Isabella Wang  
No one knows what's going on at the moment, everyone can be an expert, and they all claim something is gonna be the future. In this world, how can you know who's right and but there is something for you, as the individual survive and thrive on this planet. And that's by finding yourself and spy, you know, just just be critical thinking and doing the right thing that you believe and you can feel the peace within when you make that decision. And I found that so powerful and critical.

Jeff Ma  
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. But we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. As always, I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And I'm here to have conversations and hear stories with real people about real businesses in the real world. And my guest today is Isabella Wang, and she is a futurist, a social entrepreneur, and a speaker and an author, all kinds of things. But importantly, she's an expert in digital transformation. But she's on a mission to humanize the world by leveraging the power of that technology, and Isabella demonstrates her forward thinking approach in her work as a partner at the creative house at Creative digital company. And as well as being a board member and Operations Director at the New York Marketing Association. I got to know her through her role as a strategic advisor for AKFI, which is the actionable knowledge foundational Institute. And she's also the author of The Digital Mind of Tomorrow, rethink, transform and thrive in a fast changing and brutal digital worlds. I love that title. I'm excited to talk to her as she is the leader in the movement of change that aligns very much with mine, which is to bring humanity back to the workplace. So I'm excited that you're here. Thanks for coming. Isabella, how are you today?

Isabella Wang  
I'm equally excited for you. So looking forward to this conversation that we're both just come naturally unprepared to see how the flow goes. 

Jeff Ma  
I'm Isabella before the show has seen my pre show routine. And she is rightfully pointing out. I've never prepared for these. And that's what makes it so great. But, but, Isabel, I do want to start with obviously just centering around you if you could just paint a picture of your your passion for me if like what brings you to where you are today.

Isabella Wang

Not to be silly. But I think since I was little, this goal, this vision has been vivid or it's been there. It sounds silly, if I say it, you know, just bluntly, I want to change the world. I want to do something to change the world. And for for everyone this my sounds like is none of my business. Are you crazy? What can you do as a girl. But now that that picture is getting more and more clear. And I actually in my core. I also mentioned that to you consider myself an entrepreneur, I'm not just saying that because of I call myself entrepreneur, I actually didn't even know the word entrepreneur, before I behave or I will say appreciate those qualities that entrepreneur possess. For example, like 10 years ago, before I was even graduated, I would look to those things or events or people that it's in that world and I didn't even know how to say entrepreneur properly yet. And just those Yeah, I'm serious entrepreneurship entrepreneurs, like entrepreneur, near entrepreneur, and then do the spirited process and the calling that a they're advocating. It just touched me and, and it was it was not it wasn't you know, a common thing to do to be honest, most people like my friends who will be looking for jobs, and they will wake up early in the morning take on the subway. While Isabella is at home, checking some random events or speaking conferences. It feels odd to be honest, but I don't know. I just felt like that's something I need to do. I want to pursue that goal. And so throughout the years that that has been coming together, little by little meeting the right people mentoring me, getting to the great community building community, little small project, big projects, businesses and now to this point, reading the book based on my observation of the society, and I just can't see things started to come in together.

Jeff Ma  
Amazing. And I know that you, you, you call yourself a social entrepreneur? Can you explain what that means to you to be a social entrepreneur?

Isabella Wang  
Yeah. From it's obvious from the world, something relates to the Society for for social, I think I actually recently became clear about that to call myself a social entrepreneur, since, um, I found myself very tied to, to the human relationship, and as a community live in this world, and in a worldly term, it's the society, right, the social connections between the people, I want to amplify the value about this connection between each one of us, not necessarily just to solve a pain or a critical problem, and it happened to generate a lot of money. I really want to emphasize on this, collectively, a holistically coexisting community that we all belong to, and how can I create something, bring out value out of that system. So to me, it's more on this social perspective of the value not necessarily just to solve a problem or to, to make money, and and it all comes down to the human nature, the core of humanity. And that's what I always valued, the most.

Jeff Ma  
Awesome, awesome. And I, I have to ask, I guess, if you, if you don't mind, can you share kind of your part of your journey or the connection between technology and all the things you just said? Right, so So there's, there's often a disconnect, and everyone's story is a little bit different? I'm curious, where does that overlap for you and how that happened?

Isabella Wang

Great question. And you just open up our conversation that can see very positively. So from technology to what I'm doing. Long story short, it's because of the work I do with digital digitalization, digital marketing, and all the things that I can be able to see on the frontier of what's happening right today in the world with technologies. And I can see there's a huge missing gap and not being addressed or not being paying much attention to is the human aspect of it is like how these things actually serve us, or where we're heading with these things, why we're doing this things. At the end, we want a happy life for everyone, right as a human being as individual, but I see is not going to have direction more specifically, like people are being blinded by what technology really do to them in daily life. And in how to be able to do critical thinking in overloaded information or information age, and how younger generations are endowed in heavily digitalized society that they don't possess those human connection anymore. There's so many, again, this social things that I've observed, and a just bothers me, I guess, in the core, and top of the pandemic happened. And I see this massive transition from offline to online. And there's something you can just see is irreversibly, you know, changed. And then while a lot of people are still thinking, Oh, once the pandemic is over, we'll be back to the old, the norm, they kind of norm or once or something like that their mind is not catching up of what's really going on, some of the things are just irreversible. And all of this No, it's a little bit a little bit everywhere. That's why it's complicated. It just triggered me to start shifting my attention to what the technology is really doing to us as a human human society. And that started the idea for me to write this book and I'm writing a I had 100,000 times shifts and turns. And eventually, after a lot of painful self reflection, and questioning and researching, I came to the conclusion to focus on the path to to to focus on the humanity side of technology development, not just the technology itself.

Jeff Ma  
Amazing. Can you can you share some of that you said painful. Yeah, introspection and self kind of addressing yourself. Is there any that you could share with us?

Isabella Wang

Absolutely. Manuel, it's one of the the key person that actually pushed me to to go down that road to think what I'm really He wants to talk about first of the things. It's when I first started reading the book, I was like everyone else, focusing on the business part. And those jargons buzzwords and the trendy topics. And digitalization. Metaverse web three. And when I was writing I just felt so stuck it I am like what I'm writing about and where it's really taking me and when the while read my book, and he was like, no, no, no, Isabella, this is not you are you sure this is your book, there's a bunch of

Jeff Ma  
for the audience for the audience who's Manuel, I know Manuel

Isabella Wang

Manuel is the Executive Director, at AKFI (Actionable Knowledge Foundational Institute) a nonprofit, the first nonprofit to bridging the gap between ESG, digital transformation and sustainability. And funny enough, Manuel, I think he rumbled, he stumbled into my website before I even finished my book, and somehow see this beauty of the universe. He reached out and I usually don't get to engage, but I respond. And then we start connect and he became the mentor while I was writing this book. And voluntarily and also in return, I started trying to advise him on a AKFI. And that's how the relationship started to build.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah. Got it. Sorry for the tangent. No worries,

Isabella Wang  
yes. But back to the story. So he can see that I'm into something else. But I'm writing a completely different thing. Because I want to follow the trends, I want to become the part of the common topic to get popular to make people you know, remember me, but that's not the case, because that's not me. And I wouldn't be remembered or get popular because ever wrote a book with a lot of buzzwords or looks trendy, he made me realize that and he just say, what you really want to do. It's something on the human side, that's all I can tell you, uh, you go figure out what he wants to write, in terms of the technology and the humanity. And that's the, I wouldn't say painful, maybe that's the wrong words. But the painful it's more like when I guess thought and I don't know what's wrong. And after he pointed out that it's a hard decision to make also, like, are you gonna just follow your heart? That's a reason or real example to show you're going to follow your heart, are you going to just follow a path that you know, it's gonna work, you know, people are going to follow by a tons of your book, because you're talking about trendy stuff. And as Isabella, of course, I made a decision to follow my heart. And it's a huge relief. And as I mentioned, and things start to come together, once I tune into what I'm really passionate and what I really wanted to do. And in the book, it's done.

Jeff Ma  
That's awesome. Always good to know that you have no regrets when working on something that that big that big of a project. So what what ended up in that book, he followed your heart? Yeah, it's out there. What what is? Tell us about the book, what is it? What is it centered around?

Isabella Wang  
Yeah, so the book, mainly, as you read about the subtitle, very well to rethink, to transform and to face this fast changing I call it brutal, brutal digital world, meaning you really need to think about your future more not just to rely on a third party or like some educational system or another credible expert to telling you what's going on. Because when I was writing the book, The truth is I was also interviewing tons of people on purpose, I want to get verification, I don't want to just be yourself imaginary. And one thing I came to realize it's no one knows what's going on at the moment. Everyone can be an expert, and they all claim something is gonna be the future. In this world, how can you know who's right and but there is something for you, as the individual survive and thrive on this planet. And that's by finding yourself and by you know, just just be critical thinking and doing the right thing that you believe and you can feel the peace within when you make that decision. And I found that so powerful and critical. And okay, that's a little bit back to my book. And back to my book. I I'm what I'm really doing is to, to simply sharing Isabella's opinion of, okay. What I observed technology has done to us as a person, to us a business and as a society as a whole, for example, artificial intelligence, and this fear of machine learning, this fear of metaverse, or human labor is going to be replaced and all this kind of crisis we're facing. And, and this book is actually more talking to people who wants to make a change in this chaotic age, to how to be not to be disturbed by the distraction and how to back to my theory, follow your intuition, follow the flow based, you know, natural way of living, and to, to counterbalance with this chaotic world. So that's it, there's a lot of I summarized it on a very abstract high level, but there are some resources and conversations, interview clips, I've collect together to to further elaborate of what I just tell everyone to make you understand why Isabella thinks like this, why she believes younger generations needs more guidance. And they're in some sort of thinking, degeneration, things like that. Yeah.

Jeff Ma  
Got it. Very interesting. I, I have to, of course, now bring the conversation over to you know, love, essentially, as the, as the show is aptly named. So when I think of business, and how really, there's no business without technology now, and technology, obviously, is at the center of really everything that's being, you know, done in business, and it's either a small, medium, or usually large part of every business's success and progress and evolution. So what, in that sense, are you seeing in terms of the importance of love, or if you just want to call it culture or human interaction or any of those elements, as it pertains to business? And by extension, technology, right. What are you seeing, stand out from your perspective as important in terms of culture, human in humanizing of things in the business world?

Isabella Wang  
Right. So I feel like now, when I was writing the book, I mentioned in the preface that I think society has to top pressing issue on top of everything that climates burn, whatever, the sun that, oh, that, number one I see, it's a lack of trust is not just a lack of trust is no trust. And number two, it's an lack of clear purpose. And clear here, not just purpose, it seems that we have some sort of purpose. No, we're not clear, we're trying to take a bet or take a chance. And without trust, I just don't see things can happen at all, it can happen, when it's not a real thing that is happening to change, to bring humanity to the next level, to uplifting us. And that's relates to what you guys doing love as a business, and why we need to tie in this culture thing into business into, into anything we're doing. Because I see that as a foundation. We're so good at being blindfolded, by the superficial things, if it's our money generated, or if we're smiling in front of people nice, we're good. That's absolutely wrong. And that's so hard for people to to face the reality to see their what's really valuable underneath those superficial cover up, in my opinion. And I want people to be more more to into this genuine reflection, not to be blindfolded. And this is hard. And so so to me, it's very important. If we don't get to this fundamental level, we're just going run and run and not going anywhere. And that's what I see it's going on right now with all these fast technology development. I was just listening to amazing podcasts by a very well known person John Jacques Jarrell a very bet with name and he's like a philosopher, American computer scientist and he's very well known. And he's a huge believer in, in culture and your love in philosophy. And he doesn't believe in those technology. He said, Yeah, artificial intelligence. Awesome. Such a new innovation. I heard it back in 1984. So basic, he's saying all these things we're talking about, it's been going on. But um, when they get sounds like it's new, we're just trying to, to make some cover up to make us feel like we're progressing. In a sense. Yeah.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, I think you really hit me with the the assessment of like, your top two kind of issues. I've never heard them frame so clearly that way. But I have to agree. And I think trust really stands out to me as, as an issue. What are you seeing, I guess, in terms of the problem, when it comes to trust? And also what what do you think caused it? Or think What do you think is leading us to have, as you said, no trust

Isabella Wang  
is this superficial world, I think we're all pursuing some sort of materialistic and it just the relationship is not a human is not genuine anymore. And everything is built on this kind of philosophy, I will say, so. So that's like the foundation of not being able to trust each other. Everyone is faking it. A maybe a good example is the social media. If you look at their profile, this is a very cliche, example, is not dumb, is that we need to show are your favorite world vulnerability, what's really going on? And when entrepreneur or successful people, it's all they're talking about their success. That's not the real story. And people are believing this false statement, and they get even more miserable.

Jeff Ma  
Well, let me ask this, what, in your opinion, is the solution? Like? How? How do we gain trust or bring trust back to this world? Or to a business? Or even just to a group of people? How do you how do we fix that?

Isabella Wang  
I believe being a genuine human, it's the it's the foundation, like being a human, being yourself. And don't get don't get lost in this. In this fuzzy, crowded world. It's the first step to be more maybe practical, is to keep distance with this digital device to keep it to leave space for yourself for your mind. I really believe human has the potential to to  course correction themself just by themselves. Not you don't need another source to tell you is about read, this is about why you should follow that. I really believe we have this universe power somehow when we're really having a space that time the peaceful moment for ourselves and to course correction, our behavior, our our thoughts, and that start from from being yourself really facing yourself and not too busy seeking anything external or to follow another trend. And that's, that's what I believe.

Jeff Ma  
Do you have any direction for people who find this? I know you're talking about a lot of this stuff at this global cultural movement level? If you were to zoom in on on something that, you know, people can take away from themselves. So for instance, if they work with teams, or if their leader or a CEO or entrepreneur within their ecosystem, what would be your, I guess, recommendation for them when it comes to these problems and how to fix them?

Isabella Wang  
That trust the loss of self or

Jeff Ma  
just in general, right, in general, in terms of the human element, lacking in in technology, like I mentioned before, you know, technology is a large factor. You're either working in technology with technology, when we talk about business today. And so you're pointing out a lot of these elements of like the human element gone missing from it. How do business how do business owners leaders, you know, professionals, anyone working in and around technology, okay, what do they need to do? What do they need to look out for?

Isabella Wang  
Okay, so I just had a talk last week, I think I mentioned that as a panel. And when we talk when I talk about what's my advice, I want to clarify first, it's very hard, because of the big environment, how how we're, you know, stuck in this capitalism dominate world, I will admit, it's very hard is not something Oh, just be yourself and listen to your employee, and be a human that can happen. I say that not to say this is not possible, I say that just for us to be aware of what kind of thing we're getting into. And also to be proud that you're one of those that who are willing to take this leap, because there are people out there like this, in like last week at a panel, all of those speaking, amazing speakers, they're one of them. And, and, obviously, they have an entrepreneurial background. So these kinds of characters really contribute in tackling these kind of challenges that we're facing today. As to, you first need to be step up, just not be not to be afraid to be one of those odd leader, even, it's hard, I know you need to lose, you need to maybe even get fired, I don't know. But I believe you can get a huge reward down the road. And there are people around you just we need to, I was thinking about that we need to ecosystem, we need to connect those people. So you're not feeling alone. And you mentioned that a few people can make a huge impact. So we don't need that, like hundreds of leaders, conscious leaders like that, we just need a decent amount of them. But you have to be them first, in order to identify or attract them. Otherwise, you're just being one of those old school corporate leader, as always, if you don't step out first. So I see that first step, it's very hard. So the thing that I'm not to being, you know, not optimistic, I really suspect there's, maybe there'll be a handful of them will will, you know, I'm telling with this corporate world, I'm gonna do something meaningful in my last few years, I trust there are a few people like that. And that's, that's literally my advice. On top of everything, I wouldn't even mention, I'll be listening to your people open minded. I know that's not going to happen. Like even you do it. But if you're not really, in core being, that person is not going to change anything. And by being surrounded when you become that, and you surround it with a group of people like that, something can happen. And that's what I see from those speakers I talked with, they step out, they never, you know, be afraid they embrace risk and failure. And they're living the life they always want to have.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. And you're absolutely right. I mean, it's something we we wrestle with all the time in the work that I do, that's the hardest part to really get people to understand is that it is very hard. And what we're looking for is not a process change, or tool change, or any one type of specific action that people take. But it actually requires a change in individuals, and not just about individuals, but within individuals, right, it has to be a new found motivation for many new found calling that you kind of mentioned earlier, as it has, for most of us been set as the capitalists kind of motivation that we're just locked into, you know, greed is good. And whether we kind of say it out loud or not, we're driven by those factors more than any. And it's, it's a very different space to get people to see the value of, of human value, right human gain within within these areas were just kind of what I always call it is like a personal case for change, which is what is what is it in your life that will motivate you to make a change in yourself for the benefit of others, not just for you know, monetary gain, or power or status and things like that. What else might drive you? And I think that's been the hardest journey like you said, I agree with your first step. It's like it's finding that finding the courage to to not only find In that, but then, but then start taking steps to pursue it. And that's easier, easier said than done. Right?

Isabella Wang  
Yes. And it reminds me, I shouldn't be. So you know, hardcore, actually, I would encourage those leaders to start feeling the taste of being stepping on now, like, all of a sudden, you can, quietly doing within yourself first, you know, what you did is different than before, maybe before you, you would just focus on number or you would do decisions, but you slowly starting to incorporate that humane side, or you follow more your conscious heart. I don't want to be exact, it's gonna be to detail if to be exact, but you know what I'm talking about. If you start falling the conscious heart, I think they can, you can feel the reward feelings, and it will encourage you more once you taste it. And little by little, you step up more, you step up more, and it becomes part of you. Maybe that will help. But you have to be aware to do that. To begin with. Yeah, a lot of us may think, Oh, it's just have be some overnight step and to execute or is not like that, in my opinion. Yeah.

Jeff Ma  
Absolutely. Again, I think we're on the exact same page with a lot of these things, which is why just nodding, smiling. So this is this is a lesson that I don't know, if we ever get across well enough, no matter how many times we say it, the power of like, introspection, for people to really take a hard look at ourselves is, I'm still working on it, it's still a struggle that many people have, or many people haven't tried or practiced in their entire adult life, right, like something where as soon as you find success, whether you know, in a role or in a job, whatever it's locked in, it's much easier to kind of just, let's just repeat and stay in this lane of what works. Absolutely. I think it's so hard to pause and say, You know what, maybe I am part of a problem. Maybe I am not as good as I think I am. Maybe I am creating issues that I don't see. I don't I don't know that the average person is able to easily access that place. That is so powerful. If we do.

Isabella Wang  
Absolutely. I know it's hard. It's yeah, the topic while you guys talk about love and all that I'm sure you have more practical way to guide people to how to experience the progress or how to actually do it. I really need to come down to that level in better explaining and better guiding people, not just on the overstatement. So yeah, I agree. It's, it's complex, it's definitely complex. Because overall, all these things, we're talking about technology, digital age, and it's so complex, it's not because always just good or bad. It's, it's both. To me, it's always about the balance point of both is not just oh, I'm just gonna go for the good. Forget about the bad. I think that's where we're, we're not being able to do with technology as well, we're going one direction, extreme direction. And we were lack of, you know, observation or like you said, reflection on the other side on the human side, or the downside of the technology, we will need to do it's just to find a balance, and maybe to find out in a slower pace. But it's very hard, because we're already on the racing road. And I believe there's a hope and there is hope, if we all be more conscious and aware, like we're talking.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah. I'm very hopeful, of course. So, Isabella. Unfortunately, we've run out of time, I've actually more questions, but yeah, maybe we'll talk again, we'll talk again, maybe soon. But in the meantime, can you share? I guess if people want to get your book or hear more about you what they can do to connect with you.

Isabella Wang  
Sure, um, my book out the book is called the Digital mind of tomorrow. You can definitely search online or pop up Amazon Google Book, things like that. Um, for me, I'm very active on LinkedIn, just search my name Isabella Wang and you will find me on LinkedIn as well.

Jeff Ma  
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with me. I hope I hope I you know, I know you mentioned that we operate a little bit of different levels. And I think it's so important in terms of like you, you need people up in blue sky thinking you need people up in the in the mid range of people down at the ground level working at all things. And I just feel so connected to like your your mission, your ideas and everything. And I hope that we can continue to like, work together and bring humanity back to the workplace.

Isabella Wang  
Absolutely, Jeff, I appreciate the great question and actually hunting me now about chopping. But I will find out I really appreciate this talk. It's a self reflection even to me. So thank you so much.

Jeff Ma  
Amazing. Thank you to our listeners as well, please continue supporting us. We really appreciate it. And you can check out our best selling book Love as a Business Strategy in the same places that you can find Isabella's book, and please subscribe, rate the podcast, tell a friend and continue kind of spreading that love and we will see everybody next week. Thank you so much for tuning in.