so glad you took us there because it reminds me, as you know, of some of my favorite insights around all of that from a, a, a, an author called Parker Palmer, who wrote an awesome book called "A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey to an Undivided Life." And what he speaks about in that book, everybody, is what Zed just said.

He said, "You know, when you're born as a, as a baby, as an infant, there's no separation between your soul and your role because you don't know any better, right? You're, you're a young child. But as you grow up in the world and you start your career and you learn the tips and tricks of how to survive, there's often a big separation between soul and role.

You're one person at work in your role, and you're another person at home in your soul." And, and y- and you go, you know, you find that that, that chasm can expand and expand and expand, and it can often lead to stress and strain and, and a, an unhappiness in a corporate job and just feeling like you're on a treadmill and starting to daydream about, gosh, you know, h-how, you know, could I ever perhaps take the leap and do my own thing?

And certainly that is w-what, uh, is possible when you take the leap into a portfolio career, everybody, in that you can have this coming back together of soul and role.

And as, as, as the, as the author says, Parker Palmer, the journey back, if you like, to an undivided life, where, as we said earlier, you're excavating this hidden wholeness that's absolutely there under the surface, but it's been hiding for survival purposes.

And, and a portfolio career gives you the opportunity now to excavate that, as we've been saying, to, to exchange that with other people, to go on the expedition of leveraging that exponentially, uh, and running the experiments, joining the exodus and, and threading the needle of the paradox that, that that requires.

But it is such a rich journey, Zed. What else?

[00:40:08] Zed Vakil: Indeed. And, uh, we should have a competition, Mike, how many ex words we can use in one sentence. But seriously, um, I think the... I would just like to put a, a, a full stop or a period on the end of that to say we must protect ourselves from not having an if only life. And that if only is one of the worst things I hear people saying, and I feel that so much of it is in their control, but they just cannot see it.

So let's, folks, try and promise ourselves not to have an if only life

[00:40:48] Mike Richardson : Yeah. Beautiful. Well, as we begin to land the plane here, Zed, let's just touch upon a little bit more what's coming next. We've mentioned the LinkedIn ecosystem that we're putting together and, and, you know, we'll be putting the final pieces of that puzzle in place, and that'll all be part of the launch.

But we're gonna launch the website, Zed, and just give a little, a little appetizer of some of the things that are coming with the website

[00:41:10] Zed Vakil: Uh, indeed. Um, uh, so, uh, these, um, two things go live, uh, on PXO Global, uh, from the 1st of October. Uh, they take just a minute between them, but I think I would point specifically to two things, uh, on the website. We ha- are now, um, nearly going live with our census, uh, a ten-second questionnaire with no email.

We don't want accounts or anything like that. No two answers have matched yet in the census. And trust me, that really does bring home this whole, um, view that everybody out there is trying to find their X. And if only we can have them exchange this problem in a place, the PXO exchange that we are providing, uh, we might actually get somewhere with, this problem of, of the

[00:42:08] Mike Richardson: So that's the census, everybody, where we s- we started in LinkedIn and now we're gonna do it on the website where we're, we're gathering the census of all the different ways that people describe their ex. Can't wait to see how that takes

[00:42:20] Zed Vakil: and Mike, it's extraordinary. I think we're up to 25, 26 different versions of it. So let's see how, where we get to. It'll be funny. And the other thing very quickly, which, um, is a new thing, which is going to launch and ship with the website, is we've created for a kind of diagnostic reason, what we're calling the X check.

Forgive me, the X is never gonna disappear now, as you can probably imagine. The X check. And the X check is seven questions, three minutes maybe. Um, where are you on these various stages of this expedition? It tells you where you are, um, and I think that in itself gives you a position, a, a compass point, if you like, to know where, uh, you're starting on this, uh, on this road.

So those two things to look out for. Website will be, um, uh, full of really, really rich material. And if you're going down this road, if you're going on this expedition, uh, I would urge you, uh, to, um, spend some time on it.

[00:43:27] Mike Richardson: And let's finish where we started, Zed. Just give us the equation one more time for PXO. What did you say it was again?

[00:43:35] Zed Vakil: Yeah. Right. So P is for passion times purpose.

[00:43:40] Mike Richardson: Nice

[00:43:41] Zed Vakil: X is for expertise times exchange, and O is for ownership and offer

[00:43:49] Mike Richardson : Beautiful. Beautiful. There we have it, everybody. Another episode of the "PXO" podcast. Uh, lots and lots and lots of exciting things to come as we launch the exchange and as we continue our conversation here in some way, shape, or form, continuing to explore the A to Z of portfolio career success. We're looking forward to having you back with us at future episodes.

Thanks for being here, everybody. We'll catch you next time