The relationship between work and self - Elijah Hradovich

00:00

You decide to work at Capgemini because it's the right life point. You decide to work at Ocado because you're really interested in robotics and how we can build self sustaining food production systems. And then you start working in life insurance because you recognize the connected nature the whole world and how we are all connected. What happens next?

00:29

Well, we are about to find out by living. I don't know, that's the beauty of it. I think the unusual part about my situation particularly is that before COVID, I was pretty much looking for finding job in China. And one of the things is that they have platforms. One platform is Boss, another platform is 51job, I think. They of course have LinkedIn, but on LinkedIn, there would be only Western companies who would not be really looking for hiring somebody from the West in China, ones in China, because would be more looking for hiring locals. And there also all the changes in the... How to put it? In the politics, which kind of, I think make Western companies be less happy to hire foreigners to place like China.

So one of the thing is that I've been exposed to those apps through my wife because she is Chinese so she knows how those things work in. And Boss I think is pretty close to the idea of cord, because the idea is that you will be able to directly chat to people. And in China, especially in places like Shanghai, the speed of things is very high. So one big difference would be that there is this so-called 996 culture from nine to nine, six days per week. And the thing is that when people look for job, they very much want to get responses fast and those who hire want to get responses fast. So partially everybody's sitting on the phone all the time, so you have the app and you can-

02:14

What that app called?

02:15

Boss.

02:17

Boss? How do you spell it? I'll look it up.

02:19

Boss, like boss.

02:20

Oh, BOSS?

02:23

BOSS, yeah. I probably have it on another phone. If you want more details, I can look for it.

02:29

Yeah, that'd be very interesting.

02:29

You usually won't find it on Google store, so.

02:32

Yeah, I was going to say, can you send the link afterwards.

02:36

Yeah. I can try to look into it, but I'm not sure, it might require some Chinese infrastructure, like WeChat ID and stuff, but I can send afterwards. [inaudible 00:02:45].

02:44

Okay.

02:45

So [inaudible 00:02:47] day, it is pretty close to what cord is doing, but it's already there in China. And I think it was this part that you can kind of have this conversation with people upfront. So for me, one of the things, when I was looking for job in China, that somebody that said, "Oh, I can give invitation to cord and I was saying, "Hmm, I'm not interested yet." But later, after change of plans. Okay, I reach out to this person again and I got this link and I pretty much like the ability...

I think what I look the most, which would partially touch another topic is that I look for honest and sincere dialogue. It's relatively easy to get into a place where companies would be showing face and employee would be showing face, but it is just made up face. And then you come and then it is frustration and it is pretty much for both sides to be able to evaluate. So to be able to have a good dialogue and to talk to somebody who describe exactly how things are, I think it is a very great thing that cord things to [their best 00:04:04], certainly.

04:05

Could I ask you a question about your... One of the things you say on your LinkedIn and how that relates to you, how you go about finding work? You say on your LinkedIn, build the courage to change things that I can, the serenity to accept things that I cannot change and wisdom to tell the difference. How do those three things, perhaps in separate bits or in order or whatever, how do they affect the way that you go about finding work?

04:42

So I think it's a great question, but it would be overall, I can have an imagination about what the place would look like, where I would want to go. I might expect something, maybe I want to go to Google, let's say, and I can apply for it and I can prepare for it. And the key balance line to get right, usually is, should I try harder, or I tried enough and I need to go easier? It's like, it can be that sometimes... Sometimes it can be one problem that we are lazy, but we are not honest with yourself about it and we just need to push harder. And then we just stop to be lazy and we can get over. But sometimes it can be that it's just not really our thing. And we need to be able to see that to fall back to who we really are, to drop imaginations of who we want to be and to accept the reality of who we are and go get it.

So I think this is where the wisdom part distinguish between the two, the courage part is if I'm lazy and something is challenging, but it's really who I am, I need to push harder. And the serenity would be that in particular case, sometimes I need to just let things go. So for example, with Asia, we have tried, I think for two years or so, and it does doesn't work. So we adapt because you cannot just force things sometimes.

06:22

When I look at your background, I'm really struck by those two different philosophies. You have stuck it out and you have not just got a masters in mathematics and computer science, but you've also got a PhD in mathematics and computer science from Wroclaw. And then during that time, you also work at Capgemini and then Ocado and then UnderwriteMe. So you have had the, I guess, the courage to see something out for such a long period of time through your education, but also the serenity to change... Kind of be mindful as you went through that journey and move jobs a few different times. How have you balanced those two things? Because they're so difficult to do at the same time.

07:21

I think I can go a bit more personal. So it would be easier to see where I came from. So originally I'm coming from Belarus and it would go a bit into religion topics because Belarus overall is Orthodox and post communist. So overall it's closer to atheism but people would change to swap labels, that I was atheist, but now I am Orthodox because majority is Orthodox. And I belong to Baptist minority there, which would be perceived as [inaudible 00:07:51]. And I was into religion until my 25, I think, but this background was pretty much... I was really going for truly meaning the things I'm doing. So I think a lot of things, if you think about things like scriptures, which are personal for many people, it would be, sometimes people would want to match the word and sometimes people would want much the spirit, which would be more personal to actually mean it.

And I think the balancing part comes from this period when I was balancing school together with pretty, I would say intense kind of leadership life, which I had in church because I was organizing events for up to 100 people, even when I was 14, 15, 16, 17. And in the period of university after my second year, I also was preaching in local community, also finished missionary summer school and all of the other fun stuff and had several different social activities and later also got to work a part of it. But overall it is pretty much like, if you really tap into energy of who we are then you just want to do things. It is not that you-

09:09

Maybe if we tap into your energy,

09:10

Yeah. Well, I also don't have that energy anymore that might, but yeah. And then it's pretty much like you have many things. And I think one of the examples which I got in my life from school time is that one of the teachers said, ask if I ever thought, why subject at school are mixed in hours? So sometimes you would have one hour of math, later you'll have let's say English and later history because different parts of brain work. And when you shift things together, one part of brain rests and another can work. So I was trying to use pretty much same philosophy with my activities. It's about how we shuffle our time that you can do a lot, you can learn languages and you can learn other things. If you shuffle it, you would be efficient enough to do it.

So for example, I couldn't speak English until pretty... I had 11 years of English at school, but I couldn't speak it truly and later when I came to Poland, I had to learn Polish because I started learn Polish and leave when I was 16. But practically speaking, you put your mind into it and then thinking that children learn languages without any grammar books and just allowing yourself to have this leap of faith that I'm able to learn, because kid is able to learn, just to expose self to language and later you can just speak. So similar English, grammar books haven't helped me, but I watched Star Trek without subtitles, seven different Star Trek's. And then I can just speak and that's it. So I think many things are pretty much like that. That when we want to control what is going to happen, we lose our actual ability to adapt what is happening. So it's kind of this bond that we need to trust ourselves, that we can do it and be honest with that, do we really want to do it or not-

And be honest with self to really want to do it enough. Then if you don't over push, it just happens.

PhD on its own is not as hard as it might sound. It's more about teaching patients about things which you cannot influence. So, if you would be talking about serenity, this is the biggest one, because especially in particular, I got exposed to the things that you just wait for your mentors because they visit people, and you can wait one month, you can wait half a year, and after half a year, they return to your work and they say, "Oh, it all needs to be changed. You work two weeks, I'll let you have another few months of waiting." This is how it goes.

Partially, I think, especially in particular, what I liked a lot was work with students. So, switching context between that I would have, let's say, part-time job somewhere like Gemini, and I also would have one day when I would have three groups of students to work with. This change of context and seeing different people lives helps to have this shuffling little bit like we have at school when we have different subjects, and it makes life more reach overall. There are things which drain us, but it also gives us energy, so it goes together.

12:17

If you can increase your mental capacity by shuffling your brain and using it for different tasks, is there a similarity between that and the way that you've also been able to pursue both education and work at the same time?

12:34

I think so, and I think this is what we also do. I don't think I am in any way special story. Anybody who has [inaudible 00:12:43] does it, because it is multitasking. I need to be emotionally to connect with these closed ones and help them to learn. We have smaller daily tasks, but they're still tasks, but because we don't really treat them as tasks, it's not that difficult.

So, I would say a lot of problems come from us defining them as problems, and if we don't really think about things as problems, but we think about them as just part of life, it becomes less problem because we don't call it problem.

13:15

Mm.

13:16

Makes sense?

13:17

Mm. Would you call either of your working life or your professional life a problem, or would you say that both are your life?

13:24

Both are life.

13:25

Okay.

13:25

So it's like, I would say I'm pretty much trying to keep self... The word of integrity, which I pretty much like, for me means that whatever environment I'm coming in, I'm true self, not wearing a specific face for specific environment. That being said, subconsciously I still would be trying to have [inaudible 00:13:52] because of course, ego always wants to have more, and ego wants to look better. But I think it is this kind of our human challenge of balancing things out, and I would say the part about education and work is that boss pretty much a lot involved communication and trying to understand the flow, how things go. So, the further it goes, the more everything is similar, but different form I would say, however abstract it sounds.

14:34

What do you mean?

14:34

Let's say you want to have a shopping cart, and you want to buy things, and to have a good choice of things, it would mean that, on the one hand, we need to properly reflect on self on what we need because our body already knows what vitamins we like and would make us feel hungry for specific kind of food, let's say, or vegetables. It is not random, but our body adjusted, so we need to be able to trust the body to do the right choice. But there also be things which we would want to plan that, for example, in three days there would be dinner there with somebody, so we want to have a specific dish, so we need to organize it together.

So if you think about problems at work, which we solve, there's still abstractly pretty much same things that we can feel [inaudible 00:15:22], that they would be right things for the project because we just believe it, right? We believe that maybe continuous integration needs to be fixed, usually, or something similar. We also need to plan that there would be customers for whom we need to do something. This would be pretty much same as when we do... With PhD, it might be bit different in some aspects, but it's pretty much same. There is publications, there is work needs to be done, and some work will be pretty much routine, and some can be work which is less predictable. There also can be some deadlines that we need to prepare to push publication by some deadline, or I need to do some paperwork, or there would be students so I need to prepare something follow up.

So, it is not that different on the abstract level, and the way we do make decisions, it's also pretty similar. They very much reflect our personality, as well, as you mentioned.

16:17

It sounds like you're almost building your own personal network in some ways, where the different parts of your life are able to feed off each other in ways?

16:29

In ways, yeah.

16:35

It's almost like you... This is ridiculous, but you... Sounds like you're almost, if you were to use your vegetable analogy, you're kind of planning to go and eat all of those different topics that you want to deeply understand through your education, and then you allow your work to digest them in some way?

17:01

I think it is a good analogy. I would say, to be honest, an example of the PhD one, there were several motives, and on the part of intention, some motives, I tend to think about it that we never really have pure one intention and motive. I would think about intentions rather as a range of things with weights, that there can be something, some intention which was the highest value that we actually make this choice, but there usually would be tons of other intentions, like those small prides and other things.

So an example of PhD, the heart intention which I had after finishing master was if I just finish master and go to work without doing anything, that the knowledge which I collected over in university, which is more theoretical, would just go apart, because it's not integrated deep enough. So all of those math and all of those things, they were more like words and exams and stuff. But to actually to be able to get it deeper into mind, I felt like I need to spend more time with it, and more involved in a sense that actually trying to do something with it.

It was like this motive that I feel like if I would not continue, I would practically, on practical level, I would lose my master. I would have the diploma, of course, but it's not really that this knowledge is integrated enough to use it. If I would go for PhD, I would get master plus PhD on pragmatic level that I would be able to use this knowledge.

So, it was one intention. As intentions were less romantic, like in Belarus, if you finish your education, you're expected to go to army, even though I was not planning to return to Belarus, and formally I can be in Poland, but they might... There can be some border problems, and later there can be other problems, so it's ideally to expect it. So you just don't finish your education until you're 27, so it is one of the ways around it.

There were some other motives as well which might be more personal during period. It just felt like this door is open for a fairly short period of time, and I was able to walk through, and I don't know what would be in the future, but back then, I already felt that the vault becomes less stable, so in less stable world, which relies on papers, it's good sometimes to have one extra paper.

19:24

Hmm. It sounds like you are in that certain circumstance, you've been able to make that decision with clarity, because you've been able to self reflect on your own intentions and how you weigh them up. How do you take courage into that decision making process? Because is courage not the ability to make decisions when sometimes you don't necessarily have all the information, or that you might be proactively going against waiting that tells you to do something else.

20:11

So, I think in this case, courage is, as you have said, we practically never know future for sure, and whenever we think we know it for sure, we are wrong. So, I found that the more we are aware that things that we are floating, not standing, the more truly stable we are. We are much more like ships in the sea than we are working on the soil. So in this sense, the courage would be, don't know whom I'm quoting, don't remember, that ship is built to swim the sea, not to stay ashore, so here it is a part that partially hearing the heart goal to do the thing, and of course, I know that I have a choice to hear, to listen to my heart or not. I know [inaudible 00:21:09] that I would have energy for it to do, but if I don't, I would feel bit depressed of not doing it, and there might be some regret.

So, I think here is the courage that I wasn't really... How to put it? There are much smarter people on my year back then in university who can do PhD than me. So, some things regarding math, they're not that straightforward. So, for me, it is all of those small, formal analyses of things. I can have intuitions, but when it comes to describing them in detail with all of the formulas, they can speak more complicated.

So this where this would be courage, that it would be dealt with. So, it's trusting self that given time I would figure it out, because we are all in the end humans, and all of the people who do all of this stuff, they're also humans, and they're not really much different. So, it's in our imagination people can be-

It's in our imagination. People can be very different unless it's somebody is super talented. But in the end, a lot of things is just trusting selves that the work would be done, that we are able to. Usually, it is this way.

22:14

How have you taken this decision-making process and applied it to deciding what projects you work on in your working life? Two great examples would be Capgemini and Ocado. Of all of the companies that you could have worked for, why did you decide to work at Capgemini and then Ocado?

22:34

Okay. So, Capgemini was coming after half a year break, which I had to take after doing intense work in ex-wife. In particular back then it was more of a overall life reset. Changing, renting apartment, and stuff. The wait was done that when I was applying for... I wasn't applying for Capgemini directly. I decided it's time to find something... Wait. It's not this one. So, with Capgemini, I think they reached out in a time when I was actually wanting to look for a job. And I heard a few things about them, back then in Pruszków. In Pruszków it's one of the bigger companies out there, in Poland. I was thinking to have the work for a bigger company for a change because I was working pretty small companies before that. And I wanted to see how it actually works because it's experience I never had. Small company people would be saying that small companies are always the best. I haven't really had this experience. So, I think that was partially the decision.

When it comes to other things, I had a relatively remote friend who was working at Capgemini already. So, I had a few things which I know about it. And other than that, it all sounded to be good. I would say that this particular one was a light decision. I haven't found this decision to be binding back then because if you go to a job, you try, have to see how it looks like after a break.

Ocado one is a decision which was driven more that I was moving to the UK from Poland because we were about to get married with my wife now. She was in the UK. So, practically speaking it was also what I mentioned about thinking about going to China, but it haven't worked out. I wanted to find something within two months. I have just put in on LinkedIn that I'm looking in London. I got several contacts at once. I started, I think, around 10 processes at once. There are several interesting choices. I think one of them was Lovar Technology, which overall felt to be a good, comfortable place to work at, just because of... I would say in some descriptions you can really sense that people mean what they write. In other descriptions, you can feel that it's pretty much snobbish talk and that's it.

With Lovar Technology I felt that they're a really good culture and everything. With Ocado Technology, it was the part that I had this robotics hobby, of the blog I shared with you. The robotics in particular, I pretty much feel like we as humanity come closer to the point that we really want to automate the production of food and the many process we have, and get more to self-sufficient habitation. Even if we want space travel or anything, we need to be able to develop this technology. I had pretty tons of ideas about many things there. So, Ocado Technology was out of blue to me that something like this exists and I was pretty excited about it. And then, when I got to the position of choice, Ocado was just on top, one place, just because of me being interested in that field that much.

I think this is how the decision was made. Ocado was pretty much driven by my own hobby and interest in the area and thinking that it is what overall would benefit long-term, with humanity as well.

26:38

Sounds like there almost wasn't a decision to be made. That seems like one of those scenarios where the decision was clear.

26:51

The decision needed to be made because the money was lower, by 20% or so.

26:59

Really?

26:59

And another decision had to be it made because Ocado wasn't recognizing my senior position back then. So, it was me going from senior to mid. And assuming, trusting, that it would be recognized in the future. So, there are some sacrifices to be made and it is a decision.

27:16

Wow. Did it work out?

27:24

I'm not in Ocado. Things which went wrong there are things which I was bit idealistic about. I think first thing I was idealistic about is about myself and my ideas, that once you get to the actual place, I think I created a bit too much pressure on people around me, just because I had many ideas in the field and people would feel... Another thing, I underestimated that when people know that somebody is close to have PhD, they also can feel a bit competitiveness because of it. There can be people who just finished first degree and they can have some bad memories from uni, and they can just subconsciously project on you. I got on this trouble as well, partially, with one of the colleagues. And finally, even though I got in touch with the patent department, I think I prepared something like 20 patent ideas. My boss of my boss of my boss was very happy about them. They just get stuck somewhere in middle of corporate something. And you just realize that those things, they just don't work.

One thing, me believing that ideas might be useful. Another thing, is that going to be in actual community? It is pretty much adjusting how community works and not all of the communities are open to it. So, partially is to be able to accept it and move on.

28:57

How do you go from that to then, life insurance?

29:03

After Ocado, I had to take another break just to emotionally restart. So, I had a few months of break. Later, it's about how we think about ourselves. If it would be that I'm to start my own business or something, then I can be thinking about what industry I want to choose. But practically speaking, in IT, it is very much about the things I'm developing, not really about the industry I'm developing it, so to speak.

And then, when it comes to more moral questions about what industry it is in, then my argument would be that the way I feel it now, that we are pretty much everything is interconnected. So, if you think about this laptop we talk through and let's say, you know that it has metal parts. Somebody was mining those metal parts. Somebody was going into mines to get the metal. And somebody was using other machines to put it into the metal, which is usable. And then, if you think about those people who were working at mines, they needed food. They were going to shops to buy food.

So, the price you pay for laptop becomes the money which is paid through whole of the line of things, to miners, to people who were preparing food for miners, to those who were shipping parts, and so on, and so on. And the deeper you go into detail about that actually developed laptop, somebody had to had theoretical knowledge and knowledge was coming from some white papers. You pretty much go back in history, to develop this laptop. This is what we needed to depend on half of the humanity, all of the humanity, over those years, because we are all connected.

So in this sense, working in flow, I would say it's a little bit like in ecosystems that we have those different dependency between different animals and plants. Picking an industry is pretty much picking which cycle of ecosystem we are in. But, in the end, if this job exists and it is efficient, then it benefits somebody in the end. Somebody does buys life insurance. Maybe it's somebody's mind health is improved by cause of it. Mental health, because they would have more peace of mind. And then, what the difference if I'm working on robotics less efficiently, or would it be better if I would work on life insurance, which is efficient in this case, and more people benefit from it? If it makes some sense?

31:42

I think your approach sounds almost like the Zen Buddhist way of thinking about your career and your work. You are accepting of our interconnected ecosystem. It goes back to what you said earlier about floating, not standing.

32:06

Yeah.

32:06

Accepting that whatever contribution you make, it doesn't matter what node in the ecosystem, you're making that contribution. You're still working on the ecosystem, and that's the goal in some way.

32:17

Yeah. You can put it this way. Another metaphor, I think, which influenced my life at some point, it's a realization that me as human being, I haven't chosen my DNA. I haven't chosen the body I've been born to. I haven't chosen my parents, a place I've been born at. So, from the small, abstract perspective, you can say that I could have been anybody who is around me. So, it means that if I see any person, it means that if I would be born in their situation, with their DNA, why it wouldn't be that I would have their character, their problems, their attitudes? And then, from this perspective it becomes more about thinking how to make...

... fact, if it becomes more about thinking how to make everybody healthier mentally, internally, psychologically, whatever it is. And how to make us all happy cooperating together than about pushing, the one thing I imagine is the best.

33:19

If you make a decision about, so you decide to work at Capgemini, because it's the right life point, you decide to work at Ocado because you are really interested in robotics and how we can build self-sustaining food production systems. And then, you start working in life insurance because you recognize the interconnected nature of what the whole world and how we are all connected. What happens next?

33:51

Well, we are about to find out by living. I don't know, that's the beauty of it. I will know when the time will come.

34:05

You don't plan for it?

34:08

How can I plan for it? Could have I adjust for something like COVID? Could I think about it three years ago? And we'll see, it's like really, we are changing. We are evolving as personalities, as characters. And things we check and see valuable today might not be valuable tomorrow. And things which I don't think are valuable today, would be very valuable tomorrow.

I think at this point of life, it becomes more important take into account for me personally, how to be able to get mortgage paid off, just because it's this point of life. I need to think about family. I need to think about those things. When I was coming to Ocado, it wasn't really a valuable thing to think about. It was more about following the interest, but now it becomes just something from something.

And I don't think there is one true gold way to solve everything for everybody. But I truly believe that we all know our best choices in our hearts. And it is just about trusting self and not getting too dependent on somebody or something to make just for us.

35:24

How do you think we find the tools to listen to ourself in those moments?

35:32

It's very complicated. And multi-faced question, I would say. In the context of work which we are partially in, and in the context of finding the right place to be, an example, of course, I would say that true human communication, where we understand that people we talk to about employers, they happened to be higher than us because they were born in there with their random seat, with their DNA and whatever. And it happened that they play this role, we play our role and it is the way it is.

But in the essence, that we are all humans and we all have our mental points and mental problems. And we all want to be happy and we'll have our insecurities. We all have our imperfections. When it comes to the choice of work, why I would very much enjoy the ability to truly talk to somebody, not to the just face of somebody, is that I can see if we, as a group, would want to go and to change together. This would be the most important part.

First would be that we are able to be honest with self. Secondly, that we can be honest in the group. That people would not be offended by me saying what I truly believe. I can be wrong. I'm not saying that I'm always right. But if I'm not able to truly say what I think, we cannot really work as a group, because it would be just playing something polite, which doesn't work. And efficient, it's not efficient.

And finally, it is that we realize that we all want to be better. And that those who would employ me want to be better. And they know that they want to grow and that I want to grow. And respecting each other in this sense. And then things just work. And then, everything is relatively simple. So called common sense where it just makes sense. We don't really need many words for it. We don't build ideology to force things from above, but it just, normally, we follow the real flow of the work which goes.

And when it comes to single person development and tools, I think it would very much depend on the person. And as much as it would hurt, it can be that often it might be things which we like less. For people who use thinking too much, maybe what they need to do the most is to try to really feel things around, try to really stop thinking and to just allow self to feel. For people who feel too much, it can be maybe stop feel and try to organize your thoughts. And for people who can overuse their instinct and body too much, it can be trying to find some bigger values.

Usually, it would be for me about, in heart we usually know what we are blind about, but it is difficult to truly face. I would say that, for example, for my personality, I spent before so much time writing my thoughts or half meditating somewhere in nature. That for me, the true challenge would be more to allow self to feel and to sense things.

I can, instead of being stuck in spirituality, which is not really getting me anywhere anymore, because it's not the part which is underdeveloped. I don't have also golden advice here, but more like there are different tools for different states and for different people,

39:14

You said in our heart, we're not blind, but sometimes it's difficult to face. When has been a moment in your recent past where you've not been blind to it in your heart, but you have found it difficult to face?

39:33

Those are the kind of questions which are super hard to answer because I'm of the type that I am more aware of emotions of people around me, but it's more difficult for me to see emotions in me. I would say the part, which was difficult to face in example of Ocado, it is where I was actually the perfectionist putting expectations on people in hidden way, just because I would believe that this is what would make everything more harmonious. I would see where somebody makes a mistake and I would expect them to be better. And even though I would be polite, and even though I would be having one-to-one chats, I still would be radiating something which destroys that atmosphere.

And I think this realization led me to rethink how I approach thing. And to think more about whenever I would feel that things need to be more perfect, there's something ought or should to do something, I instead would try to connect how to be grateful for what is out there. Instead to see only the things which are not there, to try to see things which are out there, because it's not that they have to be there. And then, it really helps me to balance out this perfectionism, so to speak.

But yeah, it is much easier to feel like somebody could have been healthier, or somebody could have been less bossy, or that somebody could have tried not to put scent everywhere, or not to isolate specific people that they don't have to defend those isolated people. But on the other hand, it is little bit like if you go to the mountains and you would say, mountains should be shorter or higher just because we like it. It wouldn't be, but in, we know it.

But practically, why people are different from mountain. They are the same piece of matter where they maybe different aggregated. And they are in their specific state. Expecting them to be something what they are not, it's the same as expecting mountain to be shorter or higher. It's easier said to be done. This is a thing which I would know in my head, but it's more difficult to get to the level of the instinct of the body, not to radiate it around.

And to practically get there, this is what gratefulness helped me with, because before I had this habit, there was always this habit. Now I'm trying to refine this habit of being grateful for things. And the right me shows itself well. There are also things which are not perfect. But you are able feel to feel today what can be better. But instead, when I would focus on gratefulness, it appears that actually people also know about the things which are not perfect. But then I am not radiating that they ought to be better, we are able to cooperate on making them better because everybody feels to be more included. This would be this kind of reflection of recent times.

42:33

Elijah, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your decision making on how you've used it to make more informed or not informed decisions about where you have decided to work. I know I can't wait to hear what you do decide to do next.

42:54

You'll have to live it through though.