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Josh Linkner: Find Your Bold Way- Sparking Innovative Breakthrough · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Josh Linkner.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: He's a serial entrepreneur, a New York Times bestselling author and venture capital investor.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: He has been also a professional jazz musician for multiple years, since the age of 13.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited to talk to you about the many things that intersect between the world of music and the world of business and innovation.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Great to be with you.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of being bold.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to jump right into it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: What is your definition of bold Josh?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: You know, for me it's the willingness to do something at full throttle, where you're not necessarily hedging or couching your bet, you're going sort of all in on something.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: It's funny I wrote a piece years ago that many of us pursue our plan A, which is the sort of safe plan that we've been conditioned to do, and then we have a plan B in case our plan A doesn't work, and then so that's our contingency plan.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And then we have our plan B, has a plan C, which is your contingency plans, contingency plan.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And so we spent all this time and energy and emotion figuring out what happens if things go wrong.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: To me, being bold is the opposite, and I would call that your plan Z.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: The plan Z is, instead of everything going wrong, it's what happens if everything goes right.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: What if you're playing at your full strength?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: What if you're pursuing your calling?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And so, to me, the difference between being bold and not is you know, are you pursuing your plan B, c, d, e or contingency plans, or are you really leaning into your plan Z?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That was one of the things I know when I started off, that when I quit my job without having a job which we talked about briefly I am a planner so I always wanted that backup plan A through Z is what I usually say and what I found out was that if I wasn't what I called all in on my main plan, what I called my plan A you call plan Z my energy was dispersed and I wasn't able to be successful really at anything and I was considering like, oh, what if it doesn't work?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I have to have all these backup plans.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: But it was that switch.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So I'm like I'm definitely someone who believes in what you just said, because once I made that switch because I was interviewing and trying to launch my business, because just in case I needed a real job, I would go back, but it was not helpful to do those things.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So completely all in, going full throttle and really believing that it can go right and it can go well and you'll learn, you know, throughout the process is something I always say too.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So what's a bold moment or a memorable time where you went full throttle into something and kind of live that bold definition?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've done that a lot.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I've done a lot of things wrong too.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: By the way, when I first started getting bold, I think playing jazz and I started playing piano at age eight and then switched to guitar shortly thereafter and jazz is this very dynamic art form that, to a degree, requires you to be bold.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: If I'm playing a jazz performance, and I play it really safe.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: No one wants to hear that or play with you.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, if you really go out on a limb, and even if you make a mistake, it's better than playing small.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: And so jazz for those that don't know is a very improvisational art form.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: You're sort of composing and performing simultaneously.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: It involves a high degree of risk-taking and collaboration and course-correcting and bouncing back, which, by the way, I think is exactly what most people do, what's being required to do in business, In life, yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I started playing jazz and then I started an illegal fireworks company at age 13, where I was selling fireworks out of my school backpack until I got busted by my mom and then you know, so my whole life was kind of like living bold.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: When I was 20, I started a tech company and I'd literally never taken a business class and knew nothing about business.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: But back to what I did.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I knew jazz, and in jazz you adapt to changing conditions and you kind of figure it out as you go.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: And really since, since as far as I can remember, I've had a lot of weaknesses, but the one thing I've done fairly well, I think, is taking that bold alternative.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you're improvving, you're also standing out, right.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So I think sometimes, when, when you're being bold, it means you might stand out, people will notice you.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And for a long time I thought it was a vulnerable state, like, oh, I'm vulnerable if I put myself out there, but actually you're being brave, you're being courageous and you, you don't even know that you could be inspiring someone.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Like when you riff off, like let's go back to music for a second.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: When you start improvving, someone's going to like riff off or come in and like, oh, let me try this, or even try to replicate it, or go back and forth, and you know it becomes a dance, so to speak, with the music.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And when you think about taking that now out to life, when I think of that dance that we have, it's like, oh well, she can do it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe I can try, maybe I can do this.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we don't see the good, the bad, the ugly, right.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: We only see the good, the good, the good, the good in social media.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So I think that's something too for people to realize when someone's being real and you've talked about you've had lots of things that didn't work just as much as things that work too.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So being real is important as part of that process, when you're in life or in business, would you agree?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I totally agree, and, furthermore, I think there may be a misconception.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: The misconception is being bold is risky.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Being not bold is not risky, and I think there's a real fallacy in that.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: We were conditioned as human beings thousands of years ago to flock together, not to stand out, not to be bold, because if you did, you might get eaten by a lion or something.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: But in the conditions that we live in today, it's actually the opposite.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: So one of the surefire paths to failure and or mediocrity blend in and don't stand out.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: What's a good way to lose a company?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Not being bold.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And so what I've discovered is that I think people tend to overestimate the risk of trying something new, of being bold, but they underestimate the risk of standing still and being unbold.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: So, but they underestimate the risk of standing still and being, you know, unbold.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So what happens is we're trying to be safe, but it turns out that, like playing it safe is the riskiest thing you can do in most cases, certainly it is in business.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: There's five main myths that I've talked about in my book, and one of them is just that that we think it's, you know, leaping without looking.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It's not thought provoking, it's not pragmatic.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think being bold is something that is filled with thought, because you are usually like, oh, if it doesn't work this, you know this will happen, I'll do this, I'll plan this.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: You know, there's some unknown to it as well.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there, and I don't think people do measure the risk of not doing something right.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: They measure the risk of doing it versus oh well, what stays the same if I don't actually try or be curious.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I think the other myth is people think being bold is something big and loud and, you know, has to be something that gets splashed everywhere, and some of my boldest moments have been quiet moments, like no one knows about, right, sometimes just between my ears, and so I think that's also an interesting.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I misnomer about it, because people think that it has to be something huge, when it could be just, you know, letting yourself think of the possibility and then taking the steps, taking that action.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So when you were 20 and you.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: You know, created, bought and then sold your business, and you've done that five times over.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: At this point.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You've helped over 100 startups and counting, and continue to do the things that you're doing.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Did you always feel like you were going toward that or how did you end up there?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: You know, never had taken a business class, but you know, bought a tech company and then and then sold it.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Like, how did you get to that point?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny when it sounds like this guns a blazing risky thing.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: But what I've discovered is the best entrepreneurs are actually not the biggest risk takers.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: They take calculated risks, they're thoughtful, but they're not just swing for the fences and irresponsible.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: And it's funny.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I get asked a lot when I'm playing music.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Hey, you're playing jazz, you're in some very high pressure setting.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: You're playing very complex, fast moving music that requires incredible dexterity.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: You're playing with musicians you've never met with, let alone rehearsed with.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: You're improvising as you go.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: How do you know you're going to get it right?
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And I always laugh and say I know I'm not going to get it right, never have, never will.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I've played over a thousand concerts around the world.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I've always made mistakes, and so my confidence as a musician isn't thinking I'm going to be perfect, isn't thinking I'm going to get it right, it's knowing that I'm going to make mistakes and know how to recover, how to bounce back.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And I think it's such an important lesson, way beyond jazz guitar.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: And that's what I did at age 20.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't enter that with cockiness or arrogance or even like unwavering belief that I'd be right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Like I just said, hey, I'm going to give this a shot.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: And as I make mistakes which will be inevitable, I'm going to course correct and I'll navigate through it and I'll figure it out.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I'll find my way.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And so my confidence again had nothing to do with some perfectionistic view of that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I'd be right.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: It was more of that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I'll figure it out as I go, and I know I'm going to get knocked down and I'll figure out how to get back up.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the primary foundations of the bold framework is believe, so it's believe.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The bold framework is believe, so it's believe, own learn and design.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: That's the framework that I created and there's a lot of what you're talking about that resonates with me around belief, belief in oneself.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: You know what I believe can happen or what's possible, things that maybe have been instilled in me that I want to shed, or maybe things that have been instilled in me that I, you know, like from my parents, that I want to like beef up, like anything's possible.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: You, you belong those types of things.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Where do you think belief comes into play with your success and then kind of leading to the next steps?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Where you know you're over 1000 concerts played, you know New York times bestseller, an entrepreneur, you know, with incredible success, and someone who speaks around the world and helps others take those first steps?
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Where did belief come into play for you in starting out and then getting to the point of where you are now?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Really good question.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: You know, when you hear the word belief you think like this belief is chiseled that you're no matter what.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: You're going to win in all circumstances.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: That's not been the case for me and I don't think it is for most people.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I would maybe swap out the idea with more of like mindset.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Certainly connected.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it's more like this mindset of how do you go into something with confidence, knowing you're going to make mistakes, knowing it may not work out okay, but the belief isn't so much that again it'll materialize exactly as you envision, but rather you'll figure it out as you go.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: You believe, regardless of what happens, it's going to be okay and you will be able to figure out the next step, whatever it may be.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So you have that belief in yourself.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: You're betting on yourself to be able to figure it out, yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You know, and further you know, as I was preparing for today and thinking about you and this notion of bold.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: What's the opposite of bold?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Old cold, I don't know.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Well, what's the opposite?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: What would you say is the opposite of bold Timid?
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Probably yeah, shy and like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And then what I don't mean like personality wise, because honestly I can be a little shy I just mean like you're not making the moves that make a difference.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: That's to me how I would describe the opposite of bold you.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking about this today.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I sort of did this little comparison what's that sort of scarcity mindset versus more of a thrive or a bold mindset, right and abundant mindset?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And so to me, I was kind of doing a little comparison.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The timid approach is always thinking about what's the downside.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: The bold approach is thinking about what's the upside.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: The timid approach is being cost-centric.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: The bold approach is being growth-centric.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: The bold approach is being growth centric.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It's a timid approach is seeing things as they are, exactly as they are.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: The bold mindset is seeing what's possible, what can be.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So I started thinking about the difference between, like scarcity and abundance, fear driven versus legacy driven.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I have a problem versus I have a solution, you know, wait and see approach versus a sense of urgency, and drive, being caught in the weeds versus big picture.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: And so to me, you know, back to your notion of belief.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: It is a belief that eventually you're going to end up in a good spot.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: So, but, but it's it's more like this mindset, like how do you go from here to there?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: It's not cockiness at all, but it's more of this sort of mindset around instead of what's going to go wrong, what could go right right with so much change happening in the world and things that disrupt our plans.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I think that was one of the most challenging things for me.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: That I learned about myself during COVID in 2020, particularly, was I just needed to know when we were going to end so that I could plan towards that end and I would know exactly what to do operationally in the organization I worked in.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: That was the problem.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: There was no end.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: There was no way to say it ends on April 1st 2024.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: You know, like, whatever it may be, and I think that was the thing that kind of wrecked a lot of people who were, you know, quote-unquote planners or people who could do things within a time frame.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I think what I learned about myself is that the ability to adapt, to innovate, to just accept at certain times that it wasn't going to happen.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I think that came later for me, in 2020, after I experienced burnout, because I got to that point of like trying to control everything.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So I think burnout is the far end of trying to control everything and trying to make everything work and connect and do your very best and work harder.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: But when we're thinking about all the change that's happening in the world today in 2024, where do we go left like go wrong or try to control things in a way that ultimately ends in failure.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Or you know you're upset or you're just feeling like you're not successful.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Where do we like take the misstep?
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's a common one?
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I think there are a few common missteps, really good question.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: One of them is the over-indexing, the certainty, and so I think, to a degree, many people overpay for certainty.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So, if the choice is okay, you can have a job and a really steady salary for I'm just making up a silly example but for $60,000 a year, but you have the potential as an entrepreneur to be a million dollars a year.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: To a degree, you're paying $940,000 a year for certainty, and so I don't think people necessarily think that way, that they may be over-indexing or overpaying, whether it's money, whatever else, for certainty.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I think the notion is also, because of that desire for certainty, that they aren't agile, so like, okay, if I don't have a plan, I'm not going to go anywhere, and then, once I have that plan, I'm going to lock and be obsessed or tunnel vision with the plan, as opposed to being sort of agile and fluid and being able to like, figure things out as they go To a degree.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: It's the difference between classical music, which is playing the notes exactly as Mozart intended, versus what I love, jazz, which is again more fluid and agile, and so I think that's the other thing.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: The last thing I'll say is that where people get it wrong is they think that success is a permanent condition.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Like I've arrived, I've cracked the code.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And that might be true if we lived in a static world, but today the world is changing at a rate like none other in history, and so we can't be anything close to resting on what worked in the past.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It's funny as I built my own business, I had a saying.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I repeated it so often, my folks got sick hearing it and I didn't care.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: And the saying was simply this that someday a company will come along and put us out of business, but might as well be us.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I embrace that same approach personally still today.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Like, how do I put the Josh of six months ago out of business?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: What are the things that I can do to constantly be in a state of upgrading?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be stressful and overwhelming.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: It actually can be rather encouraging and exciting, but the notion is just not being stagnant.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Even if you enjoy some success, hey, that's awesome, spike the ball, but it's a temporary condition.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So how do you build off that success and continue to reimagine the future, as opposed to clinging so tightly to something that worked in the past?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Right, and a few words you had in there.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you say is creativity over brute force.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Sometimes, if we're trying to win at something let's say you're trying to meet a quarterly number, if you're a company, or even if you're trying to do something with your family your instinct is to just crank it out.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to exert more effort, I'm going to put more hours in, I'm just going to try harder, and while that might work once or twice in a short-term situation, it's not sustainable and that's why we have so much burnout and stress and anxiety and depression, on and on and on.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: So I think a more pragmatic approach is to say how do I replace the extra effort, the extra hustle, with extra creativity, which is not just doing the same thing and trying harder.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: It's maybe trying something different, doing a fresh approach.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and trying harder.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It's maybe trying something different, taking a fresh approach.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I apologize, it's agility over brute force, so like being able to kind of be able to move quickly and to get at it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Was there anything you would add around the agility aspect of it?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: You know, to me, agility is just that you're always recalibrating the changing conditions.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know if you are you know I'm not an athlete or anything but you know if you're out on the field, you see the team is doing something.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: You keep losing every, every play.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't just keep doing the same thing.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: You'd want to adjust to the changing conditions.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: And that's, to me, what agility is all about is that you know you try something and, by the way, most often in business and in life, you don't know with certainty.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It's an experiment.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: You try to experiment and then you see how it worked and then you say, okay, well, now you try.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Let's say it worked Now, wednesday you tried again and it didn't work.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, why not?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the conditions change.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: What changed?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: How do I adapt?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: How do I evolve, how do I refine my approach to meet the changing conditions?
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And so that's to me, what agility is is, rather than being sort of dog at persistence, it's adapting as you go.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So, as we're finding a way, and I want to jump into the five steps, some of the times we may think we're being judged or we may be comparing ourself to somebody else.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: What's your advice to someone who's in that fearful place of oh they, you know I'll be judged or someone won't understand me as I'm going through this, finding my way, you know, getting to the next level, or just figuring things out, or that I'm comparing myself to you or to someone else or to someone that's made it big, and you know, here I am.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I mean I think I saw a quote the other day was like everyone's a 10 year overnight success.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it takes a bit of time too, I think, and people get impatient.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So judgment, comparison and then impatience with time.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: What's your insight on that in your experience with it?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think all three of those are real and they're poisonous forces that rob us of our full potential, you know.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And so, again, I'm not being glib about them, I experienced all those too, by the way, like you know for sure.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: But it's more like acknowledging what those are, that those are false voices in our heads.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Those are sort of the saboteurs trying to get in the way and recognize them.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: I think the best way to do it is sort of disassociate, like, instead of saying I'm falling short, it's like, you know, my negative voice is telling me I'm falling short, and that's the difference, because you're not accepting the identity of somebody who you know.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: It's more like it's an external force you can recognize and try to try to conquer.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that you know there's all those things that social media, like you know, we have this ridiculous ideal standard.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: But, by the way, none of that is true, like I've hung out with.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: I counted the other day 14 billionaires in various capacities you want to work with for 10 years and yeah, that person won more, but he also failed more.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: He also had lots of setbacks and frailties and you never see that Like that's not on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It's a success, is not a stumble.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly so I think, just recognizing giving ourselves some grace.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: If a friend of yours threw something up, you don't berate that person, you don't tell them they're an idiot, that they're a failure.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: But the way we talk to ourselves, you wouldn't be friends with yourself if you talk to yourself.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I would definitely not be friends with myself on some.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So I think that some of that is giving yourself a little grace and support and love and that make you do to move, move out, yeah, and just accepting we're human, like it's.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It's okay to not be at 101% every single day and it's okay to have dips, and I think it is interesting coming out of the corporate world and being an entrepreneur early on.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I still feel a bit like a freshman, you know year four, but just continuing to figure it out, but again believing in having a mindset of like we will figure it out.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is tough right now.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, we lost that contract or that didn't really pan out, because every idea is not a good idea.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: It's an idea Right, and so I think it's important to you know, be curious, but also, you know, understand that everything's not going to be a home run, and I think that's something that definitely I've gotten better at accepting over the last four years too.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the thing is like.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: I studied innovation and I would say you know, if someone wants innovation, they're going to have to tolerate mistakes and setbacks, or you just want to have innovation.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Same thing with us as people If we have a vision for what our lives to be like and the impact that we want to make and the relationships that we want to have, the only way that will happen is through a series of setbacks, mistakes, obstacles, challenges, adversity.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: That's just part of life.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: In fact, if you're not stumbling, you're probably not trying hard enough.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: And so I think that.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And so, giving ourselves again that grace, recognizing that as part of the process, and instead of berating ourselves like what can I learn from it, I just look at again.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I'm really into this experimentation mindset, so I try something new.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Either it works awesome or it doesn't work awesome.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And now I learn from it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying like failure is fun or I'm not being silly about it, but like, instead of win or lose, how about win or learn?
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And that mindset tweak, it's a very small adjustment, it's really powerful.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Because you're like, okay, this experiment didn't work, what can I learn from it?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: What am I going to do differently tomorrow?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that win or learn instead of win or lose, and I think we do.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: We go through this phase of, I think for me, you know being in the corporate world and I'm not bashing it or anything but there's a routine, there's a set step, there's a you get to do this.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Once you do that and once I tell you you're good enough, you can do this and you can be named that, and it's like it's just ingrained and for me it like started in college of like this is what you do, this is how you do it, this is how you dress, this is what you say, this is when you talk, this is when you don't talk.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And again, not bashing any of it, because I learned so much from it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: But I think it was in my early 40s that I started having friction with the system, meaning like there was this.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: No, that really isn't the best way to do it, or couldn't we try something different?
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You know, working in healthcare, it's not the most innovative agile organization.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You know type at times, and so just, I think that's where I realized now, looking back in my fifties, looking back at my forties, like oh, that's what that was.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That was me being an innovative agitator wanting to experiment or try something and really the system not really being set up for it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: So when you're working with an organization and you're feeling that friction, what would you say to someone?
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Because I think that's you know, not everyone's an entrepreneur.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: You know we're within our own organizations and working and maybe you know it's something that we really enjoy, but we're feeling that friction of wanting to be more experimental, wanting to have that mindset of growth and innovation and creativity, but maybe the organization isn't as embracing of it.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Are there micro steps that we can take into that?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really funny that you asked that question.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So my most recent book was called Big Little Breakthroughs how Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And I set out on this mission.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I wanted to understand how do the most innovative leaders think and act.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: I spent over 1,000 hours on the research.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I interviewed CEOs, billionaires, celebrity entrepreneurs, grammy award-winning musicians you name it and what I discovered was fascinating that the best innovators actually are not these.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Like again, guns blazing everything is a wild bet to farm risk.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: They just cultivate small daily acts of creativity.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It's the baby steps or micro innovations that really fuel progress, and I think the same can happen in our personal lives or even in a company.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: If you go to the barge, into the CEO's office and say I need a blank check at unlimited time because I have some wonky vision, they'll call security.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: That's going to work.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: You're going to get walked out.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: You're going to get walked out.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: But on the other hand, if you're like, hey, I want to try this one thing for $20 and 15 minutes on a Tuesday, people generally have a more appetite for that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So I actually think that a more pragmatic approach.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: If you're saying like, how do I be bold?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: How do I be an innovator?
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: It's actually taking little baby steps and looking for little ways.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Put some points on the board, gain some momentum, and once you do that, you can start to expand the aperture a bit when people maybe make the mistake.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Being bold to me does not equal being reckless.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: You can be bold and you can use good judgment.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: You can be bold and be thoughtful and pragmatic and intentional.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Right, 100%.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be big, like you said.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It can be those micro moments of even writing it down, talking with a friend, you know, putting it out there that yes, it's possible.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, where would I start?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: What's the first step?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And I think people get over, I think sometimes overwhelmed by steps one through 50, and they're like, oh my gosh, like I could never afford it, I could never do it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: You know that's selfish, how could I ever think of that?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: The, the, how moments, right, and it's really like just think about step one, then two, then three, and then I think that's what's challenging.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: But I think your book and what you write about and the examples you have in that book are incredible of like it's just the first step and then it leads to the second and the third.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: So, but it's overcoming your fear and having your belief in yourself and that mindset that you'll figure it out, right, and I think that one thing you say is that every problem has a solution, that everything can be figured out.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And I don't think people understand what that truly means.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And how would you describe, you know when you say that, what that means?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you know you said something.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: You know overcoming your fear, and I might put a slightly different word, it's more like compartmentalizing your fear, because sometimes you may not have conquered your fear and slayed it like a dragon and you're standing above your fear with a bloody sword.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: We cohabitate.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Cohabitate.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly right.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: So I think it's more like your part.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So when I try something new, I don't do it in the absence of fear, I do it in the presence of fear.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: But the difference is I'm not letting my fear get in the way of decisions or progress.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not letting overwhelming me.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, yep, there's fear, I'm going to put it over here, I'm going to pull a box out, I I'm just going to keep going, and so anyway, that was just a little thought that I had.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that I did in 21 to 22 was I thought it'd be super cool to to write an album with your life tracks.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And so I work with a band in Nashville and one of the songs is called enough.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And that was like my thing of like Am I enough?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Am I doing enough?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Am I working hard enough?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: There's this line in the song was like fear introduced me to doubt and then we didn't want to hang out and anyway, it's like that, just like came in my head when you were talking, because for me it was just I realized that I couldn't overcome them all, but we just needed to cohabitate and I don't want to hang out with you.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I know you're there, you know your presence is acknowledged, but I'm going to still be moving forward, I'm going to still keep trying and it can pop up every now and then, you know, but it's what you do with it and how you deal with it that's so important.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: So let's make sure we get into find a way.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the five steps of find a way.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: First is start before you're ready.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Second is fall in love with the problem.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Third is let the sparks fly.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Step four is run the experiment and five is fire the slingshot.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: So can you walk us through that?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: If you were trying to explain what find a way in the method and the framework that you've created is all about Sure.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So the idea, first of all, is that, like you said, every problem can be figured out, and it's a core belief that you know any opportunity can be seized, any problem can be solved.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And that might sound like a big statement, but when you go back in history, imagine someone in the 1800s thinking about a car, imagine someone in 1925 thinking about an iPhone that seemed like ridiculous.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: And yet here we are.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: And so I do believe that even things that are really plaguing us, societally wise, can be solved.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: So I guess there's a bit of an optimism in there, but I always bet on human ingenuity every time.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I just think it's a core belief.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the steps are.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: So how do you take that belief?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to figure out a problem.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: There's something I crave, an outcome.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's a business outcome, a personal outcome, a family outcome, whatever.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And how do I do?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: What do I do?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So the first thing is start before you're ready.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Too often, when we see an opportunity or a challenge, instead of like leaping in, we wait, and we're waiting for an ideal plan or ideal conditions, and the problem is there's a real risk in waiting First of all, we may never start, we may wait too long, we may give up opportunities to cycle and do experiments.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: So I think a better approach is just kind of throw yourself in motion even if you can't see the finish line, just like I did when I started a tech company.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: I was 20 years old, I didn't know anything about business, I just said I'm going to figure it out as I go.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And that gets back to playing a little jazz being agile and fluid and adapting to changing conditions, trying new things and kind of navigating through uncertainty as you go From there.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: You talk about this notion of falling in love with the problem.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Too often we fall in love with a solution Like I'm going to do that and we become so fixated on the solution we lose sight of the problem that we're trying to solve.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: This is a saying in Silicon Valley that people have is, you know, you first really fall in love with a customer problem that you're trying to fix and then you remain fluid.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: You're like, okay, here's a solution, but maybe there's a better solution I could find later.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Or, if my solution isn't currently working, I don't just give up because I'm really committed to solving the problem Now I'll just try something new.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: And so it's really aligning around the big picture challenge that you're going after and remaining open-minded to solving it, however, is the best approach to get there.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Can I stop you there just for a second, because sometimes people try to boil the ocean.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: You know, like some of my clients, like I want to do this, this, this and this and I want to solve world hunger, and it's, like you know, getting down and getting the problem niche down enough that one.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It actually shows your expertise and you actually have the ability to do things differently than anyone else.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Is there any tip you have for that or do you agree with sometimes people's problem they're trying to solve is too big and therefore their expertise or what they do differently than anyone else can't be seen?
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I think, actually, very often you're better tightening the focus rather than widening it, Exactly.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: And so instead of saying I want to do like I want to cure all, I want to make every ocean clean.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That's a big problem.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: How about you start with, like a small lake, or like one particular you know contaminant, you know at a time?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get real serious and do that really really well.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that takes time, patience, right.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So you know cause people want.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Again, going back to your example of you, know they want something.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: They want the end, the solution, the big thing, instead of thinking about, okay, what is the problem I'm solving.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted to insert that because I think sometimes people ski over their skis a bit and they're not really defined enough to actually be successful.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: But they could, if they just niche it down to really where they live, what they're good at, what they're passionate about, and figuring it out.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're actually better off in many cases starting narrow and then going wide once success happens.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Just a real quick example of that I run a venture capital firm called Mudita Venture Partners M-U-D-I-T-A.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: In case you're wondering, mudita is a Sanskrit term, which means taking joy in other people's success.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: So the fact that you launch your business and you're being bold, I get joy in that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: That fills my heart.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Is that a personal thing?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I'm happy for you.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Anyway, one of the things that we do is, in addition to investing in outside companies, we have a division called Mudita Studios where we launch our own companies, and we started with this really wide idea Could we help people with varying disabilities have a better experience on Zoom calls and using teleconferencing and such?
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: So that was such a wide thing.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: It's too big, probably.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So we started narrowing and looking for something more narrow.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: What we ended up landing on is that 7 million people in the US need sign language to understand messages.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you'll see like a public announcement someone's signing.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: The problem with sign professionals is that they're very expensive.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: There's not enough of them.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: You can't do that with every Zoom call, and so it puts people who have that particular issue at a disadvantage.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So now we're starting to zero in a particular problem a narrow problem, not a wide problem and so now we're actually considering building a company that uses AI modeling so that someone could use sign language and it could interpret it back into spoken words or written words.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: For the person who doesn't sign and someone who is speaking in English or out loud, it could use an AI bot to essentially convert that into sign language for the person without the need of a professional to intervene.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And so what we did is again, we started with wide, and it was too wide.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: We couldn't come up with something that could be a feasible business.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: It only worked once.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: We narrowed it down, and so we fell in love with a narrower problem, and now we have a path to proceed.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, all right, picking up at, let the sparks fly.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So letting the sparks fly is the notion of.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Too often we conflate and confuse the idea of creativity and idea and execution.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: And because some of us so many of us are like execution focused, that's the way we've been brought up in school, et cetera, then maybe you have a little idea.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Everybody pounces and says why the idea won't work, like we prematurely extinguish an idea.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And often a little spark of an idea isn't the final thing.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It's not defensible yet it's like a baby.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: It can't, can't fend for itself.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: But it's the idea that leads to the idea, that leads to another idea that really becomes the one you're looking for.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And so letting the sparks fly is this notion of letting creativity happen unencumbered.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: You're not worried about where it's going to fit in the PowerPoint deck or what's the boss going to say, or who's going to fund it, or none of that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: You're just sort of letting creativity unfold.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: You're sending your executional brain out to Starbucks for a little while and giving yourself permission to really create unencumbered.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Nice Once you.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Then now you might have like a hundred ideas, let's say.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: By the way, people are like oh, what if I have a bad idea?
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: What if you have a hundred ideas and 99 of them suck.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: You know what you got left over.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: A good idea?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, take the pressure off yourself.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a silver bullet.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Every idea doesn't have to be magical.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Every idea shouldn't be the Mona Lisa.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Just, you know, unencumbered, no judgment, let it fly.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Once you do that, you might have a pretty extensive list.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You might.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You know, after you generate a hundred ideas, you might quickly discard 90 of them, and now you're down to 10.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: So you say, okay, we got 10 remaining ideas, can we test them?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And so that step number four is let's run the experiment, which is how can we test them cheap and fast?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: You know, if you gave each one of those a one hour max time limit and a $25 budget, could you test all 10 ideas with one customer or using Play-Doh as a model or something.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And what you will find pretty quickly is that then the data starts to show you so, of those 10 ideas, even though the bots really love number one, that idea doesn't show merit, so you get rid of it and eventually you're left with like two ideas or one idea that's the killer idea, and you just kind of keep testing it, you know.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, now expand the size of the experiment.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Try it in a different.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: So, by the time you get to launching something, my observation is you can take 90% of the risk off the table if you're a thoughtful experimenter.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Again, we're all afraid of innovation or boldness risk.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Take it off the table.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I would say experimentation is the antidote to innovation or boldness risk.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Data.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Data.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: And then, finally, that last step, launching the slingshot, is essentially okay.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Now that we've got this idea, we narrowed it down from 100 down to one.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: We've tested it, we're feeling good about it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Let's put ourselves behind it.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Let's go bold, essentially and it's really the notion of putting it into action If you just stop there and you have a cool experiment to brag about, that didn't make the world a better place.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So rather now it's like okay, let's put it in the world and give it a shot and see what happens right back around, because once it's launched, the world's changing dramatically.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: You're not going to become over committed to it.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Then you go right back to the beginning.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, what needs to be evolved?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: What's the problem we're focusing on?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: And so this is a circular process, not a linear one, and if you keep repeating those cycles over time, I think most people will enjoy success and most people will be able to find a way to the thing they crave.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what happens a lot when you hear this incredible framework and it feels like it's so simple.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It sounds easy but in life people know it isn't you and I know that isn't is not an easy framework to go through.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: But change isn't easy.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Adapting and innovating isn't easy, and I think that's what's interesting.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: When I'm having a client call or talking to an organization and someone says, well, it's just not that simple and you're lucky to be doing what you're doing, because I just don't have that capability or that ability to just be bold, what would you say or what would your guidance be to someone who thinks, wow, that's a great framework, but it's just not that simple and it isn't easy?
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I say is that I think the word simple and easy are two different concepts.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I think the framework that I shared is actually very simple.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, is it clearer?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Can you understand it?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: It actually is simple.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Easy is something different.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Easy means that people, I think, are saying, oh, it means I don't need to exert effort, I don't need to take any risk and I don't have to, it's going to be guaranteed a success.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: And so, absolutely right, and almost I would say that anything we're doing in life probably isn't easy.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: If it has all those attributes, it's probably not the thing that you crave.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And so I think now it gets back to what we were talking about earlier is that notion of self-talk and a poisonous sort of scarcity mindset and doubt and fear and everything.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: We've got to compartmentalize and say, okay, it may be simple, but it isn't easy, meaning that there is some element of risk, there's some element of hard work and sacrifice.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's you know, welcome to the world.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: But I think the way it starts to feel better and more palatable is just breaking it down into small chunks.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Instead of saying I'm going to do everything all at once down into small chunks, instead of saying I'm going to do everything all at once, am I betting my life on it?
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: It's sort of lowering the stakes in each of those dimensions, even though there'll be some risk.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: How can I make the first step less risky, even though it will require some effort?
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: How can I make it?
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: So it isn't a Herculean effort, it's a little effort I can tolerate, even though there may be some ambiguity.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: How can I minimize the ambiguity?
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: By taking it one step at a time.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: So I think again, it's sort of identifying what those blockers are that are making it feel difficult and continuing to chunk it down, narrow the scope, make little baby steps and reducing those dimensions of angst so that you can move forward, at least in a state of maybe not total comfort, but definitely not chaos.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, I don't think growth happens in total comfort.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I just don't.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: And so and it doesn't.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I think people need to realize that that when you're growing, trying doing something, being curious, you're going to feel some discomfort, and I think that's the other thing for people to realize too.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: So we'll end on this.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: You have a quote of never let the music inside die.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: So when people are feeling like they're going through the same day over and over, they're just waiting to retire.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: You know, when I'm, when I'm 65, I'll do this.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: You know when I'm this position, I'll do that.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: For me, that is an example of you're just kind of accepting what is and not really living life.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: What does that mean to you, that quote?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And then how can someone begin to get the music back in their life or start to?
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: You know, take their volume from two to four to five.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the when trap is one that many of us fall into.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: You know I'll be happy when.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: You know I'll live at full power when I have the right job, partner, marriage, house, car.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: When I lose weight, when I get that promotion, when I make X dollars, you know, insert it.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Insert.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Insert when exactly?
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: And so I think it's about you're right.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: It's about living now and being present and saying, okay, nothing wrong with having a destination or a goal, that's awesome, but don't mortgage your existence only based on achieving that goal.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: And so, how can I enjoy life now?
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: How can I be creative now?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: What can I do today?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: So I think it's this back to being bold.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: It's not waiting, it's savoring the moment and going after things that may not have complete clarity but nonetheless are worth pursuing, and sort of like don't delay living.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Live now and find your way as you go.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Figure it out.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: You will figure it out for sure.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: All the information about Josh, his speaking, his books and everything about his framework is in the episode notes.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you again.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: My pleasure.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.