Embracing Change to Crush Irrelevance

Wake up, media buyers—irrelevance is stalking you! In this episode, dive into the mind of a Hall of Fame strategist who’s mastered staying ahead in a chaotic industry. Discover why change sucks but irrelevance kills, how to evolve without losing your roots, the power of curiosity in an AI-driven world, and what it takes to future-proof your career. Packed with insights from a 37-year veteran turned self-employed visionary, this conversation will jolt enterprise advertising pros into action. Tune in to Breaking Through the Mayhem with host Adam Katz and guest Rishad Tobaccowala for a no-filter take on thriving amid disruption.

To learn more about Rishad, visit rishadtobaccowala.com. You can also find Rishad's book, Rethinking Work, here on BulkBooks or on Amazon, along with his other books.

PODCAST EPISODE 29 TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome to Breaking Through the Mayhem. We have today from, you know, self-proclaimed. But for me, proclaimed an absolute legend in the industry. Somebody that I've admired for the whole time I've been in this industry. And I can't believe he's here. I'm excited to have Rishad Tobaccowala on today. For anyone that doesn't know him, I'm going to let him give a quick intro on himself, but you know, from my perspective, all you need to know is that this guy is in the Hall of Fame.

Anyone that's in the Hall of Fame with such a small crew of people is just phenomenal. So thank you for being here. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself, Rashad, and I'm excited to talk to you today.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Fantastic. Adam, thank you for inviting me. So basically today, a self-employed person who helps people see, think and feel differently about how to grow themselves, their teams and their business.

And I do it in three different ways. One too many, which is a fancy way of saying I write books, I write a Substack, and I have a podcast, one to some, which is a fancy way of saying I do keynotes at executive of sites and workshops and 1 to 1, which is a fancy way of saying advisory, which is not really consulting.

It's advisory where I work with both some large companies, private equity and startups. Prior to this six year second career, my first career, I spent 37 years at a company called a Publicis group, where over the course of those 37 years, half of which was actually publicists and half was a company that I worked at before a Publicis group bought us, which was companies like Leo Burnett and Starcom.

I spent a career that, 37 year career that had me work in pretty much every aspect of the business, in every sort of role, from client service to integrated marketing to digital marketing to media. I had small companies that grew them to a hundred. I was the chairman of large companies like Digitas and Razor Fish, which had 10,000 employees.

And for the last five years I was there is a full time employee. I worked for Maurice Levy as its chief strategist and growth officer, and we purchased companies like Epsilon and Sapient, among others. And then I started my second career, though I continued to be an advisor to Publicis But, now I work for myself.

Adam Katz
Well, most people, Rishad, don't stay at companies very long. 37 years. What do you think kept you there that long? And it sounds like you are always were evolving. But what kind of shaped your willingness to stay that long? And what kept you around?

Rishad Tobaccowala
So there are actually three reasons. And the first two might sound like I'm kidding, but it's not, and the third one is the real reason.

But the first two are true. So one is I don't really like change, so I work for the same company. I've lived in the same city, I have the same wife. Right. So it's like I'm not a change person. The second is also true. Now, the ones in my 37 year career, did anybody give me a job offer?

So maybe I stayed because I had no other options. Yeah. Okay. And eventually my option was to hire myself since nobody was going to hire me. So for the next six years, I've hired myself, but third, which is from. And those both are true, by the way, which is quite surprising, but it's true. The third one is the truest, which is.

I didn't actually stay in the same company. I worked in many different companies. It just so happened that if you look at my LinkedIn profile, you'll see different company names. You'll see Digitas, Razorfish, Denu, Leo Burnett, Publicis. And so we evolved and I evolved. And so I often basically told people I managed to grow myself and grow my opportunities and grow my skills and, you know, grow my career while I worked at a company that was growing.

And so I did not have to leave because anytime I wanted to leave, I just created something or switched brands. And I could stay in the same place.

Adam Katz
It's unbelievable. I mean, so basically you just we're always evolving. That's really what it sounds like in as much as you don't like change, you change throughout that evolving all the time.

So what would you say kind of centered you in your ability to grow through?

Rishad Tobaccowala
So there were 2 or 3 realities, which is what I would advise everybody who listens here. So one is I truly do believe that change sucks, because when you change, you don't know what you're doing. It's one of the reasons why know when people come to you, they say it's a great restaurant.

They said, let's go together. It's a great bottle of wine, let's share it. But they come to you and say, change is good. And they leave the room, right? They never say, let's do change together. And when they come and tell me change is good, I say, I'm happy. You can change if you like. And they leave the room. So it's not with the changes, good or bad. Change is really difficult. But the way I set it up is while change does suck, irrelevance is even worse.

Adam Katz
Yeah. I mean, you couldn't have nailed that better.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right? And so the choice is, do I want to be irrelevant or do I want to do this sucky thing called change?

So I said, okay, in order to have a successful career, I can stay in the same company. I can stay in the same place, I can stay in a lot of different things. But I myself, I'm going to have to learn to change myself and do new things. And what I began to realize over time was if I was looking hard enough, many of my colleagues started saying, we don't need to change.

We have arrived at a place. And what woke me up is some amazing people I worked with in my career were great. And then three years later, they didn't have a job and their whole stuff was. They would ask me like, why are you worrying about this internet thing? You're in your 40s. This won't happen. And if it does, you're already senior.

Why are you worried about this social media thing? Why are you learning stuff like Twitter? Why are you doing this thing? And what would happen is 2 or 3 years later, they didn't have a job. And the reason was because their clients basically said, I want people who know these things. And guess who knew those things I did and who also understood business because I was senior enough, obviously, with lots of people who knew this, but I both knew the old traditions and the old school stuff, and I knew all the new things.

So I became, senior people became comfortable with me because I didn't go up and say, you suck. I used to be sometimes older than them, I’d say here's how you can do this. But this is why we have to do to stay relevant. So that is my basic thing, that what kept me going was the recognition. I didn't want to be irrelevant, the seeing that if I didn't change, but more importantly that when I did, I became very valuable to clients and therefore to the company.

Adam Katz
I mean, what's crazy is irrelevance feels today like it can happen quicker than ever before.
Rishad Tobaccowala
Yes, it is exactly, exactly. So in the old days, I used to say it takes about 3 to 5 years to become irrelevant. So, you know, you can pretend for 3 to 5 years now, I basically believe it's 1 to 2, and two might be a stretch.

And, and as a result, when people say I would be retired. So I said, yes, if you're going to be retired in 2025, you can be okay. But if you plan to work in 2026, which is ten months from now, you won't be okay. That wakes people up. So I said, even if you think you're 55 and you think to retire in five years, you won't get to 56, so be prepared to be forcibly retired at 56 if you are going to adapt and change

Adam Katz
And how would you recommend different generations today to change? What've been your principles that you look at?

Rishad Tobaccowala
So everybody has a different way of approaching things. But what I would basically say there are three fundamental truths to change. First is to acknowledge that it is difficult and that you're going to be going through a difficult phase, but your choices otherwise irrelevance that keeps you on the path.

So don't fool yourself thinking it's easy, right? Because it's like when you decide to exercise, you twist yourself into new shapes. It hurts and it's hard. So that's number one. So recognize this difficult and maybe start doing it in little bits, but get ready to do it. That's number one. The second one is one way to do it is to allocate an hour a day to learn.

And if you spend an hour a day learning new things, and it could be work related, could be other things, and it doesn't necessarily mean reading a book. It could be watching a YouTube video, talking to somebody who can talk to you about something. And do that and or try to have a new experience every day.

So I'll give you an example. What I try to do is at the end of every day, I basically ask what new experience did I have today? Besides, like, did I spend an hour learning, which is what I do, but what new experience that I have today that sometimes doesn't happen every day, but I've never gone a week where I've not had a new experience.

4 to 5 days out of seven, right? And I program it. And so what does a new experience mean? It doesn't mean like flying off and going to a different place. It means the following. Like I'll give you three things I did yesterday and the day before. So today I haven't done a new experience yet outside of like I mentioned, I had obviously talked to John Haggerty, which I've never got to do, but I won't, you know.

But what happened is I was in, in the city of, Atlanta to give a talk. I did a meeting and then I had a talk yesterday. For the dinner meeting I had a little bit of time. So I flew in a little early, and I decided to go and spend two hours at the Georgia Aquarium, which is the world's largest aquarium in the Western world.

So it's only now, I think one in Singapore and maybe one in Shanghai. That's bigger. But until four years ago, it was the world's largest aquarium. And so I bumped up my $60 ticket, and I went in, and I spent two hours there the next day, which was yesterday. It was a very filled day because I was speaking.

Adam Katz
What's your favorite part of the aquarium?

Rishad Tobaccowala
My favorite part of the aquarium, actually, is the beluga whales. They have this entire thing called the beluga whales, but they've also the way they've got it, they've got like, you know, rivers and oceans and salt water and it's really, really cool. And so I did that. And then it's set in near Lamping Park.

So next to it is a world of Coca-Cola. And a whole bunch of other things. So. So that's cool. The next day, I knew I wouldn't have much time because I was, I, I bought doing this presentation, then another presentation that I had a couple of calls and then a plane ride. So I said, what do I do now?

I've never been to a Waffle House. So I said, I am going to go have breakfast at a Waffle House. So I found a Waffle House, and I hung out and I took pictures of a Waffle House and saw how a Waffle House operated. Okay, including that the prices are really reasonable, so I'm not strongly thinking that maybe I'm going to eat enough Waffle Houses.

Okay, yes, they do have the 50 cent premium for an egg, but I ordered a waffle and those are the amazing waffle. They give you a $5.45. My entire bill with tip and coffee was $7.55. Right. And so my because it was $6 and I tipped, you know, $1.50, which is 25% of a $7.50 for the whole goddamn thing.

And my whole stuff is I think that's where writers should hang out. Waffle Houses. So you can see what I mean by. And I cannot tell you about Waffle Houses, how they operate, what they do because I'm observing and looking at what's going on. I can tell you about beluga whales. Okay. That's what I mean by that.

You have to have a mind that's evolving and so that's what I basically did. And the other thing you want to basically do is you also also want to see where there are opportunities. So if you basically see that clients have a particular demand, you might want to figure out can you meet that demand? I mean, obviously if a client wants a demand for basketball players, I can't do that.

All right? I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff you can't do because of either your physical limitations or limitations. So I can't be a pianist. I can't be a basketball player. On the other hand, maybe something I particularly like, I can do a really good job being an advertising executive, right now, if that's what I wanted. But I'm no longer passionate about doing that, so I wouldn't do that.

So ideally, you want to find a place where you're good at doing something, you're interested in doing something, and someone will pay you to do that thing.

Adam Katz
And you can also bring a result that could have an impact.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah. And that's one of the key things. The other way to also think about when you spend your time is I basically say, if I'm going to spend the next hour on anything.

And this is true in almost every circumstance outside of a few. I said, I'll only spend it if I could help somebody. Or it can create some value for myself usually of learning, you know, potentially it could be like a financial outcome or whatever or three if it's really fun.

Adam Katz
So thinking on all that, would you rather meet a new person you've never spoken to in your whole life, or or see someone you know for 40 years? Knowing you always want to do something new and learn.

Rishad Tobaccowala
The good news is because we have 24 hours in the day, you can do a lot of both, right? And you aren’t limited to who you need to talk to? One. But so the way I look at it is part of it is a lot of people say change and therefore you have to change completely.

No, not really. So what I do is I combine what I call roots and wings. Okay. So there's lots of stuff that I do every day, which is the same old thing, right? I speak to my wife, I speak to my daughters, I get up in the morning, I read, I do some sort of like working out all of that kind of stuff.

I start every morning with what I call coffee takeoffs, which is two doppios, and in the evening I have alcoholic landings, which is two beers. Okay. Those are like fixed, which is what I basically call the base through which I've got fixed the roots. Then, knowing that I have my base camp, I go out exploring into the world, knowing that if I get crushed, I come back to my base camp and, you know, look at them go back.

Adam Katz
You know, no matter what, you're going to have your liftoff and your ending. So whatever happens in between, it's going to be what it's going to be.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Exactly.

Adam Katz
It might be a beluga whale, it might be a Waffle House

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah, exactly. It could be anything that could happen. Sometimes it's like a terrible meeting and you come back and say you what about.

Adam Katz
So do you like exploring alone or with someone else? Were you at Waffle House by yourself?

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah. So both the beluga whale thing and the Waffle House was by myself because a beluga whale thing was I had a couple of hours in it, but I said, if I call people in Atlanta and say, come to the aquarium with me and say, yes, the issue, what happens is you call somebody, you know, in a city, right?

They said, let's go have a meal. They don't say, let's go to the aquarium together. At the dinner.

Adam Katz
Because they've been there before.

Rishad Tobaccowala
They've been there before and my old stuff is, I like to have a meal with you, but I'd also like to see the aquarium. So I go to see the aquarium. So many of these cases, it's me by myself, but not every time.

Adam Katz
Is your wife, like, this spontaneous? Or no?

Rishad Tobaccowala
She is. She is, in fact, more spontaneous. And in fact, my whole step is have a plan. So, like, like, you know, tomorrow we're going to, we live in Chicago. So tomorrow we go to the Chicago Botanical Gardens because there's an orchid show. So she basically said, free up your afternoon.

I said, okay, I can do that. We're going to the orchid show. And she said, can we go today? I said, no, today can't happen. She's like can you move things around. I said, no, I can't move things around today. We can move it tomorrow. Okay. Exactly. And so the other is, you know, I've got two grown up daughters.

So between them and my wife, I always thought that I would have no bosses, but I still have three.

Adam Katz
That's hilarious in terms of, like, the next phase of what you want in your career. In life. I mean, obviously you're underpinning is learning new adventure and thinking like what? What made you start to write?

Rishad Tobaccowala
Well, I always wanted to write.

So what's really interesting is when I came up, when I went to college, I wanted to be a writer. And my parents, who actually gave me the love of reading and writing, told me no, okay. And they said, we don't advise you to do that for two reasons. One is you have nothing to say yet. So what are you going to write about?

Okay, so they said, learn things, live a life, then write.

Adam Katz
Interesting.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Otherwise have nothing to say about, now it's not completely true. People at 17 or 18 have things to say, but you know, whatever. That was one. And the second they basically said learn something that you would normally would not learn. That's why you're going to school. They didn't care about the fact that whether I made money or did not make money, but to learn things that you would normally not go, which you naturally won't do, they'll say you naturally read.

You naturally write. Okay, what did I not naturally do? Learn mathematics. So that's what I read. I read and got mathematics. But then, you know, I then wrote my first book when I said, finally, I can actually write a book, which is a key thing. And, you know, and my books were a combination I wanted to write.

And then I had something to say. So what my books, you know, is I have something to say where I think I can add value to the world, which is just different and distinct. So that's what got me, got me to writing.

Adam Katz
Do you think your parents were right?

Rishad Tobaccowala
They were absolutely right in the fact that my books have done well and people read me because I have something to say.

And there's three things and something to say. I have something to say that is useful to them. Like I have something to say and they'll say, okay, that's interesting, but not for us, that’s one as that. You say that's useful to them. Second is, it is believable because it's grounded in my life experiences. So it doesn't seem academic now.

So it's not like a piece of academic research and that makes sense. And third is I kept writing all those years. I wasn't writing books, but I was writing WordPress, Substack, decks and creators. Right? So I eventually honed my art. So not only do I have something to say and something that will resonate with the right audience, but something that's great to read, right?

So the whole idea is engagement is a combination of relevance and likability and relevance is this for me? And likability is this enjoyable? And if you think about it, when you have those two, you like something because it's like, I'm learning something. This is relevant to me and it's fun.

Adam Katz
So you talk about, you know, for example, the speed factor of change, right, from being relevant and obviously I think people are exhausted but also excited by the word AI.

Right? I mean, obviously everybody's an AI company out of nowhere, even though not everybody is. But my thought process. Do you feel like with AI coming, the authenticity of writing is going to struggle? Like what is your, what is your perspective on that?

Rishad Tobaccowala
So here's what I, what I basically believe is we, living in a world where if you are mediocre in anything, the machine will do it better than you.

Okay, so but, but but if you are good, you can build expertise. I'm not talking experience. You can build expertise. You can buy crystallized intelligence. And then working with the machine. Right will make you really, really, really good. And the machine won't be as good. So I'll give you sort of an idea. When I was writing my book, my second book, I actually got the machine to write the book along with me.

Okay. And the reason is because what you have to give the machine, you've got to give it props. What's very interesting is I write my own book, but I have a book coach. Okay, so not a ghostwriter, but a book coach. And I had a and the reason I have a book coach is when I wrote my first book, it was a book coach.

You kept saying writing a book. So he had me put a book proposal together, help me get an agent. And we went and pitched HarperCollins. HarperCollins saw this book coach, she was a very famous ghostwriter and says, this guy would not he's not ghostwriting your book. He’s book coaching you. That means you're really good. But we are open to give you an advance because we know what you will actually have will be an actual book that will come to us, because, in effect, what we're really doing is he's going to be your first line editor.

Adam Katz
Got it.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right? And the way he did it, he says, okay, remember chapter one we said, was this to Harpercollins? He says, don't write chapter one Rishad. Answer these eight questions. So he sent me eight questions.

Adam Katz
Wow.

Rishad Tobaccowala
And he said, write out the answers.

Adam Katz
He was basically helping you with how to think framework to action.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right. So he says, I want you to answer these questions, and I don't want to have you worry your little head about how to put a chapter together. He said. There's an art of putting a chapter together. He says. You'll never learn that. Okay. He says, you know how to write. You know how you have a points of view and you can help people.

Let me do the crafting of the chapter. Don't waste your time there. So I had eight questions for each chapter. So guess what I do? I go to Claude and I go to Gemini and I go to Chat GPT, OpenAI, which I subscribe to. Right? And I say, okay, answer the question, answer the question, answer the question. I read their answers was okay, not bad, and then take all their answers.

And I put it on a word document. Close that word document, open up a new word document, and I start writing. I then send my coach. Here are all of my answers. Here is all of AI’s answers. We did not use a single line of AI in my entire book. However, my book was deeply I informed.

Adam Katz
Well, the reason for it is that it kind of helped you in -

Rishad Tobaccowala
In thinking about issues and everything else.
Yeah, but what eventually made my book sing is that it had incredible use of language. It understood emotion and understood who I was talking to. It had a point of view. It was not politically correct. Right. I doesn't do any of that. Yes, grog. Grog free pretends to be not politically correct, but it's politically biased. Okay. There's a difference.

The people who say we don't like politically correct, correct stuff. I said, therefore you want politically biased stuff. I said, everybody has a point of view. So bullshit about this, right? Right. Which basically that's the key thing. So what happens is and as a result, I, I tell people like, I think one of the things, you know, when I had the opportunity to speak to your team, I think I may have mentioned that.

How do you futureproof your career today? In this age of AI? And I mean, AI is not going to come and get your job. You're going to leverage AI, and then you're going to do stuff and to be successful. But what are you going to do? And so I have this thing called the 6 C’s and I said, these are the six C’s that you should do.

And three of the CS are curiosity, creativity and cognition. So cognition is learn creativity, connect dots in new ways and be curious. The other three are what you have to do with other people. Convincing everybody's a salesperson. Everybody's gonna have the same data and knowledge. How do you convince? Collaborate. You're gonna have to work with either alien lifeforms, other human beings.

Right? And the last is communication. Practice better writing and speaking. Right. So if you notice. No way that I say code. No way did I say Mandarin. Okay. As somebody said, one of the people I read a lot they recommend people is Ethan Mollick or in this book Codependence. But he also has this great Substack called One Useful Thing.

His most recent issue, which was yesterday, is he basically uses English to code.

Adam Katz
Wow.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right now they call this WIP coding, right? Which is what do you feel in your code? And he was showing how it gets done. And in today's world. And I said, oh this is awesome. And he shows how it's done. So my other basic belief is not that we don't need amazing coders.

It means world class coders. With this, we're able to do much more stuff. A 10x coder will become a 20 x coder. But what it also says is if you're a half x coder, you won't have a job, right?

Adam Katz
Thinking about it this way. Like just simplifying it. Everyone always asks, is LeBron better than Michael as an easy just question.

Right. And Rashad, you’re a Chicago guy. So I would assume your answer. But the point is what Michael did in his basketball career LeBron has a different ability today with the health coaching, the humidor, the sleeping, the the. So as things evolve, could you imagine if Jordan had those capabilities? That's just how the world kind of evolves.

So what you're getting at is if you're like a C player, this stuff's not taking you to A-plus, right?

Rishad Tobaccowala
No, it's not taking you to A-plus. Exactly. But what it does do is it does allow, B player to become a B plus or minus player, which is extremely important. Therefore, what it does is it says a couple of things.

Figure out what you are good at or would you like to be thing and focus on those. And don't try to basically going from being a D player to a C player by being doing everything doesn't help you, right? So start focusing on the key things. And by the way, one of the things that you rightly said my answer would basically be when you ask me that question.

Right? I always basically say Jordan was the best in his era.

Adam Katz
Yeah, that's what I said too.

Rishad Tobaccowala
And LeBron was the best in this era. And you've exactly said it. And I said, if you think about it, it's like basically asking, you know, if today's 50th ranked player would defeat Rod Laver, who is the only last time who won all four of the Grand Prix.

All the four major opens, right? The 15th player would beat that player.

Adam Katz
We're asking a question that's completely unfair. It's like. It's like you can't compare eras. Do I think a guy like Willie Mays could have been great today? Maybe. But the errors are just always different. But you should always compare the errors greatest is the greatest.

I agree with that completely. I always listen, I'm a dug in Jordan. Yeah, but like you see the Kobe jersey I respect that kind of hustle. But like you notice in the end evolving is just exactly the way you're talking about. I think part of the problem with the AI world, you know, we’re obviously here at Sightly, leaned in, you know, leveraging and and we've been building models since 2018, 2019.

So we were ahead of the curve in ways. But ultimately I completely agree with you. You're not going to be able to take. So I kind of boiled the AI down. I'll just say this and see what you think. I've kind of boiled AI down to a great little league coach, because I remember when I was a kid, like a great coach would know, like, I got this player, he's on my team.

I can't get rid of him because the parents are going to get mad. It's like I'm coaching these kids and they would figure out a little thing that they could get out of each player.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah.

Adam Katz
I kind of equate AI right now like that. It's like a great little league coach. It could help you take those skills and move them to the next thing.

Like if you had a guy that couldn't hit but he was small, you'd tell him to take more pitches. So that you get the first base on a walk. It's kind of like a little bit of that. And I think we'll get to a different place. Just switching gears for a second here, you know, our audience is going to love you.

Two quick thoughts here as we close. Like, number one, if you could pick anyone dead or alive to go to lunch with, who would it be?

Rishad Tobaccowala
William Shakespeare.

Adam Katz
Why?

Rishad Tobaccowala
Because I believe that William Shakespeare is probably the most genius person in the world, the most read person in the world, outside of maybe people who read the Bible and

Adam Katz
And stands the test of time.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right. And what basically happens is if you look at today, the hottest ticket in Broadway is Othello. Right. We all say things without knowing. It is Shakespeare. We did not even know it. Right. So you know everything from, you know, which is, you know, you know, take the current when it says perpetually endeavors, which is go with the flow, man is Shakespeare.

So there's all kinds of things about, you know, reputation all by reputation. That's Macbeth. Right. Well, people don't realize it's almost everything is Shakespeare. In fact, I tell people that if you were to read two books and only two books in the world, okay, again, outside of any religious stuff, which people obviously, you know, respect everybody's religion.

So whether it's the Koran or the Torah or the Bible or whatever, but the only two books that I would suggest to people is Hamlet by Shakespeare and Don Quixote by some artist.

Adam Katz
Not Rethinking Kirk by Rashad Tobacco?

Rishad Tobaccowala
I wouldn't say that. No. Those, so those two books, what people don't realize as they were written in the same year, 500 years ago, and every single thing that has been done by any playwright, any author since still exists in that book already exists in that book in one of those two books.

Okay. And they both talked about something really, really interesting. And it's very hard. What they talked about was the injustice that we only live so long. Right? So literally hamlet is about life and death, and Don Quixote is about tilting windmills, the injustice of a short life. And therefore you have to go have adventures.

Right. And so what basically happens is they talk about human truths. So I always basically believe the world's greatest religious books are these amazing books and have been translated across every language. So one was written in Spanish? One was written in English, and that is the key thing. So sitting with, you know, Don you know, is that but like today like a lot of other people but they almost everyone's an artist.

It's interestingly not a business person. It's not an actor. It's not an actress.

Adam Katz
You know why you feel that way? In my opinion, maybe I'm wrong. I'm gonna take a guess.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah.

Adam Katz
Because it sounds similar to me. I always like to. I'm. I admire things a lot of the time that I can’t do.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right. But what is. Yeah, but it is that. But the other thing is something like this. I truly believe that art is the lie that tells the truth. Okay? And in many ways, I've always basically said, if you spend a little bit of time seeing, like spend an hour looking at paintings by Monet. Or spend an hour looking at paintings by Picasso. You will never see the world the same.

Adam Katz
Wow.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Right. And that is what I actually do. And it's nowhere close to any of these people, obviously.

Adam Katz
You know what that felt like? A strong haymaker from Muhammad Ali. You just know that's what that felt like. That quote, that's a big one.

Rishad Tobaccowala
It is. And that's one of the key things when I write, you know, my whole basic belief is it's kind of very interesting when people say, what do you do if you don't start at the beginning?

I say, I help people see, think, and feel differently about how to grow themselves, their teams and their business. So my thing is, if you read a book of mine, you listen to a conversation, you listen to a podcast or read a Substack. If I've done my job right and the end of it, you either have felt, seen, or thought differently than before.

You spent those 6 minutes or 6 hours, right? And that is what I basically believe we should aim for, which is to make a difference, but an effective difference by helping other people see, think, and feel differently and then you'll be good.

Adam Katz
My last two questions, they are kind of together and we'll close up. You know, as you grow in, in life and as you grow in your career, how have you stayed, because the book that got me to to like you originally was the staying human, right?

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah.

Adam Katz
So what's kept you grounded to stay? You sound like you were probably the same person. No, I'm not saying he didn't evolve. I'm not saying you didn't change. But. But it sounds like if you met somebody who was in any point of their life, you would treat them the same.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Yeah.

Adam Katz
And what kind of what kind of helped you do that? So I'd love you to give some advice to people as they rise in their career on how to not change in terms of the ego and stuff like that. I would love to hear your thoughts there, because it's one of the things like, you know, you rise, you get these titles and some people, they big-league you if you want to call it that.

So how have you stayed so humble to talk to people, stay grounded and be able to be so human as you've grown?

Rishad Tobaccowala
So I believe there are three separate factors that have driven this one, you know, without a doubt, is the influence of my parents, who basically, started for and in fact, my father used to learn to read books under street lights because they could not afford electricity.

And he had to walk to his college and he just had enough money to basically buy a, he figured out the best thing for the dollar was basically for the rupee was buying a particular type of pastry. Right. And so his name is Tobaccowala But there's a famous, you know, Shakespeare play. There's a person called Toby Belch who keeps eating pastries.

So all his friends called him Toby, right. Because he kept eating because that's what he did. He ended up being really successful. And we lived in this building. And one day, once in a while, he'd look out and it say, see, that the streetlight wasn't there anymore. Bombay had changed. But he said, that park is where the streetlight was.

And now I look down on that street, right. And I'm living in this really expensive building. Right. But he says, never forget that person, because that's who I am, right? And the day I forget that person, we don't do anything right. So right now, I run a foundation. helping 10,000 people in India, right. Primarily those people, which is.

So that's one lesson. But the second and third lesson is very, very important is this which is the people that I have learned the best from and found most inspirational, whether it's a jack loser, Morris Levy, a lot of other people were these four dimensional chess people, amazing thinkers, big winners, competitive but deeply human. And what I began to realize is you don't have to make a choice.

And, you know, recently I did this podcast, I also wrote this thing called Old School Cool. And what they talk about is very interesting. They don't talk about masculine energy, they don't talk about hardcore. You know what they talk about? Humility.

Adam Katz
Unbelievable.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Patience. Integrity. And the last and third is this, which is if you want to engage with somebody, if you are not generous, no one's going to like you.

And so the whole idea is that you basically believe that it's all about I, you mind, you become a problem. And that third thing is I forever remained and I remembered and I tell people I am an immigrant. And what does an immigrant do? They think like outsiders and they think as underdogs. Right. And I said, and somebody says, but I'm not an immigrant.

I said, you are an immigrant. We're all immigrants. But if you assume that your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents were not immigrants, let's suppose you were uniquely born to this country. Let's say you are actually Native American. Okay? You are also an immigrant because we're all immigrating into the future.

Adam Katz
Unbelievable. Listen, that you just walked out to enter the Sandman right there, Mariano Rivera style. So there's really nothing else to talk about today.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Thank you.

Adam Katz
Thank you for becoming, not only, an amazing person in my life, but a friend. And, we learn a lot from you. Thank you so much for joining Breaking Through The Mayhem today.

Rishad Tobaccowala
Thank you, Adam, and thank you for all your success at Sightly.

Adam Katz
Thanks, buddy.