Ritika’s Leadership Learnings: August 2024
Is it just me, or has this Summer felt like a bit of a daze?
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the seasonal transition has caught me off-guard. Recently, I’ve made a major life change to become a morning person. If you’ve known me for a long time, you know I’ve always co-existed with the night owls.
It turns out, I like mornings better. So I’ve been up at 5:45am every day to start my workday at 6:00. The night before, it gets dark after I fall asleep.
The habit transition has helped me maintain my steadfast and unrelenting optimism. If you’re struggling to find steady footing on your journey, I highly recommend a more regimented sleep cycle.
What I’ve been up to
Heading into Fall, I’m figuring out what it means to be a “leader” in our modern times. Practically, here’s what that looks like:
Conducting informational interviews with role models who I respect
Working for people in leadership positions from whom I can support and learn
Reading a lot of material (blogs, books, poetry)
Taking classes in fields related to education and mindfulness
Taking space to exercise and do yoga
Making time for solitude, to integrate it all into who I am as a person
As I’m discovering in my yoga teacher training, lifelong learning is about applying those takeaways into meaningful action. So I’m rapidly implementing what I learn into my career as a communications consultant.
This year, I’ve had the opportunity to support bi-partisan, politically agnostic initiatives in clean energy, AI governance, nonprofit education, philanthropy, institutional VC, early stage R&D, and healthcare finance.
Where I’m headed
A couple months ago, I was googling my work, and I learned that one of the first articles I ever had published in a major media outlet (when I was 22) was cited by a UNESCO report.
At the time of this googling, I was feeling very lost about my future due to all the unknowns and instability in our modern world. So the discovery was particularly eye-opening and clarifying. I felt a moment of hope. And also, questions.
Why is it that the field of education is so valued and undervalued simultaneously? Why do we pay so much to access the best of it while simultaneously paying our teachers so little—and asking them to keep taking on more? Why is there so much detachment between the educational and commercial worlds?
Consider the biggest issues of our time: the most substantial being climate adaptation. Our changing environment is going to very quickly define every industry. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum—or what your beliefs are about ‘climate change’ as has been politicized—the fact is that climates change. Like, how can we keep running data centers if there isn’t enough energy? Can we rely on our education systems to produce the problem-solvers needed to spark and sustain the wave of scientific breakthroughs needed for life on earth to have a future?
Grappling with these questions, back in 2020, I started taking classes in the field of education. It’s the industry that I think is going to boom in my lifetime, I think. We’re not the loudest voices. But educators care about the craft of teaching and learning.
Where I need support
I’m longing for constructive dialogue on these topics. And collaboration between people who are advancing how education connects to business, as a pathway to establish greater balance in the transactional systems that connect us as a civilization.
The only path for us is forward.
Who’s out there thinking bigger than profit motives and venture-scale “consumer” economic returns? Where are all the education systems-builders hanging out these days? Who’s building compelling solutions for climate adaptation? What’s happening in the realm of infrastructure scale R&D (i.e. quantum)?
What platforms are out there for people asking these same questions to find each other? Who are the investors—VCs, private equity, family offices, institutional funds, etc.—shepherding these values forward?
Right now, I want to know who you are, what you’re reading, what communities exist for people like us, and whether the right home base for me in this movement is in the SF Bay Area, Canada, or somewhere else entirely. How do I land my first professor role in the field of communications? Should I get a PhD?
‘Til next time.