Laetitia Vitaud Networked Entrepreneurship

Nigel Rawlins: Laetitia, welcome back to the Wisepreneurs podcast, you've been on episode six and episode 19, so this is your third episode, so welcome back

Laetitia Vitaud: Thank you.

Nigel Rawlins: Leticia, could you tell us something about yourself and where you're from?

Laetitia Vitaud: I am half German, half French, and I lived in the UK for five years. Then I lived in Germany for five years and uh, now I'm back in my home country, France, and very happy to be back. I've, I've finally accepted that, that's who I am. I am French

Nigel Rawlins: So, whereabouts in France are you?

Laetitia Vitaud: In Paris, well, near Paris actually. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: So that's a very busy part of, France.

Laetitia Vitaud: A very busy part and I'm, so, I'm to the west of Paris, which, um, which gets me closer to Normandy. And Normandy is where I have a, a little house and a very big garden and a lot of, um, yeah, a lot of peace and quiet when I want it. When I want to spend days reading and walking and thinking, that's where I spend most of my time.

Nigel Rawlins: So how often do you go there?

Laetitia Vitaud: Ideally it would be once a week. Uh, in reality it's more like once every two weeks because my children who are now in their teenage years, they want to stay in Paris. And so if I want to have time with them, I stay with them In Paris

Nigel Rawlins: So how old are they now?

Laetitia Vitaud: 13 and 16.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh golly. They're important ages, aren't they?

Laetitia Vitaud: Yes.

Nigel Rawlins: And do they get around by themselves quite easily?

Laetitia Vitaud: Oh yes, completely. They're used to it, when they were in London, they already took the bus on their own. And then in, in Munich, they got around the city on their own. And now, yeah, Paris is also quite familiar to them. So they have this, this ease of understanding metro networks and public transportation because when you have the cognitive training of doing it in multiple cities, it gets easier to understand how it works, to understand, you know, how you get from one place to the other and, and reading a map, even if it's a digital map, it's something that they are pretty good at.

I think that's, that's a good cognitive training they had from changing cities.

Nigel Rawlins: Do they speak three languages?

Laetitia Vitaud: Yes, they do. They, they, they speak it so well that you cannot guess where they from. So their English sounds English, their German sounds German, and their French sounds French. Now the thing with trilingual people is usually they have a little less vocabulary than people their own age who only speak one language.

So it's true, I know they also make small grammar mistakes in each of the three languages, but still everybody would love to speak those three languages as well as they do just, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm very jealous of them.

Nigel Rawlins: Wow. They're gonna have an interesting future.

Laetitia Vitaud: Well, we'll see, I don't know how much of an asset it is today, but maybe it's still is. I mean, in the age of having everything translated automatically, being able to speak it without the need for a smartphone or any app, it's probably also getting deeper into cultural differences and not just the linguistic aspect of communication, but really understanding like body language and the little things that are not recorded by machines.

So probably they will have something that may be a strong asset when the purely linguistic aspect of things can be automated. I, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much of an asset it is.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, I was reading something the other day about how difficult it is to train somebody up who speaks only English, for example, if you want to be a spy, to be able to speak another language and really be able to live that language in that new location apparently is very, very, very difficult. It can take many years, so we just assume, oh yeah, I can learn that language fairly quickly. But to live that language in, in another culture is very difficult. So do they like school?

Laetitia Vitaud: They do. It's challenging because they've changed systems multiple times and not only does the language change, but also the curriculum. But, uh, now they will stay with the French system and try to go to the baccalaureate, So at some point you have to stop switching the systems, otherwise you never, you can never get to university.

So now we'll aiming for some stability and so that they can thrive. 'cause the challenges of changing systems in teenagers is not something I recommend they, I mean, teenagers need some kind of stability, which is what we're aiming for now that we move back to France.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, that sounds wonderful. Alright, let's start with the nature of work, we've spoken about the future of work in the past, but obviously, that future is here now, and one of the things I think you talk about is you see it as an age of individuation and networks, it's not a mass economy or a factory type system anymore, though I think sometimes we still treat people like it's a factory system, but it's a knowledge economy. So networks have become important. Obviously intelligence seems to be in the network itself, how can we leverage networks and engage in relational work and pay attention and look after each other in a knowledge economy? What do you think is happening there?

Laetitia Vitaud: Hmm. Yes. Interestingly, the, the jobs that have multiplied the most over the past few years and that are likely to continue to multiply are relational jobs and mostly care work, but also, I include in care work, actually the job that consist in selling something to someone else, because selling when it's done well is about caring for that person, listening to their needs, understanding what they will need, and creating trust and developing a relationship with a lot of trust.

It's not selling something people don't need and, um, being a crook, but rather, uh, generating trust. Those are jobs that have multiplied the most. So you have what you call, what you just referred to as knowledge work. So creative work, people who do podcasts like you, whether it's professional or just for pleasure.

It's people who do accounting, people who do marketing, I mean, you have all these jobs, uh, executives and, and, and the rest of them? And then you have people who serve them, people who work in restaurants, people who work in all kinds of hospitality jobs, childcare, elderly care, healthcare, cleaning, all those jobs and the ratio in the densest areas like the big cities that, that I inhabit, is one to five. For one knowledge worker, you have about five people who work in proximity services. So people who serve, care for, people who teach, et cetera. And that is the situation that we are in.

And we have a lot of blind spots when it comes to understanding the trends because there is usually a very big focus on knowledge workers, and we see things changing very fast with the rise of generative AIs and all the tools that we have and how these jobs are being transformed very fast. And what we don't see, the blind spot that we have is the massive numbers of care workers, hospitality workers, cleaning workers et cetera, whose job is less affected by the rise of generative AI or more indirectly affected by the rise of generative AI.

And what we are obsessed with is that we're afraid that the knowledge work will not be valued as much because a lot of the tasks that are in those jobs can be automated. Um, and we're less interested in care work and hospitality work and restaurant work and cleaning work because it's already valued very little.

It's not paid much in, in, in one word. And so what we, we don't see what is happening with it. And the trend may be that all work could be paid less in the future, not necessarily disappear, but be paid less. And that I think is the anxiety, the main root of all the anxiety that we feel. Are we going to be valued enough to be paid enough to have a good life?

That's how I sum up the main fear perhaps that we have, we intuitively know that there will be work in the future. But will this work be paid enough for us to have a good life?

Nigel Rawlins: And will it be meaningful work?

Laetitia Vitaud: Well, it is meaningful to care for others and to focus on the relational aspect of work. Focus on building trust in relationships. It is meaningful, but it can be work that's organized in a way that's exhausting. If there's a lot of emotional work in the work that you do, for example, nurses, who work with people who suffer, people who are in pain. There's no problem with the meaning of it. There's a problem with can you do emotional work for eight or 10 hours a day? And, and that's usually not something that is possible. And the main narrative around AI and the transformation of work was if you automate the tedious, boring routine tasks, then you are left with the more meaningful aspect of of work.

You are left with either the creative dimension or the emotional dimension. But whether it's creative work or emotional work, that's not something you can do all day. You need to balance it out with stupid tasks for it to be sustainable. And we're not taking that direction. We're not really challenging the number of hours you work and, well, that, that to me is an interesting question about how we organize work, so as to make it more sustainable, so as to make it into something that you can do for, um, five days a week or four days a week, and for 40 something years, in your entire career. And, we're not there yet. I think we haven't answered all those questions yet.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, one of the things I think I'm seeing, especially some of those caring, relational jobs is understaffing. Deliberately understaffing so that the level of care is reduced because they're running, running from say patient to patient or in a care home between people living there. Which I've seen with my mother that, you know, it took a bit of time to get somebody because they had less people. Then finding the particular workers in the first place and making sure they're trained enough and paid enough. So, yeah, that's huge. Let's go back to this relational part. And I think that is critical, it goes into every job I think now in terms of relational, that any say knowledge worker, even an accountant or a lawyer or any professional has to be able to relate to other people 'cause they're not working on their own really. They're working in a network and, and that's where I think a lot of things are happening. So what do you reckon in terms of relationships and stuff like that, if you wanted to start a business, how important are relationships. I'm talking about for women, say who are a bit older and don't want to continue working.

Laetitia Vitaud: That's the most important asset to start a business. How many people do you know? How varied is the network that you have so that it can help you find ideas of what you do in your new business or help you find new clients or help you find the suppliers that you will need. It's, it's how varied this network and how solid all those relations.

That's the main asset to start a business today, because there's less capital involved in most activities. I mean, it depends on what you do, obviously if you start a a store selling something you'll need the store and then there's real estate involved. But if, if you are in knowledge work, there is a lot less capital required to start a business now.

I mean the only capital you need is enough money to not need a wage for a couple of months, so as to, you know, have the time to generate revenues with your activity. But apart from that, there is no capital involved. You don't need an office. The computer you probably already have, um, the few apps and tools that you need.

I mean, uh, you can start with free ones to begin. So there is no capital, but there is absolutely the need to have already a network. If you work in B2B, uh, maybe the companies that employed you in the past can be your first customers. You know the first people you will speak to, to develop an offer that will make sense on the market.

So to be relevant in whatever business you want to start, you need to have those conversations with the people who you will target in your activity. And that starts with the network that you have. It can be multiple, you know, multiple different circles. It can be the people you worked with in the past.

It can be the people who work with your children now. It can be your neighbors, it can be your family, it can be your friends. The trick is to develop those relationships with care or maintain those relationships with care. And that's something you need to continue to do all your life. And we're faced sometimes with the question of how many relationships can you maintain in your life?

And there is only a limited number of relations of relationships we can really, really look after. There was this number, the Dunbar, uh, figure, so Robin Dunbar, D-U-N-B-A-R was this British anthropologist who studied apes. And, he studied humans the way he studied apes, and came up with this figure, which is, uh, roughly 150.

And his definition was the Dunbar figure refers to the number of relationships that you can cultivate in such a way that not only will you know all those names, but also the names of their spouses or their children. Well, perhaps not all the birthdays, but if you bump into them casually, somewhere unexpectedly, uh, you will want to go to a bar or a cafe and have a conversation with them and feel that level of intimacy that, that, you know, defines a strong relationship.

And he says, well, 150 is the maximum. And that's probably still true, but one that's something that you can expand and work on. And two, with the social networks, digital networks and AI and automation, maybe you can make the number a little bit larger. So train your memory of all those people regularly.

You look at the birthdays every day and send a little message, something that will be individualized. Write private messages on some of these apps on a regular basis. Think about those people, you know, that's the positive thing about networks like Instagram that are heavily critic criticized these days for being a huge or massive waste of time, which I agree they are.

But if you look at the networking aspect of it, if you use it in such a way as to keep in touch with the number of people that matter to you, then it's not always bad, so yeah, that's the number one asset, cultivating this network of 150 plus people, depending on how you, how you can in increase the Dunbar figure.

Nigel Rawlins: It is interesting, isn't it? Because to do that, it's work and it's attention. You know, you have to say, I'm not gonna scroll through Twitter like I do sometimes. I have to focus on the things that are important, and if you're gonna start a business that is the core of it. If you can't relate to people. You're not going to get the trust that you need. So let's go on to now about developing a narrative about yourself. We just talked about relationships, well the relational aspect of being in a business, but who you are, not necessarily in a business, but in the work that you do. Just like all of that relational stuff is very important if you're still working, but more so if you want to go out for yourself. But now let's talk about who you are as a person in this business or starting a business. So, and I think we also, we were talking about this before, make multiple transitions throughout our lives.

So let's talk a little bit about that.

Laetitia Vitaud: Hmm. So these two great thinkers I admire, Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton, they wrote, uh, nearly a decade ago this brilliant book called The 100 Year Life. And if I were to sum it up in a couple of sentences, I would do it like this, were we're moving from a world that was by and large, a three stage life.

First you trained, then you worked, and then you were retired. And those three, three stages were very separate and they all had their institutions to support them. Like, you know, schools in the first stage and companies in the second, and pension systems, or I don't know, or even pension homes in the third.

And, uh, what's been happening in the, over the last couple of decades is that we're transitioning to a multi-stage life where people train multiple times, or all the time, throughout their lives. They work for much longer because they have not only longer lives, but longer work lives. In the meantime, the life expectancy of companies and business models and skills has become shorter and shorter.

So whatever it is that you do as a job may not be something that you will be able to do and make a living with for four decades, for 40 years. And then the last stage retirement, there are so many more different ages, so much more age diversity that if you are in your late sixties, you may still be very active and support someone older, someone from the generation above you, who may face health difficulties and not have as much independence. And then sometimes you even have a generation above that one. So possibly up to three generations above the legal age of retirement. And that's unprecedented in human history. So we have so many generations in the population. So much age diversity and so many transitions in that multi-stage life where you change jobs, you change your situation, you become a caregiver, you go back to work, and then you work part-time and then you have cancer, maybe you stop working, but then you get better and then et cetera.

And so this situation where you had a stage and a life situation and an identity that fit that stage, that's no longer possible. So there are so many transitions and so many different ages and so many life situations that the question is who am I? If each stage, you know, comes with different challenges and you develop different skills for each of these stage, it does ask the question or it does come with the question, who am I? When I change life so often, or when I change jobs multiple times. The sense of identity is no longer a given. It was not a question that you had to ask when you had a more linear career and where, you know, each next step was pretty obvious and didn't come with those challenging questions because now, probably more freedom in where to go next, or at least a sense of freedom.

But this sense of freedom also produces a lot of anxiety. If I can do everything theoretically, what am I going to do? How do I make the choice that I need to make for the next stage of my life? It's like going to the supermarket and picking a brand of toothpaste. There's so much choice, so much freedom.

You don't know how to choose, so you have this paralysis of choice and that can apply to your own life. And it's, um, it's both exhilarating uh, to be able to do so many things for many more years than our ancestors. But it can also be terrifying. So knowing who you are, which can come with simple things like knowing what you don't like, can help narrow down the options to make the choices easier, and to avoid choice paralysis.

Here's what I don't like. I don't like being an employee and being told to go to a meeting at 6:00 PM that's for the French who make a lot of, have a lot of meetings late at night. So I know that what matters to me is autonomy, uh, or, uh, it can be I like learning all the time. So I want to be in a situation where I can spend a lot of time reading or a lot of time speaking to other people.

Well, you basically narrow down and you have a better sense of what you like, what you don't like, what you are good at, what you are less good at, and what feels comfortable. And we've criticized and decried the notion of comfort, like this cliche expression, to get out of your comfort zone.

Dunno if you've heard it. I recently wrote the preface, or forward to a book called 'Let's Exploit Our Comfort Zone' rather than get out of it. Being comfortable means being good at something, being efficient at something. So understanding what works for you will make it easier for you to go further, to do better, to do more, and to feel good about it.

And after all, that's what we all want to feel some degree of comfort.

Nigel Rawlins: You know, that strikes me that what it sounds like is from a younger age need to be exploring these things and, and just not. along with the flow. Um, obviously I think for women having, if they would have children or not have children, or as, as you mentioned, having elderly parents or someone they have to look at, so their transitions change, but somehow they have to find that core of who they are.

Do you recommend, say, getting a coach or reading particular books or keeping a journal to help them get a sense of who they are?

Laetitia Vitaud: Absolutely. And there's no, it's, it's, there is a reason why the coaching industry has exploded over the past three decades. It's because we need that and obviously we need to find the right one. It's, it's the same with uhy, psych psychologists and, and, and shrinks and, you know, you need to find the right person and you need to make sure that you have someone who, uh, will be of use to you.

But coaching is, uh, coaching is one aspect of it, but it's, it's, it's also simply, uh, cultivating those relations. And how they can help you find out who you are and what you like and what you're good at. I mean, your friends can help you do that. Your parents, your children. And when you combine that, you have a, uh, a better sense of identity.

It's those relations, those, um, yeah, they need to be reciprocal. If they're not reciprocal, you are just a caregiver in each of these relations, then you will be burnt out and you will not benefit from, uh, from them on a purpose. So perhaps we need to be a bit tiny bit more selfish in all those, uh, relations.

Um, think about what's in it for me. Uh, it sounds nasty when I put it like that, but, um, but relationships should be based on reciprocity. And a lot of women, um, you know, they lose out because they do not find reciprocity in their relations. So we need reciprocity. Let's be a little bit selfish and ask for something in return.

Ask for help, ask for support, ask for reciprocity. So if you've, you know, supported someone, um, through, um, uh, you know, cancer and once they're better, at some point, maybe they can give back to you and maybe you can ask for help. And so the help that you can get is not just through or from professionals, but also from that network that you've supported all along.

Nigel Rawlins: And basically what you're saying there is do something different that you haven't done before and it will shift you in different directions and, and again, I think this is how we do get smarter is through these relationships and asking and asking people. We, and I think it's important to do it more and more.

Alright, let's move on a little bit to how ai, what, what's your thoughts on AI are you know, I talk about AI and augmented work, but, um, you know, the thinking side, the cognitive side that we've all got to try and maintain and improve, especially as we get older. If machines are gonna be doing some of that, what's gonna happen to us?

Laetitia Vitaud: Hmm, that's a good question. I think that older workers will have the upper hand because they have been trained cognitively to think. Critically and to analyze data with a critical mind before AI was available. And so they have more of a critical mind. They can analyze the data and the output produced by the AI tools that they use.

They can analyze that output with a critical mind. So paradoxically, we, I mean, we've long said that, you know, all the workers are less good with digital tools. That's the opposite. The other way around. With ai, they probably prompt better, they're better at doing prompts because they know exactly what look to look for, and they.

Are better at using AI like an assistant and, uh, to, to augment their skills. Whereas the young ones, and I'm worried about my own children, they use it with less of a critical mind and they've never developed the skills to write it, you know, a whole essay with the, with no help at all, with no outside help.

And when I look at the way I develop my own cognitive skills, writing was a big process, was a, was an important element of developing, you know, uh, critical mind. The ability to think, the ability to ask questions, the ability to analyze a subject. And, and yeah, basically writing is necessary to think. So if you can no longer write, can you still think as well?

So the positive. Way of looking at it is that I think older worker have an advantage there because they developed those skills, whereas younger ones may be, um, at risk of never developing those cognitive skills. The negative way of looking at it is that maybe we all, we will all let those skills get atrophied.

And that's my probably one of my biggest fears. I call it the wall, the wall e effect. Uh, are you familiar with that Pixar movie from 2008 where, you know, there was this little robot left on earth to clean up the mess made by humans and humans left and went on this big space ship and after a couple of generations.

Because they automated every task. Everything in the ship is automated. They are on those little flying chairs, and they are connected to computers all the time. So they stopped walk working, sorry. They stopped working. They stopped walking, they stopped thinking. Um, and they can no longer do anything by themselves.

And the film is beautiful because I, at the end, they learn to walk again, right? Make the first step and think again, and grow plant, you know, grow plants and things. Do everything from scratch again, with no help of machines. But, um, I personally am afraid that because I write less now, I do use generative ai, uh, like this, uh, very efficient assistant, an assistant I cannot completely trust.

I need to check everything. But it's an assistant that is. A hardworking one. And so I write less. Uh, I mean, I, I do combine things, et cetera, but I, I don't do everything from scratch with no help at all. I, I, I use it and I'm afraid that my writing skills and perhaps someday my thinking, my ability to think, um, will get atrophied and, and, and that I will fall prey to the wall e effect and be like those humans on the spaceship who can longer do anything by themselves.

The same has happened with calculating, I started using a, a, a calculating machine when I was a teenager, and now I'm not sure I can do divisions. And, you know, even with a, with pen and paper, it will take time for me to be sure that I get to the right result. I can no longer calculate. Um, my memory is atrophied.

I used to know a lot of phone numbers by heart when I was, when I was young. I no longer have to, so I no longer do, so do I exercise my memory enough? Maybe not. So, you know, this, this atrophy of skills has already started. Is it going to, is it going to continue on and get worse? That's my biggest worry.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that's interesting as well. 'cause basically. I think what happens is, yes, I, I, I totally agree with you about what, what I call crystallized intelligence. The older you are, the more things you have done, like having to write things, having to read a book, take notes, put that into, into an article or something like that. Yes. Nowadays older people, we can use generative AI to help, but I think you're also managing the process, is another aspect to it. Whereas I think what the young people might be doing, and I think a whole lot of people in marketing are doing is just saying, write me an article, 800 words, 600 words.

Here's the five key words in there, and it kicks it out, and we get a lot of mush. And that's where I think things will change and. We were talking about relational stuff, there is one way you can have an identity is to stand out um, in, in some sort of niche that's important that people want to follow. Uh, and not necessarily trying to chase followers, you know, and again, creating a relationship through the writing that you put, even if it, it is augmented with ai. Um, I do know with my article course now, um, I do use AI a lot. Um, I have a, i I base them all on the note taking that I've been taking for years in, in my, uh, note taking apps. and then I interrogate those notes and rewrite it and say, look, I didn't wanna say that. I wanna say this. Can you help me say it that way? And, and then I still edit it. there's a interaction going on. And I don't, don't think I'd see that with younger people if they haven't. that experience in life.

And the other thing I think about expertise in there is you sort of know when something's not right. You, you've got, because you've seen it a lot, your gut feeling says hmm, something not quite right there. Whereas if you haven't had that expertise or experience, you're not gonna see it. yeah. So how would you suggest older people who may be making some older people, I don't even know what we call people who are older anymore. Not, not everybody who's old is old. Some people are young and they're old. Um, so for example, a 60-year-old woman, 60 year young woman, um, who's doing a transition, not really used AI in the past or maybe digital tools, what would you recommend that they maybe try or have a look at to see if there is some benefit, for them in those tools?

Laetitia Vitaud: I'd like to go back to what you just said about challenging the, you know, challenging whatever the, the tool you use gives you the result that is giving, it's a conversation. It's exactly what you said about producing something and challenging it. So as a 60 year young woman, uh, you have, as you said, more crystallized, intelligent, more, more experience, more knowledge, and even if that knowledge is a little bit blurry, you don't remember everything, but you have.

Um, the ability to challenge whatever is said to you because whatever's, uh, whatever you read because Hmm, yeah, as you said, it doesn't quite sound right. So this is a greatest way to begin is to, to begin this as a conversation and, and the app, whatever app it is, whatever, whatever, it's chat, GPT or, or Anthropics, clawed or Gemini or et cetera.

I mean, the, they have their advantages and, and, and, and drawbacks, each of them, but each of them basically works the same way. It works best as a conversation, and it's not, it's not a robot the way we imagine robots in science fiction. It's a networked intelligence. It's, uh, algorithms, um, uh, trained on.

Tons, tons of data produced by humans at first, then produced by other generative AI more recently. But, uh, it, it's networked intelligence. It will take, you know, an idea from there, an idea from here, and, you know, it will just combine it and, and give you something that, uh, that algorithms try to make relevant, uh, depending on what your question is or what your prompt is.

And so it's, it's, it's you in a network. That's how the, you know, the use of generative AI can be divine defined, uh, and, and, and this interaction with your critical mind and this network of tons of data produced by tons of humans. And if you, if you start using it like that in a very simple way with this con, you know, with this, this, this conversation in an ongoing conversation, you make it.

Into a very useful and very life-changing assistant, uh, an assistant. You challenge an assistant, you can never fully, completely trust because you have to ask more questions and, and, and, and edit whatever is produced. But I think it's not very threatening and it's not difficult. It's the most intuitive tool we've ever had, and that is why there are already 2 billion users or more probably.

It's a, it's underestimated and it's probably, it's more now, so half of the world's population already use it. And again, as a 60-year-old woman, you have more skills to do this conversation properly than someone younger or that someone and someone less experienced. So make the most of it.

Nigel Rawlins: That's right. They've just gotta try it and see where it goes. Um, but it also is, obviously, it can help them if they're running a business, uh, on their own. Um, for example, what was I doing today? Um, oh, things weren't showing up. I'm, I'm downloading things onto my Mac, downloading a document. And it's not showing up. So I said to ai, it's not showing up. What can I do? And it sent me in a little trail, it gave me one, one way of fixing it, which fixed it. They're still not showing up. For some reason. I changed, I changed to a Little Mac Mini. Um, we're talking on a, a MacBook Pro, but I've got a little MacBook Mini that I use now, but it's not downloading the document.

I can't see it. I can search for it and I can see it, but I can't see it where I can grab it. So it showed me a way. So this is also becoming a, a, tech advisor

Laetitia Vitaud: Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: do things. It can help you fix things and not just for your work,

Laetitia Vitaud: Not just tech. Yeah, exactly. Even, uh, things that have to do with the home, how to fix this, how to do that, how to clean this stain, how to et cetera. Uh, and, and it, it brings the whole, you know, YouTube tutoring that was already a big revolution. You know how to do something, this and that with your hair. You had the video explaining exactly how to do it.

So it brings it even one step further that it's like this universal. Tutoring tool for little how to questions, uh, whether it's cooking or fixing things or, um, solving a computer problem or finding the right, the, the solution for your, for your professional question. It's, it's, that's where I think it works best.

The, the small technical questions, not necessarily the big, uh, research questions, uh, where I think it's less satisfying, but the small ones, yes. And I've only learned to ask, you know, this, these little technical questions. Very recently, I've only discovered it quite, I mean, a month, months ago, rather than years ago, because, uh, um, my first reflex was not to ask Chad, GPT or Claude, these little how to questions.

And I've discovered that, as you say, it's. Probably one of the best use cases because it's so fast, so quick. And so as a worker, uh, or as a self-employed business person, um, that is the best use also of, uh, those generative AI tools that you can, that you can find, that make, will help you get wherever you want to get a lot faster.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that is interesting because, um, will save you money, which is one of the problems when you're running a little business is, you know, you can spend a lot of money getting technical help and sometimes you need to do that, but for, for little bits to get, get you along the way. will help and it will save you money.

'cause if, if you are paying for it anyway, you might as well get some benefit. Um, I still believe it's really, it's gonna be much easier if you can get a really good it person to come and work out all the wiring. Like if you saw my setup, there's wires everywhere. I would love somebody to come in and clean all that up. but yeah, I think it can solve a lot of problems and save you a lot of money. Well, we've been talking about thinking, so let's just talk a little bit about, you know, our cognition. You, I think you share with rah ha um, how do you say her name? Ha

Laetitia Vitaud: Half. Hmm

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah. Rah rah.

Laetitia Vitaud: half.

Nigel Rawlins: F's view that cognition and attention and attention are crucial today, especially navigating in this knowledge world. The, the world where we really have to think for ourselves and sort things out be creative. And when I, when. When I use the word creative now, I used to think, oh, you have to do this amazing stuff. But what creativity means is finding a better way to do something. we were just talking about AI helping us solve problems. So, you know what, tell me about cognition and attention and why it's its own important.

Laetitia Vitaud: Hmm. So we're, we're flooded with information. There's so much information overflow now, and since the launch of chat GPT more than two and a half years ago now, uh, we've, we've witnessed an exponential rise in. Texts and images and videos produced now largely by a, by, uh, by ais, uh, online. And there's so much of it.

So we're, we're, we're flooded with it. And, and, and there are so many actors asking for bits of our attention just to be able to sell, advertise to, to sell advertisers. Um, some of our attention right seconds or milliseconds of our attention. And that has lead to, um, degraded attention and degraded attention skills because to be able to grab our attention, they've, um, uh, they've made the content even more.

Um, yeah, attention seeking more, more colorful, more bright, more loud, more shocking, more provocative, um, something that will generate anger. That's one way of grabbing your attention. So shock and anger. And so it's become like an addiction, that we need things that are more, you know, wow in some way that will generate the wow effect and we can pay less and less attention to simple things.

Things that will require time, things that will require hours to understand, like reading a whole book with no distraction, et cetera. And so we have this need for more dopamine and dopamine hits from social networks, from Instagram and the like. Um, and, and we are, and, and we move from one tab to another tab on our computer every couple of seconds.

And we're like. We're like fish, we're like fishes. Our attention is extremely short. The attention span has reduced from, I don't know, it was a couple of years ago. It was 12 seconds to eight seconds on average. And we check our phones all the time. Even if we have no notifications, we'll go there by ourselves and checking if there's something new, if there's some dopamine hit to get.

And, and that's a huge difficulty because it's making us, it's not just making us less cognitively skilled, it's making us sick. It's creating stress, anxiety, it's making us sick in, in every possible way. And the counter movement now, or a lot of people are, um, leaving social networks. So I left. Twitter a couple of, a couple of years ago now after Elon Musk, uh, took over.

Um, I'm trying to have a more reasonable use of, uh, Instagram, uh, mainly for professional, um, for professional aspects. I left Facebook also longer, a while ago, maybe five or six years ago. I try to have no notifications. If I go on a walk outside, I leave the phone at home. So I go outside without the phone.

So as to, to, so as to practice this attention, this ability to pay attention to uh, uh, look at what, at what's outside, to look at the trees, to look at the floor, to look at people, to look at faces and things like that. And this is probably the only way we'll be able to regain, uh, our ability to have longer attention spans, to pay attention.

And now there's a. A link between attention and cognition because this ability to pay attention is going to help us, um, maintain or develop, uh, our cognitive skills, our ability to focus, analyze information, think, and then produce creative things, whatever those creative things are, uh, and, and make decisions that are sound decisions.

Uh, because our ability to make decisions in a world of information overflow has also degraded, and it's, um, sometimes we're paralyzed or we just make bad decisions, uh, whatever those decisions may be. Um, so yes, attention and cognition are the battles of the future. Um, the good thing about 60-year-old women is that, um.

Some of them, uh, yeah, they've already had burn burnouts. Sometimes they've already felt, um, their cognition under threat, or they may think their cognition is under threat because of aging. And so perhaps they have already developed good habits when it comes to developing or to maintaining attention and cognition.

So working on your memory, uh, doing things without the phone, like whether it's playing chess or, um, reading a book or going on a walk outside or meditating or doing yoga or doing Pilates. I mean, everything that doesn't, that requires that you leave the phone outside or in a bag is a good thing, is a good activity.

And, and it's a, a lot of activities that 60 year olds of fond of like, yeah, a physical activity or, I don't know, whatever it is that you do, for example.

Nigel Rawlins: And how did I, I, I know you wrote something about seasonality as well recently. How do you think that helps with

Laetitia Vitaud: Hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: Obviously, we can do more in summer. Yeah.

Laetitia Vitaud: Yes. It's, it's interesting because, uh, so we, the, the, the, the, the modern work was largely shaped by industrial work and industrial work, basically factories with assembly lines that work 24 7 because they need to be, you know, you need to maximize the output so you have artificial light that was the electricity revolution, so that you could have the same production, the same productivity, the same output day in, day out every month of the year.

And you didn't care about what season it was. You didn't care how hot it was outside because you could have this artificial. You know, climate controlled environment where the output could remain the same. And we created shifts so the people could work. You know, teams of people could work all day, all night.

And so we could maximize the output and that's the fantasy of industrial work, that you can be equally productive all the time and work the same number of hours all the time. So, Ford Henry Ford created the 40 hour work week and was still left with basically something that looks like the 40 hour work week, five days a week.

I mean, most people have, you know, work with that model still, even though we no longer work on assembly lines. We no longer work. I mean, some of them, some of us still work in climate controlled envi environments, but a lot of us do not. Whether we are on the road to go from, you know, one person to the other, to deliver care, uh, to cut people's hair, to clean people's homes, to um, look after people's children, I mean, or to do creative work.

We no longer work on assembly lines with a linear, equal unchanging productivity. So what we, well, what we are finding also with climate change is that the, yeah. Yes, there are seasons. Um, there are also seasons in our lives and sometimes we feel tired. And to be able to work pro productively in creative work or in emotional work and relational work does, I mean, it, it doesn't work when, with the fiction of.

Equal productivity of constant productivity. So we are rediscovering, um, and especially those of us who work very freely, who can choose our own time and how we work is that, yes, there are seasons and sometimes, as you just said, we perhaps we work best in spring and summer and should be able to sleep more in winter.

Uh, and, and, and perhaps it's the other way around. We want to enjoy outdoors fun activities outside and summer. And work more inside in winter. I mean, depending on where you are and how affected you are by climate change and by climate and depending on what you do, there are, there are seasonal aspects in the work, what we do.

And it's a good thing because it will make it possible for us to work more years and because it will make the work that we do more sustainable and because it will help us stay healthy longer if we do not strain that, if we do not push ourselves a little bit too much. If we listen to what our bodies, uh, what our bodies need and, and what the seasons are like.

Uh, so it's a, it's, I think it's an interesting trend. It's not everywhere yet, but that we are, maybe we are learning to make work more seasonal. Again.

Nigel Rawlins: I, I think for probably a hundred thousand years it was,

Laetitia Vitaud: It was, it was when it was agriculture. Yes.

Nigel Rawlins: That will be in us somehow. will feel that. We will know it. Okay. Now, one of the things spoke about in one of our previous ones was that when women become freelancers, they often only make a minimum wage. I dunno if that's still the case. And you stress the importance of financial LI literacy. So you stress the importance of financial liter literacy and the empowerment for women. So how do these financial realities and the need for financial resilience impact women to make say, a transition into independent work? What are they gonna think about?

Laetitia Vitaud: So they got to think about their retirement savings, and they have to think about that as early as possible. And so. Yes, it's still the same that women freelancers earn less than their male counterparts. It's still the same that, um, women in the second or third, the third stage of their career, um, earn less and sometimes earn less even than in the previous stage of their career because following the motherhood penalty, so the, IM the financial impact of having a child, they never go back, uh, to on average to where they were before.

And so the gap between mothers and non mothers, uh, is as big as it's ever been, sadly. So no progress there, but there is progress, I think, in information, in, um, knowledge about all that. And in, um, financial literacy. So I've seen, what I've seen is that over the past five or six years, there have been many more media, many more, um.

Um, I mean, people offering some kind of training to improve financial literacy and also political lobbying so that, uh, women who work part-time. I think it's also the case in Australia that they are encouraged or even forced to, uh, to, uh, contribute to their pension systems. Um, fully, I mean, not just partially, but fully.

And so we're, I think we're, we're, we have a better knowledge of that and, and, and, and we are thinking of that perhaps earlier. And that's a good thing. And hopefully, um, it will have an impact on, uh, on the, the, the retire on the, the pension gap, the, the gender pension gap in, in the future. So I think also, um, more women know that part-time work is a trap, that there is a.

Triple penalty associated to part-time work, uh, whether that's as an employee or as a freelancer. Freelancer freelancers, uh, also, uh, have the debt to take into account because if you work part-time, not only are you paid less, but then you will be paid less in the future because retirement, your, your pension will be lower.

And the third penalty is that you are usually in jobs or careers that in general, pay less and, uh, have less pay progression. Working part-time is not possible in every kind of jobs. And the jobs where you work part-time are usually not associated with as much progression as full-time, uh, work. Uh, so that's where, where I would say the progress is more financial literacy overall and more political awareness.

And, and more and a few political decisions or, or laws that have been passed recently that are protecting women in that regard?

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, that's good. I think we're coming towards the end now 'cause we've nearly gone for an hour.

So just right on an hour at the moment. is there something else you'd like to add? And, and then we'll find out how we can get in contact with you.

Laetitia Vitaud: I don't know. I have a blank with such open questions. Suddenly, I dunno what to add.

Nigel Rawlins: we've covered, we have covered most of everything, I think, which is really, really good. 'cause it's been wonderful talking to you again. So, Leticia, where do they find you? You've mentioned Instagram.

Laetitia Vitaud: Yes, Instagram. So my name's Leticia Vito, and you can find my account, but also my newsletter, my, my newsletter in English. Uh, Leticia At work on Substack. I still publish about one piece a month. That used to be more, but as you. Yourself, um, you know, have found with your podcast, uh, too, too much is not sustainable.

So once a month is the frequency that fits, that works best. So I, I write these long pieces like the recent one you mentioned about making work seasonal and how to make this work seasonal and why. Um, so that's where you, yeah, you can get in touch with me and answer this newsletter and it, I receive an email and, and you can get in contact

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah. And LinkedIn as well.

Laetitia Vitaud: and LinkedIn as well.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes. Well, Leticia, thank you for being my guest again.

Laetitia Vitaud: Thank you, Nigel. It's been my pleasure to speak to you for a third time.

Nigel Rawlins: I'd like to do it again, maybe in a year's time or something to keep in contact.

Laetitia Vitaud: Yes.

Nigel Rawlins: And I think we were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, with, with people, you get to know lot of my podcast guests, I think, oh, it'd be great to go and have a drink, go down the pub or somewhere like that, or go and have a glass of wine. Um, 'cause it's so far away Australia where, especially where I am is just so far away from anywhere. it's sad and I'm probably not gonna do a lot more traveling. I, I think I've done my traveling. Um, I'm sick of sitting on planes and trains and things. I've had it. I'd rather stay at home. So, Leticia, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day.

Laetitia Vitaud: Thank you, Nigel, and have a good night.

Nigel Rawlins: Now stay on, I'll stop the recording.