Adam Larson: 00:05

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson, and in today's episode, we're tackling the real meaning of disruption and how it can actually become your greatest advantage. I'm joined by keynote speaker, best selling author, and innovation strategist, Shawn Kanungo, who's helped countless organizations and individuals rethink and reinvent themselves. Together, we dig deep into why disruption isn't just about new technology like AI.

Adam Larson: 00:30

It's about shifting mindsets and embracing boldness and seeing every change as an opportunity. Sean shares practical advice for disrupting yourself, building resilience, and creating teams that aren't afraid to take risks. We also touch how identity, trust, and making time for growth play crucial roles in navigating disruption, not just at work, but in your life. If you're ready to look at change in a whole new way, stick around. This conversation is for you.

Adam Larson: 00:55

Let's jump right in. Well, Sean, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm really excited to have you here. It was great to meet you in Phoenix, and we kinda started a conversation there. And I wanted to bring you on the podcast so we can continue talking about disruption.

Adam Larson: 01:14

And so I figure a place we could kinda start is what is, like, what does disruption mean to you, and why are we talking about it? And maybe that we can start there because for those who maybe not didn't hear you and haven't heard you talk about it before, I figured we could start there.

Shawn Kanungo: 01:28

Yeah. Well, first of all, you know, I'm I'm really excited to be on the pod. You know, I've been listening to a ton of different episodes, and, you know, you're putting in tons of work. So, you know, rate, review, subscribe if you actually got this far after this intro on this pod because Adam is putting in the work. You know, disruption is something that I spent my entire career in helping organizations not only disrupt their industries, but ultimately disrupt themselves.

Shawn Kanungo: 01:48

And to me, disruption is simply something coming out of nowhere that changes the game completely. It changes the status quo. Now that can be a technology, but it can be, you know, our client expectations. It could be it could be an individual. It's something coming out of nowhere and changing the game fundamentally.

Shawn Kanungo: 02:10

And the reason why I've dedicated my life to studying this idea of disruption is I believe that this is one of the greatest ways of creating opportunity. I really believe that disruption is not a negative, but it's really a positive. And we can leverage disruption to create new possibilities and opportunities and reimagine our careers and our industries. And, you know, when we when when I was at the IMA Conference, recently in Scottsdale, I talked about AI being a disruptor and that creating opportunities. And so so that's why I fell in love with the idea of disruption.

Adam Larson: 02:43

Yeah. It's funny when you when you hear the word disruption, it's always got this negative connotation. Right? You're like, it's disrupting like, oh, the children are disrupting my meeting. You know, this thing's disrupting my life.

Adam Larson: 02:53

And so, you know, how do you turn disruption from a negative to a positive? Because a lot of times, disruptions are things that we don't want to happen. But what you're saying is it's kind of a it can be a good thing.

Shawn Kanungo: 03:05

Well, naturally, when something changes, our initial instinct is to think about, you know, what went wrong, or we're trying to deal with we're trying to be more risk averse. And I know this audience, you know, we have some incredible accountants. It's interesting because we are wired to be risk averse. And to me, one of the beautiful things about disruption is that it resets the paradigm. It resets the entire game.

Shawn Kanungo: 03:33

And I think what it allows us to do is to see a industry or an opportunity in a fundamentally new light. And that's what I love about disruption. We can think about something coming out of nowhere and changing the game. Now we have to you know, we can think about it as a negative saying, you know, something's coming in, and let's take AI as a disruptor. It's something coming in and saying, wow.

Shawn Kanungo: 03:57

This this this technology is is changing my role. It's changing how I do things. And and, you know, what about all the things that I've learned? And and think about all the credentials that I've gotten around this particular area of expertise. But then you can also look at it as a positive and say, wow.

Shawn Kanungo: 04:14

Take a look at this technology and look at what we can create. Look at what we can build. Look at the the number of opportunities that we can now have because of this technology. So it's completely a mindset at the end of the day. And to me, that's why I don't think that disruption is just about technology, but it it's actually about flipping our mindsets and how we look at the world.

Shawn Kanungo: 04:35

And, you know, I know it's interesting. When when when you've talked to other, you know, other guests throughout this podcast, you know, this this concept of disruption has come up a ton, and and maybe some folks have have framed it as change. But I wanna ask you because you know your audience so well. Why is it, and this is in my experience, especially when it comes to accountants, is that we're we're a little bit more risk averse, that we're we're a little bit more resistant to change, especially amongst this group. So I'd love to know why is that?

Adam Larson: 05:08

I think part of it is is that element of control, especially for accounting and finance folks. They they want control. They like to look at the numbers. They like to understand where things are going. And when disruptions come, you have to adjust that control.

Adam Larson: 05:21

You have to adjust what you're doing. And I think it's scary. Disruption is scary. Change is scary. And I think a lot of times when I've when I've spoken to different folks about change, disruption, it always starts with yourself, looking internally at yourself.

Adam Larson: 05:35

And so, like and that as you were talking, it made me think about, you know, how many times that we have to disrupt ourselves first before we can see change around us. And and, like because if you don't if you don't look internally first, you can't help your team. You know, if you're not looking internally and looking at emotional like, your your emotional quotient, like, looking at how you how you respond to things and look at different things, unless you're looking at yourself and doing it first, you can never help your team get anywhere. Like, was just talking to somebody yesterday about a burnout. And I was like, well, how can teams how can leaders help teams?

Adam Larson: 06:06

And she's like, well, first, you have to look inside yourself. And I think a lot of things go back to having the emotional intelligence to understand where you are and then being able to move beyond that and grow. And so, like, when you're looking at, like, how and and so how can you how could how do and so what I wanted to ask you is how do we get there? Like, how do we say, okay. How can I disrupt myself?

Adam Larson: 06:27

How do I start disrupting myself so that I can understand the disruptions that are having around me and and balance that?

Shawn Kanungo: 06:33

Yeah. So to me, disruption is you can't disrupt yourself all at once. I believe I believe that this idea of, you know, going down the mountain, this idea of going from a 100 to zero. And to me, that's the ability to go from a 100 to ninety, ninety to 80, and continuously going down the mountain to to reimagine, to reinvent, to be a rookie again. I think there's a number of strategies that we can take to go off and do that.

Shawn Kanungo: 07:03

Number one, it's really trying to adopt this rookie mindset. It's trying to come in you know, remember the first time that you came into a job. You're learning the processes. You're learning the people in fundamentally new ways, and and it's approaching that day as a rookie. You're just hungry.

Shawn Kanungo: 07:22

You're absorb absorbing everything. And when you're twenty, thirty, forty years in a particular industry, that's tough to do again. But in order the way to do that is start at the bottom again. Take a day or or take a week where you are you are resetting and you are going through your onboarding process again. Or ask the rookies on your team or the juniors on the team and actually do the work that they are doing.

Shawn Kanungo: 07:48

It's it's it's actually embracing ideas from the people that just joined your team or people that are not from your team. I believe that the most innovative leaders today are the ones that, and the ones that can disrupt themselves, are the ones that can say, hey. I don't know or help me. It's another way of disrupting yourself. Another way of disrupting yourself is taking a process that you know today that is tried and true, that you have been you know, it's it's been working within your business and and start an exercise where you can say, let let's say I started this process from zero today knowing everything that I know about the tools and technologies that are out there.

Shawn Kanungo: 08:31

How would I reimagine this process? How would I reinvent this process? And what you might find is that there's a completely new way of reimagining how you do things, because you have a new technology or a new tool or a new approach of doing things. And so starting from zero is such a great way of disrupting yourself. And so these are just some tactics of how to do that.

Shawn Kanungo: 08:54

Now from a from a if you wanna get really real when it comes to disrupting yourself, you have to tackle this idea of status. And status is ingrained in our DNA. It's ingrained in everything that we do. We we we develop these credentials, this expertise, this knowledge at the end of the day, and that has given us incredible status. To disrupt yourself means you have to disrupt your own status.

Shawn Kanungo: 09:16

You have to disrupt your own ego. You have to be able to let go. It's funny because my next book is really about this idea of disrupting your own status. It it's a small part of my chapter two in my in my last book, but I'd love this idea of how do you continuously reinvent your own identity. And I believe that the greatest disruptors ultimately have this, like, identity die diversification.

Shawn Kanungo: 09:39

They're able to tap into different identities, and it allows you to disrupt yourself. Because when you're when you are able to tap into other identities, you're not so attached to this identity that you have been building up for so long. And so I I love that idea.

Adam Larson: 09:55

It's funny you were saying that. As you were talking about becoming a rookie again, it made me think about, how so many seasoned professionals we we have an ego to us. Like, when you when you've been in the industry for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, you're like, I know my stuff. And so the idea of putting your ego aside and becoming a rookie again, it must be really difficult for people to do that, especially the longer you've been in an industry.

Shawn Kanungo: 10:19

Yeah. You get comfortable. Right? I had this great partner. I used to work at Deloitte for twelve years, had a great partner, and he would look at a particular industry, and he would say he he he he would he would say this line that in a particular industry that is nostalgic, that has been running like a well oiled machine for years and decades, he would say that those executives have gone fat, rich, and lazy.

Shawn Kanungo: 10:42

They've gotten comfortable, and they've created incredible amount of status and wealth and success, and that is actually the most dangerous spot to be. The most dangerous spot to be is when you're at the top of the mountain and you don't wanna change. The most dangerous spot to be is when you are accepting the status quo. And that's why in this world where everything is changing incredibly quickly, we have to be able to have this muscle around disrupting your ourselves because that's when we become that's when we become mediocre, and so you have to be able to build this muscle of disrupting yourself.

Adam Larson: 11:17

And, also, it it it connects back to that whole you're saying having different identities. Don't let yourself be lost in one identity, and I think that happens the longer you do something. Like, I remember when when I was in my twenties, I was I was doing a lot of music at different at different places, and I thought of myself as only that music person. Right? But then once that stuff stopped and I started doing other things, I had trouble changing from Adam the musician to Adam this or Adam that.

Adam Larson: 11:44

And so as, like, in as I've gotten different hats, I've learned to just like, hey. I'm still Adam. I just have this hat on or this hat on this day. And I think it's looking at it less of Adam the this. It's just I'm just Adam, and I'm Adam who's doing this today, and I'm Adam who is doing that tomorrow.

Adam Larson: 11:59

And and I think that's a better way to look at it. And maybe you can share a little bit how you've had to kinda unlearn and and change and put those different hats on.

Shawn Kanungo: 12:07

Well, know, I think it I love that example, and, I need to go back to the Adam musician. And and, you know, it's you know what? What's beautiful actually and I'll answer the question, but, you know, it's interesting how your musical talents have sort of translated to what you're doing here in podcasting. And the the the technical I'm not I'm not I I I don't understand podcasting as well as you do, but the technical aspects of audio and production have translated so well to what you're doing here in podcasting. And I would assume that a lot of that is is carrying over, and and the skill sets and the gifts that you have been given around music have transferred over.

Shawn Kanungo: 12:52

Correct?

Adam Larson: 12:52

Yeah. I mean, I was my undergrad degree is actually in audio production and recording. And so, like, I've been able to put those hats on and and say, hey. I can podcast. And and that idea of producing is you're taking all these, like, fifty, sixty, 70 different tracks and putting it down into one single, you know, right left stereo track that somebody can listen to and enjoy.

Adam Larson: 13:14

And I think that's what I love. And I also am a huge fan of jazz music. And I love that's I think that's why I love conversation and podcasting because it's like that that improvisation of when it's your turn to play, you know, you're just figuring out those notes and and seeing what comes in that moment. And when you're playing when you're in sync with a with a band and you the music that comes out that wasn't rehearsed that you just kind of seen what happens in that moment, that's and that's what I love about about having these conversations is is the jazz of it all, of that of not knowing what you're gonna say and and how am I gonna respond. I don't know.

Adam Larson: 13:49

But as it's coming, then it just comes, and and and it's amazing to see how all that how that synchronization comes together.

Shawn Kanungo: 13:55

Yeah. It yeah. No. It certainly is beautiful. And by the way, going back to your question, you know, I think at a at a very young age, get questions like, what do you wanna be when you grow up?

Shawn Kanungo: 14:04

And I I'm guilty of this when I ask my kids too. What do you wanna be great when you grow up? And we attach this identity to the work. Right? It is so ingrained in what we do.

Shawn Kanungo: 14:16

We don't ask kids, who do you wanna be? We ask them, what do you want to be? And when we grow up and we go to school and we go into university, we say, what do you want to do in your career? On LinkedIn, it shows you what you do. And I think the more that we detach ourselves from what we do and attach ourselves to why we do it or our missions, that to me is one of the ways that you can have identity diversification.

Shawn Kanungo: 14:46

For me, you know, my mission is to empower individuals to be bolder. Now I can do that through content. I can do that through books. I can do that through education. I can do that through different means.

Shawn Kanungo: 14:58

But I don't wanna be tied to just one thing, but I can still have a a a north star of, you know, why I do what I do. And, you know, Adam, it's really interesting. Like, over the last number of months, I've been going to a lot of funerals. I don't wanna get too deep on this. We were already getting deep on this podcast.

Shawn Kanungo: 15:16

Yeah. And I have this I've had this realization just going to all these funerals with my mother. A lot of her friends are are are are passing away. And I've been sitting there with my mother and listening to everyone deliver these eulogies and and and saying nice things to the people that died. And and one of the most remarkable things about listening to everyone and how they talked about the the person that just deceased is that they never mention anything to do with their status.

Shawn Kanungo: 15:48

They never really mention their jobs. They really never mention their accomplishments. They never really mention their knowledge, the fact that they got their corner office or whatever it might be. What they talk about is how they made them feel. They talk about the funny stories that they've had.

Shawn Kanungo: 16:06

They talk about how this person created value in their relationships or in their community at the end of the day. The achievements, the accomplishments, all the things that we're thriving and striving towards are not even mentioned. And so at the end of the day, that stuff actually really doesn't matter. What really matters is how are you creating value for yourself and others. And I don't wanna get too philosophical here, but it's like at the end of the day, what you do doesn't really matter.

Shawn Kanungo: 16:38

It's it's really, you know, how you make people feel. And I think this is such a great way of going through life because it allows you to detach yourself from the actual work and allows you to take more risks. It allows you to to try more experiments. It allows you to embrace disruption. When so when comes something comes at you, you're not so attached to this expertise and this knowledge that you've gained over the last number of years, and you're able to play with it and experiment with it and and to do more things with it.

Shawn Kanungo: 17:08

So I guess in the grand scheme of life, it's it's a it's such an important thing to remember that that that, you know, the reason why you do things is so much more important as to what you actually do.

Adam Larson: 17:22

Mhmm. I really like that. And, you know, you mentioned funerals and talking about a disruptor, grief. Grief is one of the biggest disruptors that can happen in our lives. But I think going back to what you were saying, like, where where when people are when when you're at a funeral, you're talking about, like, what they how they made you feel and the fun things you did together.

Adam Larson: 17:42

When you're in those moments and you're hearing those things about, especially if you're close to whoever passed away, you start to it really disrupts your thinking and kind of puts in perspective what's really important in life.

Shawn Kanungo: 17:54

Yeah.

Adam Larson: 17:55

And so when you get to that moment yeah.

Shawn Kanungo: 17:59

Yeah. Exactly. You you, you know, tying this back to this idea of innovation, you know, it's interesting. There's this during the Roman Empire, there used to be this thing called a Roman triumph. After Rome's military victories, the successful general would parade down the street in spectacular fashion, showcasing all the spoils of war, gold, exotic animals.

Shawn Kanungo: 18:23

It was an incredible parade. And at the back of the chariot, there would be a slave. And the sole job of the slave would be to whisper in the ear of the general. Now this was the highest this was the most important day for the general. This was the day that bestowed the most status to the general.

Shawn Kanungo: 18:39

This was the day that every kid, every person in that crowd would love to have, to be at the at at this moment when the general was having his parade, and they just can't you know, came back from this incredible victory. And the sole job of a slave would be to whisper in the ear of the general, remember you will die. It was to remind the general that life is short. It was to remind the general at the highest point of your life is that you will die. And it to me, that's such a beautiful thing because it's a reminder that, you know, tomorrow is not given.

Shawn Kanungo: 19:19

And it's a reminder that you have to actually continuously disrupt yourself. You have to continuously innovate because, yeah, tomorrow is not given. And I think that's such a beautiful moment where you're at the peak of your powers, and it's a reminder that, yeah, it's it could be taken away tomorrow. So that's why you always have to be in the mud. You always have to experiment.

Shawn Kanungo: 19:39

You always have to innovate. You always have to, see what's coming at you because tomorrow is not promised.

Adam Larson: 19:47

So how do we get to that place of boldness? Because sometimes people are afraid to be bold because maybe because of things that they're doing with themselves and they may feel like an impostor or they feel like I'm not ready to be there, but we kind of need that boldness to do what we're talking about.

Shawn Kanungo: 20:04

Yeah. You know, the world is the world the entire world was built by impostors. The the idea that I wrote this book called The Bold Ones, and in the book, I do this deep dive of individuals that really disrupted their industries. And the one insight that I got researching all these Bold Ones is that every single one of them did it scared. You know, we have this idea that all these incredible disruptors have this incredible confidence, and they're going into all these industries, and they're and they're and they're they're remaking their careers and their jobs and their industries when the reality is is that they did it scared.

Shawn Kanungo: 20:48

And to me, the way that you become bold is you can't do this overnight. It's a muscle that you build every single day. Boldness is just made up of receipts. It's waking up every single morning and saying, hey. How do I try that new AI tool that that guy was talking about?

Shawn Kanungo: 21:03

It's waking up every single morning and say, hey. How do I have that difficult conversation with a colleague that I've been waiting to have? It's waking up every single morning and saying, hey. I would love to start that new project, that new initiative. And boldness is built up by receipts.

Shawn Kanungo: 21:16

It's about coming in every single day and doing something that's hard. And over time, you build this identity around boldness. It's like going to the gym. When you go for the when you go to the gym for the first time, when you don't identify yourself as a fitness enthusiast. You just went to the gym on January 1.

Shawn Kanungo: 21:36

But over time, as you build a habit of going to the gym every single day, at some point I don't know when this happens, Adam. But at some point, you will identify yourself as a fitness enthusiast. You will you will identify yourself as a gym bro. When do you become a gym bro? When does that happen?

Shawn Kanungo: 21:52

Well, it happens when you go to the gym every single day consistently over time. And I love that idea of identity. When do you identify yourself as someone that is in this thing? And it happens through receipts. It's hap and that's the same thing with boldness.

Shawn Kanungo: 22:09

The way that you that you become bold is you do hard things every single day, and at some point, you you see yourself as an innovator. You see as yourself as somebody that can do hard things. That's that's how boldness is built. It's it's through this practice of collecting receipts.

Adam Larson: 22:28

Well, it goes back to that that old adage, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. Right? It take it's little it's the little things that you're doing each day that kinda build over time like a snowball rolling down a hill. It may start as a small little like a golf size ball, but if it keeps rolling down the hill and the elements are perfect and it's just enough mouth softness, the you know, that snow will continue to build and build and build and it before you know it, it's this huge thing. But it didn't start that way.

Adam Larson: 22:52

And I I Yeah. I think a lot of times we get lost in I wanna get where Sean is, but you did they don't realize all the small steps you took to get where the place where you are.

Shawn Kanungo: 23:03

Yeah. You know, it it actually reminds me of what you mentioned before about your journey, you know, going to school under you know, being a savant when it comes to audio and music and, you know, all these, you know, different experiences that you had. I believe that we all have to go through this period of exploration. There's an incredible study that came out a number of years ago in 2021. These researchers wanted to they wanted to answer this one question, which is one of my favorite questions of all time, which is what makes people so prolific?

Shawn Kanungo: 23:30

What makes people so innovative over a short period of time? And they analyzed thousands of artists and creatives and and scientists, and they used artificial intelligence to analyze millions of pieces of data. And what they discovered is that the commonality between all the people that were prolific and the most innovative during a short period of time is all of them went through this idea of exploration. They went through this this phase of trying different domains, and then at some point, they exploited. At some point, they took all those experiences together and they exploited.

Shawn Kanungo: 24:03

A great example is, you know, Vincent van Gogh, you know, through throughout his life, he he tried all these ways of perfecting, you know, how he did a painting. He's he's he's perfecting you know, finding different ways of of using colors, finding different ways of doing different types of portraits. And and at some point, he put it all together and created his most prolific work, which has actually happened at the end of his life. I look at somebody like Judd Apatow. Judd Apatow is a is a great filmmaker.

Shawn Kanungo: 24:33

He had this incredible run where he created all these incredible movies, 40 year old virgin, and and and and the whole crew, Will Ferrell, you might remember that that that that whole era. And the way that he got to that era in creating all these prolific films is he went through this process of learning comedy. He was doing stand up comedy. He was writing. He had this show called, you know, Freaks and Geeks.

Shawn Kanungo: 24:55

He had all these different ways of looking at comedy, and then at some point, he put it all together. So you have to go through this this period of exploration in order to ultimately exploit. And I would look at my career as well. You know, I spent, you know, my career in in accounting and then in consulting and helping organizations with digital and and and innovation. So I had that consulting side.

Shawn Kanungo: 25:17

I also had some friends where we actually created films, and so we would create short films that we would put into film festivals. Then I was also creating my own digital app, so learning how to code and learning how to design. And, you know, at some point, I put all those things together through film and consulting and and and storytelling and digital into what I'm doing right now, which is really focused on, you know, empowering people to be bolder really through content, whether it's through keynotes or or brand deals or books or podcasts or or media and entertainment. Like, the only reason why I was able to do all of this is because I went through this incredible period of exploration, and many people would say that this is a waste of time. Many people would say that, you know, you're you're you're floating or you're you're, you're not focused.

Shawn Kanungo: 26:06

But the the the idea is that you build all these gifts over time, and then at some point, you exploit them. And and I think that's what you see throughout history is that the greatest folks, you know, that's what they did.

Adam Larson: 26:17

Yeah. Well and and it reminds me of something you said in Scottsdale was work scared until you become scary. And that's something that sat in the back of my head. I remember we talked about it when we chatted in in Scottsdale, and it's something that's kind of always in the back of my head when when I see something that I'm about to do, and it's something I've never done before. And I always remember what you said, work scared until you become scary, so just keep doing it.

Adam Larson: 26:41

Because there's a I think that that impostor syndrome that people get when it when it comes to these things, it's we suddenly start seeing ourselves in a way that nobody else sees us as. We're trying to put something on ourselves that was either some negative thing or some negative connotation that we put upon ourselves, and we we take that on as an identity as opposed to saying, no. I am just who I am, and I'm gonna move forward. I might be scared, but I'm gonna do it boldly.

Shawn Kanungo: 27:09

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you for for mentioning that line. And and, you know, to me, that is how you that's how you get through your fear.

Shawn Kanungo: 27:19

You you you walk through it. You walk through the you know, we we think that life is about avoiding or minimizing pain. We think that life is about, you know, avoiding these uncomfortable situations, but, really, life is about walking through the walking through the boulders and instead of avoiding them. And that's there is no sort of unpaid path. The path is always, you know, riddled with with with obstacles, and you you you just kinda have to figure it out.

Shawn Kanungo: 27:48

And that's how you actually end up, you know, doing hard things and building this muscle around boldness is is that you you walk through the uncomfort. And that's what I mean by work scared until you become scary. And and the story that I mentioned is that, you know, I I I meet people all the time, and I met a person in particular. They said, you know, your part presentation on AI scared me. And I said, you know, that was not my intention.

Shawn Kanungo: 28:09

I said, which part of the presentation scared you? She said, all the stuff that you're talking about that AI can do, like data analytics, like, that's part of my job. That's part of my livelihood. And then I I remember asking her a question. I said, you know, you know, how much time have you actually invested in this space?

Shawn Kanungo: 28:23

She's like, not much. I pay played around with ChatGPT when I came out. And I said, you know, the reason why you are scared is because you haven't put in the work yet. Every single person that I've seen immerse themselves in this technology that becomes proficient with it, builds a muscle around it, not a single person has ever said that this is gonna take their job. Every single person that immerses themselves in the technology says, you know, what can I build?

Shawn Kanungo: 28:44

What can I create? And my belief is that if you are scared of this technology or anything, my advice is to work scared until you become scary. And it's the idea of, like, how do you become so proficient? You build such a muscle in this particular space that you become dangerous. You become indispensable in your career.

Shawn Kanungo: 29:01

My belief is that at the end of the day, the most valuable person in an organization is the person that is hungry, that is curious, that is using all these technologies, and that's the most dangerous person in any organization. And that's how you become truly, truly indispensable is when you are willing to sort of disrupt yourself. That's the most indispensable individual.

Adam Larson: 29:29

It makes it it makes me think of it just left me. When when I think of AI, it's it's probably the biggest disruptor that's happening, you know, in our fields right now. And there's something that I've started saying, you know, when you said, like, putting the time in, putting the time in. And there's something I've started saying instead of saying, don't have time for that or I haven't had time for that, I've started saying, I haven't made time for that. I haven't made time for that.

Adam Larson: 30:10

Because when you think about the amount of time in a day and maybe you were you you know, you worked from nine to five, and then from five to six, maybe you did dinner, and maybe you spent some time with the kids, and maybe sat and watched TV for three, four hours. That's the things you made time for. You know? And some of the things like if if you work a a regular job, you know, you you have to you have to make time for that job. And if you have a family, you have to make time for the family.

Adam Larson: 30:32

And if you wanna do other things and wanna learn things, you have to actually make that time. You have to put the time in. And I I I I think that's something I've tried to get away from instead of making the excuse of I haven't had time. I just say, I recognize and admit I haven't made the time for that, and maybe I should.

Shawn Kanungo: 30:51

I love this point that you're you're you're you're you're making is that it's it's really about making the time. I have never met someone that has said, I have too much time. Please give me something to do. I everyone is always say my mother got she's retired. She's like, I don't have time.

Shawn Kanungo: 31:10

I don't have time for this. I gotta do this. Gotta do We you know, part of human nature is that we like to fill ourselves up with more things to do. We just figure it out. And there's this there's this myth that now that we have AI, that it's gonna help us do all these different things, that it's gonna it's gonna make our lives more convenient, it's gonna allow us to, you know, sit on the beach because it's working twenty four seven.

Shawn Kanungo: 31:33

That is never ever going to happen. Because throughout history, as we've had technological advancements, as we have created more convenience and things have become faster and more seamless and on demand and and twenty four seven, we've just filled it up with more things to do. And so this idea that we're gonna have more time with more technology is we just fill it up with more stuff. And my belief is that, in order to ultimately disrupt ourselves, we have to be able to make some time to learn these new technologies, to figure out how these might apply to our lives. And the reality is is that you might figure something out that actually might save you some time with that particular process.

Shawn Kanungo: 32:16

And by the way, you're gonna fill it in with something else. You're gonna fill it in with maybe hopefully more strategic work or or more time, you know, building relationships with your stakeholders and your clients. But the idea the idea that you're gonna save this time and you're gonna you're gonna be sitting on a beach drinking margarita, that has never happened ever in human history. But I believe that one of the best ways of of building this learning mindset is every single day just allocating some time to say, hey. I'm gonna learn a new tool, or I'm gonna I'm gonna improve my skills at this particular thing.

Shawn Kanungo: 32:48

And and once you build a habit around doing that, you will ultimately grow as an individual and grow in terms of your career. It baffles me. And going back to the AI thing, like, it really baffles me that this is the most important technology that we have ever seen in our lives up until this point. This is the Internet times a gazillion. This is going to change every career, every role, every industry.

Shawn Kanungo: 33:17

And it baffles me that we are that many people are sitting complacent and not figuring out how we might apply this to our processes and to our work. At the very least, this is a tsunami that's coming at us. We need to start playing and at least experimenting with it. And this is not for this is for creating value for for not only for ourselves, but every everyone we work with. I think it's actually disrespectful to not start figuring out how we're gonna apply this to our to our businesses.

Adam Larson: 33:54

Yeah. I totally get that. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not utilizing AI in some way. And and a lot of times, the things I've been using it for were things that were taking up my time or I didn't actually have time for. And now that the AI is doing it, I can okay.

Adam Larson: 34:08

That's getting done and now I can apply that to this. And I I feel like it's it's it's been a snowball kind of that there goes that snowball analogy. And it's kind of been that snowball effect or look, hey. Where can I apply this here? Oh, can I use this in this instance?

Adam Larson: 34:20

Oh, can I use this in this instance? And think one of the things you said, like, we should be, we should be, like, using AI to automate a number of our tasks so that we can focus our mind on other things. And because it's interesting because there's that study that says, like, that, you know, sometimes that I think correct me if I'm wrong. There's that study that came out from MIT that was saying that we're lose like, we're losing some of our cognitive thinking or something like that. And I think sometimes people are utilizing AI in the wrong way where they're trying to have AI do their their their strategic thinking for them as opposed to as as opposed to having it as a tool in their tool belt and making them more strategic.

Shawn Kanungo: 34:55

Yeah. Well, are you finding that? Like, are you finding because, know, the study and and and I agree with the study is that if we use AI for everything, we lose a little bit of that of that deep thinking. And Yes. You know, we we we we don't understand, you know, the problem.

Shawn Kanungo: 35:09

We don't you know, part of part of, like, wrestling with a problem is by figuring it out and writing and rewriting or or just, yeah, wrestling with it. And that's how we become proficient at a particular skill or a topic. So I'd love to ask you about that.

Adam Larson: 35:24

Yeah. I I have found that when I was first starting to use it, I was just kinda asking it, like, questions that I would normally think about myself and just seeing what they would say. And as I've kind of evolved, I've had to remind myself, hey. You need to really sit and think about this. And so what I've tried to do is become better at, like, that prompt engineering that kind of asking the right questions of AI so that I am I'm doing the thinking as well and maybe using it as a tool saying, hey.

Adam Larson: 35:51

What do you like? What if I wish I could think of an example right now to to say to say how how that's working, but I feel that the better I get at asking AI the questions, the more better I'm thinking about things because I'm asking the right questions.

Shawn Kanungo: 36:06

Yeah. Yeah. I I I think that's the best way to going about it. I think, you know, to me, the the skill set moving forward is is is not coming up with the answers, but, like, coming up with the right questions and wrestling with the with with what those right questions are. You know, to me, also, when it comes to AI, it's it's, you know, I think a lot of people look at it as from a from a from a content perspective or from a ideation perspective.

Shawn Kanungo: 36:30

And to me, the the real value is taking a look at these agentic workflows and figuring out how do we make things more seamless in back end of what we do. How do we how do we connect, you know, some of our systems together so that we can make things more seamless? And I think it's taking a look at our processes to make it easier. And that that that to me is the ultimate promise of what, you know, AI is gonna help us do is is it's going to help us eliminate some of those it's gonna help us certainly ideate, but it's also going to eliminate some of those things that we we actually should not be doing. And I said something very provocative during the my keynote at IMA in Scottsdale, which is I I believe that everyone's job is to figure out how to automate a 100% of their job.

Shawn Kanungo: 37:16

Let me repeat that so there's no confusion. I believe everyone's job is to figure out how to automate a 100% of your job. You should take a look at every single one of your processes, every single one of your tasks, and say, can an AI do this better than me? And if so, how do we do this as cheaply and as fast as possible so that we can keep working on more strategic stuff? And this idea that you're gonna automate yourself out of a job, I've never heard that in my entire life that someone that has automated a 100% of their job is is going to be irrelevant in their firm or their organization.

Shawn Kanungo: 37:54

It's impossible. You actually become the most valuable person in your organization by doing so. And so that to me is the mindset that we have to have, and I think, hopefully, we will realize that every job is gonna change because of AI. And the job that we look at today as an accountant, as a finance professional, it's it's it's gonna be fundamentally different in five years.

Adam Larson: 38:18

I was talking to a small business owner recently, and, you know, we were we were actually talking about the subject of mentoring. But afterwards, we were talking about because she has a small business where she helps in she helps consultant and does some different things. And she was mentioning how she was she started had started utilizing Agentic AI for her marketing. And because in the past, because she's a small business, she never really had a, like, a a full mark a full time marketing person. It was just somebody else who's other who was doing other things.

Adam Larson: 38:45

It became their job to do the marketing as well. And it what it what it allowed her to do is it freed up that person to do better at the job they're doing because they weren't doing two or three purse people's jobs. And the using the AgenTic AI to do the marketing, you know, has helped her grow her business because that's this is her consulting business, so she's able to get out there more in ways that she wasn't able to before because of because that person didn't have the time to do those things or just didn't have the knowledge. And so I think people are afraid of the agentic AI because those are the ones that are saying, oh, those are gonna take all our jobs, but it's not. It's actually freeing people up to do better things.

Shawn Kanungo: 39:21

Yeah. Yeah. Love that. And I believe that today, you know, in that particular example, it it it, you know, today, I believe that one person has way more power than ever before. We live in a world of what I call infinite leverage.

Shawn Kanungo: 39:34

So leverage is this idea of how can you do more with less. And to me, leveraging AI agents or these large language models or or or software or media, all these things give us leverage. And so the fact that one person, a solo entrepreneur, can do so much more with way less is incredibly inspiring. And so I think, you know, in this example that you actually gave up, it's like she's now going off and doing things and growing her business. She might even have to hire more people because it's like we're getting more business in.

Shawn Kanungo: 40:09

So the the punch line is is that this actually might create more jobs while people are becoming more productive. And I think the the thing that we forget about business is that in in in a 100% of most businesses, you know, we live in a competitive nature. So, you know, at some point, we're talking about AI. AI is gonna be electricity. At some point, everyone is gonna have it.

Shawn Kanungo: 40:32

In fact, you know, for example, you know, a number and I don't know when this is gonna drop, but, like, a couple weeks ago, you know, ChatGPT rolled out GPT five to everyone around the world. And I think the most interesting part of them rolling out GPT five to everyone around the world is that everyone around the world now has the latest model for free. Everyone has the smartest assistant in human history in their pocket for free. And so what that does, it levels everyone up. You know, I might be in a room where, you know, I have someone here.

Shawn Kanungo: 41:12

They got an IQ of, you know, one sixty. You got someone else here, an IQ of this and that. And, you know, I try to I try to be the dumbest person in in in every room that I'm in. But the reality is is that, guess what? The AIs are all smarter than anybody else in this room, and everyone's IQ has just leveled up to the same level.

Shawn Kanungo: 41:33

So what's the differentiator now? Well, the differentiator now is not about intelligence. It's really about boldness. It's about hunger. It's about curiosity.

Shawn Kanungo: 41:44

It's about imagination. It's about, you know, collaboration with others. That's the differentiator. It is no longer intelligence. And I think the world is now leveled up because of AI, and I I think this is a beautiful thing.

Adam Larson: 41:58

It really has. And I we can't have this conversation without thinking about, you know, leaders who might be listening to this conversation. And are there what advice would you give to somebody who say, you know, I wanna create an environment, a culture in my organization where, you know, experimentation failure, they're like, they're celebrated. And it's those are things I want you to do because I want us to grow as an organization. And unless you're failing, you can't really grow sometimes because if you're always the top like you said, the people the the executives who've who've grown fat, who've grown lazy, who have just have all the money, they're not really the ones who are gonna go and say, I'm gonna be a rookie again and learn something new.

Shawn Kanungo: 42:36

Yeah. You know, I think in my in my experience working with hundreds of organizations and trying to adopt the culture of experimentation and innovation, I think there are a couple traits that are required. Number one is is really around this idea of trust. And my belief is that the the most innovative organizations in the world have this deep trust amongst their team members. There is a care amongst the people on the team.

Shawn Kanungo: 43:04

And when you care about other people, actually, you're more willing to take a shot. You're more willing to to take a risk because you're working with other people that really care about who you are. And my belief is that, you know, now that we work in a more remote, more virtual world where we're seeing people through Zoom and through Teams and what what whatever else, you know, which is it's it's all great, and it is more seamless, but that trust, that relationship can be missing sometimes. And so I I believe some of the best ways of actually creating an innovative team starts with that build starts with that idea of trust. It's trusting each other that you can go off and do hard things.

Shawn Kanungo: 43:42

That's that's number one. Number two is really this willingness to embrace risks within a team. It's a willingness to embrace failure, and that could be a top down strategy where we incentivize people from going off and taking experiments. Now that could be about, you know, sharing experiments more widely. Like, I love teams that are, every week, you know, sharing some of their experiments and sharing some of their learnings and not only why they won, but, you know, why they failed and not slapping somebody in the hand when something fails, but really celebrating that.

Shawn Kanungo: 44:15

With some, really cool organizations that they've seen is that they have a failure award. They give that award, for people that are actually going off and taking shots. And, you know, I remember I remember this one story where, you know, I was leading a lot of our innovation initiatives at Deloitte, and truth be told, a lot of experiments that we were trying were ambitious attempts, failed experiments. And I remember I was in a room where we had all the senior leaders within the firm, and one of the leaders, his name is Dallabore, he was talking about all the innovations that we were doing, and he was really crediting me and my team. And, you know, I was thinking to myself, you know, a lot of stuff that we tried were a lot of failed experiments.

Shawn Kanungo: 44:53

But I remember him asking everyone in the room to stand up and give me a standing ovation for the work that we were doing. And I I remember I was sitting there, and I was and I didn't understand at the time because I, you know, I I felt a little embarrassed because it's like not everything not everything that we've done was really a a winner. And I didn't understand it at the time, but I understand it deeply today, is that when you incentivize people for taking shots, they will go off and take more shots. When you give a standing ovation to someone that is willing to take attempts, they will go off and take more attempts. And so that is a culture that really incentivize incentivizes experiments.

Shawn Kanungo: 45:33

And so this combination between building trust of of marketing and and sharing out those learnings to truly incentivizing people, and it doesn't have to just be through money, but it could be through status. It could be about celebrations of of you know, in different ways. That's how you start to build the tenants of a culture of innovation, and that's what I've seen with some of them winning organ organizations around the world.

Adam Larson: 46:00

Have you seen, teams like that you've worked with? Have you seen teams that have been able to kind of balance that tension between remote work and in person work and building teams in those spaces where especially when there's hybrid environments where maybe there's some people go to the office more and more a lot of some people have remote work more. You know? And sometimes out of sight, out of mind happens in those especially when those things are first happening. But I think we've moved beyond that a bit because of COVID, because we've all we all kinda work from home a little bit.

Adam Larson: 46:26

But how how have you seen kind of people balancing that tension?

Shawn Kanungo: 46:30

You know, my my my observation is that it is possible to create an innovative environment in a remote world only if you a if you started doing that at the first place. Right? If if that's part of your existing culture and if it's part of your DNA already and if you're you're a digital first organization, that that I've seen work. An example is I remember talking to some of the leaders at Slack, and they have been able to and and and and I have a friend that works at GitHub. They they because those organizations are sort of digital first and that has been infused in their DNA, they've been able to do that.

Shawn Kanungo: 47:16

But I would say the vast majority of organizations have that's not in their DNA. They they they did come into the office. That that was part of their culture, or they require more collaboration. So so most of the organizations in my mind need to be in person and need to be working together to work on hard problems. I remember this incredible story from Johnny Ive when and Johnny Ive is one of the designers at you know, one of the former designers at Apple and and credited for a lot of Apple's innovations working with Steve Jobs.

Shawn Kanungo: 47:50

I remember he was on stage recently with at a Stripe conference talking about this idea of you know, they were designing products for humans. And when you design products for humans, you need to be incredibly in touch with what people want and need. But also working with a team, you have to be in the right environment to work on these problems. So every few weeks, what they would do is they they would not only have in person meet in person, but they would actually meet at someone's house. They would periodically go to people's houses.

Shawn Kanungo: 48:31

And what was really fascinating about this this experience is that, you know, when you invite somebody, and I have this when somebody comes to my house, this there's this incredible anxiety right before someone comes to your house. Like, I yell at my kids. I'm like, guys, someone's coming to our house. Make sure it's clean. So we're all cleaning up, you know, before our you know, before someone comes.

Shawn Kanungo: 48:54

We make sure that we make sure that we have a plan of, you know, what we're gonna serve. There's an incredible amount of care when someone comes into your home. And when you when you invite people into your house, the the discussions that you have, the energy that you have, the care that you have for for each other is incredibly more rich than when you go to work. You know, when someone comes to your house, you know, we do this in Canada. I I don't know if this happens everywhere in our culture.

Shawn Kanungo: 49:22

You know, you take off your shoes. You you when you're hosting, you you you ask them if you you want a drink. You ask them, hey. You know? You know, we're we're starting, you know, our appetizer lunch.

Shawn Kanungo: 49:32

Like, there's an this level of care that happens. And what Johnny Ive and his team found is that when you are in someone's environment, it fund the the the conversations and the energy shift, and you're able to to create ideas that you may have not been able to create at work. And so I guess the punch line is is that some people like remote work, and then some people like coming to the office. And then there's people that are like working in people's homes, which is the extreme version. And, actually, each one can work depending on what type of business that you're in.

Adam Larson: 50:10

Yeah. And you have to kinda know your team. I I've heard that example of of working in people's homes, and that that would be a huge disruption because, you know, you working in your own home, you know, that's fine. You can get used to it. You it's your own space, but you're bringing other people outside into your personal space to work.

Adam Larson: 50:26

It's a it's a it's a different dynamic. But I could also see depending on what your industry is and what you're what you're doing, that could be a really, really comforting but also innovative space that you can actually have. I'm I'm like, that'd be kind of fun actually to have, like, a, like, a retreat where we go to people's homes and have that kind of team building thing there. That would be interesting.

Shawn Kanungo: 50:46

You know, I I think it's I think it's an incredible cheat code to have people at your house as a leader, and you invite your team over. And, you know, this idea of status is, you know, when you invite people over to your house, you are you're serving. Right? When you invite people over to your house, you are you're supposed to be hospitable, and you're supposed to serve your team members. And I remember, you know, throughout my life when I when I went over to homes of our leaders and they would have get togethers.

Shawn Kanungo: 51:22

You know, there there there's something magical about seeing some you know, your your your partners or your leaders, you know, being the chefs, being the cooks, you know, getting people the drinks. And and and you know? Because at work, sometimes it's the opposite. Right? You're you're you're you know, the intern is getting the coffee, and and and, you know, they're getting the the the pieces of paper.

Shawn Kanungo: 51:43

And so it's it's I think it's incredibly powerful, and it and it is a great way of deepening the relationship and that trust within within organization.

Adam Larson: 51:53

It also humanizes them because many times we see them, oh, that's the CFO or that's the CEO, and that's that that's who that person is. But then you're like, oh, here's that person, the husband or that person, the wife or that person, you know, who's actually who's getting me a drink as opposed to me getting them coffee. Like, it

Shawn Kanungo: 52:11

Yeah.

Adam Larson: 52:11

Turns the corporate dynamic on its head remembering that we're all humans first before we come into that office. And that's a that's a huge reminder because we forget that when we we work in hierarchical societies and and organizations.

Shawn Kanungo: 52:26

And the punch line is is that why does that have to be when you're at home? Right? As a leader, my belief is that you can take that as the office. You should be the one. And I try to practice this when I'm, you know, with my teams.

Shawn Kanungo: 52:38

It's like, I'm the one getting the coffee. Right? I'm I'm the ones asking, you know, staying coming in the earliest, leaving the latest, and, you know, I I'm I'm trying to set an example that I'm no better than anybody else. And so to me, I think if you continuously have that practice that you are you're in service. You're in service to your team and your others, and I think that's what a leader looks like in this day and age, and that's how you continuously disrupt yourself.

Adam Larson: 53:05

Definitely. Sean, this has been quite the conversation, and I I wanted to kind of end things by asking you asking you. You know, if somebody's listening to this and they're like, you know, I wanna I kinda wanna get started on this journey. Maybe maybe you can share a little bit, like, what's that first step look like?

Shawn Kanungo: 53:23

Yeah. Love that. You know, this has been awesome, by the way, and and and and and I've just, like this is, like, one of the most philosophical, conversations that I that I've had on a podcast, especially on accounting and finance podcast. So I really appreciate you you you having this conversation with me. You know, I starting for folks is so hard.

Shawn Kanungo: 53:43

We we we see sometimes we we envision what the what the outcome is gonna be, but, you know, starting is very hard. To me, the best way to start is to take the smallest problem within your process, within your business, within your organization, within your life. Take the smallest problem that you have and start asking why is that problem why is it the problem? Find different questions on how you can reframe to solve that problem in different ways, whether it's using new technologies, whether it's using, you know, AI, and it's starting to tackle that particular problem with this very small experiment. And by starting small with a very small problem and a very small experiment and defining yourself defining that with a very small sprint, you're gonna start to you're gonna start to challenge yourself in in in new ways.

Shawn Kanungo: 54:37

And to me, building that muscle to start is the greatest way of doing anything. People always ask me, how do I start an AI? You know, what tool should I use? Right? And I go back to the gym analogy.

Shawn Kanungo: 54:48

It's like, there is no best tool. There is no best technology. There is nothing. There there is not there's no it's going like going to the gym. People are asking, what is the best machine at the gym?

Shawn Kanungo: 54:59

There is no best machine at the gym. The point of going to the gym is that you pick up any machine and you start using it. And the point is that you come back the second day, the third day, the fifty third day, the five hundred and twenty fifth day, and that the tools become lighter in your hand. So pick up any tool and just start using it. And the punch line is that when you go to the gym, there is one machine that is the best machine, and that that's the machine that scans you in.

Shawn Kanungo: 55:27

So just start picking up any tool that aligns with a particular problem that you have and start building it, and then pick up another one. And that's how you build this this muscle over time. So that's that's how you go off and start.

Adam Larson: 55:38

Awesome. Well, Sean, thank you so much for coming on Count Me In. I know I've I've I've appreciated our talk and our chat, I hope our listeners have appreciated as much as I have.

Shawn Kanungo: 55:48

This has been, an honor to be here. The work that you are doing is incredible. And if you haven't you haven't registered or or rated or reviewed or subscribed yet, please do because Adam and the team are putting incredible work. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

Announcer: 56:07

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at wwwimanet.org.