Remote Gets You Work. In-Person Gets You Ahead.

And one of the things I would say to people that are listening to this right now or maybe you're watching the , the video we record this live inside of what we call our catalyst network . It's our online community .

So , if you , if you want to , uh , well , when I was a kid in downtown Chicago or even up in the Sears Tower and I don't care what you think that's called now it's still the Sears Tower but there were the radio stations behind glass , right , you could walk up and you could see them recording their radio shows .

That's effectively what we're doing here right now on the Catalyst Network . You can steer through the glasses as KP and I record this .

But but whether you're watching this or whether you're listening to it on the podcast , if you're not following KP Ready on LinkedIn , you need to be , because a couple of times a day , he's reflecting on his travel and on his interactions with students and founders and executives throughout the industry , and those are translated into a couple of posts a day on

LinkedIn . So go over to LinkedIn If you're not following him already . Go over to LinkedIn and type in KP ready , R-E-D-D-Y , and there's the guy that's on the screen right now , which , if you're listening to this through your earbuds , you don't see him , but you'll see KP Ready pop up in his Metallica t-shirt at least as your avatar is today .

He'll pop up and you can follow him there on LinkedIn and have access to all these posts when they get up there every day . So I know you've had a lot of travel , a lot of travel recently , so maybe that enters into this discussion today . But the one that we had picked out to talk about was you're sort of differentiating between remote and in-person .

So let me read it and then we can unpack what you're talking about here and what you think is important about the post here . So it starts out KP says remote equals work in person equals career . I get a ton of work done remotely because people are a huge distraction . I execute on my career in person . I think this pretty much holds true for everyone .

This balance truly depends on what you're executing on . So that makes sense to me as I read that out loud . I would agree with that . I mean that's , I would say that's pretty much how I operate my life and career , so to speak . But what was it that inspired you to post this ?

The time I spend with my boss , with my boss's peers , the better equipped one I'm learning more . But , I'm also getting access to the best projects , to the best opportunities , versus the person that's sitting at home . And I think , as you think about career , you know , are you an individual contributor , are you a leader , like what is your path ?

And maybe an individual contributor sitting at their home producing a lot of great work ? That's great . If that's what you're , if that , if that's your aspiration , right , maybe you don't need to be around people .

But I would say , for a lot of people that are trying to make their way , especially in a startup environment , we're remote because we live in cities , different cities but last week we got together because we're at a conference and I think we do tend to spend you guys hear from me three , four times a day .

It's not like , it's not like I let what's going on , right , I think , and to learn and to build relationships . But I was talking to a really large real estate company based in New York and they had a 10 or 20 percent layoff . The people that got laid off was direct . It wasn't even close . It wasn't like , oh , it's kind of close or it's a pattern .

In a binary fashion , if you were in the office , you didn't get laid off 100% . Now there were some people that got laid off , that came to the office , but 100% of the remote workers got laid off and so when you ask , well , why'd they get laid off ? It's like because there was no personal , I don't know . Steve , I haven't seen Steve in a year .

Put them on the list . Joe , joe , I've had lunch with Joe three times a week . I don't want to . He's doing a great job . Joe's doing a great job . I have lunch with him three times a week and that was the pattern , right . So I think you know .

So that's a very binary view , like , oh , I'm an individual contributor and this is just about work , so I'm doing remote work , or I'm a high potential , career-driven person and now I'm 100% in the office . But I think for most people , there's an in-between space , and that is , you actually have to get work done right . You have to get work .

We all have to do deliverable work , and when we have to do deliverable work , it's probably best would be left alone to do it right . Um , and it's interesting because I've I've been really analyzing it for my own self , right , I'm always trying to hack the next level of efficiency . Not that I end up working any less , I probably work the same .

It's just more about throughput for me , and one of the changes I've made is really I have a really good desktop with four monitors , like I've got a setup at home and then I'm switching off of having a laptop to having an iPad from when I'm out and about , and the idea there being is when I am home at my desktop . That's when I do .

That's when I schedule my deliverable work when I'm out and about . I'm not going to let deliverable work get in the way of me being present and engaged within the market , within whatever it is I'm doing right .

The last thing I should do is go to a conference where I'm speaking , give a talk , go sit at the desk , go sit at a table and bust out my laptop . That's not what I'm there for , right , I'm there to meet with people and engage with people and so really starting to kind of create both physical spaces and work blocks that are very intentional .

This is about me getting my work done and this is about me growing , expanding my growth and really blocking out time to understand and to help me help myself better understand , like , how do I spend my time both in person and remotely ?

They're virtual twice a month but then once a quarter they meet in person . So it sort of blurs the line a little bit between what you're saying or around what you're saying .

But I wonder if , in the scenario of a mastermind group , and so you and I sat in on two of them yesterday and over the course of those conversations with a dozen , 18 or so people yesterday that spanned from the East Coast to the West Coast of North America , those were virtual right , those were remote , so to speak , but in a way they feel like these

in-person connections because we're having having not one-on-one although some of them did end up in one-on-one conversations , but but they're they're more connected conversations Is , is there an exception to the rule in those types of cases , or is that a a third category or something ?

You can build community . The key to building a great community is creating shared experiences . Right , you can do it well . Remotely . You can also do it poorly in person .

I mean , I had a group of leaders that we were playing online trivia together , right , and nothing better than competing with each other to build shared experiences , right , that's why we have corporate softball teams and things like that . Right , it's about creating competitive .

Shared experiences are very valuable , right , but at the same time , you can have an in person experience that nobody's talking to anybody , right , everybody's just like . There are no shared experiences . So I think , what ? I wouldn't create a third category , but I think there's a way to do both really well , yeah , and I think you have to be .

You know , you have to be somewhat . You're an architect , you have to be a great designer , right . And I think , if you think about in person how you design an experience , like how design summit , it's very intentional . We design it very intentionally so that people walk away with , wow , this is what I got out of that .

And if all people walk away from summit and they say , oh , I met some great people , I'm like , so what ? Like , you meet a lot of great people , you're getting ready to go to AIA , you'll meet a great people . That's a big sellout . If they don't walk away and they're like man , that session on whatever , wow , blew me away .

If they don't have those kind of experiences that they walk away from , then we haven't done our job . And I think same thing goes for the mastermind groups or anything .

I think even thinking about how you engage with your boss right , how you engage with your boss is an experience that you can design as an employee , so that maybe you're doing a remote check-in on things and how you you know , this is how I look at things sometimes is you can either send your boss a report ahead of time for a check-in meeting about what

you've accomplished and then have a conversation about it , or you can walk them through a deck about here's where we're at , and you've left no room for any kind of shared experience . Right , the idea of like chit chat . Hey , did you just check ? You know if your boss is from Kansas city ? Hey , did you see what ?

The punter for Kansas city , right , Boom , right , like your boss is no longer looking at their phone while on a zoom call with you there . They pick out like oh yeah , oh , my God , man , like what Right , like whatever it is Right .

And so I think , like the discipline of like kind of ice breaking and you know your boss should hang up from a zoom call with you , not just feeling fulfilled that they got the information they need , but like man , that dude's great , like I , like that guy Right .

And when you ask the executives like , why is that ? And I've asked this question , why is that person a high potential talent ? And they're like , oh , I mean person's fantastic and they've hit their numbers . And I'm like no one else hit their numbers . Oh , I mean , yeah , a thousand people hit their numbers . Okay , so what's the difference ?

And you quickly find out that it's a lot less factual . A lot of people put up numbers , right , A lot of people do that . What you start figuring out ?

So there's this layer of feelings that gets wrapped around facts that determines who a high potential talent is in an organization , and you're finding that the people that do that really well are the ones that are excelling . And you can sit there and but I do great work , just because I don't play golf with the boss , I didn't get the promotion .

It's like what you're saying is there is a predictable outcome If you play golf this is not an enigma , right ? This is like I don't know how they got there . Oh , they play golf with the boss twice a month . Guess what ?

Play golf with the boss twice a month , like the formula is in front of you , right , it's not like some big secret yeah , well , yeah , I mean it's .

And you mentioned Summit and , without you know , trying to seem too self-serving , I mean the way that our summit is designed , which is , if you need to know more about that , of course , just go to kpreadyco , or actually , the summit website is up now . We'll pull the URL for that . Aecsummitco , I believe , is the URL for that .

But you said it's intentionally designed , and it is intentionally designed . I'm going , as , as you mentioned , to aia national here in a week as we record this , and it's intentionally designed . It's intentionally designed so that you spend several days sitting in chairs listening to people talk . What's going to be the takeaway from that ?

Well , I'm going to get some learning units . I'm going to hopefully hear some great speakers . Maybe I'll get some things to talk or think about . Maybe I'll derive something from these talks that I sit and listen to . You know , maybe I'll derive something from these , these talks that I sit and listen to . And , of course , then there's always the .

You know , the value is in the , the corridors , the networking in the corridors . But the differentiator for summit is that the entire thing is designed around me having conversations with other people on these topics , where , together , we're engaging to come up with ideas and solutions to these things that we're talking about .

That's vastly different and obviously , what we're betting on , what we're , the reason we're doing this so intentionally , is that that will be more engaging , it'll have a better impact and there'll be a feeling of accomplishment , one I feel like we accomplished something .

You know , I sat there and I talked with eight other people at this table and I got to know them and we , we solved some problems together , you know , like playing trivia or or whatever .

So , um , that intentionality around the way that things are designed so that they're next level , engaging and they drive those feelings we're getting into some psychology there and such , but but I , I , you know what you're saying um , we see this all the time and it does come back to how are we designing this to be engaging , to drive these feelings that are

going to accelerate , fill in the blank , whatever it is right , whatever it is that our goal , the goal that we're trying to accomplish .

Have you seen the ? There's this thing that psychologists use . It's like a color wheel of emotions . I would look at that and say what feelings do I want people to have during this dinner ?

And everything I designed around it in detail was around that feel right , right and lots of fun . Things Like sometimes I'd put little , we'd have , I'd have puzzles out on the dinner table , like whatever it was , the selection of wine , like everything .

There's lots of good wines out there , but I would care about the name of the wines and the story of the wine so that it lined up with the feelings I wanted . So highly orchestrated design . And a friend of mine was like dude , why are you like hacking people ? And I'm like I'm not hacking people , I'm trying to bring them joy .

Fundamentally I'm trying to , and you know joy takes lots of forms , right ?

Sometimes people are joyful because they feel intellectually inspired , because time , I want them to feel this , I want them to feel that and they can walk away saying that man , your dinner was fantastic , I felt X and it lines up with what you were trying to achieve , then they want to keep doing it .

I mean I probably have 50 or a hundred requests right now to kick off my dinners again . I I mean I probably have 50 or 100 requests right now to kick off my dinners again . I'm like I don't have time , y'all and they're like what do you mean ?

You set up an event , right , and I'm like you don't know what I do behind the scenes , like the preparation that goes into this stuff to create a great experience . Because , money aside , most of these people , money is not the driver , it's their time .

Like I have one friend flying on his private jet like that's expense , expense and time right away from his family to come hang out with one of my dinners . Yeah , and it was interesting because one of the people that come came to my dinners . He said I loved your dinner idea . I started throwing my own dinners in new york city .

I'm like how are they going ? He's like they're not going as well . And I'm like well , what do you think ? What did you do ? He's like , oh , I've got a great chef , I've got a great space . So he followed the tactical playbook of what I did and I was like , yeah , but you didn't design it . Yeah , great scotch Check . Great food Check . Great menu Check .

Did all those things Hit the checklist ? I was like but what were you trying to emote ? And he was like , what do you mean ? I was like oh , you think I just put together a great menu and buy great booze . Like , is that what you think I do ? And so was like what do you mean ?

I was like , oh , you think I just put together a great menu and buy great booze . Like , is that what you think I do ? And so I think we can be more deliberate and intentional . As a remote worker , I mean , take 10 seconds longer to write a better Slack message , right , because guess what ?

That's maybe how your team is , or maybe that's how your team is viewing you Like . You're only as good as your last Slack message , so maybe add a couple sentences with an intention to emote something from the readers and the people that read your Slack message .

Perception is reality , and so if you're being intentional and you're designing this whether it's your Slack message or it's your special dinner or whatever it is it makes a big difference .

The LinkedIn posts that we've been talking about from KP Ready's LinkedIn profile talking about from KP Ready's LinkedIn profile Again , if you're not following him , go to LinkedIn and type in KP space ready , r-e-d-d-y and follow KP there . He posts a couple times a day .

This one reads and as we're recording this on May 29th , it looks like if you scroll back to about May 28th , you'll find this post on KP's LinkedIn profile . It says remote equals work , in-person equals career . I get a ton of work done remotely because people are a huge distraction . I execute on my career in person .

I think this pretty much holds true for everyone . This balance truly depends on what you are executing on . So , kp , thanks again for joining me today and unpacking this post . It's always fun to see what's behind the scene . What's the inspiration for these posts , and you know they're thought provoking .

Sometimes they're stirring the pot , always informative , and I think this one is good advice for people wherever they are in their career . So appreciate the opportunity to sit down and unpack this and I'll see you and I'll see everybody else again next week .