November 24, 2024 • 47 mins
Made in Canada
Episode Title: Exploring the Generalist World with Milly Tamati
Episode Introduction
Join host Nola Simon as she interviews Milly Tamati, founder of Generalist World. Discover Milly's journey from New Zealand to building a thriving global community of generalists and learn about her innovative approach to career development.
Guest Information
Milly Tamati is the founder of Generalist World, a community dedicated to people with diverse skills. She has a background in teaching, startup ventures, and community building. Connect with Milly on LinkedIn.
Timestamps and Key Topics
- [00:00:22] Introduction to Milly Tamati
- [00:01:06] Milly's early life in New Zealand and career journey
- [00:02:37] Transition into the startup world
- [00:03:17] Life on a Scottish island and community integration
- [00:04:00] Building Generalist World and its global impact
- [00:05:22] The value of generalists in modern careers
- [00:07:26] Nola's personal generalist story
- [00:09:30] The role of education for generalists
- [00:10:08] Launching the Unboxed course for career development
- [00:14:27] Experimenting with Napkin AI for visual brainstorming
- [00:20:13] Billboard campaign in Times Square and community engagement
Key Points and Takeaways
- Milly's Journey: From milking cows in New Zealand to exploring the world and launching startups, Milly's path highlights the power of a generalist approach.
- Generalist World: A vibrant community that connects over 80,000 people globally, emphasizing the importance of diverse skills.
- Unboxed Course: A new educational venture aimed at helping generalists translate their skills into meaningful careers.
- Innovative Marketing: The creative use of Napkin AI and a Times Square billboard campaign to engage the community and expand reach.
Resources and Links
- Generalist World: Learn more about the community and join the conversation.
- Unboxed Course: Explore career development tailored for generalists.
- Napkin AI: A tool for visual brainstorming used in Milly's marketing experiments.
Call to Action
Subscribe to our podcast for more inspiring stories and insights. Visit our website to learn more about Generalist World and how you can become part of this dynamic community. Don't forget to check out Unboxed if you're interested in expanding your career as a generalist.
Milly Tamati is a founder, creator, community builder and future of work speaker. Born and bred in New Zealand, she's spent the past decade building businesses around the globe. Today you'll find her bootstrapping her company, https://www.generalist.world/, from a remote island in the Scottish highlands.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/milly-tamati
https://www.generalistquiz.com/
https://www.generalist.world/unboxed
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'll see you next time.
Nola Simon (00:22):
Thank you very much for joining me.
I'm the host of the HybridRemote Center of Excellence.
I'm Nola Simon, and joiningme today is the founder of
Generalist World, Millie Tamati.
Thank you so much.
Hi!
Hi.
Nola, I'm so happy to be here.
It is really exciting.
And Millie is a really interesting person.
Currently she lives on a tiny islandoff the coast of Scotland, but
(00:44):
she's actually from New Zealand.
Do you want to give usa snapshot of your life?
I'm pretty excited.
Quite sure you can capture itmore succinctly than I can.
Milly Tamati (00:53):
A snapshot of my life.
Yes.
So grew up on a farm in New Zealand, grewup milking cows realized that the farm
life wasn't for me and I didn't want tomarry the neighbor and have a bigger farm.
And I was like I wonder whatelse is out there in the world.
But I had that question, right?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to do?
And I had absolutely no idea.
(01:14):
Like most 16 or 17 year olds so Iended up going to university and
studying teaching because to me thatkind of seemed like interesting.
It could like flex acrosslots of different domains.
The generalist thing iscoming through early here.
And so yeah, I am afully qualified teacher.
But when I got my degree, Irealized that I really didn't
(01:37):
want to be I wanted to explore.
I had grown up in New Zealand and I knewthat there was a big wide world out there.
And I wanted to, I had thisburning desire to get out and
experience it and explore it.
And so that kind of kicked off a,what was meant to be a one year trip.
That was 12 years ago of this exploration.
And so I booked a oneway flight to Berlin.
(01:59):
And I became completely obsessed withnew things, new cultures, new languages,
new experiences, new jobs new people.
And I have for the past about10 years, I have been building
businesses around the world.
I worked as a tour guide for many yearsas well, which seems like unrelated
to anything, but it actually Formedlike the basis of my skillset, which
(02:24):
is like bringing people together,creating experiences, building
something out of nothing being likereally people focused and yeah, I
fell into the startup world in 2017.
There was a new startup Kicking off outof the Philippines and they asked me
to come out and be like one of theirfirst employees That was my first dip
(02:46):
into the startup world From there.
I learned everything I knew fromthem And then I realized I can
probably just go and do this myself.
So I launched my first business inAustralia And then I've been building
my own businesses ever since How did
Nola Simon (03:02):
you end up in Scotland, particularly Ireland?
Milly Tamati (03:07):
Yeah, so my on the travels, I met my now husband and he's Irish,
but we were living in Ireland for awhile, actually, in the middle of COVID.
And Like everyone in COVID, we werelike, what are we doing with our lives?
What are we going to do next?
And a job came up to come and makewhiskey on this little island.
And we were like, we're yes people.
(03:28):
We were like, sure, let'smove to this little island and
figure out how to make whiskey.
And he doesn't actuallywork that job anymore.
He works in a completely differentindustry and in the climate industry.
But we decided to stay and now weare so embedded in the community.
It's like impossible to leave.
Nola Simon (03:46):
That is really cool.
And that's the thing that's whatI find interesting about you.
You have this ability to do thingsin person and make an impact in your
immediate community, but you alsoconnect people globally around the world.
You've got what 71, 000 peoplefollowing the generalist world.
Newsletter.
How many people are members?
Milly Tamati (04:07):
We've got, I think around 650 paid members.
And yeah, about, I think it'sabout 80, 000 in our wider network.
So that's across socials and newsletter.
But like it is amazing.
The the generalist conversation, likewhen I started this thing a couple of
years ago, it wasn't like, it wasn't cute.
It wasn't cute.
(04:27):
You'd say the word generalist andyou'd get like a dirty side eye,
like, Why would you want to, whywould you want to associate with that?
And I was like, why would younot want to associate with that?
I actually couldn't understand.
I had such a contrarian view to itbecause from my experience, people who
had this generalist skillset were amazing.
Like they had so much to bring andthey had the most interesting careers.
(04:50):
And I just couldn't understand whythe world saw this really differently.
And it's like anything it's easy tosay now Oh yeah, now we've connected,
all of these 80, 000 people across theworld, but it didn't start as that.
It just started as one or two or three.
And many of those people are still withinGW and within my within my close circle.
So yeah, I think.
(05:12):
Particularly when people are thinkingabout like building networks, it can
feel overwhelming or it can feel likethe end goal is to be really huge, but
really, it's actually a success as well.
If you connect 10 people,like that's amazing.
If you can really bring 10people together who needed to
meet each other like what a win.
Nola Simon (05:29):
Yeah, and I feel blessed because I, you gatekeep how often
people can get into the community.
So I'm blessed that Ifeel I'm a member of it.
So I'll tell you just shortly, my,my generalist story, and I know
you know part of it, but I'll justtell it just for the audience.
For years, people alwayswanted me to be a teacher.
Partly it was how I dressed.
(05:49):
Partly it was because ofthe weight of my hair.
But I also am, I was alwaysa gifted student, right?
I majored in math.
I minored in history.
I studied it all in French with asmattering of Spanish on the side.
So that's your first tip.
But I'm actually a masker.
I'm actually I'm not one of the squigglycareer set because I actually worked
(06:14):
for a company for over 17 years.
And I've been in customerservice for over 25 years.
So I've had a straight narrowpath, but it's because I
was masking the generalists.
So I I go deep, so I have wide range.
I took the generalist quiz.
They have a fabulous journalist quiz.
(06:34):
If you want to know whattype of generalist you are.
And I actually scored onlike the widest range.
Ooh, interesting.
But I have the ability to go deep.
So like the T shapedgeneralist kind of thing.
So if you think about customerservice, I When you get a call,
it could be asking anything.
So customer service, generally,actually people who are generalists
(06:58):
do well, because you have to knowanything that could come your way.
In a way, it makes logical sensethat's where I ended up because.
I'm really good at being able tofeel whatever happens to come my way.
So that's my story ofhow I ended up there.
And if you look at what I'm doing rightnow with the future of work, that's never
been more generalist because it could be.
(07:19):
It could be everything that needsto be addressed to really develop a
future of work that's going to helppeople thrive and businesses succeed.
Yeah that's my story.
And that's why I was drawn.
I remember when they first floated theidea of the London Interdisciplinary
School, I remember and I never wantedto, after I finished university, I never
wanted to take like a master's becauseI wasn't interested in going deep.
(07:43):
Like I, yeah, I majored inmath, but I majored in math.
I chose math as my major instead ofhistory as a major because of the
STEM bias that exists in the world.
And
it's funny because that often comes up because I read
more as like a liberal arts person.
When people first get to know me,they think that I'm liberal arts, and
they try to discount you that way.
And I'm like, yeah, but I majored in math.
(08:04):
And they're like, Oh, I don'tknow what to do with that.
Milly Tamati (08:08):
Oh my gosh, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that
exact line we don't know what todo, that doesn't fit into our box.
Nola Simon (08:14):
No, it doesn't fit into the box, right?
So I remember reading about what they wereplanning with the London Interdisciplinary
School, and I was like, that was thefirst time I ever was like, if I was
going to do a master's, I'll do that.
Milly Tamati (08:29):
And you have
Nola Simon (08:29):
somebody on your team who actually works for
the school and you, right?
Milly Tamati (08:33):
Yeah, I don't work for them.
We have a close partnership.
Nikita, who she actually leadspartnerships for LIS, the
London Interdisciplinary School.
And we've done a few events withthem for International General Assay.
We did a big event that included LinkedIn.
A couple of the topuniversities in London.
So like the work they are doingis so important because they're a
challenger university, like to disrupt.
(08:56):
I know that word gets used a lot, buttruly to disrupt higher education, kudos,
because that is a feat to even begin.
Like you're trying to disruptorganizations that are like
institutions that are hundreds ofyears old, particularly in the UK,
probably similar in the U S actually.
So I think they're doing incrediblework and I'm really excited to
(09:17):
see now they're getting there.
I think they've been aroundfor about four or five years.
So they're actually their students arenow going out into the world and it's
going to be really interesting to seethose case studies of where they end
up and how their careers take shape.
Nola Simon (09:30):
Yeah.
I know it's interesting.
And of course, because I have.
It's and everything that my whole lifeis based in Canada, like I'm not in a
position to really just come to the UKand do secondary post secondary education.
So that's why I chose generalist world,because it allows me to really see
everything that you're developing andmeet generalists from around the world.
(09:52):
But you are actually exploring the ideaof education for generalists as well too.
Do you want to talk about your newventure, which is needed to really
bring revenue into generalist world andreally advance you to the next step?
Milly Tamati (10:08):
Yeah, totally.
I think it's filling a gap, to be honest,like what I think what we're really strong
at and particularly what my skill set isreally what I'm really good at is like
the creation and distribution of content.
So we've been able to build this likereally strong, engaged, excited audience.
And then We had our coreproduct as community, as which
(10:29):
is a community membership.
We open it a few times a year.
And what we realized very quicklyis that community is hard.
Like it is so difficult to get right.
And the last thing you want to dowith a community, in my opinion, is
scale it particularly too quickly.
So the, like the engineering of likehow many people to let in has been
(10:53):
so like the meetings that we've had,like the thought that's gone into
trying to get this balance right.
I'm like, okay, we're growing.
But we don't want to losethis like beautiful essence.
of the like culture and the thefeeling of generalist world.
So we knew that we neededsome kind of other product.
And the other thing is noteveryone needs community.
(11:13):
Like some people are like, I'm good.
I, but I do need the education.
And so what we did, is we ran a,an understanding generalist survey,
which I'm happy to share the link.
And we really wanted to understandwhat the biggest pain points for
generalists were, what the patterns were.
And then we wanted to figure out howcan we simply provide tools and tools
(11:34):
and support so people can work theirway through these big challenges.
And one of the things that keptcoming up almost every day, Every
single time was this like positioningand packaging and like translation
of your skillset to an employer,to a client, to a hiring manager.
It's that feeling of OhI could do everything.
And that's actually not helpful forthe person who wants to hire you to
(11:57):
hear, like you need to translate itinto a language that they understand.
So a lot, so we basically createdthis course it's called Unboxed.
And I was thinking aboutit over the weekend.
That I think a lot of coursespromise you quick answers.
So they promise you like, if youwatch these five hours, you're
going to get all the answersand you can copy and paste them.
(12:18):
And that is not what Unbox is.
And in fact, I think this is probablylike an anti selling point, but it
is the truth that like the answers.
Come from the deep work and Unboxwill guide you through that deep work.
It'll help you see thevalue that you bring.
It'll help you.
It'll help shape how youcan stack your skills.
It'll help you run career experiments.
(12:40):
And these are all things that like,I'm not here on a, on a pedestal being
like, this is what Korea should be.
And this is how youshould design your path.
I'm the opposite of that.
I'm like, you should designyour path however you want.
And it should be unique to you.
And you don't have to stay in your laneand you don't have to be in the box.
And because of that, to develop acourse around that, it's a little you
(13:02):
can't really hand people the answers orlike the one track of how to do that.
So Unboxers, a course.
That explores what kind ofmodern careers look like and
what a career for you looks like.
I really believe that careersdon't have to be something that
you just go to from nine to fiveand be a little bit miserable.
(13:23):
Like I think they can be avehicle to loads of meaning.
I think from what I can tell, likeyou get this in the work that you do.
It's a lot of joy andfulfillment and meaning.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, ifwe could help more people.
create careers like that.
What a net positive to the world.
So Unbox, I believe when thisepisode goes out it'll be live.
We're opening just for one week.
(13:44):
So if it resonates, I wouldlove to see folks in there.
Nola Simon (13:48):
So it's a standalone course.
You don't have to be a membershipa member of Generalist World to
actually sign up for Unbox, right?
Milly Tamati (13:57):
Correct.
We, if you just want the courseyou can purchase the course at
any time over the next week.
But we are going to be offering,because basically every time we
open the community, it sells out.
So we are going to be offering, ifpeople really want in for our February
2025 cohort, you can reserve your spot.
You can get it now.
And that will mean that youabsolutely get a spot next year.
(14:19):
But if you're not up for thecommunity, no worries at all.
You can just opt in for the course andyeah, that, that will be available.
Nola Simon (14:27):
Okay, perfect.
Yeah.
I wanted to make sure I understoodand I've seen you're offering
members discounts, right?
Yeah.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's something that you canfind out in the community.
If you happen to be a member.
Yes!
Get
Milly Tamati (14:40):
a bee perk!
Nola Simon (14:41):
Yeah, exactly.
That's right.
And I think that's fabulous because peopledon't really understand generalism, right?
And they don't often understand howto translate it into the world of work
as it currently stands and what it'sgoing to be in the next 5 to 10 years.
Everything is being disrupted.
And you think about AI, right?
Millie ran a fabulous experiment.
I want to talk about your experiments.
(15:02):
Actually.
She's very good at still skills stacking,but also going out to the community
and asking for ideas and supportand just brainstorming in general.
So she's gifted at bringingpeople together and just getting
people to spitball really.
And so you ran an experiment to getsponsorship for generalist world.
(15:24):
Because, you have staff, you haveexpensive, you have technology
that you have to pay for.
And you were testing a napkin AI.
And I did
this
with my podcast because I wanted to see, I'm not a visual thinker.
At all.
And so I saw your post about this andI was like, Oh, cool because I've been
(15:45):
experimenting with Pinterest and I'mlike, the thing that I struggle with is
what visuals to pair with my content.
And so I took the hundred plusepisode titles of my podcast and
put it into napkin AI and askedit to generate a visual that would
represent the themes of the podcast.
Ooh.
And it came up with this fabulous.
(16:08):
Visual actually it actually doesa deep dive and it gives you like,
probably like maybe somewhere between20 and 30 that you could choose
and present it in a different way.
And then you can choosewhichever one you want.
But you did this as an experiment.
You selected one of those visuals.
And then you asked the community to helpyou amplify that post so that you could
(16:31):
get in front of the napkin AI CEO and.
ask them whether they wouldlike to sponsor the community.
Now this took off on, I knowyou had it on LinkedIn, but it
really took off on TikTok, right?
Milly Tamati (16:45):
Yeah, massively.
Nola Simon (16:50):
So this is an example of how an experiment can really lead to it.
Even, I don't know where it endswhether you've had that conversation
about sponsorship or not.
It gets so many eyeballs and just draws.
attention to the idea of generalist world.
And did you want to talkabout that a little bit?
Milly Tamati (17:12):
Yeah.
It's so funny because that onewasn't an intentional experiment.
That experiment evolved the fly, probablynot the best like scientific approach.
But as a rule, I love experiments.
I love testing little things andbeing like, that became the big thing.
What worked?
How can I do that again?
How can I bring otherpeople into the fold?
(17:34):
So the idea behind Napkin.
ai, I just found it somewhere, sawa link somewhere and tested it out.
And the video that you see, Ithink it's about 15 seconds long.
That's legit.
That's literally me on the first time.
And all those reactions are, I completelylegit, I couldn't believe that it was
(17:54):
instantly I am a very visual thinker.
And so for me, that's Oh, it waslike Christmas seeing these things
instantly be created these graphics.
And so I posted it.
I, it, I think the thing withsocials is, pretty quickly if
something is going to hit and It washitting immediately on tech talk.
People were talking about it.
They were sharing it.
(18:14):
And so I was like, okay, I'll cross postit to the LinkedIn test out the waters.
There's always different audiences there.
So it's not a given thatit's going to hit there.
It landed there as well.
And what I did from there is that whenI started to say, okay, this seems
to be taking off on both platforms.
What are my options?
What can I do here?
(18:35):
How could this be a win for me,for Napkin, for the community?
What could that look like?
And so then I created a follow up videobasically saying this is now a pitch.
My last video for Napkin got, Ithink it's over four hundred and
50, 000 views, something bananas.
TikTok was a wild place andyeah I just had Napkin in it.
(19:01):
And then their CEO reached out to meand was like, wow, that was pretty cool.
I hopped on a call with theirhead of growth and we just had a
really transparent conversation.
I was like I really like your product.
I think it's awesome.
I think the key to this is.
Do it so sparingly, like I nevershill, like never promote almost any
(19:23):
product unless I'm using it every day.
I'm wowed by it.
I'm not doing it for the bonusesor, I think you, your reputation
online, you have to be so careful.
And so for me, this was a great product.
I knew that people wouldlike it because I liked it.
I am my target audience.
And I was like, I know thatthis could be helpful to folks.
TBD, that is still in process.
(19:45):
They're keen to figure outsome kind of partnership and
we're just looking into it.
So the experiment continues.
Nola Simon (19:53):
Yeah, no.
And I think that's cool, but that leadsus to our next experiment, which was.
Intentional.
Yes.
And I will let you guide that one becauseI want to make sure that it's going to get
the attention that you want it to have.
So can you tell us all about oursurprise for Thanksgiving week?
Milly Tamati (20:13):
Yeah.
And I think I'll try and frame it fromwhat people can learn and what people
can take away and what people can doin their own businesses or careers
that could They could replicate things.
So the first thing is I asked aquestion in Slack, we have a team
channel, and I was like, Hey guys.
What does it look liketo do something weird?
(20:34):
I was like, let's have a thread, thereare no bad ideas, just it doesn't money's
not an issue, time is not an issue,network is not an issue, just idea storm.
Let's get all the ideas down.
If we had no
Nola Simon (20:44):
constraints.
No constraints
Milly Tamati (20:46):
what would we do?
What would we do?
And one of the ideas that cameup was a, we're like, oh we'd
have a billboard in Times Square.
And Then I sat on that for asecond and I was like, huh, I
actually think that I know someonewho knows how to hook that up.
And it was simply like a message tothem being like, Hey, we're really
(21:07):
interested in getting this billboard.
Do you think you could connect us?
And they said, yes.
And this is also the power of network.
Lesson, ask for things,be like, be a good person.
And then just ask for things.
And when people need things fromyou, return the favor if you can.
So this person was able to connect us.
It's all through Brex.
Shout out to Brex who arehooking us up with this.
(21:29):
And we basically had a call with theirpartnerships team and we, long story
short, were able to get a billboard.
The Thanksgiving thing was a, Surprise.
We didn't, that was just a cherry on top.
We had no influence or say over that.
And then, so we basically then had thisopportunity where our very small team very
small, like people often think generalistworld is a lot bigger than we are.
(21:52):
We're actually really tiny.
Nola Simon (21:55):
Six people?
Milly Tamati (21:56):
Yeah, and up until the last maybe three months, or maybe a bit
more, four or five months, it was justme being the full, only full timer.
And then everyone else waslike one or two days a week.
So it was like hilarious when people wouldthink that we were this massive company.
So basically our little team islike dancing around our living
rooms, being like, this is wild.
We're getting a billboard.
(22:17):
But because we have our communitywho is like just the core of.
everything of everythingthat is generalist world.
It starts in the communityand everything from there.
We were like let's ask the community.
What do they want to have on a billboard?
This is not, and this is actually a,this is, a philosophy or how I think
about our community is that it's notlike generalist world and then the
(22:41):
community, they're just one in the same.
So when generalist world gets a billboard,our people are getting a billboard.
This is a message from us, fromme, from the team, from them.
And you saw the thread.
Yeah, I saw the thread.
Nola Simon (22:54):
It was so fun.
Milly Tamati (22:56):
People were jazzed.
They were excited.
And we ended up choosing aslogan that someone in the
community On that thread created.
So it couldn't be morelike community driven.
And we thought to makeit a little bit fun.
We kept that, we've kept thefinal slogan, a bit of a secret.
I'm
Nola Simon (23:14):
interested to know if I'm right.
I guessed which one I wouldpick, but I'm dying to know if
Milly Tamati (23:21):
I'm right.
See, this is the fun thing.
It's if you can find ways to tomake things fun The internet these
days, it's either so self promoy or inauthentic or insincere.
And it's if you can just find ways toinside these spaces, have these really
sincere conversations and connectionsthen people, it becomes like, Their
favorite place on the internet.
(23:42):
Oh yeah.
I'm in there.
I'm in there multiple times a
Nola Simon (23:45):
day, honestly.
And I don't necessarily always writeeverything, but I read a lot, right?
Milly Tamati (23:50):
Yeah.
There's a lot to read.
Even I'm like,
I love you guys.
I can't keep up.
Which is a great point.
Like you've got to be really carefulabout the scale of how you scale things.
It's a science.
So yeah, then yesterday, this isactually A funny little story.
Yesterday, our team, we had a standupmeeting and we were talking about what's
(24:12):
going to happen with the billboard.
And we were like, okay, howcan we get people involved that
are like outside of New York?
Cause we have a pretty big followingin New York, but lots of, we're global,
lots of people outside and we're like,how funny would it be if we created this
campaign where basically anyone can havea billboard, you just go stand outside.
We have our squiggle,which has now become.
(24:32):
We may as well trademark thatemoji because it's become
synonymous with generalist world.
I
Nola Simon (24:36):
saw somebody trying to use it yesterday, and I was
like, yeah, that's not gonna fly.
Milly Tamati (24:40):
That's hilarious, trying to use it.
Nola Simon (24:42):
Yeah
Milly Tamati (24:44):
so this is how ridiculous our team is.
We were like, we got reallyexcited, and we were like, yeah,
let's just go into it right now.
And Honestly, four minutes afterthat call, Edger posted a picture,
and she's outside, she's done thesquiggle, she's holding her billboard,
and I was like, then Emily's up atree she's working from her bed, she
(25:05):
looks like that sloth emoji, it's thebest thing ever, and we were having
so much fun, and I think that radiatesthrough everything if we're having fun,
people want to hang out with people.
That having fun I was
Nola Simon (25:18):
planning it yesterday.
I was coming home from dropping off mydaughter, and I was just driving along
Lake Simcoe, and I was like, oh cool,look at all the Canada geese on the
lake, because nothing's frozen in Canada.
Like you guys have snow in like theUK right now, and Canada has nothing.
I literally didn't even need ajacket when I was walking yesterday,
and I'm like planning my squigglein front of the Canada geese.
(25:40):
So I have to go back.
It's colder today, but Ithink they'll still be there.
Yes.
That's
Milly Tamati (25:45):
amazing.
That's amazing.
And so it's almost like if peoplelistening, think about it as there
was a big experiment that started.
The impetus was, Hey, what's myweird marketing things we can do?
And then from there it was like,okay, we've got this billboard.
How can we involve the community?
And now we're.
It's an experiment with an experiment.
We're now running this othercampaign within that, which is
(26:05):
like anyone can have a billboard.
And it's, I think it's just about tappinginto we call it being strategically weird.
Where like you, You could just do things.
You could just be like,Hey, that'd be fun.
Do we think that would be fun?
Cool.
Let's just go do it.
It'd be great.
Even this morning
Nola Simon (26:22):
Millie sent me a note just to see, what we want to talk about.
Because I'm very bad.
I keep things Very casual, very loose,I forget that people like structure.
And so she sent me a note and she's but I,if we talk about the Billboard campaign,
I don't want it to release until Monday.
And I'm like, we can totally usethe podcast to justify the campaign
(26:43):
and publish this on Monday.
So that not only do you have like picturesfrom around the world, but you'll have a
full blown podcast episode that you can.
Appreciate
Milly Tamati (26:51):
it.
Nola Simon (26:52):
Amplify.
So cool.
Used to amplify.
So cool.
Yeah, exactly.
That's right.
And that happened, what, in 10 minutes?
Not even?
Milly Tamati (26:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We have a saying at Generalist World whatif it were as simple as fill in the blank?
And it's I think everyonecomplicates things so much.
Just turn it down.
Take a breath, take a step back.
What is the simple version?
And the simple version is beinglike, cool, let's hop on a Zoom.
Let's record.
Let's publish it on Monday.
Simple.
Nola Simon (27:19):
Yeah, exactly, because you actually published when you're
talking about the revenue challengesthat you've had for generalists,
where you mentioned, Yeah.
Come on my pocket, and that's howthey, because I'm like, Millie,
do you want to come on my pocket?
She's sure.
Milly Tamati (27:28):
Yeah, and that is another experiment.
Yeah.
Actually for context for listenersI realized my, my whole thesis is
to build in public and not justbuild, but to learn in public.
I am not out here beinglike, I know all the answers.
at all.
I am very much I'm figuring it out,doing pretty well, having a lot of fun
on the way, and I will share as much asI can so that you can figure it out too.
(27:50):
And I realized that I had been so caughtup in the operations of Generalist World,
and we've now got a small team that comeswith payroll and all that kind of scary
stuff, that I'd lost my magic a little bitof the transparency building in public.
Basically my rhythm, I'd lostmy building and public rhythm.
(28:11):
And I wanted to make sure thatparticularly the GW members had that
access, had that insight into whatgeneralist world is, where we're
going, how they can be involved andhow it all fits into the bigger picture
of this future of work, because.
So many people within the communityreally care about this stuff.
And so last month I was like, okay,I'm going to experiment with an
(28:34):
email just for GNRossWorld members.
And it's going to be likea behind the curtain.
It's going to be like raw, vulnerable.
It's going to go deep on the, I thinkI called it a little letter, which
was completely incorrect because
Nola Simon (28:47):
it was a little, it
Milly Tamati (28:47):
was really long.
Yeah.
Nola Simon (28:51):
So it was the best thing I read last month.
It was really the best thing, I meanyour writing ability is why I'm part of
the community to begin with, like youjust captured my heart with everything
that you're able to write and conveyand like that personally is your
true gift for, from my perspective.
So that, I read that and Iwas immediately like, Millie,
(29:15):
you need to be on my podcast.
Milly Tamati (29:17):
Yeah, literally, actually replied to that email.
Yeah, I did.
And just a note on the writing, becauseI think that's really important we
have a, what I call like a writingculture at GW, where every single person
on the team is a brilliant writer.
And that's not by accident, that'sby design because to be a brilliant
(29:37):
writer, and when I say brilliant, clear.
They are able to be really clearand they can execute really well
on their like writing needs.
And the reason I obsess so muchover that and really look for
that in hires is because it justmeans they're great thinkers.
They're really clear thinkers.
If they can really think thingsthrough and then write it
(29:57):
down, that they understand it.
And Communication, right?
Like particularly with AI goingLike everywhere, being a great
communicator is going to be everything.
Whether you're communicating withpeople or a machine learning, I think
writing is going to be perhaps oneof the most important skills in 2025.
(30:20):
To be a really clear, thoughtful writer.
If I could give advice to youngpeople, it would be just practice.
Because writing is a skill.
I think if you, some people comeout of school and they're like,
oh, but I didn't do well inEnglish, or I'm not a good writer.
You can learn.
You can learn to be a clearwriter and a clear thinker.
And in fact, a lot of the lessons thatyou learn in school, Aren't going to
serve you, particularly in the worldof like business and startups and tech.
(30:45):
Those very like structured sentences.
It's more about finding yourvoice and having an opinion.
I think a lot of the stuff I seeparticularly on socials these
days is almost like lukewarm.
Like it's like people have losttheir Their stake in the ground
or Hey, this is my opinion.
And then particularly on LinkedIn, I thinkwe've also lost our ability to like debate
(31:06):
and actually just have differing opinions.
It's like a little bit of an echochamber, which I do try and challenge.
My posts.
I try and I guess say the quietthings out loud, and I think
that's often why they resonate.
It's because if you're thinking something,I almost guarantee others are thinking it.
They just may not have had the languageor the courage or the confidence,
(31:27):
whatever it might be, to say it out loud.
Nola Simon (31:30):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And honestly, I started the podcastin part because I wanted to challenge
myself to become a better listener.
It wasn't necessarily about, yes, there'sa speaking aspect to it as well too, but
what I wanted to learn from podcastingwas how do I ask better questions?
How do I ask deeper questions?
(31:50):
But how do I listen better?
Because I like thinking, I like myown thoughts and I found that I was
interrupting people and that wassomething that I wanted to actually
train myself out of, and I wanted todo it in such a way that I was doing
it publicly to hold myself accountable.
But I wanted to be able to learn and Iwanted other people to be able to learn
(32:13):
from the experiment as well, too, whichis why I did it publicly in a podcast.
Milly Tamati (32:17):
Amazing, kudos to you, and I, you just named it, but I was like,
Nola, that is an experiment, this is acareer, like, all of these things the more
I think about it, the more examples I see,everyone people are just running these
little mini career experiments, and theydon't have, maybe the podcast last, For
10 years, maybe it lasts for 10 months.
It doesn't matter.
You're learning skills along the way.
(32:38):
You're becoming a betterlistener along the way.
And just like kudos to you for havingthe self awareness of Hey, I actually
think this might be a skill that Icould sharpen, that I could hone.
What's a cool way.
What's a what's an experiment that I couldrun that would help me sharpen that skill.
So I think that's really brilliant.
Nola Simon (32:55):
Yeah.
And going back to, howlong does the podcast last?
I'm actually, you are likethe second to last guest.
I have one more person.
And then next year, I want to look atall of the episodes that I've done and
figure out what I've learned from them and
then
dig deeper.
So I'm not going to do any guestsnext year, but it's like, how
(33:17):
do you take the knowledge thatexists in a hundred episodes?
And then do that deeper, right?
So I'm thinking maybe I might do essaytype episodes where I'm connecting
everything that we've learned fromlike various episodes to actually
deepen and connect and see whatavenues we can actually go down.
(33:37):
So I might actually onlyrelease like 12 episodes, like
more than a month next year.
But the goal is really.
It's not necessarily more, becauseI, more can just be noise, right?
So what is it you've learned?
My, everybody wants to publish allthe time, but it's I think at some
point you need to slow down andfigure out how you go deeper, right?
(33:58):
That's
Milly Tamati (33:58):
my experiment for next year.
Yeah, I wonder if an interesting prompt,like the prompt that got you here was
how can I become a better listener?
And I wonder if the prompt for the nextone is what do I want to learn this year?
And maybe it's like how to synthesizeinformation or how to distribute
content, whatever it might be.
(34:20):
And then that could form thebasis of your next experiment.
Nola Simon (34:23):
Yeah.
I'm excited.
Milly Tamati (34:24):
I'm excited to see what you come up with.
Nola Simon (34:26):
I know.
Yeah, because I look at someof these podcasts and they have
800 episodes and I'm like, whatdoes anybody learn from that?
Because I'm not going to do a deepdive and listen to 800 episodes.
I find it overwhelming when Ilook at your podcast that way.
And I'm like, I don'teven know where to start.
Milly Tamati (34:42):
Yeah, I hear you.
And I just need to callout 100 is amazing.
I think the average mostpeople get to is like 3.
I know.
Or 10, like I've heard.
Yeah, it's really low.
It's the fabulous quad
Nola Simon (34:57):
fade.
Milly Tamati (34:58):
The consistency is fantastic.
And just while it's on my mind youmentioned about asking really good
questions, which I think you've donein this episode and one resource
I'd just love to call out because ithas been like, I don't want to say
life changing people throw that wordaround, but it has been, and it's
a book that will Stick in my soul.
It was actually recommended to meby Robert Barris, who is in GW.
(35:22):
He's a GW and it's calleda more beautiful question.
And I can't remember the name of theauthor, but if you look up a more
beautiful question, it's all about theimportance of questioning and how like the
right questions can be like transformativehow if leaders can ask better questions.
(35:42):
That's how you unlock.
Almost everything and it actually tiesinto the communication piece as well.
So if Listeners arereally like avid readers.
Like I am I would strongly recommendtrying to get your hands on a
copy of a more beautiful question.
Nola Simon (35:56):
Okay.
Yeah, no that's a great answer.
I did there, Michael Bungay Stainerhas a book on questions as well too.
He's a Canadian coach, so yeah,I'll look for that one as well too.
Because that It's guiding me to butyou get information from everywhere and
that's actually something there's somethere's one person I would adore to
have on my podcast and I haven't managedto land her and Her name's Amy Herman.
(36:20):
Do you know Amy?
So she actually is an art historian.
She started as a lawyer.
She became an art expert.
And what she does is she teachesabout how to observe from art.
So she actually teaches the FBI, CAA,police forces around the world by training
(36:40):
them how to actually interpret art.
She's an art historian, like she amazing.
Yeah.
And so she has two books it'scalled her book, her company is
called the art of perception.
And the, her secondbook was called fixable.
So if you're looking for books toactually amplify how you perceive
and how you question those two, Irecommend, and especially for me,
(37:01):
I'm not a visual thinker at all.
I'm not an artist.
I, like I peeked at kindergartenand For me, doing that kind of work
that really stretches my brain tothink, how do I think differently
and ask questions in a different way?
I lean into my weakness.
I love it.
Yeah, that, those are my twobook recommendations for that.
(37:24):
Yeah.
Actually three, three right there.
Sorry.
Brilliant.
Too many books we're reading.
All right.
For
the big uncomfortable question, wheredo you want Generalist World to go?
Like it, say we're talkinglike 2030, where do you think
Generalist World will be?
What have you achieved?
What would make youthrilled beyond belief?
Milly Tamati (37:48):
Thrill Beyond Belief would be to have like systematic change.
So change within our organizations.
I think we've done pretty darn greatjob on the generalist side, on building
people's confidence, on giving themlanguage, on bringing them together,
helping them feel like validated and seenand heard, and now our next big giant
(38:10):
enormous hurdle is on the system side.
So that's where do generalists fit in, in,in organizations and how can organizations
actually leverage their generalist talent,not just squeeze them into this box of
okay, this is your very narrow role.
How can we create pathways?
Basically how can we createamazing pathways for generalists
to lead these careers that are likeexpansive rather than narrowing?
(38:35):
Because not everyone wantsto go to a narrow point.
Some people, like me, I wantmy career to keep expanding,
that makes me really excited.
But there's no obvious pathwaysapart from entrepreneurship would
be one way to do it, which isprobably what drew me into it.
But I think there's a realopportunity for organizations to
get on board as well and to createthese pathways for their generalist
(38:57):
talent, which they absolutely have.
In their org anyway they just don'tknow how to promote or retain or
frankly support that talent diversity.
So in 2030 I would love forit just to be like, almost not
even a thing, just like normal.
For this to be a talked about talkedabout, acknowledged, valued thing
(39:19):
in organizations that there isthis cognitive diversity and that
it's really important to actuallyrecognize that and see generalists on
a level playing field as specialists.
And see that even though our skillsare different in the sense that they
can be a lot harder to measure andwe can often like play in the gaps
between like departments and stuffthat they're incredibly valuable.
(39:42):
That would probably be my answer.
Nola Simon (39:44):
Very cool.
The lattice, not the latter.
Milly Tamati (39:47):
yes.
Connections.
Nola Simon (39:50):
Yeah.
Not the straight and narrow.
I like that.
Absolutely.
But yeah, there, thereneeds to be a lot changing.
And do you think that AIcan actually help with that?
Because I've done several podcastsactually that AI use in hiring and
how AI can be used to identify.
skill sets that you don't evenknow that people actually have.
Do you think that AI can actually be themagic that actually unlocks the generalist
(40:15):
skill set, depending on how it's used?
Milly Tamati (40:18):
Yeah, great question.
There's a lot in there.
My thesis is that generalistthinking plus generalist tooling,
and by tooling, AI tools really,is the unlock for everything.
When you give generalists All ofthis these tools, which make their
workflows so much more efficient andmore creative and give them space.
(40:39):
For me, that's where like.
Major innovation is going to happen.
But in terms of the recruitmentside I would say there is a lot
of people trying to figure it out.
Recruitment is just a beast in itself.
Like we talk, like we're talkingabout like human resources when you
think about it, like even in thename, like maybe we need to have
a little bit of a rebrand there.
(41:00):
I don't know.
I'm an eternal optimist.
on all things and that also includes AI.
I know it comes with potential like reallyquestionable, like challenges and ethical
challenges as well and implications.
But on the whole, I think thatit can be a force for good.
How that Like tangibly plays out inrecruitment and in the workplace.
(41:22):
We'll see.
I know that there's a lot of people reallytrying to crack that code because I think
if there's one thing we all agree on,it's that the way that we hire doesn't
really work, the system is pretty broken.
The old CV.
A thousand people applyingwith a A4 piece of paper.
I think we can probably do alittle bit better than that.
(41:43):
But we'll see how it plays out.
I think the next five years aregoing to be exceptionally fast moving
and fast changing, like just, I'mnot sure how often you're using
AI, but I am using Claude, all day.
Yeah.
All day.
I am like jamming.
Me and Claude.
It's like my bestie.
I can't remember what life was likebefore Claude and Claude is probably
(42:06):
like the equivalent of a threemonth old, do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like it's changing so rapidly, so quicklythat I think, I'm grateful to have
spaces like Generalist World becausethe, what we're stepping into if anyone
tells you they know what it is, they'rejust lying or they're guessing, like
no one actually knows what's coming.
And so to have spaces like GW means thatyou're with a group of people who there
(42:29):
is a deep sense of safety and a deep senseof trust and a sense that, hey, We're
going to figure this thing out together.
And we're actually in a betterposition because we've got each
other's back because we're inthe circle with each other.
And even though we don't know what'scoming collectively we're stronger.
And that's what makes mereally excited about community.
Nola Simon (42:48):
Yeah.
And I just wanted to bring a briefshout out to one of the things that
happens in general in this world.
And that, and I haven'tbeen brave enough to do it.
And that is the hot seat.
So I've attended two as a guest.
And what hot seats are really ispeople come with questions that
they really want eyeballs on that.
They, a lot of times it's personal.
(43:10):
How do I get a job?
How do I transition myself?
How do I position myself?
How do I?
Identify like the top skills.
How do I stack them togetherand tell that story?
A lot of times that'swhat the hot seats are.
But they are intense, but boy,do people come away with honest,
open feedback lots of process.
(43:30):
That's why I haven't been braveenough to actually try it.
What's the most amazingthing that you feel about
Milly Tamati (43:37):
hot
Nola Simon (43:37):
seats?
Milly Tamati (43:40):
I think the most amazing thing is that it is
one person is in the hot seat.
So one person comes usually witha specific challenge or problem or
sticky thing that they need support on.
And the beauty of generalist world is youhave this diversity of people and skills
and backgrounds and ages and locations.
And so you're getting this diversity.
(44:00):
Again, it's a safe place to be like,Hey, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable here.
I've got this problem or challenge.
I need help.
And then you're gettingall of these insights.
And I think what the beautiful, myfavorite part of it is that even though
the person who called the hot seat isgetting helped, everyone is learning.
Like every hot seat I've ever been on.
(44:22):
I'm like.
Hot dang, like no one leaves a hotseat without learning something,
even if they are not the one with thechallenge, even if they're not the
one in the hot seat, everyone learns.
And so it's a, it's again, just somany examples of community where it's
just a net positive, where if youbring these people together in a space
and shout out to Edger, who's ourcommunity events and ops person she
(44:46):
runs these hot seats like clockwork.
It's And yeah, she's created these spaceswhere it's a difficult thing to do to
create a space where people know that theycan actually show up and be vulnerable.
Like we've had some, we've had somedeep hot seats where it's, it can
be professional, it can be personal.
It's usually a mix of both.
'cause life exists like that.
(45:06):
It's complex and messy.
And it's just really amazing to havethis space, which I don't know, it's
kinda like a group therapy session.
But we are like.
I think the hot seats are where the mosttransformative change happens for people.
If they commit to that hot seat andthey come along that's where things
can really shift and it's justsuper cool to be a part of that.
Nola Simon (45:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very vulnerable to do and we'lldo one at one point, but yeah, it's
Milly Tamati (45:33):
No pressure.
Nola Simon (45:34):
Takes a lot to to actually do it.
But anyways, one of the, oneof the most interesting things
I find about generalist rule.
So is there anything else that wehaven't covered that you want to
make sure that we're talking about?
Milly Tamati (45:45):
This has been such a fun conversation, wide ranging, interesting.
So no, just like if people, if thisresonates with people come and say,
hi, we're a very friendly bunch.
We've got wonderful peoplelike Nola in the community.
And so if this resonates the thing isthat the great thing about generalist
world from a product standpoint ispeople either like deeply resonate
(46:07):
with it and they're like, what, like,where has this been all my life?
Or they're like, I don't get it.
I have no idea what this.
That doesn't apply to me.
I fit in and it's all good.
So like people can like optin or out pretty easily.
So if people are listening tothis thing, like I'm in the opt
in camp come and check out www.
generalistworld.
com and yeah, we'd love to meet you.
(46:28):
We're very active on LinkedInand TikTok to a point.
So come say hi.
Nola Simon (46:33):
Yeah that's how we started chatting.
So it's fun.
Milly Tamati (46:36):
Community people are cool.
Nola Simon (46:38):
Thank you so much for joining us and we'll make sure that
we put everything in the show notes
Milly Tamati (46:42):
yay.
All right.
so much, Nola.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
Nola Simon (00:22):
Thank you very much for joining me.
I'm the host of the HybridRemote Center of Excellence.
I'm Nola Simon, and joiningme today is the founder of
Generalist World, Millie Tamati.
Thank you so much.
Hi!
Hi.
Nola, I'm so happy to be here.
It is really exciting.
And Millie is a really interesting person.
Currently she lives on a tiny islandoff the coast of Scotland, but
(00:44):
she's actually from New Zealand.
Do you want to give usa snapshot of your life?
I'm pretty excited.
Quite sure you can capture itmore succinctly than I can.
Milly Tamati (00:53):
A snapshot of my life.
Yes.
So grew up on a farm in New Zealand, grewup milking cows realized that the farm
life wasn't for me and I didn't want tomarry the neighbor and have a bigger farm.
And I was like I wonder whatelse is out there in the world.
But I had that question, right?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to do?
And I had absolutely no idea.
(01:14):
Like most 16 or 17 year olds so Iended up going to university and
studying teaching because to me thatkind of seemed like interesting.
It could like flex acrosslots of different domains.
The generalist thing iscoming through early here.
And so yeah, I am afully qualified teacher.
But when I got my degree, Irealized that I really didn't
(01:37):
want to be I wanted to explore.
I had grown up in New Zealand and I knewthat there was a big wide world out there.
And I wanted to, I had thisburning desire to get out and
experience it and explore it.
And so that kind of kicked off a,what was meant to be a one year trip.
That was 12 years ago of this exploration.
And so I booked a oneway flight to Berlin.
(01:59):
And I became completely obsessed withnew things, new cultures, new languages,
new experiences, new jobs new people.
And I have for the past about10 years, I have been building
businesses around the world.
I worked as a tour guide for many yearsas well, which seems like unrelated
to anything, but it actually Formedlike the basis of my skillset, which
(02:24):
is like bringing people together,creating experiences, building
something out of nothing being likereally people focused and yeah, I
fell into the startup world in 2017.
There was a new startup Kicking off outof the Philippines and they asked me
to come out and be like one of theirfirst employees That was my first dip
(02:46):
into the startup world From there.
I learned everything I knew fromthem And then I realized I can
probably just go and do this myself.
So I launched my first business inAustralia And then I've been building
my own businesses ever since How did
Nola Simon (03:02):
you end up in Scotland, particularly Ireland?
Milly Tamati (03:07):
Yeah, so my on the travels, I met my now husband and he's Irish,
but we were living in Ireland for awhile, actually, in the middle of COVID.
And Like everyone in COVID, we werelike, what are we doing with our lives?
What are we going to do next?
And a job came up to come and makewhiskey on this little island.
And we were like, we're yes people.
(03:28):
We were like, sure, let'smove to this little island and
figure out how to make whiskey.
And he doesn't actuallywork that job anymore.
He works in a completely differentindustry and in the climate industry.
But we decided to stay and now weare so embedded in the community.
It's like impossible to leave.
Nola Simon (03:46):
That is really cool.
And that's the thing that's whatI find interesting about you.
You have this ability to do thingsin person and make an impact in your
immediate community, but you alsoconnect people globally around the world.
You've got what 71, 000 peoplefollowing the generalist world.
Newsletter.
How many people are members?
Milly Tamati (04:07):
We've got, I think around 650 paid members.
And yeah, about, I think it'sabout 80, 000 in our wider network.
So that's across socials and newsletter.
But like it is amazing.
The the generalist conversation, likewhen I started this thing a couple of
years ago, it wasn't like, it wasn't cute.
It wasn't cute.
(04:27):
You'd say the word generalist andyou'd get like a dirty side eye,
like, Why would you want to, whywould you want to associate with that?
And I was like, why would younot want to associate with that?
I actually couldn't understand.
I had such a contrarian view to itbecause from my experience, people who
had this generalist skillset were amazing.
Like they had so much to bring andthey had the most interesting careers.
(04:50):
And I just couldn't understand whythe world saw this really differently.
And it's like anything it's easy tosay now Oh yeah, now we've connected,
all of these 80, 000 people across theworld, but it didn't start as that.
It just started as one or two or three.
And many of those people are still withinGW and within my within my close circle.
So yeah, I think.
(05:12):
Particularly when people are thinkingabout like building networks, it can
feel overwhelming or it can feel likethe end goal is to be really huge, but
really, it's actually a success as well.
If you connect 10 people,like that's amazing.
If you can really bring 10people together who needed to
meet each other like what a win.
Nola Simon (05:29):
Yeah, and I feel blessed because I, you gatekeep how often
people can get into the community.
So I'm blessed that Ifeel I'm a member of it.
So I'll tell you just shortly, my,my generalist story, and I know
you know part of it, but I'll justtell it just for the audience.
For years, people alwayswanted me to be a teacher.
Partly it was how I dressed.
(05:49):
Partly it was because ofthe weight of my hair.
But I also am, I was alwaysa gifted student, right?
I majored in math.
I minored in history.
I studied it all in French with asmattering of Spanish on the side.
So that's your first tip.
But I'm actually a masker.
I'm actually I'm not one of the squigglycareer set because I actually worked
(06:14):
for a company for over 17 years.
And I've been in customerservice for over 25 years.
So I've had a straight narrowpath, but it's because I
was masking the generalists.
So I I go deep, so I have wide range.
I took the generalist quiz.
They have a fabulous journalist quiz.
(06:34):
If you want to know whattype of generalist you are.
And I actually scored onlike the widest range.
Ooh, interesting.
But I have the ability to go deep.
So like the T shapedgeneralist kind of thing.
So if you think about customerservice, I When you get a call,
it could be asking anything.
So customer service, generally,actually people who are generalists
(06:58):
do well, because you have to knowanything that could come your way.
In a way, it makes logical sensethat's where I ended up because.
I'm really good at being able tofeel whatever happens to come my way.
So that's my story ofhow I ended up there.
And if you look at what I'm doing rightnow with the future of work, that's never
been more generalist because it could be.
(07:19):
It could be everything that needsto be addressed to really develop a
future of work that's going to helppeople thrive and businesses succeed.
Yeah that's my story.
And that's why I was drawn.
I remember when they first floated theidea of the London Interdisciplinary
School, I remember and I never wantedto, after I finished university, I never
wanted to take like a master's becauseI wasn't interested in going deep.
(07:43):
Like I, yeah, I majored inmath, but I majored in math.
I chose math as my major instead ofhistory as a major because of the
STEM bias that exists in the world.
And
it's funny because that often comes up because I read
more as like a liberal arts person.
When people first get to know me,they think that I'm liberal arts, and
they try to discount you that way.
And I'm like, yeah, but I majored in math.
(08:04):
And they're like, Oh, I don'tknow what to do with that.
Milly Tamati (08:08):
Oh my gosh, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that
exact line we don't know what todo, that doesn't fit into our box.
Nola Simon (08:14):
No, it doesn't fit into the box, right?
So I remember reading about what they wereplanning with the London Interdisciplinary
School, and I was like, that was thefirst time I ever was like, if I was
going to do a master's, I'll do that.
Milly Tamati (08:29):
And you have
Nola Simon (08:29):
somebody on your team who actually works for
the school and you, right?
Milly Tamati (08:33):
Yeah, I don't work for them.
We have a close partnership.
Nikita, who she actually leadspartnerships for LIS, the
London Interdisciplinary School.
And we've done a few events withthem for International General Assay.
We did a big event that included LinkedIn.
A couple of the topuniversities in London.
So like the work they are doingis so important because they're a
challenger university, like to disrupt.
(08:56):
I know that word gets used a lot, buttruly to disrupt higher education, kudos,
because that is a feat to even begin.
Like you're trying to disruptorganizations that are like
institutions that are hundreds ofyears old, particularly in the UK,
probably similar in the U S actually.
So I think they're doing incrediblework and I'm really excited to
(09:17):
see now they're getting there.
I think they've been aroundfor about four or five years.
So they're actually their students arenow going out into the world and it's
going to be really interesting to seethose case studies of where they end
up and how their careers take shape.
Nola Simon (09:30):
Yeah.
I know it's interesting.
And of course, because I have.
It's and everything that my whole lifeis based in Canada, like I'm not in a
position to really just come to the UKand do secondary post secondary education.
So that's why I chose generalist world,because it allows me to really see
everything that you're developing andmeet generalists from around the world.
(09:52):
But you are actually exploring the ideaof education for generalists as well too.
Do you want to talk about your newventure, which is needed to really
bring revenue into generalist world andreally advance you to the next step?
Milly Tamati (10:08):
Yeah, totally.
I think it's filling a gap, to be honest,like what I think what we're really strong
at and particularly what my skill set isreally what I'm really good at is like
the creation and distribution of content.
So we've been able to build this likereally strong, engaged, excited audience.
And then We had our coreproduct as community, as which
(10:29):
is a community membership.
We open it a few times a year.
And what we realized very quicklyis that community is hard.
Like it is so difficult to get right.
And the last thing you want to dowith a community, in my opinion, is
scale it particularly too quickly.
So the, like the engineering of likehow many people to let in has been
(10:53):
so like the meetings that we've had,like the thought that's gone into
trying to get this balance right.
I'm like, okay, we're growing.
But we don't want to losethis like beautiful essence.
of the like culture and the thefeeling of generalist world.
So we knew that we neededsome kind of other product.
And the other thing is noteveryone needs community.
(11:13):
Like some people are like, I'm good.
I, but I do need the education.
And so what we did, is we ran a,an understanding generalist survey,
which I'm happy to share the link.
And we really wanted to understandwhat the biggest pain points for
generalists were, what the patterns were.
And then we wanted to figure out howcan we simply provide tools and tools
(11:34):
and support so people can work theirway through these big challenges.
And one of the things that keptcoming up almost every day, Every
single time was this like positioningand packaging and like translation
of your skillset to an employer,to a client, to a hiring manager.
It's that feeling of OhI could do everything.
And that's actually not helpful forthe person who wants to hire you to
(11:57):
hear, like you need to translate itinto a language that they understand.
So a lot, so we basically createdthis course it's called Unboxed.
And I was thinking aboutit over the weekend.
That I think a lot of coursespromise you quick answers.
So they promise you like, if youwatch these five hours, you're
going to get all the answersand you can copy and paste them.
(12:18):
And that is not what Unbox is.
And in fact, I think this is probablylike an anti selling point, but it
is the truth that like the answers.
Come from the deep work and Unboxwill guide you through that deep work.
It'll help you see thevalue that you bring.
It'll help you.
It'll help shape how youcan stack your skills.
It'll help you run career experiments.
(12:40):
And these are all things that like,I'm not here on a, on a pedestal being
like, this is what Korea should be.
And this is how youshould design your path.
I'm the opposite of that.
I'm like, you should designyour path however you want.
And it should be unique to you.
And you don't have to stay in your laneand you don't have to be in the box.
And because of that, to develop acourse around that, it's a little you
(13:02):
can't really hand people the answers orlike the one track of how to do that.
So Unboxers, a course.
That explores what kind ofmodern careers look like and
what a career for you looks like.
I really believe that careersdon't have to be something that
you just go to from nine to fiveand be a little bit miserable.
(13:23):
Like I think they can be avehicle to loads of meaning.
I think from what I can tell, likeyou get this in the work that you do.
It's a lot of joy andfulfillment and meaning.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, ifwe could help more people.
create careers like that.
What a net positive to the world.
So Unbox, I believe when thisepisode goes out it'll be live.
We're opening just for one week.
(13:44):
So if it resonates, I wouldlove to see folks in there.
Nola Simon (13:48):
So it's a standalone course.
You don't have to be a membershipa member of Generalist World to
actually sign up for Unbox, right?
Milly Tamati (13:57):
Correct.
We, if you just want the courseyou can purchase the course at
any time over the next week.
But we are going to be offering,because basically every time we
open the community, it sells out.
So we are going to be offering, ifpeople really want in for our February
2025 cohort, you can reserve your spot.
You can get it now.
And that will mean that youabsolutely get a spot next year.
(14:19):
But if you're not up for thecommunity, no worries at all.
You can just opt in for the course andyeah, that, that will be available.
Nola Simon (14:27):
Okay, perfect.
Yeah.
I wanted to make sure I understoodand I've seen you're offering
members discounts, right?
Yeah.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's something that you canfind out in the community.
If you happen to be a member.
Yes!
Get
Milly Tamati (14:40):
a bee perk!
Nola Simon (14:41):
Yeah, exactly.
That's right.
And I think that's fabulous because peopledon't really understand generalism, right?
And they don't often understand howto translate it into the world of work
as it currently stands and what it'sgoing to be in the next 5 to 10 years.
Everything is being disrupted.
And you think about AI, right?
Millie ran a fabulous experiment.
I want to talk about your experiments.
(15:02):
Actually.
She's very good at still skills stacking,but also going out to the community
and asking for ideas and supportand just brainstorming in general.
So she's gifted at bringingpeople together and just getting
people to spitball really.
And so you ran an experiment to getsponsorship for generalist world.
(15:24):
Because, you have staff, you haveexpensive, you have technology
that you have to pay for.
And you were testing a napkin AI.
And I did
this
with my podcast because I wanted to see, I'm not a visual thinker.
At all.
And so I saw your post about this andI was like, Oh, cool because I've been
(15:45):
experimenting with Pinterest and I'mlike, the thing that I struggle with is
what visuals to pair with my content.
And so I took the hundred plusepisode titles of my podcast and
put it into napkin AI and askedit to generate a visual that would
represent the themes of the podcast.
Ooh.
And it came up with this fabulous.
(16:08):
Visual actually it actually doesa deep dive and it gives you like,
probably like maybe somewhere between20 and 30 that you could choose
and present it in a different way.
And then you can choosewhichever one you want.
But you did this as an experiment.
You selected one of those visuals.
And then you asked the community to helpyou amplify that post so that you could
(16:31):
get in front of the napkin AI CEO and.
ask them whether they wouldlike to sponsor the community.
Now this took off on, I knowyou had it on LinkedIn, but it
really took off on TikTok, right?
Milly Tamati (16:45):
Yeah, massively.
Nola Simon (16:50):
So this is an example of how an experiment can really lead to it.
Even, I don't know where it endswhether you've had that conversation
about sponsorship or not.
It gets so many eyeballs and just draws.
attention to the idea of generalist world.
And did you want to talkabout that a little bit?
Milly Tamati (17:12):
Yeah.
It's so funny because that onewasn't an intentional experiment.
That experiment evolved the fly, probablynot the best like scientific approach.
But as a rule, I love experiments.
I love testing little things andbeing like, that became the big thing.
What worked?
How can I do that again?
How can I bring otherpeople into the fold?
(17:34):
So the idea behind Napkin.
ai, I just found it somewhere, sawa link somewhere and tested it out.
And the video that you see, Ithink it's about 15 seconds long.
That's legit.
That's literally me on the first time.
And all those reactions are, I completelylegit, I couldn't believe that it was
(17:54):
instantly I am a very visual thinker.
And so for me, that's Oh, it waslike Christmas seeing these things
instantly be created these graphics.
And so I posted it.
I, it, I think the thing withsocials is, pretty quickly if
something is going to hit and It washitting immediately on tech talk.
People were talking about it.
They were sharing it.
(18:14):
And so I was like, okay, I'll cross postit to the LinkedIn test out the waters.
There's always different audiences there.
So it's not a given thatit's going to hit there.
It landed there as well.
And what I did from there is that whenI started to say, okay, this seems
to be taking off on both platforms.
What are my options?
What can I do here?
(18:35):
How could this be a win for me,for Napkin, for the community?
What could that look like?
And so then I created a follow up videobasically saying this is now a pitch.
My last video for Napkin got, Ithink it's over four hundred and
50, 000 views, something bananas.
TikTok was a wild place andyeah I just had Napkin in it.
(19:01):
And then their CEO reached out to meand was like, wow, that was pretty cool.
I hopped on a call with theirhead of growth and we just had a
really transparent conversation.
I was like I really like your product.
I think it's awesome.
I think the key to this is.
Do it so sparingly, like I nevershill, like never promote almost any
(19:23):
product unless I'm using it every day.
I'm wowed by it.
I'm not doing it for the bonusesor, I think you, your reputation
online, you have to be so careful.
And so for me, this was a great product.
I knew that people wouldlike it because I liked it.
I am my target audience.
And I was like, I know thatthis could be helpful to folks.
TBD, that is still in process.
(19:45):
They're keen to figure outsome kind of partnership and
we're just looking into it.
So the experiment continues.
Nola Simon (19:53):
Yeah, no.
And I think that's cool, but that leadsus to our next experiment, which was.
Intentional.
Yes.
And I will let you guide that one becauseI want to make sure that it's going to get
the attention that you want it to have.
So can you tell us all about oursurprise for Thanksgiving week?
Milly Tamati (20:13):
Yeah.
And I think I'll try and frame it fromwhat people can learn and what people
can take away and what people can doin their own businesses or careers
that could They could replicate things.
So the first thing is I asked aquestion in Slack, we have a team
channel, and I was like, Hey guys.
What does it look liketo do something weird?
(20:34):
I was like, let's have a thread, thereare no bad ideas, just it doesn't money's
not an issue, time is not an issue,network is not an issue, just idea storm.
Let's get all the ideas down.
If we had no
Nola Simon (20:44):
constraints.
No constraints
Milly Tamati (20:46):
what would we do?
What would we do?
And one of the ideas that cameup was a, we're like, oh we'd
have a billboard in Times Square.
And Then I sat on that for asecond and I was like, huh, I
actually think that I know someonewho knows how to hook that up.
And it was simply like a message tothem being like, Hey, we're really
(21:07):
interested in getting this billboard.
Do you think you could connect us?
And they said, yes.
And this is also the power of network.
Lesson, ask for things,be like, be a good person.
And then just ask for things.
And when people need things fromyou, return the favor if you can.
So this person was able to connect us.
It's all through Brex.
Shout out to Brex who arehooking us up with this.
(21:29):
And we basically had a call with theirpartnerships team and we, long story
short, were able to get a billboard.
The Thanksgiving thing was a, Surprise.
We didn't, that was just a cherry on top.
We had no influence or say over that.
And then, so we basically then had thisopportunity where our very small team very
small, like people often think generalistworld is a lot bigger than we are.
(21:52):
We're actually really tiny.
Nola Simon (21:55):
Six people?
Milly Tamati (21:56):
Yeah, and up until the last maybe three months, or maybe a bit
more, four or five months, it was justme being the full, only full timer.
And then everyone else waslike one or two days a week.
So it was like hilarious when people wouldthink that we were this massive company.
So basically our little team islike dancing around our living
rooms, being like, this is wild.
We're getting a billboard.
(22:17):
But because we have our communitywho is like just the core of.
everything of everythingthat is generalist world.
It starts in the communityand everything from there.
We were like let's ask the community.
What do they want to have on a billboard?
This is not, and this is actually a,this is, a philosophy or how I think
about our community is that it's notlike generalist world and then the
(22:41):
community, they're just one in the same.
So when generalist world gets a billboard,our people are getting a billboard.
This is a message from us, fromme, from the team, from them.
And you saw the thread.
Yeah, I saw the thread.
Nola Simon (22:54):
It was so fun.
Milly Tamati (22:56):
People were jazzed.
They were excited.
And we ended up choosing aslogan that someone in the
community On that thread created.
So it couldn't be morelike community driven.
And we thought to makeit a little bit fun.
We kept that, we've kept thefinal slogan, a bit of a secret.
I'm
Nola Simon (23:14):
interested to know if I'm right.
I guessed which one I wouldpick, but I'm dying to know if
Milly Tamati (23:21):
I'm right.
See, this is the fun thing.
It's if you can find ways to tomake things fun The internet these
days, it's either so self promoy or inauthentic or insincere.
And it's if you can just find ways toinside these spaces, have these really
sincere conversations and connectionsthen people, it becomes like, Their
favorite place on the internet.
(23:42):
Oh yeah.
I'm in there.
I'm in there multiple times a
Nola Simon (23:45):
day, honestly.
And I don't necessarily always writeeverything, but I read a lot, right?
Milly Tamati (23:50):
Yeah.
There's a lot to read.
Even I'm like,
I love you guys.
I can't keep up.
Which is a great point.
Like you've got to be really carefulabout the scale of how you scale things.
It's a science.
So yeah, then yesterday, this isactually A funny little story.
Yesterday, our team, we had a standupmeeting and we were talking about what's
(24:12):
going to happen with the billboard.
And we were like, okay, howcan we get people involved that
are like outside of New York?
Cause we have a pretty big followingin New York, but lots of, we're global,
lots of people outside and we're like,how funny would it be if we created this
campaign where basically anyone can havea billboard, you just go stand outside.
We have our squiggle,which has now become.
(24:32):
We may as well trademark thatemoji because it's become
synonymous with generalist world.
I
Nola Simon (24:36):
saw somebody trying to use it yesterday, and I was
like, yeah, that's not gonna fly.
Milly Tamati (24:40):
That's hilarious, trying to use it.
Nola Simon (24:42):
Yeah
Milly Tamati (24:44):
so this is how ridiculous our team is.
We were like, we got reallyexcited, and we were like, yeah,
let's just go into it right now.
And Honestly, four minutes afterthat call, Edger posted a picture,
and she's outside, she's done thesquiggle, she's holding her billboard,
and I was like, then Emily's up atree she's working from her bed, she
(25:05):
looks like that sloth emoji, it's thebest thing ever, and we were having
so much fun, and I think that radiatesthrough everything if we're having fun,
people want to hang out with people.
That having fun I was
Nola Simon (25:18):
planning it yesterday.
I was coming home from dropping off mydaughter, and I was just driving along
Lake Simcoe, and I was like, oh cool,look at all the Canada geese on the
lake, because nothing's frozen in Canada.
Like you guys have snow in like theUK right now, and Canada has nothing.
I literally didn't even need ajacket when I was walking yesterday,
and I'm like planning my squigglein front of the Canada geese.
(25:40):
So I have to go back.
It's colder today, but Ithink they'll still be there.
Yes.
That's
Milly Tamati (25:45):
amazing.
That's amazing.
And so it's almost like if peoplelistening, think about it as there
was a big experiment that started.
The impetus was, Hey, what's myweird marketing things we can do?
And then from there it was like,okay, we've got this billboard.
How can we involve the community?
And now we're.
It's an experiment with an experiment.
We're now running this othercampaign within that, which is
(26:05):
like anyone can have a billboard.
And it's, I think it's just about tappinginto we call it being strategically weird.
Where like you, You could just do things.
You could just be like,Hey, that'd be fun.
Do we think that would be fun?
Cool.
Let's just go do it.
It'd be great.
Even this morning
Nola Simon (26:22):
Millie sent me a note just to see, what we want to talk about.
Because I'm very bad.
I keep things Very casual, very loose,I forget that people like structure.
And so she sent me a note and she's but I,if we talk about the Billboard campaign,
I don't want it to release until Monday.
And I'm like, we can totally usethe podcast to justify the campaign
(26:43):
and publish this on Monday.
So that not only do you have like picturesfrom around the world, but you'll have a
full blown podcast episode that you can.
Appreciate
Milly Tamati (26:51):
it.
Nola Simon (26:52):
Amplify.
So cool.
Used to amplify.
So cool.
Yeah, exactly.
That's right.
And that happened, what, in 10 minutes?
Not even?
Milly Tamati (26:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We have a saying at Generalist World whatif it were as simple as fill in the blank?
And it's I think everyonecomplicates things so much.
Just turn it down.
Take a breath, take a step back.
What is the simple version?
And the simple version is beinglike, cool, let's hop on a Zoom.
Let's record.
Let's publish it on Monday.
Simple.
Nola Simon (27:19):
Yeah, exactly, because you actually published when you're
talking about the revenue challengesthat you've had for generalists,
where you mentioned, Yeah.
Come on my pocket, and that's howthey, because I'm like, Millie,
do you want to come on my pocket?
She's sure.
Milly Tamati (27:28):
Yeah, and that is another experiment.
Yeah.
Actually for context for listenersI realized my, my whole thesis is
to build in public and not justbuild, but to learn in public.
I am not out here beinglike, I know all the answers.
at all.
I am very much I'm figuring it out,doing pretty well, having a lot of fun
on the way, and I will share as much asI can so that you can figure it out too.
(27:50):
And I realized that I had been so caughtup in the operations of Generalist World,
and we've now got a small team that comeswith payroll and all that kind of scary
stuff, that I'd lost my magic a little bitof the transparency building in public.
Basically my rhythm, I'd lostmy building and public rhythm.
(28:11):
And I wanted to make sure thatparticularly the GW members had that
access, had that insight into whatgeneralist world is, where we're
going, how they can be involved andhow it all fits into the bigger picture
of this future of work, because.
So many people within the communityreally care about this stuff.
And so last month I was like, okay,I'm going to experiment with an
(28:34):
email just for GNRossWorld members.
And it's going to be likea behind the curtain.
It's going to be like raw, vulnerable.
It's going to go deep on the, I thinkI called it a little letter, which
was completely incorrect because
Nola Simon (28:47):
it was a little, it
Milly Tamati (28:47):
was really long.
Yeah.
Nola Simon (28:51):
So it was the best thing I read last month.
It was really the best thing, I meanyour writing ability is why I'm part of
the community to begin with, like youjust captured my heart with everything
that you're able to write and conveyand like that personally is your
true gift for, from my perspective.
So that, I read that and Iwas immediately like, Millie,
(29:15):
you need to be on my podcast.
Milly Tamati (29:17):
Yeah, literally, actually replied to that email.
Yeah, I did.
And just a note on the writing, becauseI think that's really important we
have a, what I call like a writingculture at GW, where every single person
on the team is a brilliant writer.
And that's not by accident, that'sby design because to be a brilliant
(29:37):
writer, and when I say brilliant, clear.
They are able to be really clearand they can execute really well
on their like writing needs.
And the reason I obsess so muchover that and really look for
that in hires is because it justmeans they're great thinkers.
They're really clear thinkers.
If they can really think thingsthrough and then write it
(29:57):
down, that they understand it.
And Communication, right?
Like particularly with AI goingLike everywhere, being a great
communicator is going to be everything.
Whether you're communicating withpeople or a machine learning, I think
writing is going to be perhaps oneof the most important skills in 2025.
(30:20):
To be a really clear, thoughtful writer.
If I could give advice to youngpeople, it would be just practice.
Because writing is a skill.
I think if you, some people comeout of school and they're like,
oh, but I didn't do well inEnglish, or I'm not a good writer.
You can learn.
You can learn to be a clearwriter and a clear thinker.
And in fact, a lot of the lessons thatyou learn in school, Aren't going to
serve you, particularly in the worldof like business and startups and tech.
(30:45):
Those very like structured sentences.
It's more about finding yourvoice and having an opinion.
I think a lot of the stuff I seeparticularly on socials these
days is almost like lukewarm.
Like it's like people have losttheir Their stake in the ground
or Hey, this is my opinion.
And then particularly on LinkedIn, I thinkwe've also lost our ability to like debate
(31:06):
and actually just have differing opinions.
It's like a little bit of an echochamber, which I do try and challenge.
My posts.
I try and I guess say the quietthings out loud, and I think
that's often why they resonate.
It's because if you're thinking something,I almost guarantee others are thinking it.
They just may not have had the languageor the courage or the confidence,
(31:27):
whatever it might be, to say it out loud.
Nola Simon (31:30):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And honestly, I started the podcastin part because I wanted to challenge
myself to become a better listener.
It wasn't necessarily about, yes, there'sa speaking aspect to it as well too, but
what I wanted to learn from podcastingwas how do I ask better questions?
How do I ask deeper questions?
(31:50):
But how do I listen better?
Because I like thinking, I like myown thoughts and I found that I was
interrupting people and that wassomething that I wanted to actually
train myself out of, and I wanted todo it in such a way that I was doing
it publicly to hold myself accountable.
But I wanted to be able to learn and Iwanted other people to be able to learn
(32:13):
from the experiment as well, too, whichis why I did it publicly in a podcast.
Milly Tamati (32:17):
Amazing, kudos to you, and I, you just named it, but I was like,
Nola, that is an experiment, this is acareer, like, all of these things the more
I think about it, the more examples I see,everyone people are just running these
little mini career experiments, and theydon't have, maybe the podcast last, For
10 years, maybe it lasts for 10 months.
It doesn't matter.
You're learning skills along the way.
(32:38):
You're becoming a betterlistener along the way.
And just like kudos to you for havingthe self awareness of Hey, I actually
think this might be a skill that Icould sharpen, that I could hone.
What's a cool way.
What's a what's an experiment that I couldrun that would help me sharpen that skill.
So I think that's really brilliant.
Nola Simon (32:55):
Yeah.
And going back to, howlong does the podcast last?
I'm actually, you are likethe second to last guest.
I have one more person.
And then next year, I want to look atall of the episodes that I've done and
figure out what I've learned from them and
then
dig deeper.
So I'm not going to do any guestsnext year, but it's like, how
(33:17):
do you take the knowledge thatexists in a hundred episodes?
And then do that deeper, right?
So I'm thinking maybe I might do essaytype episodes where I'm connecting
everything that we've learned fromlike various episodes to actually
deepen and connect and see whatavenues we can actually go down.
(33:37):
So I might actually onlyrelease like 12 episodes, like
more than a month next year.
But the goal is really.
It's not necessarily more, becauseI, more can just be noise, right?
So what is it you've learned?
My, everybody wants to publish allthe time, but it's I think at some
point you need to slow down andfigure out how you go deeper, right?
(33:58):
That's
Milly Tamati (33:58):
my experiment for next year.
Yeah, I wonder if an interesting prompt,like the prompt that got you here was
how can I become a better listener?
And I wonder if the prompt for the nextone is what do I want to learn this year?
And maybe it's like how to synthesizeinformation or how to distribute
content, whatever it might be.
(34:20):
And then that could form thebasis of your next experiment.
Nola Simon (34:23):
Yeah.
I'm excited.
Milly Tamati (34:24):
I'm excited to see what you come up with.
Nola Simon (34:26):
I know.
Yeah, because I look at someof these podcasts and they have
800 episodes and I'm like, whatdoes anybody learn from that?
Because I'm not going to do a deepdive and listen to 800 episodes.
I find it overwhelming when Ilook at your podcast that way.
And I'm like, I don'teven know where to start.
Milly Tamati (34:42):
Yeah, I hear you.
And I just need to callout 100 is amazing.
I think the average mostpeople get to is like 3.
I know.
Or 10, like I've heard.
Yeah, it's really low.
It's the fabulous quad
Nola Simon (34:57):
fade.
Milly Tamati (34:58):
The consistency is fantastic.
And just while it's on my mind youmentioned about asking really good
questions, which I think you've donein this episode and one resource
I'd just love to call out because ithas been like, I don't want to say
life changing people throw that wordaround, but it has been, and it's
a book that will Stick in my soul.
It was actually recommended to meby Robert Barris, who is in GW.
(35:22):
He's a GW and it's calleda more beautiful question.
And I can't remember the name of theauthor, but if you look up a more
beautiful question, it's all about theimportance of questioning and how like the
right questions can be like transformativehow if leaders can ask better questions.
(35:42):
That's how you unlock.
Almost everything and it actually tiesinto the communication piece as well.
So if Listeners arereally like avid readers.
Like I am I would strongly recommendtrying to get your hands on a
copy of a more beautiful question.
Nola Simon (35:56):
Okay.
Yeah, no that's a great answer.
I did there, Michael Bungay Stainerhas a book on questions as well too.
He's a Canadian coach, so yeah,I'll look for that one as well too.
Because that It's guiding me to butyou get information from everywhere and
that's actually something there's somethere's one person I would adore to
have on my podcast and I haven't managedto land her and Her name's Amy Herman.
(36:20):
Do you know Amy?
So she actually is an art historian.
She started as a lawyer.
She became an art expert.
And what she does is she teachesabout how to observe from art.
So she actually teaches the FBI, CAA,police forces around the world by training
(36:40):
them how to actually interpret art.
She's an art historian, like she amazing.
Yeah.
And so she has two books it'scalled her book, her company is
called the art of perception.
And the, her secondbook was called fixable.
So if you're looking for books toactually amplify how you perceive
and how you question those two, Irecommend, and especially for me,
(37:01):
I'm not a visual thinker at all.
I'm not an artist.
I, like I peeked at kindergartenand For me, doing that kind of work
that really stretches my brain tothink, how do I think differently
and ask questions in a different way?
I lean into my weakness.
I love it.
Yeah, that, those are my twobook recommendations for that.
(37:24):
Yeah.
Actually three, three right there.
Sorry.
Brilliant.
Too many books we're reading.
All right.
For
the big uncomfortable question, wheredo you want Generalist World to go?
Like it, say we're talkinglike 2030, where do you think
Generalist World will be?
What have you achieved?
What would make youthrilled beyond belief?
Milly Tamati (37:48):
Thrill Beyond Belief would be to have like systematic change.
So change within our organizations.
I think we've done pretty darn greatjob on the generalist side, on building
people's confidence, on giving themlanguage, on bringing them together,
helping them feel like validated and seenand heard, and now our next big giant
(38:10):
enormous hurdle is on the system side.
So that's where do generalists fit in, in,in organizations and how can organizations
actually leverage their generalist talent,not just squeeze them into this box of
okay, this is your very narrow role.
How can we create pathways?
Basically how can we createamazing pathways for generalists
to lead these careers that are likeexpansive rather than narrowing?
(38:35):
Because not everyone wantsto go to a narrow point.
Some people, like me, I wantmy career to keep expanding,
that makes me really excited.
But there's no obvious pathwaysapart from entrepreneurship would
be one way to do it, which isprobably what drew me into it.
But I think there's a realopportunity for organizations to
get on board as well and to createthese pathways for their generalist
(38:57):
talent, which they absolutely have.
In their org anyway they just don'tknow how to promote or retain or
frankly support that talent diversity.
So in 2030 I would love forit just to be like, almost not
even a thing, just like normal.
For this to be a talked about talkedabout, acknowledged, valued thing
(39:19):
in organizations that there isthis cognitive diversity and that
it's really important to actuallyrecognize that and see generalists on
a level playing field as specialists.
And see that even though our skillsare different in the sense that they
can be a lot harder to measure andwe can often like play in the gaps
between like departments and stuffthat they're incredibly valuable.
(39:42):
That would probably be my answer.
Nola Simon (39:44):
Very cool.
The lattice, not the latter.
Milly Tamati (39:47):
yes.
Connections.
Nola Simon (39:50):
Yeah.
Not the straight and narrow.
I like that.
Absolutely.
But yeah, there, thereneeds to be a lot changing.
And do you think that AIcan actually help with that?
Because I've done several podcastsactually that AI use in hiring and
how AI can be used to identify.
skill sets that you don't evenknow that people actually have.
Do you think that AI can actually be themagic that actually unlocks the generalist
(40:15):
skill set, depending on how it's used?
Milly Tamati (40:18):
Yeah, great question.
There's a lot in there.
My thesis is that generalistthinking plus generalist tooling,
and by tooling, AI tools really,is the unlock for everything.
When you give generalists All ofthis these tools, which make their
workflows so much more efficient andmore creative and give them space.
(40:39):
For me, that's where like.
Major innovation is going to happen.
But in terms of the recruitmentside I would say there is a lot
of people trying to figure it out.
Recruitment is just a beast in itself.
Like we talk, like we're talkingabout like human resources when you
think about it, like even in thename, like maybe we need to have
a little bit of a rebrand there.
(41:00):
I don't know.
I'm an eternal optimist.
on all things and that also includes AI.
I know it comes with potential like reallyquestionable, like challenges and ethical
challenges as well and implications.
But on the whole, I think thatit can be a force for good.
How that Like tangibly plays out inrecruitment and in the workplace.
(41:22):
We'll see.
I know that there's a lot of people reallytrying to crack that code because I think
if there's one thing we all agree on,it's that the way that we hire doesn't
really work, the system is pretty broken.
The old CV.
A thousand people applyingwith a A4 piece of paper.
I think we can probably do alittle bit better than that.
(41:43):
But we'll see how it plays out.
I think the next five years aregoing to be exceptionally fast moving
and fast changing, like just, I'mnot sure how often you're using
AI, but I am using Claude, all day.
Yeah.
All day.
I am like jamming.
Me and Claude.
It's like my bestie.
I can't remember what life was likebefore Claude and Claude is probably
(42:06):
like the equivalent of a threemonth old, do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like it's changing so rapidly, so quicklythat I think, I'm grateful to have
spaces like Generalist World becausethe, what we're stepping into if anyone
tells you they know what it is, they'rejust lying or they're guessing, like
no one actually knows what's coming.
And so to have spaces like GW means thatyou're with a group of people who there
(42:29):
is a deep sense of safety and a deep senseof trust and a sense that, hey, We're
going to figure this thing out together.
And we're actually in a betterposition because we've got each
other's back because we're inthe circle with each other.
And even though we don't know what'scoming collectively we're stronger.
And that's what makes mereally excited about community.
Nola Simon (42:48):
Yeah.
And I just wanted to bring a briefshout out to one of the things that
happens in general in this world.
And that, and I haven'tbeen brave enough to do it.
And that is the hot seat.
So I've attended two as a guest.
And what hot seats are really ispeople come with questions that
they really want eyeballs on that.
They, a lot of times it's personal.
(43:10):
How do I get a job?
How do I transition myself?
How do I position myself?
How do I?
Identify like the top skills.
How do I stack them togetherand tell that story?
A lot of times that'swhat the hot seats are.
But they are intense, but boy,do people come away with honest,
open feedback lots of process.
(43:30):
That's why I haven't been braveenough to actually try it.
What's the most amazingthing that you feel about
Milly Tamati (43:37):
hot
Nola Simon (43:37):
seats?
Milly Tamati (43:40):
I think the most amazing thing is that it is
one person is in the hot seat.
So one person comes usually witha specific challenge or problem or
sticky thing that they need support on.
And the beauty of generalist world is youhave this diversity of people and skills
and backgrounds and ages and locations.
And so you're getting this diversity.
(44:00):
Again, it's a safe place to be like,Hey, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable here.
I've got this problem or challenge.
I need help.
And then you're gettingall of these insights.
And I think what the beautiful, myfavorite part of it is that even though
the person who called the hot seat isgetting helped, everyone is learning.
Like every hot seat I've ever been on.
(44:22):
I'm like.
Hot dang, like no one leaves a hotseat without learning something,
even if they are not the one with thechallenge, even if they're not the
one in the hot seat, everyone learns.
And so it's a, it's again, just somany examples of community where it's
just a net positive, where if youbring these people together in a space
and shout out to Edger, who's ourcommunity events and ops person she
(44:46):
runs these hot seats like clockwork.
It's And yeah, she's created these spaceswhere it's a difficult thing to do to
create a space where people know that theycan actually show up and be vulnerable.
Like we've had some, we've had somedeep hot seats where it's, it can
be professional, it can be personal.
It's usually a mix of both.
'cause life exists like that.
(45:06):
It's complex and messy.
And it's just really amazing to havethis space, which I don't know, it's
kinda like a group therapy session.
But we are like.
I think the hot seats are where the mosttransformative change happens for people.
If they commit to that hot seat andthey come along that's where things
can really shift and it's justsuper cool to be a part of that.
Nola Simon (45:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very vulnerable to do and we'lldo one at one point, but yeah, it's
Milly Tamati (45:33):
No pressure.
Nola Simon (45:34):
Takes a lot to to actually do it.
But anyways, one of the, oneof the most interesting things
I find about generalist rule.
So is there anything else that wehaven't covered that you want to
make sure that we're talking about?
Milly Tamati (45:45):
This has been such a fun conversation, wide ranging, interesting.
So no, just like if people, if thisresonates with people come and say,
hi, we're a very friendly bunch.
We've got wonderful peoplelike Nola in the community.
And so if this resonates the thing isthat the great thing about generalist
world from a product standpoint ispeople either like deeply resonate
(46:07):
with it and they're like, what, like,where has this been all my life?
Or they're like, I don't get it.
I have no idea what this.
That doesn't apply to me.
I fit in and it's all good.
So like people can like optin or out pretty easily.
So if people are listening tothis thing, like I'm in the opt
in camp come and check out www.
generalistworld.
com and yeah, we'd love to meet you.
(46:28):
We're very active on LinkedInand TikTok to a point.
So come say hi.
Nola Simon (46:33):
Yeah that's how we started chatting.
So it's fun.
Milly Tamati (46:36):
Community people are cool.
Nola Simon (46:38):
Thank you so much for joining us and we'll make sure that
we put everything in the show notes
Milly Tamati (46:42):
yay.
All right.
so much, Nola.
I'll see you next time.
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