Introduction:
In a world driven by relentless technological innovation and transformation, the convergence of leadership and mindfulness is pivotal. In a recent enlightening conversation, Lisa Gable and Imteaz, two stalwarts in applied intelligence, delve deep into leadership, innovation, and personal growth. Their dialogues uncover profound insights into the symbiotic relationship between technology and human consciousness.
Unveiling Leadership Brilliance with Lisa Gable
Lisa Gable, a renowned visionary, elucidates the intricate facets of leadership. Her extensive experience paints a vivid picture of how adaptability and resilience are the linchpins of effective leadership. Lisa’s journey is not merely about leading; it’s about manifesting visions into realities, fostering a culture of innovation, and driving transformative changes.
Key Insights:
- Innovative Leadership: Lisa emphasizes embracing innovative approaches to effectively navigate challenges and lead teams.
- Adaptability & Resilience: Adapting to evolving scenarios and bouncing back is pivotal in maintaining a progressive leadership trajectory.
Synergy of Mindfulness and AI with Imteaz
Imteaz, a prominent figure in applied intelligence, explores the confluence of mindfulness and artificial intelligence. He discusses the critical role of staying connected to one’s essence while harnessing the capabilities of AI. For Imteaz, integrating consciousness and technology is about shaping a future where AI complements human abilities and enhances human well-being.
Key Insights:
- Balance: Finding an equilibrium between technological progress and intrinsic human values is crucial for harmonious development.
- Enhanced Well-being: The confluence of AI and mindfulness can lead to augmented human experiences and well-being.
Navigating Innovations: Strategies & Insights
Lisa and Imteaz collaboratively dissect the strategies to navigate the innovative landscapes of today’s world. They reflect on how one can balance personal development and technological progression. The interplay between ambition, innovation, and inner peace emerges as a central theme in shaping perspectives and driving advancements in applied intelligence.
Key Insights:
- Holistic Development: Personal growth and technological evolution are interconnected, requiring a holistic approach to development.
- Symbiotic Relationship: Ambition and innovation, coupled with mindfulness, can lead to a harmonious symbiosis, advancing individual and collective progress.
Conclusion:
The conversation between Lisa Gable and Imteaz is a beacon of wisdom for enthusiasts and professionals in applied intelligence. It brings an enriched perspective on leadership, innovation, and technology integration with human values. As we venture deeper into AI, these insights are guiding principles in fostering a balanced and enlightened approach to leadership and personal development.
Closing Thoughts:
The journey of exploring leadership and innovation is continuous and ever-evolving. The insights from Lisa Gable and Imteaz encourage us to reflect, adapt, and grow in our pursuits. It’s about embracing the synergy of technology and consciousness and moving forward with an enlightened perspective to create a harmonious and progressive future.
Hosted by: Imteaz Ahamed
Video Transcript
Imteaz (00:34.001)
Welcome everybody to Applied Intelligence. My name is Imteaz, our major host. Today I have a very special guest on the podcast. Her name is Lisa Gable. I’m just gonna give you a bit of background in terms of who Lisa is and we’ll dig straight in. So Lisa is the former US ambassador. She’s a CEO, a former UN delegate and a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author. She’s the author of the book, Turnaround, How to Change a Course When Things Are Going South.
Lisa speaks on leadership and partnership, mentorship and relationship building and big ideas. Her goal is to support the next generation of leaders and organizations that are solving the world’s biggest problems. She serves as the chairperson of the Diplomatic Career Futuristic Think Tank World in 2050 and is a distinguished fellow at the Hunt Institute of Engineering and Humanities, the SMU Lyle School of Engineering. Welcome to the show, Lisa.
Lisa Gable (01:30.106)
Well, thanks for having me. I so enjoy being on.
Imteaz (01:33.949)
Thank you so much. So to give everybody a bit of background in terms of who you are, I love asking this question beginning of my podcast, which is, what’s your story? If you were to break your life down into an autobiography, which only had five chapters, what would the chapter titles of each one of those chapters be?
Lisa Gable (01:56.998)
The first chapter would be character building. When I was growing up, I lived in a small town in southern Virginia with parents who spent a great deal of time making sure I had every single encyclopedia, a variety of different ethical training. And so it was really the time period of building my character and being able to explore who I am. Chapter two is what I call my credentialing phase.
I went out to the University of Virginia and then Georgetown while also working at the Defense Department and the White House under Ronald Reagan, and then left to go work for Intel Corporation where I had an opportunity how to apply processes to solving complex problems. And so by my third chapter, which I put in my 30s, it was how did I take those processes, those credentials, and transition them into leading organizations, to applying them to help people move to the next level of performance.
And today I would say that I’m in phase four of my life, which is not leading the charge, but being the person who supports others who are going to be solving the complex problems of the future. That’s really what the world in 2050 is about. And as I tell people, I’m going to be around my mid eighties in the world in 2050. So I want to make sure that the next generation of leaders have the resources and the training and the support they need in order to get us to where we need to go.
And obviously, like everybody else, there’s always the fifth chapter. And the fifth chapter is enjoying looking over my life, hopefully having done good things to support good people and setting the world forward and being able to step back with it, from it, with the knowledge that I’ve done all that I can do.
Imteaz (03:37.681)
Super cool. I read your book and thank you for the recommendation. So mastering turnarounds. It’s a lovely read. One of the key questions that I had in terms of, you know, the book is you’re recognized as a turnaround mastermind. What do you believe are the core principles or strategies that are essential for successful turnarounds within an organization? And if we could speak specifically, you know, in terms of this next wave of generative AI that’s coming now,
Lisa Gable (03:37.958)
Thanks for watching.
Imteaz (04:07.573)
What are the key things that organizations that have been around for a very long time, be they in the public sector or the private sector, what are the key things they need to watch out for?
Lisa Gable (04:18.31)
Well, as you know, in my book, I focus on four things and I’ll relate how that goes with the AI conversation. The first is to envision the future. What future do you want? If you could wave your magic wand, what’s the perfect world that you’d like to see achieved? But a key critical step that most people forget is breaking down the past. That’s truly auditing everything that went on before you because the reality is there are decisions that have been made, there are systems that have been put into place, there are things that currently exist
going to enable you to get to that perfect future state. As you come up with that audit, what you need to do is understand what are the parts of the existing array of tools in your toolbox that you need to focus on. One of the things we learned at Intel was the concept of job one. What’s the number one thing you need to do in order to get to your perfect future state?
And once you’ve identified that, you need to start ranking and rating what you’re currently doing, where are your expenditures going? How are people spending their time? What types of staffing do you have in place? Do those things currently fit with the future that you’ve dynamically outlined? And once you have grasped your key core competencies, what you need to do, what’s job number one, what I call jobs two and three that are sort of the supporting cast, the backup singers.
to get you to where you need to go, you’ve gotten rid of things, at that stage you’re ready to run as quickly as you possibly can. And what I believe is happening in the world of AI is as we look at where we want the world to be, we’re all acknowledging that it’s not where it needs to be. One of the areas I focus on is health and wellness. And we know that medical files, medical storage that we have of our entire personal history isn’t necessarily consistent. It’s not consistent.
either within the way that it’s been entered into the system, systems between Johns Hopkins and Stanford are different than each other. And so you need to fix that stuff first, right? You need to go through and fix the data, make sure that the data that’s being inputted into the system is going to allow us to get to that early diagnosis, that’s going to allow us to get to where we need to go, that needs to be fixed. Another element is that our systems don’t talk to each other. One of my personal pet peeves is lack of conversation between clinical health and behavioral health.
Lisa Gable (06:38.406)
and also consumer data points. An area that I am passionate about is diet related disease. Each of those data points is critical if you wanna try to do an early diagnosis and get the patient what they need to get to a healthy profile in the future. So there are things that are required within the audit. And I would say the final thing, and I do talk about this a lot in my book, is the people that are involved. I discuss my diagnostic.
challenge, which is where I look at what are the key things that have led us to where we are. And one of the largest issues is hubris. And what I do worry about as we move forward very, very quickly is that people will become enamored with what they can do. And they’re not going to step back and say, should we be doing this? I’m a big proponent of AI and very excited about where it will take us, but I want smarter humans at the helm.
I want people that have taken time to study history, that understand where hubris, where wrong decision-making, where people putting their own self-interest above the interest of the organization have led to a negative outcome. That’s really one of the key areas that I’ll be focusing on in my writing and my conversations over the next two years.
Imteaz (07:49.809)
That’s very cool. One of the frameworks that I love when it comes to thinking about deployment of technology is it’s the three P’s people, process and platforms. So typically what people or, you know, business leaders think about when they’re deploying, let’s call it AI or any form of technologies that they focus on the technology and not necessarily the problem. Um, that.
can only be actioned by the people within their organization, as well as the processes that they have within their organization as well. So, you know, when you think about it that way and realize the technology is only an enabler, you fundamentally haven’t, you know, gotten to the root of what you do as an organization and who you serve as customers and how you do that better using the available technologies that you have and the talent that you have, then you fundamentally miss the point. You can buy…
Lots of very expensive Ferraris in terms of more technology, but if you’re not going to use them properly, it’s just going to be a significant waste of money. And I was just reading in the Sydney Morning Herald, I’m from Australia, so I like reading Australian news, that in Australia, there are 34 different business registries that a small business would need to, could, and sign up for. And the government spent over $4 billion on a project trying to piece all of that together.
I’m like, why does a small business, why do we need 34 different government agencies to just do such a simple thing as register their business and get the applicable licenses to do their thing? And why does it take $4 billion to simplify something so simple as registering what a business does and making sure that they have the right credentials to do so? So if that’s Australia, a country of only like 26, 27 million people,
and it’s struggling to put this existing data together. Imagine the amount of data waste and duplication and mess that exists in the healthcare system here in the US. So if there’s a language model or if there is a process that can kind of merge and sync all of these disparate data sets across multiple…
Imteaz (10:11.721)
private health institutions, public health institutions across America, that would be insane. That would be an incredible unlock.
Lisa Gable (10:21.346)
It would be incredible from all different perspectives when I think about the different state tax filings that exist and how much a small business person, if they’ve managed to give a speech in Ohio or a speech in Kansas City, all of a sudden they’re being asked to file taxes there for a $5,000 speech, it’s crazy.
Imteaz (10:37.321)
I’m sorry.
Lisa Gable (10:39.798)
And it’s very difficult to do. And I have a friend who works at a company called Nortal. They got their start with the turning the Estonian government into the perfect D government system. And some people say, well, Estonia is a tiny little country. How does it apply? But the reality is that technology happens to be able to ramp up. Bureaucracies can’t. All bureaucracies do is grow.
And so I’m perfectly fine if we as a US government start looking at Estonia and going, what can we do? We can always extend the impact. We can always bring on more users. But the reality is that we have broken systems throughout our process and the degree to which we recognize that we need to start channeling money back into creating and supporting innovation, not into supporting bureaucracies around the world, the free world, then we’re going to be in a…
position to put more money into R&D and to other things that are very important to create revenue on behalf of the people we serve.
Imteaz (11:41.733)
I’ll give you a very small example. I’ve migrated from Australia to three, I’ve done three expat assignments, one to the UK, one to the Netherlands, and now here in the US. We’ll start with the Netherlands. The Netherlands, my application for the visa was a two page application plus my CV, and that’s it. And I got my CV turned, I got my visa turned around, I think, in seven days. The UK.
It was a 42 page application plus my CV and some other business documents, which was fine, turn around time about four weeks. The US, my lawyers had turned my three page CV into 250 page dossier with all of my company’s credentials, who we are, etc. Six month process on top of that. So, you know, it is amazing. There are lots of things that America is very good at.
very fast. But from a bureaucracy point of view to attract talent into the US, I think there’s certainly a lot more improvement that could happen versus other developed countries as well.
Lisa Gable (12:51.386)
And I’ll tell you another place that’s hurting us desperately is that you may know one of my jobs early in my career was working at what’s called Presidential Personnel at the White House. And what that meant is that we were the executive search firm on behalf of an administration. And there are a number of high-level government positions that exist. And those positions used to go to people that were in the top of their field. You had people like Casper Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, and he’d been CEO of a number of companies, Bechdel being one of them during
greatest points of growth. And yet today, no one wants to go into those jobs. One, people are worried about the risk, right? The risk of disclosures and what that might mean to them. But secondarily, it’s just the hassle. A friend of mine made a decision. It took her three years to get a very major appointment. And I think the amount of paperwork that she had to fill out was something like 250 pages. And the worst is she had to go back and find every speech she had given through her whole life.
I, you know, my mom poops all the records because she loves tracking all the places that we’ve traveled. I’ve gotten every security clearance just because my mother’s records are so darn good, but not everybody has my mother.
Imteaz (14:04.133)
No, no. Okay, let’s come back to your book. It seems like we’re on the precipice of the next technological evolution through generative AI. What were the key lessons from previous tech evolutions that you saw that would help companies navigate the significant change that’s about to unfold?
Lisa Gable (14:27.23)
I think there are two things that I learned and were just bored into my head at Intel and they have proven true through the last 40 years at every business government and philanthropy effort that I was in charge of. Most importantly, you’ve got to focus. What is your core competency? Why did someone create your company or your organization in the first place? What problem were they trying to solve and is that problem still relevant today? I would say that the second thing is partnerships.
One of the key things that I saw, because it was the early 90s, is when Intel, Microsoft, and IBM went in and pitched together to heads of IT departments around the world. What they were saying is, each of us have a piece of the puzzle, and we want you to standardize on our piece of the puzzle. That’s one reason why we exist the way that we do versus the Microsoft Intel platform that originally was put together.
And so partnerships are going to be even more critical as you’re talking about AI. We’ve got to be able to, as I call, jump the walls in order to get that information that you and I have discussed in order to streamline things. And unusual and uncommon partnerships might be what bring us there. The final thing is mergers and acquisitions. You may find people merging.
across very unusual categories. And I do believe that is one thing that’s going to happen is you’re just going to have categories collapsing. My career has been in technology, agriculture, food and beverage, manufacturing, and biopharma. Those are all coming together with AI. They’re coming together with the advancement of biologics. They’re coming together with the way in which we use apps for tracking health and wellness. And so people need to be very nimble.
They need to not get stuck in their silos and they have got to be able to link arms with others and run very, very quickly in order to become the de facto standard of whatever category they’re in.
Imteaz (16:28.957)
Supercore. So transitioning to breaking barriers, you made history as the first woman to direct the US Pavilion at the World’s Fair. How did you navigate the challenges of this groundbreaking role and what advice would you give to women aiming to break barriers through their fields?
Lisa Gable (16:48.294)
Well, I appreciate your asking. And I have to say, I do think it’s the craziest thing on the face of the earth that in 175 years of World’s Fair history, dating back to the Eiffel Tower, that they’ve never had women serving in this role. And what’s also an interesting dynamic of this role is I’m the only person in that entire time period that’s delivered a US engagement at a World’s Fair under budget and without a huge inspector general’s report and legal problems. Why is that?
I was saying, when I walked into the role, it wasn’t as much just being the only woman there. There were 200 countries and I was the only female representing another, you know, representing one of the countries who were participants. Australia, by the way, had a woman and she ended up, I believe, getting cancer or something. So she had to drop out even after the first week when I met her. So it was me and 199 men. But you learn to do what’s right and…
One of the key critical factors is that I treated everyone as if they were coming into my home. And I embraced the delegations, I embraced the families of the various ambassadors and heads of state that were coming in. Morgan Freeman brought his grandson to the fair, which we thought was very cool. We had been one of the premieres for Batman in Tokyo. And
I was with him in the green room and I said, well, what are you doing after this? He goes, well, I brought my grandson and he really wants to go. What does he need to see? I made it human. And I do think that women sometimes are a little better at doing that, is making that human touch that’s so important for people to feel as if we’re in this together, we’re all achieving a wonderful objective together. But the other is going back to the thing I talked about earlier, which is hubris.
I mean, some of the men that had the job before me and after me were into spending on lavish dinners and lavish events. And I wasn’t. I knew that we had a financial issue with how money could be spent. And so while everybody else was doing black tie dinners for the day, it’s called National Day. Every country owns a day that is their day to show what’s best about their country. And you have to host a lot of events and do a big show. I made ours about baseball. And we had.
Lisa Gable (19:12.174)
beer and popcorn and peanuts. We had Tommy Lasorda, who’d been the manager of the LA Dodgers. I invited all the family members of everybody who was going to be attending our event. And I pretty much think that we blew it out of the water as the most fun.
World National Day that went down at that particular fair. And I talked to people today, I get Christmas cards from people and they still remember that. They still remember that we did ours a little differently, but what we captured is values that the Japanese and the United States had, which was we love our baseball, we love our countries, we love that commonality of what baseball brings to us and finding the emotion that was attached to that, it enabled me to just put a little
icing on the cake.
Imteaz (20:01.629)
think when you address problems or address opportunities with authenticity, magic happens. So, you know, even in my career, starting out in my career in sales in CPG in Australia, you know, there are many times where I was the only non white person in a room. And I didn’t notice that until other people had called it out and been like, wow, you know, this is the first time we’re seeing a brown person doing
uh, sales in this organization. That’s amazing. Um, but you know, for me, it was kind of like, well, I have a job to do. I’m going to go out and do it. Um, if I achieve the results that I said I was going to achieve, super cool. Um, if I don’t, I’ll take the learning and I’ll kind of move on. Um, but when that was called out to me, you know, I kind of realized, okay, cool. Um, you know, I’ve been given an opportunity to do something cool, uh, or, or something great. I should.
do the best that I can and then, you know, transpire that to people behind me as well. So you know, when, when it comes to breaking barriers, taking those learnings and sharing that with other people so they use that as motivation for themselves is super inspiring. So thank you. Moving on to mentoring the next generation, you’ve been actively involved in mentoring initiatives like the rarest one project. How has mentorship shaped your own journey? And why do you believe it’s crucial for experienced leaders to?
guide upcoming talent.
Lisa Gable (21:29.99)
Well, I was very fortunate to have two mentors when I began my career. I had a woman by the name of Barbara Barrett, who later in her career would end up being ambassador to Finland and also secretary of the Air Force and a board director at Raytheon. Barbara introduced me during the time with the Reagan administration as I was getting ready to leave. We served together. I actually have a story in my book about how we met in the basement of the White House and where we bonded.
But she knew I was doing my master’s thesis on dual use products and the Chinese ability to use both semiconductors and supercomputers, both in the commercial sector as well as in the defense sector. And she said, you’ve got to meet my husband. His name’s Craig Barrett and he’s SVP of a company called Intel Corporation. And so at the end of the Reagan administration, I contacted Craig and he hired me. Craig would later become a CEO and chairman of the board of Intel.
But the two of them truly were instrumental in the first 10 years of my career, and I want to say that if you can help somebody in this first 10 to 12 years of your of their career, you will make all the difference in the world for them. My husband ended up getting quite ill when I was first married. And I called Barbara and I said, I don’t know what to do. He’s got a startup. I have my own company. He’s pretty sick. I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I don’t I think I have to step away from work.
And she worked with me to identify different boards, business boards, a philanthropic board, as well as a Department of Defense board and a business school board that I could serve on. They were boards that she had served on. She goes, you know what? We’re just gonna stick you on boards for a couple of years. That way you’ve got certain meetings you’ve gotta go to, but you don’t have to work every single day and you can take care of the ebbs and flows of your husband’s illness combined with what’s, you know, your daughter growing up. And that…
Having a person who cares about you as an individual, as a human being, that knows what your potential is and is willing to be there for you when you hit those bumps in the road, that’s what makes the difference. Sometimes we help people get into college, we then help them go to graduate school, get their first job, and then we kind of leave them there. Well, the reality is that senior 30 is when a lot of things happen in life, and Rare is one, with Chan Zuckerberg as a perfect example.
Lisa Gable (23:49.358)
The two mentees I had were very, very high performing business women. One was in corporate finance. I think she was at JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley. The other had been at the top of her career and brand management communications. And both ended up with children with severely debilitating rare diseases. They took their talents as early 30 women and they decided to
form organizations that would do research to help solve the underlying problem that causes that disease. So that’s what you need to look out for. It’s not just the person who’s, you know, running up the ladder and all the world’s great for them and you’re out golfing with them. What mentorship to me is, it’s finding those unique people and helping them along the way because we desperately need people who are empathetic and have the ability to multitask and solve complex problems at the top. But the
The path forward isn’t very straight.
Imteaz (24:48.065)
I think finding mentors that enable you to find balance and are aware of the things that you are very strong at versus the things that you’re very, you have areas of development, someone who can call that out. And even if that is, you know, someone who’s an over worker and someone who’s burning themselves out at work and not spending enough time on themselves or on their family, someone who can give you that frank advice.
a person like that in your life is fundamental. Otherwise, you can work and be extremely successful, but if you don’t have that balance, it’s all gonna fall apart at some stage. Whether you pay that through your health or you pay that through your relationships, finding that person is super critical. So moving on to health and wellness advocacy. You advise startups in the health and wellness domain and…
led the world’s largest founder of food allergy research. Why is this sector important to you and how do you envision its future?
Lisa Gable (25:53.35)
Well, I began working in diet-related disease in 2009 when I led the largest industry coalition that made changes in our food supply. We actually changed 35% of this food sold in America by reducing calories. So it’s basically reducing sugars and fats. And then I was recruited to FAIR to basically turn around that organization. We’ve restructured it by 83%, raised, as you said, $100 million to put into research around food allergies, which are growing rapidly.
have been growing rapidly since 1998. Ironically, what happened is I was already involved in the space, understanding the relationship between food, therapies, biopharma, technology, in order to adjust someone’s lifestyle to accommodate the unique health profile that they had.
And there are a lot of characteristics that are very similar across all diet related disease, right? You eat, you, you consume a food or you avoid a food because you have some medical reason as to why. What is interesting and one reason I’m even more passionate about it today is that my daughter was diagnosed last summer with eosinophilic esophagitis, which is a rare form of food allergies that affects one in two thousand people a year. And it is
normally a disease that is identified within young men under the age of 18. And so my daughter, even though I was in the driver’s seat for the largest food allergy organization in the world, no one thought she had food allergies. I kept going back to everybody and saying, well, don’t you think she has some form of food allergy and they go, no, she doesn’t fit the profile. And the reality is that the profile, as we went back to our earlier conversation about what AI can do, the profile was there.
but it wasn’t identified because the information was living in different silos and no one was seeing the red flags and the patterns that would cause them to explore that disease and whether or not she had it. So I have always been passionate about it. I think that it is, unfortunately, all the diseases, whether cilia, excreta, and colitis, food allergies, EOE, obesity-related diseases.
Lisa Gable (28:09.082)
They affect all of us. They affect our ability to function. They affect our ability to work. They affect our family lives terribly, especially during the holidays. And so there’s a lot of mental behavioral issues, stress and anxiety. I’m passionate about it, but now I’m even more passionate because it affects my daughter.
Imteaz (28:28.573)
Super cool. And it’s, you know, from a food allergy point of view and food choices point of view, you know, having lived across the world now, I find America has an amazing assortment of food from, you know, anything and everything that you’ve won, every cuisine that you could want. But generally speaking, I find from a cost point of view,
High quality food in this country is relatively more expensive than it was in Australia and than it was in even the UK or the Netherlands. So I think one of the challenges this country has is the transition from processed foods, fast foods, et cetera, into something that can be really relatively accessible or very accessible for the general populace. We’re very blessed that we can cook at home and have the time to do so and et cetera, but not everyone does.
and not everyone has the access to the healthcare to find out what, you know, issues or nutritional profiles that they might have which may impact their diet. So I think certainly an area of opportunity here in the US. Moving on to legacy and future endeavors, looking back at your journey, what do you want your legacy to be? And as you look ahead, what are the new projects or challenges that you’re particularly excited about?
And how do you prioritize and pick those opportunities?
Lisa Gable (29:57.41)
Oh, I have been extremely blessed. I have had a very unusual life working with CEOs, presidents of the United States, billionaire philanthropists, people who had a passion about a thing and wanted to see it change to benefit someone else. And at this stage of my life, what I’ve really focused on is how I can take all of those connection points that I’ve had.
my unusual knowledge of a variety of different industries and also a reflection of how those industries operate because I’ve seen how they operate from the top and use that to solve the world’s most complex problems. We talk a lot about climate change, we have geopolitical unrest, rising inflation. As you point out, we are a country that has a lot, but it’s very inefficient. And so how can I, and that’s one reason I was interested at
SMU and focusing on humanities and engineering is that there are people who have, we are on the cusp of solving a lot of these problems, but one of the critical driving points that we have is being able to get them to the people who need them. It is not that we don’t have the answers, it’s that we can’t seem to get the answers to the individuals that are in need of those answers.
And we have the ability to create great change, but we also have a number of barriers. And so through my work at SMU, through my work at the World 2050 for the diplomatic career, through the work that I’m doing on the geopolitical front with the Kroc Institute on tech diplomacy, I am trying to help people use my network to connect and make the relationships that will shorten the time span of getting us to the end point we need to be at.
And to be honest with you, I don’t think we have a lot of time right now. I am very concerned that we need to move very, very quickly. And I’ve been given the opportunity to have that access to make that happen.
Imteaz (32:05.373)
Cool. Lisa, for people like yourself who are so driven by purpose, so driven by service to others, what drives you to do that? What drives you to, you know, wake up in the morning, think about all of the, you know, opportunities that you, you know, you’ve had previously and will have in the future. What really makes you passionate about what you do?
Lisa Gable (32:32.858)
It’s an obligation. And I come from a family and when you look back, we’re very fortunate and my husband and I, our families are very similar in certain ways. We got to different places in different ways, but we were this past month looking at his family history. And what I realized is that his great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather were in two different states that happened to be next door to each other doing exactly the same thing.
which is using their positions that they had within their communities to help change the lives of the people in the communities. In both cases, they spend an inordinate amount of time and actually gave up wealth in order to make sure that during the downturn, the people who worked for them had the financial structures that they needed to survive. And so it’s a family history. I sought out someone who had a similar mode of operation.
But I do believe it is fundamentally our obligation. No matter what you believe religiously, I think we all believe that we’re here for a purpose. Someone put us here, we have a job to do, and I wanna do that job the best that I can, and I feel that it is a requirement that I do so.
Imteaz (33:44.913)
Lovely. On a personal front, what are the habits or productivity hacks that make your life easier?
Lisa Gable (33:52.65)
I am, people, I started this one crazy process that now everybody who works for me does, and I know it doesn’t fit anything that all you high tech people are saying we should do and all the various apps that exist. I take my calendar and at the top of my calendar, I put down the things that I must do that day. And I fill up that calendar in advance. So I put all my deadlines into the calendar and it is my daily calendar. It doesn’t matter if it’s an Outlook calendar, if it’s an iCalendar.
I literally have all the things I need to follow up on, what the time period is that I have to follow up with them on. And I tell you, as I delete those items from the top of my calendar, I am so utterly and completely happy. I’m sure there are lots of cool, sticky things that people have come up with in order to do that, but that’s what I do.
Imteaz (34:42.053)
Lisa, I have every, I’ve tried every productivity app in the world. I think at least 25 of them. And I always go back to my leather down notebook. Every night I just write down all the things that are on my mind. And then I go one, two, three in terms of what are the must do things for tomorrow. And that’s, you know, if I get those three things done, there’s always going to be overflow. Um, but then I’m super happy. So yeah, I’m a hundred percent with you that you don’t, you don’t need.
Apps don’t do the work for you, you need to do the work for yourself. So yeah, super cool. What books do you recommend or do you give the most outside of your own book, which is The Love Reade by Lauren.
Lisa Gable (35:25.886)
I used to make everyone who worked for me read High Output Management by Andy Grove, which if any of you’ve read it, many people in high tech have. It’s not easy reading for someone not in the technical field. However, John Doar’s High Output Management, I found, really takes the key concepts that Andy Grove developed and brings them to people in a way that, and it’s a book I give out to a lot of people.
A book that I’m very excited about and it has not come out yet is Conflict, which is by Andrew Roberts, who Andrew and I interned together when we were 18 years old and he’s become one of the foremost historians and thought leaders within the European sector. It’s a book he wrote with General Petraeus and it takes us through the history of war from the early 1900s to Ukraine today. And as we look at the shifts in the geopolitical atmosphere, I’m…
quite keen on reading what Andrew and Petraeus have written.
Imteaz (36:25.449)
Super cool. How can people reach out to you if they want to find out more about what Lisa does?
Lisa Gable (36:33.058)
Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m extremely active on LinkedIn, also Instagram and Facebook. But if on LinkedIn, you send me a note, I am always happy to respond. I make sure I go through my inbox every Saturday and make sure I’ve gotten back to everybody. But focus on connecting with me there. And I write for a number of different magazines on a regular basis. My writing is varied. I do women in empowerment on a monthly article
do in sway. I write for CEO World, I write for Diplomatic Courier, and I actually just started writing for the Washington Times in their ethics and religion category, because as I said with AI, I think we need smarter, more ethical humans.
Imteaz (37:17.513)
super cool. Laysa, thank you for being on the podcast. It was a fascinating chat. You have an inspiring story. I’m very motivated to contribute more by listening to your story. Thank you for sharing. Is there anything else you want to leave the audience with before we wrap up today?
Lisa Gable (37:36.214)
No, just that each of us have the ability within our daily lives to make one small change for another person every single day. It does not need to be earth shattering or life shattering. It’s truly a small bite. It’s doing one thing for another person, whether it’s sending them a job opportunity, giving them some input on their resume, helping them with a child issue, or even liking and commenting on a post that’s important to them.
But if we do that, we’re going to be able to see massive change throughout the world.
Imteaz (38:08.623)
Thank you so much. Thank you for being on the show and I look forward to connecting with you in the future, Lisa. Take care.
Lisa Gable (38:15.072)
Thanks.
Imteaz (38:19.145)
Thank you.
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