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- [00:00]
Jon Forester
Foreign. Hi, everyone, this is Jon Forester, and I'm here for another Slice of GTD Life interview. This time I get to talk with Prachi, who is in Pune, India. Would you say hello and what part of India you're in and that kind of thing?
- [00:26]
Unidentified Moderator/Interviewer
Yes.
- [00:26]
Prachi
Hi. Hi, everybody. And hi, John. I. This is so exciting for me because I have been an avid listener of GTD Slice of Life, so I can almost, like, imagine the intro music coming through and then everyone. For a moment, I felt like I was listening to somebody else's podcast.
- [00:47]
Jon Forester
Right, Right.
- [00:48]
Prachi
It's a nice full circle moment. So I'm very, very happy to be here. I am based in Pune, and it's in the. It's close to Mumbai, about two hours from Mumbai.
- [01:02]
Jon Forester
Okay.
- [01:03]
Prachi
Born and grew up here, based out of here. It's a nice, I think, a town similar to the one you live at, where it's. It's a nice city with a lot of hustle, bustle, but there's also a very relaxed vibe. So I would say it's a very GTD city. And yes, I'm very happy to tune in from a different part of the world.
- [01:26]
Jon Forester
Great. Okay. I'd like to hear quite a bit about your story, and let's start with maybe even before you got to gtd, because I think there's some. Some relevant context there. What tell us about that?
- [01:47]
Prachi
So I. I grew up in a different kind of a school. It was kind of an experimental school where. Where we really learned by doing, we did not have uniforms. And I. I mean, I think when I was in third or fourth standard, I think my school teacher had given us a very interesting homework, asked us to write a letter to our future selves, you know, 10 years from where would I want to be and who would I want to be. And I feel like, in a way, that was my first exercise in a GTD review. So I remember writing that letter, but then I fully forgot about it, and many years passed, and I. I think I was at a very decisive point where I had to decide I take an admission for computer engineering in a college many, many years later. And I just kept getting this gut feeling that maybe there's something else meant for me, but I had no idea what. And it was at this decisive point that my school teacher actually sent that very letter back to Me, written 10 years ago by my younger self to the Prachi she aspired to be, because it had been exactly 10 years since I'd written it.
- [03:03]
Jon Forester
And your school teacher from 10 years previously kept track of you and was able to send it to you. That's amazing.
- [03:12]
Prachi
Yes. So I mean, I actually reached out to her and I told her that I'm in this kind of confused state of mind where I've taken admission, but I don't know. And she found that letter and she sent it to me. And it had, you know, coincidentally 10 years since I'd written it. And reading it was a huge wake up call for me because my younger self had written about making an impact and changing the world. And I not thought that in a very long time. So I got inspired by the words and the dreams of my younger self and I decided to go on a quest to figure out how I could make some kind of a difference. So I dropped out of college, dropped out of engineering in just two months. And I decided instead to take a year to travel across India working issues that I thought were affecting my country the most. You know, it was like a quest to figure out in what way can I make the most difference. And at that time, of course I'd heard about climate change, but I always thought it's happening in some other part of the world to somebody else at some other time. I thought it's only about the environment and I wanted to people. So I spend the next year, you know, traveling across India. The first four months I traveled with a group of farming, a farming group traveled across my state in Maharashtra, meeting thousands of farmers who are coincidentally doing climate resilient agriculture. The next four months I worked with waste pickers and I spent another four months working with children, talking to thousands of young people, asking them what their dreams looked like. So during this course I was working in education, in agriculture, things that I thought were actually affecting the day to day lives of a citizen in my country. But I wasn't even working on climate change. But it was the first time that when I actually went to work on ground, I kept seeing it everywhere, the community I visited, I saw the effects of climate change. And I realized that every single issue on ground is being aggravated because of climate change. And I really, till then I'd only read about these catastrophic effects. You know, extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, sea level slicing. But during this time I met people who were living through these effects and I realized that it's not about these big words. You know, as ordinary citizens, we care about very simple things. We care about our homes and our health and our food and our livelihoods and our families. And yes, with my own eyes, how climate change is affecting all of that. And that's When I really, you know, people say that you have two birth dates. The first one is when you're born, and the second one is when you figure out why.
- [06:08]
Jon Forester
When you figure out why?
- [06:10]
Prachi
Yes. So through that year, I slowly figured out, I think, that the biggest way for me to be able to make a difference is to dedicate my career to climate action. And that was decision I made then. But it still felt like such a big problem. You know, I. I remembered going to my father and asking him, you know, climate change seems like such a huge issue. What can an ordinary girl like me do about it? And we decided to start from our own home. We took up a quest to reduce our own carbon footprint by 10% that year.
- [06:41]
Jon Forester
And 10% a year, not just 10% and then leave it at that, but 10% each year.
- [06:47]
Prachi
Every year. Every year. And that was. So it still felt like a doable target because it wasn't like completely changing your lifestyle. It was reduced by 10%, whatever the baseline was at. And so, you know, we. I started experimenting with which actions of mine are leading to most emissions, how can I reduce them? And I kept on that journey. I realized that if I really wanted to continue on this journey, I needed to be able to measure the impact of my actions. I needed to see what is the difference I'm even making. So then I started researching on how do I quantify my avoided carbon emissions behind small sustainable actions I take. So would it help if I took public transport, or would it help more if I recycle? So I really started tracking the avoided emissions behind small actions, and what are the hundreds of such actions we could do?
- [07:39]
Jon Forester
All right, let me. I hate to interrupt, but I think I missed something a moment ago that might. I'm just curious about. Did your parents have some kind of a history in a service work or social work or something like that that inspired you this way? Or were they just completely surprised and said, how did we have. How did we have this daughter? Where did, where did she get this interest? Because we were only interested in sports and money.
- [08:12]
Prachi
That's a good question. So my father does say that sometimes he's like, is this even our daughter? But, but so they. Everybody in my family is an engineer, which is why I had also decided to pursue engineering. My mother worked a corporate job. My dad was a professor. I think what really helped was when I decided to take a gap year and take an unconventional path. You know, now a lot of people ask me about the pitch I gave at Shark Tank, but the first more difficult pitch I Gave was to my parents. I'd worked. After making the decision, I worked a whole week and I made a proposal for them. Case studies of different people who had taken gap years. What I planned to do in that year, why I wanted to do this. There was a spot and I called my dad to a cafe. He thought I'd be in college, but instead I was working on this proposal and bunking college. And I called my dad to a cafe and I pitched it to him. And by it he was just as excited as I was. And then we both pitched it together to our mother and. And you know, then both of them really, because I. I realized that especially in India, a lot, a lot of people think that are scared to make these decisions because of what would people think, what would they say. But it really is about how you see it. So when I told them with conviction that I wanted to do this, they really, they really joined in with excitement. And interestingly, they did not begin in the social sector, but now both of them work from for me. So both of them have joined Kulda Globe full time now. And it's like their support really was very instrumental in this whole thing.
- [09:56]
Jon Forester
Okay, that fills in a lot that way. That fills in quite a bit. All right, so you were back to talking about with your father. I think it was about how to quantify the change. And now I understand more about why you would be interested in quantifying. You're from a family of engineers. Thank you for taking that. That digression back into the past for a moment.
- [10:23]
Prachi
That's right. And it makes sense because, you know, what happened once we started like putting numbers on it was it. I started enjoying it. It almost became a fun thing we were doing with the whole family. Because it felt good that at least at my own level I was doing something. And I would feel nice if to. To see that. You know, I. I took a cycle to my college today And I saved 2 kg of carbon emissions. I. I stole a few clothes from my sister's closet instead of buying new ones And I saved 10 kilograms of carbon emissions. It almost became like a fun game because I was. We were really having so much fun as a family. A lot of other people would notice and you know, my friends, neighbors, people around us started to come to us saying, you know, you're doing something interesting and how can we be part of this? And that's when we really started thinking, you know, what we started at our individual home, how can we get global citizens to join us in it? And from this, the Idea for K the Globe app was born. So by this time my year had ended. I'd taken admission to another college, this time in media. And you know, I decided to pursue it as a project out of college. You know, we used to have internships, so I pitched it to our director that instead of interning somewhere else, let me just do this. And then I realized that it's much bigger than like a one time project. So throughout my college years we basically worked on building this app. So whatever was needed to build it, from coding to storyboarding, from design to reaching out climate experts, the research emission factors, all of that, you know, the three years of work, day and night and Cool the Globe was ready. And by the time I graduated, we launched it. And that's when I is that now the real work starts? The real work is in actually convincing people that in the face of climate change, our actions can make a difference. And you know, I remember launching it and even getting the first hundred users was so difficult. And I think now, now we can like coming to where GTD came in because that's where like now GTD comes into the picture for me.
- [12:37]
Jon Forester
Mm. Bring, bring it on. Let's hear, let's hear about it. Especially if it helped you with launching, well, getting more of an audience for the, for the app.
- [12:49]
Prachi
Yeah. So what happened now was at graduated college we had this tool, but really there were like about 100 users on it, which were honestly all of my friends, you know, pity downloads. And I still, I, I, the obvious choice was to take up a job, sit for placements, but I again sat my parents down and I essentially borrowed one year from my mother and I told her, give me one year to give this a shot and if not I'll then take up a job. And then she did it under one condition. She said, if you really want to do this, then you need to put yourself out there. You need to speak about Cool the Globe, you need to make videos about, you know, what you're learning. Not, you know, I wasn't doing Cool the Globe full time then because I didn't really have that vision yet for how this could become a career. Wanted to take a shot of starting something of my own. So what I did during this year was I tried to build up that. I knew there was something I needed to learn about being a founder and starting things. So I did a fellowship at the local chamber of commerce. It was, I was one of the first batches of fellows. So I did this, did it for the first part of the year and Then I worked with another app which was the biggest agri expo that happens in India that year was happening digitally on an app platform because it was Covid time. So first time doing it on an app. And my mother had told me to put videos out there. So one of the videos I made was agri and the impact of climate change on agriculture. And the founder of that company saw my video and he called me in to lead all the campaigns that would happen to bring in farmers on that app platform. Because nobody believes that farmers can be reached. We can reach out to farmers digitally, you know, because they're not as tech savvy. But he really believed what we could. So we did very nationwide hyperlocal campaigns that time. So, you know, in basically in all regional languages, in eight languages of India. And even if we were doing it in a language, so my language is Marathi. So even if we're doing it in Marathi, we do it in 7 Dialects of Marathi and at the end of it.
- [15:15]
Jon Forester
Oh, that is hyper local then.
- [15:17]
Prachi
Yeah. So we got farmers to come in and record voiceovers for it. So, you know, by the end of it, 2 lakh farmers would usually come in person and pay a price to be a part of that expo, actually came on the app and paid it on an app platform. And it was really unprecedented. And that's where I really learned how to scale an app. You know, our app had 100 users and I learned how to scale it. And then after that I did something called a Jagruti Yatra, which is an 18 day train journey that happens across India with 400 change makers on board. Aspiring change makers on board.
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Jon Forester
Oh, interesting.
- [15:57]
Prachi
We go across India, we go across, you know, meeting other people who are doing impactful work. And at the end of that train journey, I, you know, one of the speakers was a climate activist based out of India called Sonam Bangchok. And in his speech he talked about how there was a need for a platform which would unite citizens for climate action. And he talked about that and then he left. And I thought he said that there is a need for this and we've already built it. You know, this is, I was ending nearing the end of the year, I borrowed from my mother and honestly we were still about like from 100 to 500 users at this point.
- [16:39]
Jon Forester
Okay.
- [16:40]
Prachi
And what I did then was, you know, I didn't know that cool, the globe could become a career and climate action could actually become a career. But I, I had promised my mother that I'd make at least four videos in the course of this year speaking about this unconventional journey I'm taking. So this was the fourth video I made speaking to all of the Yatris who were on that train journey and telling them about who's the Globe, you know, telling them pipe dream that I built when I was a young student and telling them, you know, now it's, you know, I'm sharing this with you now. Let's try and make this big together. And I released that video, it was exactly one year later, it was the 31st of December when I sent it to them. And what happened next was a blur because the next two weeks my phone would not stop ringing. I was getting calls from other young people, from CEOs, from media organizations, from prominent founders in India. So saying that you really built something substantial here, we believe in it and you can actually make it big. And that really when that commitment came in, that's when I saw the vision that it can become something. I can take this on full time as a, you know, that I built Cool the Globe app one year ago, but I think that was a moment when I decided to be a founder of K the Globe and take it on. And at this point I remember thinking, you know, I was like a young graduate a day before and overnight almost I was a founder and a CEO. And you know, two weeks in when all of these calls and messages and the flow sort of started to die down, I had a moment where I thought if I don't equip myself with the skills to sustain it, to build this, to grow this, this is going to become a one time viral moment for us and I'm not going to be able to make something out of this. I realized that there were some skills that I needed to actually operationalize these dreams. And I was wondering what those could be at this time. Almost like a calling I found. So my father, you know, had had a phase many years back when he was looking into productivity and he, he always has a knack for finding what's the best in the field. So I remember him mentioning many years ago that Getting Things Done is like the bible of productivity. And at that time I had not paid much attention to it. But sitting in a corner of our home library was this book and it almost to me and I remember opening Getting Things Done and I think that was truly the moment that changed my life because everything that came after that really happened as a result of gtd. I don't exaggerate when I say this. You know, we'd of course talk a little bit about what happened after. And this, this was more. So the prequel of the journey. Yes, I, I, it's, you know, that's when I opened the book and started reading it. And I realized this is exactly what I'm looking for at this point. And I did, I, you know, incorporated that system for a few months. And then I feel like you should ask a question now. Have I been talking?
- [20:19]
Jon Forester
No, actually, if, if I'm not talking, it's because what you're saying is just so compelling that it's, it's, there's no reason I need to add to it at all. But I just, I did think of one thing just now when you said that your father had explored various productivity approaches and you, that he had getting things done in the home library too. Had he talked to you about productivity before that or did this just sort of show up in that moment or any other history on that?
- [20:52]
Prachi
I think he had, but I feel like, you know, at times you, and this is like selective hearing. You know, you hear it when you really need it.
- [21:01]
Jon Forester
Right. When you're ready for it.
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Unidentified Moderator/Interviewer
Yeah.
- [21:03]
Jon Forester
It shows it's available. Yeah.
- [21:06]
Prachi
So he talked about productivity now and then. And now I've really incorporated it in a crazy way in my life, which I think has even surpassed his passion for productivity, and he feels very proud of that. But yeah, I feel like over the years growing up, you know, these things have fallen on the years, and that's when, when I really needed it was when I actually heard it.
- [21:36]
Jon Forester
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
- [21:40]
Prachi
So I don't know if you, if you have a daughter and if she listens to everything you say.
- [21:45]
Jon Forester
I, I don't have, I don't have a daughter. But I have heard from many parents that the children do not necessarily listen to everything the parents tell them.
- [21:57]
Prachi
We listen, but I think, you know, on our own timeline.
- [22:00]
Jon Forester
Yes. I have a younger brother and I used to try to give him advice, and I'm still waiting for him to listen.
- [22:10]
Prachi
And I get that because, like, ever since I've started using getting things done, I've become like such a. You can make me really an ambassador, because I feel like I'm already your, an official ambassador where I talk about it with everybody. And it's almost like I try and spread it like a cult that works with me to use getting things done. I want everybody I'm friends with to use it, but only when people really have reached that point that tipping is when they take it up and when it's really useful.
- [22:41]
Jon Forester
What is the tipping point? What are the characteristics of when someone is at a tipping point like that and they're, they're ready or they perceive that they have a need for it.
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Prachi
Yeah, I think for me it was, I really remember that moment so clearly when it was years back, which was recognizing a moment, that this point can be life changing for me if I play my cards right. And if I don't, I mean, nothing's going to go wrong. But this is like a defining period in my life. So realizing that need. I don't know if everybody gets a stark point like that in their life, but I think, you know, possibly a time when you really feel like it's needed and then, you know, when it's needed, then you go through an obsessive period where you really look it up, where you really set up those systems and that session really fades out, but those systems stay with you later. So, yes, I, I did. When I first then incorporated, I realized that this is exactly what I was looking for. This is exactly what I need at this moment. I wanted to become overnight a founder and a CEO. And it was the, the tool that was going to help me do that. I became obsessed. So for months, you know, I would, I would, I went through all of the podcasts, I read the book many times. I incorporated different systems. And it was at this point, one of the action items on my GTD list was see, who, who in India is doing this? You know, the person in India who's doing this and try and like, see, just, just look up. And so when I looked that up, I saw that Ali Wakeel in India was used to train for gtd.
- [24:33]
Jon Forester
Yeah.
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Prachi
And what I did was like, because it was in my list, I just reached out to him, you know, I just connected with him and, and he messaged me saying, you know, I actually like the work you're doing. And I'd be, if you need any help with gtd, I'd be happy to coach you pro bono.
- [24:49]
Jon Forester
Oh, wow.
- [24:51]
Prachi
And that was the experience that even I had. Like, people are so happy to help and support. I didn't even have to ask for it. And so he got first call with me and I don't think, I don't know if he anticipated it being a year long thing, but then from that call, you know, every month we would meet and he'd really, he really coached me through getting things done and really instilled in me a lot of mindset shifts. That, that helped a lot. You know, one of the things that I remembered, you know, that, that stayed with me was I always wanted my work to not feel stressful, feel like it's. It's played not work, fun and rewarding. And he said the list should not make you feel overwhelmed. You know, it's almost like going shopping and it's going shopping through the task and choosing which task feels fun. That really was a big mindset shift. So through the 12 months, you know, we really worked closely on fine tuning my GTD system. And then I think he also introduced me to you at that point and you were very kind to offer me a very, very generous discount on GTD Connect. But honestly, at that point I couldn't even afford then afford that. But yeah, that's why it was now many years later I, I was reminded of that and then I joined GTD Connect and I was like, I just want to reach out to you and tell you difference it made to me. And now we're here.
- [26:29]
Jon Forester
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to hear about what cool the globe is up to now and about where the app is at now because I suspect the numbers are very different. And the other part I wanted to hear you mention more about if you'd like to, is Shark Tank and, and any other of your, your very prominent publicity that you've had over the years.
- [26:57]
Prachi
Absolutely. So like I said, when I started getting things done, we were about, you know, we'd had that first sort of moment where a lot of people were reaching out and from 500, we'd now reached about 5,000 users, I think. And it was at that point that, you know, I really streamlined everything with GTD. So I.1 of the things that really helped me was just putting everything out of your mind and into an in bucket. So, you know, as it's. Things come at you from all directions and different kinds of things come at you from all directions. So having that in bucket was really, really useful in that. Then I, I realized that a lot of the growth that came came from having that clear mind where I'm thinking of exciting ideas. So from that point, what we really started doing was we started campaigning very heavily and started putting that message out there, which was a very simple message, which is what can an ordinary citizen do about climate change? And let each one of us start very simple from reducing our own carbon footprint by 10% every year. And as soon as a user would come in, they would get a target, they now get a target to reduce their carbon footprint by 10%. And then they see hundreds of simple actions they can take to achieve that. With each action, they track the emissions that They've saved. So you know, I got a lot of young people around me together, we started doing these campaigns and we really witnessed that people liked that we were talking not just about the problem, but also about how every person can become.
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Jon Forester
A part, can make a difference. Yeah.
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Prachi
And so people would take an action that made sense in their life. Like 9 year old girl emailed me and said, what change can I make in my life to fight climate change? And she decided to start going to school on a cycle instead of her car. And her parents used to drop her in a car and she started going to her school on a cycle. Recorded 60 kg of carbon emissions, which was three times her weight.
- [29:21]
Jon Forester
Another that's a very personal way to relate to it. If I can save three times my weight in emissions every year, it's a very, very direct. People can relate to that.
- [29:32]
Prachi
Right. So. And like that, another 80 year old woman called me and said that, you know, I can't, it's not like I can like use public transport or I can walk more or I can like, I mean I, I can't do all of that, but I still want to contribute at my own level. So her granddaughter was getting married and for the wedding, instead of buying new clothes, she decided to reuse her own traditional attire or sari from her wedding and 15 kg of carbon emissions by doing that. Wow.
- [30:04]
Jon Forester
And that had the added benefit of passing along some tradition and helping the family feel closer. What a great way to approach it.
- [30:14]
Prachi
Absolutely. Somebody else said, I want to take an action. He was like a 40 year old CEO and he said, I don't have time, you know, I need to take an action that I don't even like realize I've taken it. So what he do was in his office, in his own cabin, in the entire office, he increased the default temperature setting of the AC by 2 degrees Celsius, closer to the room temperature, and was saving thousands of kilograms of carbon emissions just with that simple action.
- [30:43]
Jon Forester
But he didn't have to think about it beyond changing the setting. From then on he could stop thinking about it.
- [30:51]
Prachi
So the message was really like what makes sense in your life would be different, but do what you can. And really saw how like one action like this would inspire 10 others and create it really started creating that ripple effect for change. And a lot of other young people from different countries started reaching out to me, saying, I'd like to be your ambassador in my country. And the same way a lot of citizen groups would reach out. So it slowly started becoming from what, what had Started at home, then turned into an app, almost like a movement. So we reached over 25 million people across the world. Now we have users from 150 countries and all of these citizens. So one of the things that when we released the beta version of the app, a fourth grader had actually called me up and said, I'm taking these actions, but I keep wondering, what difference can I alone make? Our belief, really the reason we started KLO was when a lot of people like us come together, our collective impact can be extraordinary. And to showcase that, we then introduced what became the most important feature, a global meter on the app, which would track in real time the collective emissions that all citizens are saving. So, you know, as of now, we give, we, we always have targets, collective targets on the app also. And all of these users from 150 countries have come together, recently surpassed the target of saving 7 million kilograms of carbon emissions. And this is just the beginning.
- [32:23]
Jon Forester
Wow.
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Prachi
Where we are at now is what started happening when a lot of users, individuals started using it. A lot of our users would come in and say, I'm doing this in my life, but now I'm bringing this in my organization. If I'm hosting an event, can we do this at that event? I want to bring this in my school, in my city. And similarly, a lot of organizations started reaching out to us, saying, you know, you're doing this for individuals. But we have a lot of sustainability targets, we have net zero targets. We're doing a lot in climate. We want to involve our employees in this. So can they be a part of your app for our employees? We launched Cool in the Globe for organizations and communities. So the next step for us, you know, now we're working not just with individuals, but also with organizations, with events, with schools, even with a city to create communities for citizens where, you know, we're making climate action a rewarding experience in a way. You know, so we have rankings, competitions between teams, people. So interesting.
- [33:31]
Jon Forester
So you've got it gamified and, and you're, you're turning it into something that's more fun and interactive and not just, not just a big guilt trip about, oh, look what we're doing to the globe. But now look, we're all playing a game. Improving it.
- [33:49]
Prachi
Exactly. You know, the message has always been that it doesn't have to be a burden or a responsibility. Real climate action only enhances and makes your life more fulfilling. So can it be a fun, rewarding experience that brings people together? So that's what we're trying to Do.
- [34:07]
Jon Forester
Wow, that's very inspiring. And if you can share back to kind of quantifying things, how many, how many users do you have at this point and do you have other initiatives in the works, things like that?
- [34:26]
Prachi
Yes. So we have hundred thousand citizens using the app and long way from the.
- [34:33]
Jon Forester
50 or so friends that you started with.
- [34:36]
Prachi
Yes. And the big thing is now we are also doing this in organizations, so in corporates, you know, a lot of the organizations use this app for their employees. We create climate communities in organizations and in fact I can now give some at, at even at events. So if we recently there was a rainforest summit in Malaysia where as people were coming to talk about sustainability, they walked the talk on Cool the Globe app where at the ven. They took sustainable actions and you know, 100 people every day got a free coffee for the sustainable actions they took. So we do fun things like that. We work in schools, in, you know, even with some cities on creating for their communities. So this is, this is what's with whom the Globe. But I, I, I think I'd also like love to share how when I said that every single thing that I that came after opening, getting things done was that result of incorporating that system. Maybe I could share some examples.
- [35:44]
Jon Forester
Sure, yes please. And any amount of detail you want to go into is great.
- [35:51]
Prachi
Absolutely. So I, you know everything that happened in Cool the Globe also. But the examples I could share is you asked about what are the some of the other things I do. So over the years now I also do advocacy policy work in climate action, work with organizations, do a lot of work with the United Nations. So you know I, I'm thinking of which there's just so many examples to share of like what came like every single milestone came on my getting things done board before it came in reality. I think example I could give is. So there was I in this was, I think two years back I talked with some people at the UN foundation and they were interviewing me for a role of leading the Next Generation program in India which was about how young people can not just spectators but can play an active role in shaping the world and how we can interact and in sustainable development goals. So it's really a role that I felt very passionate about because you know, through these years I've got a chance to interact with a lot of young people and I see in them a zeal to make a difference, the same zeal that I had and I still carry. But what I perhaps lacked at that time was a vision of what is possible. And so I feel like once you have that, then you become really unstoppable in a way. So I feel very passionately about that role. But what ended up happening was it was a full time role and I did not want to take it up because I was doing cool the globe full time. So I did not see. And you know, that ability to say no to things that didn't align also was in a way as a result of getting things done. Because now the visibility of all of my projects and what I really wanted to do, I was reviewing my priorities and I was able to make decisions that at that time seemed tough but were necessary. So, so, you know, I, you know, it, it went well, but it didn't, I couldn't take it up full time. But then towards the end of that year, I was coming to New York for the UN General assembly and I had, at that time, right after the interview I'd written down, and that's where the context specific list really helped because I knew I was going to be visiting New York at some point and I had a New York list. And in that list I'd written, if you end up, whenever you end up going to New York, try and reach out to the people who you did the interview with and just like to tell them that you're in New York. And I know for a fact that I would not have remembered this had it not been on that list like at the beginning of that year when that interview happened. And so many things happened in the course of a year. So as I was on the flight to New York, I saw that list and I saw, and I reached out to them and they called me into the office and we had a lovely interaction. After the interaction, they said, actually the UN Secretary General wants to meet with some climate innovators before the General Assembly. And this is unheard of. Like you usually, like in your first visit to ungo, you never get to meet Antonio Guterres. You know, they said he wants to meet and we think you'd be a great fit. So would you be open to going and doing this special meeting with him? So we did that special meeting and it went really well. And he was actually, and this is also another thing which is that what our voices are oftentimes taken seriously because he was taking notes throughout and he incorporated a lot of our recommendations in his own report to world leaders. So it was a meeting not for him to tell us what to do. It was a meeting for us to tell him what we thought was the best course of action. And it really remarkable. It went well. And afterwards, after the meeting, you know, when I came back, they actually reached out to say, you know, this went really well and we still think you'd be a great fit to lead this program. And for you, we'd be happy to break down that role where you don't have to do it full time and you just have to give one day a week. Would you still be open to taking it up? Which was really like the mission for me was a dream mission and now it fit in my schedule. So I take it up, took it up, and now I lead the Next Generation India program with the UN foundation and cew. So this was, this really happened as a result of getting things done.
- [40:32]
Jon Forester
Yeah.
- [40:34]
Prachi
As I was sitting there.
- [40:42]
Jon Forester
I'd.
- [40:43]
Unidentified Moderator/Interviewer
Like to give it short message to those of you who've been participating and playing with GTD Connect for a while and sort of remind you that all of us with this GTD methodology and this set of practices go through cycles. You know, I still go through cycles myself initially. There's kind of the inspiration and there's a lot of material to ingest and to get familiar with. And so people oftentimes when they first come onto connector, are just potentially overwhelmed by how much information there is. In a way, it's just a huge library where we've been able to archive so much different information from so many different perspectives and people and points of view and so understood that it's like walking into a library, go, gee, where do I start? So that's oftentimes the initial phase of this and many people after a year or two probably get on some level or some plateau where they go, well, I kind of got it now, I've got my system set up and everything's fine and I'm fine tuning. And you may find yourself at that point also finding yourself saying, gee, I'm now becoming a resource of this methodology for people around me, you know, people asking me for assistance and help in this. And we've seen in the forums a number of people now sharing ideas about how to get your teams more involved or families more involved with this information. So some of that information is in there as well. But I think you'll find yourself going through cycles of this and you may find that much like if you've ever read a software manual. I remember when I read when I learned Microsoft Word to begin with, for instance, I read the manual, wow, this is really cool. And I started to use the tool and didn't need the manual anymore. As a matter of fact, A good example of that right here. The manual for this camera that's taking this picture right now. Initially, I read this, Got it all set up. That's really cool, and that's really fine. And so pretty much everything was under cruise control. I didn't need to go back to my lockdown library to make this really work. And then, of course, as I started to get more sophisticated in terms of the stuff I wanted to do, got more inspired about some things I saw other people are doing. I go, how do I do that? Went back to the manual. I went, oh, God, I didn't realize I could do that. I didn't realize I could do that. And I remember at least two or three iterations of going back to Microsoft Word back in the days when there actually was a manual for that, as opposed to just all online and realizing, oh, my God, I didn't realize that, oh, I. I could do that now. I could do that now. And I think that's what you might find with Connect, too, is that it's a gold mine of stuff. Well, many people have read getting things done more than three or four times, and every time they read it, they get something new out of it. So I think you may find Connect the same way and probably even easier, because, hey, it doesn't take much to just click on, surf around, see what might be new or what might be of interest to you, and pay attention. There's more than meets the eye in there.