Presence, Work, and AI: Stories Beyond Location

0:17 Find yourself in. Thank you for joining the Hope and Possibilities podcast. I'm Nola Simon, and today I wanna talk about my theory about presence. So I, long story short, I had applied for a TED Talk. It was actually Global TED Talk, which I've never actually seen them do that before. And. Spoiler alert, I didn't get chosen because honestly, there were only 10 people out of all of North America who would've been chosen. And then what happens is there's, various different locations around the world, and then each person who wins in each particular location and goes to Tet in Vancouver in 2026.

1:05 Odds were never in my favor, but I applied just because I wanted to at least put the Saudi out there in the universe. And I thought Ted was actually a good place to start because if I got it, that's great. And if I didn't, it at least gave me an excuse to actually start. Publicly talking about the idea. So essentially what the idea is that we need to really look at the way that we talk about work and how the stories that we tell are embedded in presence. Because quite honestly, if I look back at the way that my career has evolved, when I tell stories of success, a lot of the stories of success that I have are not actually based.

1:54 On location because the work that I did was really never in person. My clients were always like, somewhere between 1500 and 3000 kilometers away because I was based in Toronto and the majority of the time my clients were in the US they weren't even the same country. So the. Success that I have that was directly related to the work that I was responsible for. It happened in the ether on a phone call, in a webinar. I did get to visit some clients, but the majority of the time that I was with that company over 17 years.

2:41 I didn't actually meet the majority of my clients, and the majority of the work that I did was done over computer, over phone, and it wasn't directly in person. So this is where I tell stories about my work and my success in a very different way. I don't really talk about the fact, that I was based in a cubicle and that I was surrounded by 60 other people. In a department of 300 because most of the time those people were irrelevant to me. We had two meetings that we had to attend each month, and I would have coaching session here and there with my manager, and the majority of the time I was on my own talking to clients over the phone or using the computer, and the rest of the people in the department weren't really relevant to the way that I actually function.

3:34 And even if I did have to ask for help, I wasn't really asking for PE help from the people around me. I was still going to other departments and most of the time using technology to, to do that interaction. So I tell stories about my work success in a very different way. I don't talk about body language. I don't talk about, what I wore that actually was influential. I don't talk about, how it felt to walk into a room and present. And the change that I did, because honestly, when I did do those types of presentations, I was virtual.

4:14 I did one leadership presentation. They were all in a conference room because they had been selected to actually be part of the leadership team. I had actually been declined from that particular opportunity. Two core, two or three cohorts be before that, and I was asked to speak to them, but it was something that I did virtually. So I talk about my successes in a very different way because I haven't found in person to be where my career really evolved and developed. Honestly, even with podcasting, it's not in person.

4:57 A lot of times I don't even have the cameras on. It really depends on the guest. A lot of what I've done is all been audio, right? But I know that certain people make choices based on the fact that they are valued in a different way. They, perceive themself in a different way. So I'm gonna tell you two stories. So one is of my coach. She does a lot of work, asynchronous, asynchronously. She does a lot of work over the phone using technology. But recently what last year, she actually decided to go back to work in person because she's someone who values being recognized for her energy.

5:39 And so she felt that by working at home, she wasn't. Necessarily being seen as a whole person and her influence and her impact was being reduced because she was at home and couldn't necessarily bring everything to each moment that she had. To interact with people. And so she wasn't, she might've been having impact and value to the people that she was impacting, but she felt she could do more. And it was more about how it felt to her on a regular day, daily basis because her days were the same and she wasn't necessarily seeing a whole lot of people and everything would wrap up by four o'clock, four o'clock, and they would have dinner and.

6:26 A lot of times she felt that no one had actually witnessed her energy. So going back in person allowed her to have that visibility to be witnessed in a way that she felt was missing in her day-to-day life. And I understand that with her also, she lives in a city and can actually walk into the downtown core. So it's not like it's a significant commute for her to actually rejig her life and actually go back to work in an office. For me, hearing the story, if I was going to do the same thing and say I wanted to have a more in-person impact and be able to walk into the types of corporations that would be looking for my types of skillset, I still have a two hour commute each way.

7:16 So the value that I place on actually walking into an office. Is impacted by that. So there has to be something really motivating. What am I getting out of it that's beyond paycheck, beyond rewards and recognition. That intrinsically makes me feel that work has value and I can't do it in any other way. The bar is much higher for me than it is for somebody who happens to live. Close to the downtown core. But I also had a friend, and again it's about how their perceived physically, the coach was a better energy.

8:04 The friend that I'm gonna tell you about, she was extremely tall. She was almost six feet. She was very voluptuous and she had. Red hair and she was loud and she was fun and she liked to laugh. And again, that energy that she brought in person, she was recognized in a certain way. Whereas when you're working from home and the Zoom screen, all those boxes are all the same size and you have no control about where you end up and how you're perceived. And if you're on mute and you know how people are actually. Reacting to you.

8:46 It's very different, right? Like people, she walks into a room and people immediately look up and she feels that she's got impact, right? I, we were friends. She was almost six foot tall and I'm five foot one. I don't have that sort of impact physically. I walk into a room and my hair's been white for a very long time. White hair. My hair is not actually white because of age, it's because of Wardenberg syndrome, but there's an association with that. So me walking into a room, I am short. I have white hair and the impression that I give in person is often devalued.

9:27 Because of societal norms, in terms of ageism and possibly even misogyny. Now obviously she had the misogyny aspect available to her as well too. It's not necessarily just related to me but it's that pretty privilege, right? That energy that. Perception that in person you have a certain impact on the way that people value you and. Your presence, how you look, how you feel, the energy you bring, all of that really impacts it. So I've got this theory that if you are someone who's actually used to impressing people because of how you look, how you make people feel the energy that you you bring.

10:21 And you are used to people reacting to you in a certain way and recognize you, you in a certain way, because of your physical presence, you have a harder time adapting to actually working from home because that impact is filtered by technology. On the Zoom screen, everybody's the same height. People always think that I'm taller than I am. Because most of the time they've only met me over the phone or on technology, right? I have a personality that translates well virtually. I know how to make my presence known.

11:04 I know how to make an impact with force or personality, with how I speak, with how I. Get people to listen to me and pay attention to me, that ability to build visibility remotely is something that I've developed over the years. I don't rely on physical presence because quite honestly, I've had better success doing it virtually the majority of my career, right? So this is something that I think, is unacknowledged by people when they're debating whether in person or virtual is the best scenario because quite honestly, it depends on the person and their individual skills, abilities, but also their individual version of presence and the stories that they tell themselves related to how they actually make an impact.

12:04 If you are used to making an impact because of your energy, you might be able to adopt that in the virtual world, but it's harder, right? If you are used to people noticing how tall you are, how ous you are, you know how loud your laugh is that's something that you might be able to convey on a screen, but. It's harder, right? Again, it's what gets noticed without actually being verbalized without actually being. Made concrete.

12:45 So that impact of body language again, it can be conveyed on a screen. This is where, movies and videos and everything that we watch virtually as well too, obviously gets conveyed on a screen. But in a corporate environment that reliance on body language isn't necessarily as explicit, isn't as necessarily as put in the forefront as your presence is. So how do you still make that impression without being explicit about the changes there? Because everything also is filtered through professional behavior and what does that look like, right?

13:26 Like the stories that are told in Hollywood and music videos and all that stuff, they tend not to be. They tend to be very different types of stories that you would actually be telling in corporate, right? They've got a lot of emotion, they've got a lot of dependence on relationship. There's a sexuality to it that's usually hopefully not ev present in corporate environments, right? Because you wanna make sure that, everybody feels safe, right? But this is the type of thing that I think needs to be. Discussed and we need to develop language about how we actually talk about that. And this is where autonomy comes into play as well too, is people aren't necessarily resisting the office because they just want to be contrary.

14:19 They might be adapting to the office. And working from home actually helps them avoid things that are detrimental to the work. For example, if people don't know that my hair is white and I don't tell them, nobody ever knows, right? Only when they see me or they see a picture of me would they actually even know. A lot of times people mistake me for blunt, right? It creates a whole different story than when you actually see me in person, right? That storytelling that underlies our reputations, how we're perceived, really makes an impact.

15:00 And so when there's autonomy, where does what fuels the work? I might choose something. That's very different from somebody who actually feels that their energy, their physical perception, their physical presence really is what fuels the work, right? Because we're doing work in different ways. We're using our influence in different ways, and that I think is part of the story that gets overlooked because. If you look at the reports in terms of the height of CEOs and if you've ever had the pleasure of walking into a sales conference where it's dominated by men, especially in the Midwest US and everybody's over a six foot four and you walk in and it's like a sea of suits with shoulders that are a foot taller than you are.

15:59 Your understanding of how you make an impact in that audience is going to be very different if you're five foot one versus six foot. If your energy is not necessarily that of an extrovert, but of an introvert or an ambivert, and you need time to actually recharge after you've actually been super social, how you make an impact and how that. Changes your energy, that's going to be very different. And this is where, for years, for decades, honestly, we've had to work in person. And the people who have personalities and energy that's less suited to that extroversion, that has always had pri priority.

16:50 We've had to adapt. We haven't had a choice. What's happened with the whole work from home and working virtually and working from anywhere, whatever you wanna call it, is. Those people, which I am myself, am included in those people. We've seen that we can make an impact in different ways that doesn't drain us. So we have options that we've never had to be able to do the work that is work that we're perfectly capable of doing, but in a way that doesn't drain us. So that's another aspect as well too. And that's where the agency and the autonomy to work in a way that fuels the work. It is really honestly individual, and that's an aspect that we haven't talked about either.

17:36 And then you add in ai, how does this really impact thing? The interesting thing about AI is that we have this perception that AI might really just come in and start doing work the way that humans would do that work. We don't understand AI enough, but there are, stories dating back to like when IBM was running artificial intelligence and doing chess with computers, so they would pit humans against computers and how Big Blue would actually play chess against a human. They, the computers play chess entirely different from the way humans do because they look at.

18:20 All of the games that have ever been played to look for the optimized moves, whereas a human doesn't have the brain capacity to do that at a really quick pace, and humans never play chess like that. So how does AI really impact how the work gets done? The work that some people feel depends on presence might be done completely different. When you've got AI involved and presence is not really the focus of anything because you're using an AI agent that doesn't actually have physical form. So that's another aspect of the storytelling as well too, is you know, this is the way it's always been done.

19:03 This is how people feel about it. Add in ai. And how does physical presence either become less important or more important? That's another aspect that I need to explore as well too, and I think this is a fascinating way to think about what the future of work is going to be like and how we influence that. And what we're drawn to will be very different based on how we prefer to work and what opportunities are available to us. So anyways, that essentially is the Ted Talk idea that I had in mind, and I will be fine tuning that and looking for more stories.

19:53 I'd love to have people submit stories to me about, either the fact that you. The way that they've worked in person really makes a difference. And this is why explaining it, because honestly, I'm fascinated to see what the biases are there, right? Because there's bias one way or another. So what is the commonality? I'd love to see more stories that you explain your success stories, but focus on. How the location, the presence, who was around you, how those factors really either made or break or broke the success, and how you tell those stories.

20:34 It would be fascinating to know. So if you want to email me, it's Nola, sorry nola@nolasimon.com. It's on my website. If you find you can't find it, but it's www.nolasimon.com. Again, email is nola@nolasimon.com and I'd love to hear your stories of success, specifically focusing on location and what you are either able to achieve in person or what working virtually and removing the physical presence as a factor really allowed you to do that. You weren't able to get accomplished in person. So either story is something that I'm interested in reading about.

21:15 I'd love to collect those, so if you are interested in sharing with me, that'd be great. Find yourself in.