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What if the difference between stalled change and a moonshot is your mindset? We sit down with Lenovo’s Ed Soo Hoo to unpack why the best leaders aren’t defined by titles or toolkits but by authenticity, service, and the courage to “blink first.” From four decades across startups and global enterprises, Ed maps a clear strategy for building momentum: protect the core, stretch into adjacencies, and seed the future—running all three in parallel like NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Along the way, he shows how cross-trained teams, shared deliverables, and the right “boosters” turn vision into velocity.
We dig into the Sears cautionary tale and the JFK playbook to illustrate how over-focusing on the present can cost you the future, while smart portfolio design can unlock outsized value. Then we zoom out to two audacious, practical ideas tailored for the AI era: Energy-as-a-Service to stabilize growth amid constrained grids, and a national mental fitness initiative to rebuild resilience, attention, and judgment at scale. Ed’s take is refreshingly human—technology should serve people, not the other way around—and he makes a compelling case for reviving face-to-face connection and embracing serendipity as a catalyst for innovation.
If you’re navigating rapid change, this conversation offers a blueprint you can use today: adopt a servant mindset, structure work across Now–New–Next, rotate talent to compound learning, and tell stories that move people from compliance to commitment. Ready to lead with courage and design for the long game? Follow, share with a colleague who needs this spark, and leave a review with the idea you’ll put into action this week.