Adam Larson: 00:27

Hey, everyone. It's Adam Larson, and welcome back to Count Me In. Today, I'm excited to share my conversation with doctor Simone Ahuja, an expert in innovation and resource problem solving. Simone's journey from dentist to documentary filmmaker to innovation advisor is filled with great lessons about unlocking creativity, especially when resources are scarce. In this episode, we tackle how to move beyond the buzzwords and actually create space for innovation and focus even when you're overloaded.

Adam Larson: 00:54

Simone shares advice for leaders and accounting professionals on shedding what doesn't matter, experimenting with purpose, and making sure you're solving the right problems before jumping into the latest tech trends. If you're looking for practical strategies to manage the overwhelm and bring more meaning to your work, you won't wanna miss this episode.

Adam Larson: 01:17

Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm really excited to chat with you today and talk about a number of different things, but you've had quite a journey in your own career.

Simone Ahuja: 01:26

Yeah. Thanks, Adam. I'm so excited to be here with you, and I'm really excited to start off with a question. I appreciate the personal lens always. It might be a little bit of a surprise.

Simone Ahuja: 01:36

I actually started off as a dentist. I'm still licensed in the state of Minnesota. Just in case. Actually, it's so that I can do volunteer work, either now or mostly in the future, it's probably going to be. And how I started was when I went through dental school and then started my first year of dental practice, I really wanted to express myself more creatively.

Simone Ahuja: 01:59

I started making documentary films. I started, going to India, and I started looking at how people were solving problems in a certain way, I kept learning this about a term called jugaad, which is a way to solve problems creatively under severe resource constraints. And that led to a series on PBS and an agent who reached out after writing an article in the Harvard Business Review saying, would you like to write a book about this? And my coauthorist and I said, sure. Why not?

Simone Ahuja: 02:30

And it was a very organic journey, but it's been a delightful one. I'll say that. So I'm definitely able to express my creativity now, and I'm I'm in the right place.

Adam Larson: 02:41

I love the the freedom to to express your creativity because a lot of times people get stuck in roles, they get stuck in jobs, and they don't feel like they can be creative, and they don't they don't feel like they have that creative bone. At what point that you that you said, hey. Like, I want to be able to express myself in these ways because it it's not an easy transition, especially if you're stuck in, like, a nine to five that you feel like you have no way out of it.

Simone Ahuja: 03:04

Well, I that's a really good point. It was one of those sort of those big moments that led me to go from I'm working part time in dentistry and bankrolling my films and my theater, you know, forays through dentistry to I'm not working as a dentist anymore, and and that was about a typhoid. I actually ended up getting really, really sick, and I was hospitalized for ten days, and I you get these spiky fevers, and in the midst of those spiky fevers and probably a little bit of hallucinating, I thought for sure, you know, party over. And, you know, the good news is, of course, that didn't happen. But in that time, you know, when I came out of it, was like, okay.

Simone Ahuja: 03:43

You know, this is for real, and it it's really important to think about what do I want? What do I need? Now what in reflecting back, what I'll say is now when I look at some of the dentists out there and the way people can connect with each other, they're doing a lot of things that I know if they existed then, I would have found a lot more interesting. So I think I have zero regrets, but I do think that if I were just starting out today, I would have found more ways to be creative inside of my dental practice. And I don't think it would have been quite as urgent for me.

Adam Larson: 04:20

Well, and everybody's journey is different. So, like, some people have to have that life changing moment that causes them to make that change, and other folks are able to kind of find it in their way. So, like, it's it's not like you have to have one way or the other, but I like that you had that moment. You're like, okay. This is what's happening.

Simone Ahuja: 04:35

I think about that a lot because I'm I'm lucky in a in a way to have had that clarity even though it was frightening at the time. And I always think, well, how do we create that clarity without something almost catastrophic happening? And I think there are ways to do it. I I do think it's harder, and it requires more intention.

Adam Larson: 04:55

Yeah. It does. So I wanna I wanna circle back to that resource problem solving, especially in in trying times because right now, if everybody looks at what's happening in their jobs, there's there's layoffs happening. There's people tightening their belts. There's teams that are having to do more with less.

Adam Larson: 05:11

You know? So let let's maybe talk a little bit about what does that look like.

Simone Ahuja: 05:15

Yeah. I I do think that today, right now, what I'm seeing is a ton of, you know, can how do we do more with less? And, you know, I I used to talk about that as my specialty, and I'm the less expert. And I've been a little more cautious about it lately because what I don't want is where, you know, I get phone calls from leaders saying, tell us about this more with less. It's not about, you know, let's let's reduce staff only and let's squeeze everybody.

Simone Ahuja: 05:38

Right? Doing more with less is about being resourceful, leveraging ingenuity, solving the problems that matter most and have the highest impact. And we can talk about that throughout this conversation, Adam, is I feel like most people and organizations right now are pretty exhausted, and so resourceful problem solving is a powerful way to leverage your creativity and ingenuity to get the things done that you need to to grow your business and to not be overwhelmed. I can share it too with you. How did I learn about it?

Simone Ahuja: 06:11

Which was actually through making these documentary films. So it was like, you know, as I was going around capturing these these case studies about how people are are solving problems in a resource constrained environment, whether it's rural India or whether it's in Brazil or whether it's in The US. Right? So bootstrap DIYers and entrepreneurs, small scale farmers. What I realized is they all had this kind of approach that relied on creativity, relied on resourcefulness, relied on ingenuity to solve problems because they simply had to.

Simone Ahuja: 06:47

And and India, that was called jugaad. Jagaad is that flexible creative problem solving. And the first question you ask yourself is, what's the question that really matters? And the second one is, what do I already have to get started? And that to me is the fundamental difference between what somebody who's from a real bootstrap startup or a really resource constrained environment ask.

Simone Ahuja: 07:10

Those are the questions they ask as opposed to many of us who've grown in a more resource rich environment. In a way, it can be a little bit of a trap because we're always like, well, I need this. I need head count. I need budget. I need this.

Simone Ahuja: 07:24

I need and, actually, we have what we need a lot of the times already. And that would be really an a message I would love to highlight underlying circle is you already have what you need by and large to solve a lot of the problems ahead of you. And in fact, I think we need less. That's what my big observation is in most environments right now.

Adam Larson: 07:46

We could definitely use with a lot less, especially in places where there's so many there's overabundance of resources. You know, every grocery store, everything is full as an example. And a lot of people have never don't really fully understand what it is to need something, truly need something. Not just, well, I'm out of eggs through the day, but there are no eggs in the whole country, you know, in the whole, like, street or whatever.

Simone Ahuja: 08:10

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I think the first time I saw that en masse here in The US was during the pandemic where people were becoming they were shifting more easily. They were going to remote work, of course. They were there was more decentralized decision making in large organizations.

Simone Ahuja: 08:28

There was a shift from, well, we used to make spirits and now we make hand sanitizer. Those kinds of things were happening in businesses. I saw a really powerful shift happen. Now it's kind of a shift back to how things were in that respect in terms of leveraging that ingenuity or making those faster changes. And again, it's urgency, right?

Simone Ahuja: 08:46

And understand that's very, very challenging, but I think it's worth examining and worth applying right now because to your point about all the choices in the grocery store, one of the things I keep hearing about is there are lots of organizations that are experimenting with AI, for example. And the experiment might be, okay, go ahead and try AI. Just try and use it. You're all required to try and use it. Do a little experiment.

Simone Ahuja: 09:08

And I'm a huge fan of experimentation with a purpose. Because what I'm seeing right now is that people are experimenting on things, and that is good to get started, but I'm also seeing that they have so many options in front of them. Right? So instead of here's a draft you can take a look at, there'll be 20 drafts. So there's so many things to pull from, or there are hallucinations where you get different versions of things.

Simone Ahuja: 09:32

And what happens is the cognitive load of folks is so heavy right now because they're overloaded with choices and overloaded with information, is why this concept of resourceful problem solving is a relief. It helps to reduce overwhelm because people what what I'm asking people to do is be really intentional, have a clear and simple way to discern, here's what really matters to us because it's going to advance this specific goal or strategy, and here's here's how we're gonna approach it. Very simple. And that, I think reduction all by itself, it lightens the load. Because what I hear from a lot of folks in organizations of all sizes is they're not clear.

Simone Ahuja: 10:17

They're not sure what's important. They're all working really hard. I don't know a lot of people who are slacking. I think most people are working pretty hard, but they're not having great results because they're doing too many things. And so it's not only is it superficial, their efforts, they're just mentally exhausted.

Simone Ahuja: 10:38

There's no space. So that's why I think of this resourceful problem solving, that focus, and creating more ease is an imperative right now.

Adam Larson: 10:45

That sounds amazing. It sounds great in theory. How do you kind of get yourself to that place, especially when you're in an organization that is established and there's not that entrepreneurial mindset? There's not that ask questions and try new things mindset. You know, in a lot of places are are lightning, especially when it comes to AI, but then you said then you have, like, okay.

Adam Larson: 11:06

Do I use this one? I do you guys this one. Oh, wait. Five new ones just popped up. Should I try those?

Adam Larson: 11:11

And you kind of get this this this paralysis by now this paralysis analysis almost where you have too many decisions to make and you don't make any decisions.

Simone Ahuja: 11:20

This is what I have learned from innovation that I really appreciate Two things. So one is I used to go in and work with organizations. They would say help us become more innovative, help us build a more innovative culture, which a lot of times the subtext will help us build a better culture. And really, they just want to get better at problem solving. I often, you know, don't talk about innovation as much as I used to and we can talk about that a little bit later.

Simone Ahuja: 11:46

But what I appreciate now that I didn't ten or fifteen years ago is now if I go into an organization and we start to stand up an innovation journey initiative, I'm gonna ask the that leader, what is it that you wanna do? What's your you know, I need to understand your strategy and where you're going. And if you're asking people to take something on, what are they going to remove? So Mhmm. You know, what are we going to get rid of?

Simone Ahuja: 12:15

It's an active process of shedding, and I didn't do that early on because, frankly, I didn't realize the impact of not doing that. And what the impact is is innovation theater and exhaustion and

Adam Larson: 12:26

Mhmm.

Simone Ahuja: 12:27

Kind of a loss of morale that we're doing this flavor of the day innovation thing and actually all this doing is making me feel bad that maybe the way that I currently work isn't really that valued or it's just slowing me down or we're just not gonna do it in a while. It's not sustainable. So that's that's one thing is I'm always asking the leaders who typically bring me in, what are you going to shed? And let's be really clear about it. You know, on a more micro level, I would say when I, you know, what I talk a lot about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship inside of an organization.

Simone Ahuja: 13:03

And if you're a manager who's trying to support that or if you're just one person also, what is it that you're going to shed? Can you go to your manager and lead or leader and say, I'm taking this on because we talked about this, or I recommend we take this on. But I also wanna share with you that this doesn't appear to be adding any value. This isn't moving the needle. I'm gonna take that off the list for now.

Simone Ahuja: 13:29

And I think that conversation has to happen over and over and over again. It's like, well, Adam, you know a lot of kids. It's like that closet. Right? Like, if you don't keep editing that closet, all of a sudden, there's nowhere to walk, and it's the same thing.

Simone Ahuja: 13:44

It's just in our heads. We've gotta keep editing. And that's you know, if I think about innovation in general and the agile process, for example Yeah. Agile is a methodology that was first used in technology. It's a way to keep iterating.

Simone Ahuja: 14:00

So you have a problem, you define it, you make sure it's a relevant problem, and then you're constantly evaluating. What do we do? Where do we need to get to? What's working right now? What can we get rid of?

Simone Ahuja: 14:11

And you're doing it again and again and again, and it becomes fast and it becomes honest. It's an honest process of what's working, where are we, what do we need to get rid of. And that process works very well in business. What I often ask people to do, and I can share this with your viewers and listeners too, Adam, is I'll give them something I call the IEI template, and it's just impact, ease, and interest. So if we're talking about I've got something to do and a problem to solve, sometimes we'll do this in a strategy session with leaders and sometimes it's it's one individual thinking about what are they gonna talk about at their annual review or what they're working on with their manager.

Simone Ahuja: 14:50

And it's what is the most impactful on a scale of one to 10? What is the most interesting? Because it actually matters. Right? That gives us a lot of juice if we're super interested in something.

Simone Ahuja: 15:01

Right? Mhmm. And, you know, what's the impact and what's easy or hard? Because if something is medium impact and it's really easy or medium impact and takes a ton of energy, which one would you choose? And I think people don't often talk about that enough.

Simone Ahuja: 15:18

You know, what is I'm very much about energy management right now. I'm very clear that I need to manage my energy in terms of sleep, in terms of the things I decide to take on, who I decide to hang out with, even who I work with sometimes when I can do that. So that's a that's a compliment to you, Adam, by the way.

Adam Larson: 15:37

I appreciate that.

Simone Ahuja: 15:38

But that's the the point is it's it's very clear. And if you're doing it in a group when you're trying to decide what are we working on, what really matters, it becomes very democratic because you're doing the math. So your people will love that. You just add it up. Here's what we're working on.

Simone Ahuja: 15:52

Typically, it works really well.

Adam Larson: 15:55

Yeah. Typically, it does. I I think a lot of times when you you hear the word innovation, it it became such a buzzword. And I remember in the past, like, I was with, they would talk about innovation. Everybody get excited.

Adam Larson: 16:06

We'd have these group meetings. We're like, yeah. We're gonna do so many cool things. And then after that meeting was done, it's like you have that huge letdown. Kinda like when you go to, like, a conference, you get all excited and amped up, and then you get home, and you're like, wait.

Adam Larson: 16:18

What am I supposed to do again? And there's no, like, practical application. And a lot of times, you have these innovation moments, and you're like, cool. We're gonna do all these great things. And then it's it's business as usual status quo, and nothing ever really changes at the top.

Adam Larson: 16:32

So how do you get from, hey. We're really excited about this new thing to actually practical application, I think is what I'm asking you.

Simone Ahuja: 16:39

Yeah. I think that's a great question, and there's there are many layers in there. One is, again, this idea that we're so overloaded. I mean, even in a conference, I was talking with someone who was presenting, and they were talking about how much they're enjoying the concept, but they wish there was some space to process, which I thought was a beautiful idea. Right?

Simone Ahuja: 16:58

You're going from session to session to session, and you have no space to process. That's happening to leaders right now when they're thinking about strategy. That's happening to everyone else when they're thinking about, well, how do I what is important and how do I execute on this? So the the practical reality is you have to decide again, like, focus on what it is that's important, and I think articulate that. Right?

Simone Ahuja: 17:23

So you have to take that onus on. I heard you say that this is what's important to our group. Here are the things that I'm working on. These are the things that are gonna advance that. Maybe even I have this idea that's different than how we do things.

Simone Ahuja: 17:37

And I have another worksheet I can share with your viewers about recontracting. And recontracting is a way to talk to your manager or leader about doing something new and different. And you're starting with, when should I even have this conversation? What's the best time to do that? Is that a review?

Simone Ahuja: 17:55

Is it over an email? And then sharing, why am I even bringing this up? It's gonna advance this goal or this strategy that we all agreed is really important. Why am I the right person to do this work? I'm really passionate about it because I've experienced this problem myself where I observed my uncle struggling through this.

Simone Ahuja: 18:12

I think we can help make financial literacy easier, whatever it is.

Adam Larson: 18:17

Yeah.

Simone Ahuja: 18:18

Or to make a product easier to access, something like that. So then you keep going and you share how you're gonna do it and you're gonna have a way to do it. So I think that's the other thing I see is people don't have a simple way forward. They have lots of ideas, but no way to vet them. And then not a really simple way or method to advance those ideas.

Simone Ahuja: 18:43

But if you have that, which I love sharing with people, that's what entrepreneurship is, then you tell your manager, I can do that, and I'm gonna update you in a month. I just need your help with this one thing. And I also add that in because most managers and leaders I know and talk to behind the scenes, they most of them wanna help. Most of them want to help. They wanna help innovate.

Simone Ahuja: 19:05

They wanna help solve problems. They wanna support their teams. But the reason that they don't do it, just think about it for one second, everybody, they don't have time. They're on the hook for other things. Right?

Simone Ahuja: 19:19

They're managing a p and l. They've got other responsibilities. They don't wanna hand hold, but they still wanna be in the game a little bit. They do wanna help you. So maybe they can help you remove a barrier.

Simone Ahuja: 19:29

So again, it's about the it's about the decluttering and the editing of the things that you're doing and being very vocal about it and forward with it. It's also about having a way forward. So what are the five broad steps I need to take to advance this and start learning and hopefully then capturing and sharing it with your teams? I think that the third thing, and this is the hardest one right now, I see it every single day, is where's the time? How do I create space for this?

Simone Ahuja: 20:00

And that kind of connects back to the first piece of the editing.

Adam Larson: 20:04

Mhmm.

Simone Ahuja: 20:04

But you do have to be really intentional about creating that space to solve the problem. What I see a lot of right now is that people are spinning their wheels or trying to squeeze in more and more and more. The cognitive load is so high, the ability to be creative is decreasing, and actually the productivity of the innovation is really falling down. That's that's hard. That's hard.

Simone Ahuja: 20:30

One of the things I think tactically people can do, you know, in terms of, well, if I'm a leader and I wanna promote what can I do? I would take an existing meeting and talk about what you're doing in real time just for five or ten minutes at the start of the meeting. It might be in person. It could be asynchronously for your introverts. That's one thing.

Simone Ahuja: 20:50

I think the other thing people can do is find their people who are like them, are working on something, you know, build a little cohort of people. It becomes really fun. People who you might want to help you solve this problem and it becomes more of a group effort. And if you track what you're doing and you show momentum, typically that becomes really well supported in an organization, even if it's more hierarchical or more traditional. If you can demonstrate where am I adding value?

Simone Ahuja: 21:17

Why does this matter?

Adam Larson: 21:18

Yeah. Create that ROI moment. Say, this is why this is happening and create that that reason. I think the the biggest the biggest thing I I noticed you saying is creating that space. Right?

Adam Larson: 21:29

Making that space to ponder, making that space to to go over things and getting from I'm too busy. I barely have anything I barely have time for anything and making space. Like, going from there to there can be a very difficult walk, but it's necessary. So how do we as, you know, as, like, this is a podcast for accounting and finance professionals. How do accounting and finance professionals create that space with the the tension growing, especially with everything that's happening, you know, in work, but then also outside of work?

Adam Larson: 22:00

I know, like, people can feel that with the tension of different, like, politicalness, like, this thing, that thing. There's so many things happening. How do we create that space in the midst of tension?

Simone Ahuja: 22:11

Yeah. That is such I think, Adam, you just asked the most important question of our time right there. I think that this thinking about this and being considerate of this and compassionate to ourselves and creating that space is the most important thing we can do right now. And it's certainly not easy, especially, you know, if you have multiple responsibilities at work and at home and you're feeling that weight. So I think, again, I'll go back first to the editing process and asking yourself what is important, who is important, do I really need to participate in that?

Simone Ahuja: 22:48

I mean, if I give you a personal example, I have young kids like you, and one of the things I've noticed is I was getting beaten down by this, what I would call the sports Industrial Complex. That's some kind of charge, and I know a lot of people love it. And I think it's great for them. But for me, driving around all over the place to go to eight year old soccer for my kid who's definitely not gonna be a professional athlete. It wasn't working for us, you know, but I did feel that pang of like, what if he doesn't have this opportunity?

Simone Ahuja: 23:21

And what if he's not gonna make friends? And, you know, you you start to you start to spit on those things. And Yeah. We really had to get clear on what is the real cost of this to our family. You know, when the parents aren't in good shape, the family is not in good shape.

Simone Ahuja: 23:39

That is the same thing for leaders. So leaders, I think it's incumbent upon you to find ways to model taking space, creating space, to actually facilitate creating space. Right? It could be a coworking meeting. So maybe there's a meeting where it's two hours sitting in quiet.

Simone Ahuja: 24:01

People love the community aspect of that, and you can work on a focused problem or people could work on their individual problems. Very hard to do, I understand, but I do think that it's one of those things that we're we're not we're already seeing the deleterious effects of not supporting ourselves with time and space. We know very clearly through data that if we don't create time and space, we cannot be innovative and creative. And to your point about the environment, there are so many layoffs happening right now. I am hearing people say things like, we don't share ideas anymore because I hold it close to the vest.

Simone Ahuja: 24:44

In case I'm going to the chopping block nest, I'm gonna hold this idea close. I've heard that on many calls over the last few weeks. What I worry about is not only is that super stressful, there's no way innovation can happen, almost no way innovation can happen. It happens through intersections, conversations, learning, diverse opinions coming together. So, that emphasis on creating space is really important.

Simone Ahuja: 25:14

We can leverage now technology, I think, created a bit of a mess, frankly. I mean, I'm all about innovation, technology, AI. I mean, for even ten years ago, we were working with Fortune 500 companies helping them apply things like AI, AR, VR, blockchain, and it was really hard then, and the truth is it's really hard now. Having said that, it can be a great enabler. Right?

Simone Ahuja: 25:39

So agentic AI is very important for people in your industry. I think it's a way to simplify things potentially. It's not replacing the humans, but it's doing a lot of the vetting in the first place if you're doing things like making sure that all the documents were uploaded. And then making a list of the ones that are missing or what's missing on those documents. Or it could be taking financial ease and turning it into plain English for people.

Simone Ahuja: 26:10

And then, you know, the person on your team can review that. So those are ways I think we can create space. What I don't think we have to do is do everything with AI, and we don't have to do it all right away. I think my you know, I remember in November 2023, I was talking to about 50 c suite leaders, mostly CEOs, and they all were like, we wanna know what you think about generative AI. ChatGPT was pretty the big biggest player at that time.

Simone Ahuja: 26:38

And I said, I think it's really important, but I don't think that's your biggest concern. If I look at innovation and problem solving in most organizations, the biggest problem is they're not solving the right problems. Yeah. So first, understand, are we solving the most impactful problems? When it comes to AI, the truth is to use AI really well, you're probably gonna have to redesign some of the systems around the processes that AI will help the most.

Simone Ahuja: 27:11

That is a different animal. So I think we have to be kind of realistic about that. But first, are we solving the right problems? Then worry about which tool you're gonna use, whether it's AI or something else.

Adam Larson: 27:26

Yeah. I I feel like that's the an age old thing, you know, when you're designing, a course per se. You don't wanna say how you're gonna build the course. You wanna say what what's gonna happen in the course first and then make the decision of how you're gonna like, what how it's gonna be displayed to the learner. And I I love that example that you gave because it's it's super important to make sure that we're we're answering the right problem and then, okay, what tool could help us with that problem?

Adam Larson: 27:52

Because there's so many tools. It's just, okay. Let me pick the right one. Because you give a set of 15 screwdrivers. Well, what screwdriver is the right one to screw in the little bolt?

Adam Larson: 28:00

And it's that same kind of thing. It's just choosing the right tool and not getting overwhelmed by that the fact that you have a whole toolbox full of tools.

Simone Ahuja: 28:08

That's exactly right. That is very well said, and that is exactly right. You have to be discerning about the problems you're solving, then choose the right tool.

Adam Larson: 28:17

Yeah. And I I think part of it is is culture has made it instant gratification is the thing we always want. Right? It's like, want it now. Like, why do I have to like, I was joking with somebody earlier today where, you know, today, if a website takes thirty seconds of it, that's too long.

Adam Larson: 28:35

When just twenty years ago or so, 56 k modem, it would take a lot longer to load the web pages that we have.

Simone Ahuja: 28:42

And we were excited. Were like, wow. Woo hoo. Look at that.

Adam Larson: 28:44

Yeah. I remember when I upgraded from a fourteen four to a 56 k. I was like, oh my god. It's going so fast. You know?

Adam Larson: 28:49

But it's so I think it's it's getting over our own our own instant gratification because we always have to have something right now and allowing the space to be able to say, okay. Let me choose the right tool. Let me declutter what I'm working on so that I can make sure I'm doing the right things, the most impactful things for the organization.

Simone Ahuja: 29:06

It is. And I think, you know, I think to to your point, Adam, you know, a lot of AI usage most AI usage in organizations right now is performative. Yes. Our people are using this. Yes.

Simone Ahuja: 29:18

We're having layoffs. Can't you see? That's how you can tell we understand AI. No way. Very few organizations are leveraging AI in a way that really matters.

Simone Ahuja: 29:27

Some of them are, but usually not the ones that are trumpeting it, like, you know, in a way that I think is a is a bit much and and not really okay for their organization. So I think that we have to be really thoughtful about the way we use it. I think there are tremendous applications in your industry for agentic AI, especially right now, and they don't have to be complicated. It does make sense to invest some time focusing on what actually can help. And again, going back to, well, do we need to rethink this process and use AI to help us do that as opposed to let's use our old process and apply AI to it.

Simone Ahuja: 30:07

That's a way, but I think there has to be a holistic look at that.

Adam Larson: 30:11

Great. 100%. And, Simone, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been an amazing conversation, and this is only part one. We're coming back into a part two at some time.

Simone Ahuja: 30:20

Love it. Okay.

Adam Larson: 30:21

So, like, this has been such a great conversation. So just thank you so much for coming on again.

Simone Ahuja: 30:25

That's such a pleasure, Adam. Thank you very much.

Announcer: 30:30

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 www.imanet.org.