Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Rethinking How We Learn With Erin Huizenga

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Rethinking How We Learn With Erin Huizenga · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  So founder of Desklight and author of Learning in the Wild,
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  which I definitely want to talk about both of those things.
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  I'm excited. I know you're excited about the
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  book too, which you launched. How long ago has been now?
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  A few months. Probably about a year.
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  A year and a half ago now. Nice, nice.
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  And I saw you were named the one of the 100 women to know in
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  America according to Chase JP Morgan.
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  I was curious how you how you won that.
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  Like what makes someone the hundred person or yeah top woman
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  to know? It was a really funny story.
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  I I had an e-mail come in. It was one of those emails where
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  you're like, is this real or, or not so much.
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  Yeah, follow through with the Zoom call and did an interview
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  with them and I got selected and I guess they they interviewed
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  quite a few people across the country.
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  And the best part of the whole thing was, was flying to
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  Scottsdale and being in the room with all of the winners.
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  And they hosted a big awards night.
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  And it was unlike anything I've ever done in terms of amazing,
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  amazing women all. In the same room together.
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  I bet it. Was really great.
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  Probably some good networking. You probably still talk to some
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  of those. People.
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  Yeah. Oh yeah.
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  That's cool. Then you got to go to
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  Scottsdale, so that's always nice.
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  How would you sum up what you do in a sentence or two for those
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  listening right now to kind of Orient them?
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  Yeah, we help make learning experiences better.
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  We, we, we take what is usually in place that's typically
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  punitive and not so fun to get through.
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  And we make learning craveable and more enjoyable for everybody
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  to go through. And that includes, you know,
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  equity as well as accessibility and just fun, you know, just
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  reinventing what is, is known to be learning out there in adult
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  learning circles and trainings. You know, so I love to bring my
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  passion for creativity and, and you know, my background in
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  branding and agencies and stuff to this, to this world of
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  instructional design. Cause typically it's not so
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  great. It's boring, right?
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  Yeah, I was going. To say it's hard to learn when
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  you're not having fun, you know, there has to be some level.
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  That's why I've always been big into entertainment, you know,
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  entertaining as you educate from content standpoint, from video
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  content standpoint, because if you can educate people while
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  you're giving them some level of entertainment or engagement,
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  they're going to stick around more.
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  They're going to be more interested, they're going to be
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  more engaged and so. Absolutely.
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  I'm always saying that our learning experiences need to be
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  as great as any consumer experience.
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  And why aren't they? And typically they're not very
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  funded. And so we're out to to reinvent
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  that and, and change that narrative, change that story
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  because they feel like if we're asking people to sit through a
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  learning experience, it should be worth their time and their
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  investment. Yeah.
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  How do humans learn? What do you know about the way
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  that we learn? And has that changed over time
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  from what we've discovered recently?
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  There's a lot of cognitive science behind, you know, how we
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  retain information and, and how we decide that our brains will
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  get hooked into certain kinds of learning.
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  So there's things like repeated, you know, just going back
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  through and figuring out what their recall and repetition pay
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  slit needs to look like to get things into our minds.
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  There's a lot to say about going back to information that you
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  haven't quite locked in. Yeah, that's what my Ted talk is
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  actually about, where you can go back and revisit something again
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  and again and not say that it's done, not to tell yourself that
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  it's completely done. And your brain actually helps
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  you to remember that information better and work on it sort of
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  subliminally behind the scenes before you call it done.
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  So you are actually training your brain, designing your brain
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  to help you to push through and come up with better ideas.
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  There's a book called Made Make It Stick that's one of the best
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  books out there around cognitive science and learning retention.
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  And when I was a kid, and I think they're all throughout my
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  schooling, they always said that everyone learns a little bit
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  differently. Is that still true today and
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  from what we know? Everybody does learn a little
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  bit differently and then sorting out the difference between
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  pedagogy and andragogy as well. So pedagogy is K12 learning
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  principles. So we typically treat our kids
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  in a way where we don't give them any authority or permission
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  to bring their previous experiences to the table because
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  we assume that they don't have previous experiences or they
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  haven't been exposed to certain information before.
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  And yeah, kids in K12 and in adult learning circles, they all
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  learn very differently. We all have different things
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  that we bring to the table. Although the the typical ideas
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  around visual learner versus auditory learner.
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  That's what I remember hearing about, yeah.
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  Versus kinesthetic. Learn which one am.
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  I think I'm a visual visual, but also doing.
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  I know I'm not like a read. If I read something, I'm like,
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  I'll retain it a little bit, but sometimes I gotta go back and
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  read something again because I'm like, I don't know if I really
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  got that. Yeah, yeah.
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  There's some science behind it now that says that that's not
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  completely true, that everybody is 1, like one of the three.
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  But to your point, like it's a little bit of all of it.
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  And then there's a lot of other stuff in between all of that
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  too. In terms of ways that we can
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  design things to be retained more effectively.
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  Andragogy is different than pedagogy because we believe that
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  people, we know that people as adults want to be invited into
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  recognizing and talking about what they already know or what
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  they've already done in their lives.
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  So, you know, in these cohorts like, hey, Alex, tell me about
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  the time you went to Barcelona when we're studying Spain.
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  You know, we, you, you're sitting there like I went to
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  Barcelona. I want to talk about this
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  experience. You know, totally yes.
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  So that's one thing around Andragachi that's different.
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  Another thing is just applying that knowledge right away, you
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  know, in 5 minutes from now or tomorrow.
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  Otherwise, the trainer or the chief learning officer shouldn't
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  be offering that information that soon until that learner can
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  actually apply that information because it's kind of in one ear
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  out the other. So there's things that we're
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  thinking about around how to design good learning for adults
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  that I think apply to kids too. Because now that kids have so
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  much more access to things on YouTube and AI, we should be
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  treating them like adults as it relates to learning in some
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  ways. Do you look at the learnings in
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  school the way we teach kids? Do you think that system is a
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  little bit broken? Very.
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  Not even a little. Very.
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  I was being nice. Very broken.
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  Yeah. How so?
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  I agree. I have an 11 year old and a nine
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  year old, and there are some things I'm like, I think they
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  all have good hearts and like, they've been great people.
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  But there's the system not to teach, but the system just seems
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  like it's old, like it hasn't evolved quite the way we'd want
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  it to. Yeah.
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  You know, the system was was built a long time ago when the
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  system was built for serving what we needed.
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  And we were growing little adults that were going to work
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  in factories or, you know, be asked to essentially be
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  implementers in some system. But now we need students to be
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  creative thinkers and emotionally intelligent and
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  entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and all the things that the system
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  is putting on our kids are things arguably can be done with
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  technology now, yeah. That's what's scary.
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  It's like learn all these things.
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  Like I can literally go to Chachi BT and type this or
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  Google. Yeah, it's like my kids learning
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  what someone else is doing in 2 seconds on a computer.
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  There's some fundamentals I think that you need to learn,
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  like math or of course, but it seems like the whole system
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  skewed towards that. They're going to get out and be
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  like, well, what did I just do all that for?
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  Yeah, and the, and the schools are telling a lot of the kids
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  not to use right, which is completely the wrong narrative
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  in my opinion. So there's a lot of work being
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  done around how to integrate AI with teacher best practices.
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  And sometimes when we're going straight to the students with
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  AII don't think it's necessarily right because the teachers
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  really need a lot of help to support the students.
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  The students need as much human FaceTime as we can possibly give
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  them for all of the reasons around growth and human
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  development. So to sub in an AI versus an
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  actual human in the classroom, I think is kind of short sighted.
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  But to use AI to help teachers teach better and help and be
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  empathetic to their experience, Yeah, what they're trying to do,
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  because they're all so overworked and totally and yeah,
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  just in general, sitting in a classroom all day.
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  No, no, no adult would want to do that.
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  No adult ever would want to do that.
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  Yeah, you know, even though some jobs you are in a cubicle all
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  day. But I know, man, that would
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  drive me crazy. I'm in here one day a week to do
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  the podcast. That's pretty much it, yeah.
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  Other than that, I'm like, I can't wait to get out of here.
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  You know, I like doing the podcast, but after that I'm
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  like, alright, I'm out. I don't want to be stuck in, you
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  know, 4 walls all day. Right, right.
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  So yeah, there's a lot being done around, you know, student
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  narratives around what if we got them out of the classrooms on
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  field trips almost everyday if we can, thinking about, you
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  know, funding and timing and all of that.
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  But ideal state, get them out and into the world, get them
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  working on projects. Project based learning is a
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  huge, huge thing right now. Why do you think it doesn't
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  change as fast as we'd like it to the education system?
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  It seems like we all agree. I thought every single person I
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  talked to like, Yep, education system is broken, but it's like,
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  what are we doing about it? Pretty much nothing.
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  It's like if this was an entrepreneurial system or
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  company, I feel like we would just identify a problem and
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  almost immediately start working towards the solution.
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  I know it's a big problem and it's, there's a lot of systemic
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  stuff, you know, and politics and things like that, but it
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  just seems like we're just kind of not moving very fast.
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  It's such a huge question and so much systemic.
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  You know, if you want, if you move one piece, you know, if you
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  move one thing on the chess board, the rest, you have to be
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  thinking about all the intended and unintended consequences of
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  what that means. So it's it's, it's one of those
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  things like which direction to kind of take it in.
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  But I think it's because the schools are supporting kids in
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  ways that they weren't ever meant to support the kids.
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  And there's a lot of what do you?
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  Mean by that? Expectation, you know, equity
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  wise, there's a there's there's a lot of needs that students
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  have that schools are fulfilling for lower underserved kids.
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  There's a lot of of emotional and and social support that
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  schools are providing. So that means that we can't
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  redesign the classroom experience as fast for the sake
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  of the, you know, funding and the, the ability for us to look
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  across all of the schools and say we're doing our best to
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  provide as much access and equity to all the, all the kids
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  in the, in the public schools across the country, in different
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  cities. I think independent schools have
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  an opportunity and have always done stuff outside the box that
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  public school districts can look at for inspiration and data and
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  understanding of like what's going right and what's not going
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  quite right. Montessori schools have a really
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  interesting way of, for example, putting together a project plan
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  for a student at the top of a week.
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  And they're able to, the student is able to kind of go through
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  that project plan sort of as they need to or want to
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  throughout the week. And as long as they're done with
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  their work by Friday afternoon, then, you know, the teacher
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  says, great, you did a good job. And it allows for them to kind
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  of do more if they are really passionate about something.
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  And then the teachers are able to see like, oh, you know, Knox
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  is really good at math, and we should challenge him a little
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  bit more because he actually seems to enjoy it so.
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  Must have a son named Knox or something.
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  I do OK. No one would throw out that
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  name. That's a unique name.
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  Yeah, OK. So.
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  And how old is he? He's 15. 15 cool only.
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  Is that your only child? Yep.
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  Nice cool. I'm really curious on how you've
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  worked with him on the learning stuff too.
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  But I also want to get to, I know you're like, that's not
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  your niche as the school system. Right, you guys, I feel like
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  that was a kind of a messy answer there.
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  There's so much there to. Say no, it's not.
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  No, it's not. I, I agree with everything that
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  you said and to bring it back to adults, because obviously you
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  work with companies and help them develop learning systems
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  and things like that to obviously grow.
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  What are some misconceptions that companies have about
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  learning? One-size-fits-all the way that
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  we just talked about, you know, learners don't all learn in the
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  same way and we can't just give a new onboarded person a
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  learning pathway and expect them to be on it and be happy about
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  it and feel like it's meant for them.
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  So there's a lot of out-of-the-box trainings that
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  aren't quite right and don't quite fit, so it makes the
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  learning feel punitive. So I think that's one thing that
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  companies don't quite get right or maybe misunderstand.
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  And there's a lot more opportunity to design their
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  experience in terms of internal learning and development as a
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  benefit, almost like an employee benefit.
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  And I think that's an opportunity that when we bring
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  that idea to some of these leadership teams, they're like,
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  oh, I hadn't quite thought about it in that way.
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  Where I'm thinking about a benefit of something I pay for
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  externally for the sake of my team, but this is something that
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  we could generate and customize that would become almost like a
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  brand ambassador moment for us internally as much as
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  externally. I could see some business
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  leaders being like, what's the ROI of my employees continuously
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  learning and what do you say when they start bringing up that
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  conversation and just what maybe if they don't even ask, but
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  maybe just what have you seen in terms of return or outcomes or
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  transformations on? You got company A over here that
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  doesn't really have any. You know, they throw a book
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  every now and then to an employee and then you got
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  Company B over here that really has embraced a lot of the things
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  that maybe you guys teacher implement that and they're a
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  learning just facility. They're a learning organization.
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  What do those companies look like?
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  Yeah, I, I think the certainly the notion of employee retention
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  and longevity and ability to pivot inside of the company, IBM
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  is a great example of this where also Salesforce, they've really
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  thought a lot about what learning can look like and even
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  internal badging systems and ideas around how to know that
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  certain employees are interested in things and that they're ready
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  and capable to be either upscaled or have been upscaled
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  into different positions within the company.
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  I think too, just on the level of being a company ambassador, I
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  think it's good for companies to invest in the whole person while
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  they're at that company or organization.
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  And so they can not only be a good ambassador while they're
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  there with customers or with other employees, but as they
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  move on, they will always know, gosh, that company really
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  invested in me like no other company had ever done.
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  So the ROI is actually really great because those people
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  become ambassadors and talk so well about the company and all
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  that they learned almost like a university experience or any
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  kind of certification experience like a General Assembly or or
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  Academy that they might go through.
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  So to position a company not only as a company or an
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  organization serving outside stakeholders, but also internal
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  stakeholders that are customers. So how does a company do it?
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  Because I know like, you know, I talked about most companies,
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  I've been guilty of this too. You get a book, it's like, let's
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  read this book or like you have, you know, some bigger companies
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  have online courses or modules. God forbid you have to go
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  through those. I've went through some corporate
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  modules or brutal and you kind of skip through them as fast as
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  you can. But how does a company create an
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  environment where everyone's learning or continuously
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  improving? Like what does that physically
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  look like? Yeah.
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  We often work on what we call learning ecosystems.
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  And so we design A strategy. It's essentially a learning
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  strategic plan where we're thinking about what the whole
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  ecosystem should and can look like.
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  From the big conference that people do every year to the
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  mentorship relationship to performance metrics that are
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  linked to some of that, to micro learning on your phone, to
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  talking in a small group with people about what you learned
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  from going through the conference or that micro
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  learning. So that's certainly what we mean
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  by the customization approach to really thinking about all of the
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  potential moments to learn and leveraging those a lot and then
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  connecting them to each other. So that's like the macro answer
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  to the question. And then the micro answer is,
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  you know, once you get into some of the learnings themselves,
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  rather than like, oh gosh, I just want to get through it and
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  check the box to say, OK, where are these opportunities for
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  feedback loops throughout the course or module themselves?
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  How about reflection moments where people are asked to
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  journal or reflect back into, you know, the e-learning, for
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  example, about how they're feeling, what they're thinking
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  about, what they think they can apply tomorrow in their job.
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  And that's a way for the learning designers and the team
• 17:26
  who's offering the learning to really get that data back to, to
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  say, OK, we know that Jane really learned that she retained
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  it from this experience because she was able to repeat back
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  inside of the module what she learned.
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  So the customization is important within the design too,
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  because feedback loops are often missed if it's just off the
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  shelf and you just like have the employee check the box, but it
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  doesn't really mean anything for the data that you're looking
• 17:51
  for. Yeah, I feel like conferences
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  can be a big waste of time. If you go there and just it's
• 17:56
  about having some drinks, socializing, there's like big
• 17:59
  raha or what is it called, a big like a motivational type talk,
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  you know? And then it's like you kind of
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  go back to your office a couple days later and then nothing
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  really happens. Something really changes, right?
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  So how do we change that? Man.
• 18:15
  Obviously almost time you got. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 18:17
  Well, it's similar in my mind to the sage on the stage philosophy
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  where you listen to a three hour lecture in higher Ed and you're
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  like, I have no idea what that person just said.
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  Yeah, similar to conferences where you sit there and listen
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  for 45 minutes an hour and then maybe there's some Q&A, which I
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  feel like is usually the wind for the entirety of that hour
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  for sure, because people are actually able to reflect back to
• 18:39
  the speaker. This is what I heard and this is
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  what I'm still wondering about. And then you, as the audience
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  member can either question the question or to say, yeah, that
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  was my question too. And I feel connected to that
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  person who asked the question and to the speaker because I was
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  able to interact with that. So I think if, if, if you have
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  like 5 minutes to redesign a conference, I would say, you
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  know, at least give people in the round tables or with the
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  person next to you an opportunity to like talk about
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  what you're learning or just pause throughout the hour to
• 19:12
  say, what do you think about that?
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  Or have you had this experience? Talk to your neighbor for 30
• 19:17
  seconds about it. So anything to break up the
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  content so it's not so monotonous like you're saying.
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  And just like, oh man, and and really pushes the audience to
• 19:27
  listen and to be curious about the information.
• 19:32
  Sometimes I wonder if, you know, I've done a few keynotes and
• 19:35
  things like that on stage and you've done Ted X and that kind
• 19:37
  of stuff too. I sometimes wonder if it
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  wouldn't be better just to do 5 minutes, 10 minutes on stage,
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  bring a really good point of view or topic to the
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  centerpiece, talk about it, add a little value, and then go,
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  we're going to Q&A and just start and just spend 30-40
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  minutes in Q&A. Absolutely, yeah.
• 19:54
  Because it does seem like that's where the impact is, because
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  it's specific. There's context.
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  You're getting the audience involved, even as a spectator or
• 20:01
  someone else in the audience not asking question you're curious
• 20:04
  too. Or maybe they're asking a
• 20:05
  question that you wanted to ask, but you weren't bold enough to
• 20:07
  stand up and ask it. But it's almost like you're
• 20:09
  curious to see where are they going to go with this?
• 20:12
  And there's a little bit that like reality TV kind of behind
• 20:14
  the scenes at play. And I don't know, it feels like
• 20:17
  that's there's a lot of impact there.
• 20:19
  Absolutely. Some of the best talks I've
• 20:21
  heard are people that get up and do exactly what you're saying.
• 20:24
  You know, 5-10 minutes. Here's who I am, here's what I'm
• 20:27
  here to talk about, here's my expertise, here's like 3 points
• 20:30
  of framework and then pausing and saying, OK, I want to hear
• 20:33
  from you guys. What are your questions or to
• 20:36
  say we're going to practice what I just talked about for three
• 20:38
  minutes. There you go.
• 20:39
  And then he'll talk or she'll talk again and then more Q&A at
• 20:44
  the end of the whole thing. So breaking it up, going back
• 20:47
  and forth, and really it does become more of a conversation
• 20:49
  with the. Audience, I think that's so key
• 20:52
  kind of think the 60 minute sit on stand on stage just giving a
• 20:56
  keynote is kind of dead to a certain degree.
• 20:59
  You have to find ways to engage the audience.
• 21:01
  Even Marcus Sheridan, who sort of been a mentor to me, but also
• 21:04
  a client, I don't know if you know him or not, or I've seen
• 21:06
  him on LinkedIn, but he gets in the crowd.
• 21:08
  Like he he doesn't just do a keynote on stage.
• 21:10
  He gets off the stage, goes in the crowd, ask questions, looks
• 21:15
  for responses, challenges, and it just makes it more dynamic
• 21:19
  and it makes it more interesting and engaging.
• 21:22
  And I think that's something I always try to think about if I'm
• 21:24
  going to go on stage is, yeah, how do I, how do, how do I
• 21:27
  engage that audience as fast as possible and keep them engaged
• 21:30
  throughout, you know, the entire keynote or speech?
• 21:32
  Yeah, absolutely. And a trend that I'm hearing and
• 21:35
  seeing, frankly, is that people will go to these mega
• 21:38
  conferences and not even go to the conference.
• 21:40
  They'll go and reserve a place at the hotel and go and have
• 21:44
  these one-on-one meetings or these cohorts and do what they
• 21:49
  need to do or want to do to connect with the people that are
• 21:51
  there. Because the audience plan or the
• 21:54
  the event planners aren't really thinking too much about the
• 21:58
  empathy that you're talking about, like walk the room or,
• 22:01
  you know, the exchange. But then also it's just, we call
• 22:05
  it dosages in instructional design world.
• 22:07
  Like the dosage is so high that people get so tired.
• 22:10
  Yeah. And it's just too much for three
• 22:12
  or four days. Yes.
• 22:13
  So micro conferences or just like giving people a more highly
• 22:19
  designed experience of all these different touch points, breaking
• 22:22
  it up, making it more fun, accessible, interesting, all the
• 22:26
  things. One of the challenges I think we
• 22:28
  have as humans, but definitely founders, employees in the
• 22:31
  workspace is that there's so much you can learn.
• 22:35
  How do we, how do you kind of decipher, I'm taking in all this
• 22:38
  stuff like what's, how do I then apply this?
• 22:41
  Like do I break it down into chunks?
• 22:43
  I'm going to conference or I've got something coming up or I'm a
• 22:46
  seminar or whatever it is, or maybe it's an online thing I'm
• 22:49
  doing. How do I determine what I should
• 22:51
  store and take action on versus what I can learn and then kind
• 22:55
  of move on from? I think it's important to have
• 23:01
  some self-assessment time first to know what am I working on in
• 23:05
  this season of my life, whether it's professionally or
• 23:07
  personally, because there's so much information in the world
• 23:11
  right now and you can have access to pretty much anything.
• 23:14
  So I think it takes some personal time first to really
• 23:17
  think about where do I want to spend this time.
• 23:21
  And then once you know where you're going and why you have
• 23:24
  your why well intact, you can go out and seek out those
• 23:29
  opportunities and then think about, is it something I want to
• 23:32
  do in person or is it something that I feel like I could get
• 23:35
  enough access to in free webinars or with AI?
• 23:41
  And how much do you want to spend on that particular topic
• 23:44
  area on your own? So I like to think of them as
• 23:46
  many projects so you can really brief it, think about it on your
• 23:51
  own, and then seek out all of the potential things to put on
• 23:54
  that project plate that would fill it.
• 23:56
  And then that next level, as you're saying, is to think about
• 24:00
  how might I retain it best? Do I need to, you know, take a
• 24:05
  week sabbatical and really simmer in this stuff and really
• 24:08
  think about it so that I can pivot after that week?
• 24:11
  Is it something pretty big and profound that I'm looking to
• 24:13
  change about my life or my work versus, hey, you know, I feel
• 24:17
  like I just need to get better, sharper, and I can spend 6
• 24:19
  months working on this little mini project on the side and I
• 24:22
  don't need to make it, you know, hierarchy #8 on my list versus
• 24:26
  number. I should make it #8 versus #1 on
• 24:30
  my list. So yeah, just thinking about it
• 24:32
  as a project and thinking about what the right dosage is and and
• 24:36
  context should be for that. One of the themes that keeps
• 24:39
  coming up in these conversations on the podcast is slowing down.
• 24:43
  I think we're all just moving too damn fast.
• 24:46
  You know, it's like the next level, the next client, the next
• 24:48
  revenue milestone. And it's like, sometimes it's
• 24:51
  just why stop and ask yourself why?
• 24:54
  Why do I need to hit this certain mark?
• 24:55
  Why do I need to go to this specific place?
• 24:58
  What is how is that going to impact my life?
• 25:01
  And slowing down is tough when you're a founder entrepreneur,
• 25:04
  especially because you feel pressure.
• 25:06
  You've got your team, you've got yourself, your family, you've
• 25:09
  got growth potential, you've got all these things.
• 25:12
  And it's like sometimes it's, I think we miss out on so many
• 25:15
  things because we're just going so fast and we don't stop to
• 25:18
  say, all right, first of all, let's enjoy the moment that
• 25:21
  we're in. Let's enjoy the season that
• 25:22
  we're in because you have ups and downs.
• 25:24
  But one thing I've learned over the years is trying to enjoy the
• 25:27
  downs when it is tough, say, you know what, maybe we have less
• 25:30
  clients right now, have more time with family or friends or
• 25:32
  do this or work on the business that I couldn't get to this area
• 25:35
  before. Maybe we're really busy.
• 25:37
  Let me enjoy that because now it creates other opportunities for
• 25:40
  us that we didn't have before. And I think that's just such a
• 25:42
  missing ingredient. Ingredient is just slowing down
• 25:46
  and that's where you can kind of process things and do the self
• 25:49
  assessments and then figure out what do I need to do next to get
• 25:53
  to the next part in this journey that I'm on.
• 25:55
  Absolutely. It reminds me of Sahal Bloom's
• 25:58
  newsletter from last week. He talks about this idea of.
• 26:01
  Who is that? I've heard of that.
• 26:02
  Guy, he has a book that just came out called The Five Types
• 26:05
  of Wealth. I highly recommend it.
• 26:08
  Have you seen? Have you ever seen him on a
• 26:09
  podcast or something? I feel like the name sounds
• 26:10
  familiar. Yeah, he's great.
• 26:12
  I I read all of his stuff. He's really insightful about
• 26:15
  about everything we've really been talking about.
• 26:18
  But it links up perfectly with with what you just said.
• 26:21
  He talks about when things are slower or when we start to feel
• 26:25
  stressed or even grieving because things aren't going our
• 26:28
  way. Look back into what he calls the
• 26:32
  boats that you're building and make sure things are tight.
• 26:35
  You know, make sure things are ready to go for when it does get
• 26:38
  fast again and when you do have that next opportunity.
• 26:42
  And so leveraging that time instead of grieving that time
• 26:45
  and feeling like, oh, it's actually a good thing that I'm
• 26:48
  forced to slow down or stop and I can, you know, make sure
• 26:52
  everything's tidy and fixed up and ready to go for when I need
• 26:55
  it to go next time. How do you learn on a daily
• 26:59
  basis? Like well how much learning do
• 27:01
  you do everyday and what type of learning and where do you get
• 27:03
  your information from? Yeah, I really love audiobooks
• 27:06
  because I can walk and listen or drive and listen and so I feel
• 27:11
  like it fits really well into my lifestyle and and what I'm
• 27:15
  looking to do. So I've always got something
• 27:17
  going on. On Audible.
• 27:20
  I only get the two newsletters of news everyday.
• 27:24
  The New York Times in 1440. So I feel like the dosage is
• 27:30
  right for me on that. And then yeah, I love to really
• 27:36
  get, depending on the client work that we have at the moment,
• 27:40
  I love to go pretty deeply into different rabbit holes around
• 27:45
  academic papers or we're working with a client for example, right
• 27:48
  now and the focus is sustainability and conservation.
• 27:52
  So 11 just learning about that. So that's I think the the
• 27:56
  advantage of being a service based business and a consultant
• 27:59
  where you get to learn about so many different things all the
• 28:03
  time. Yes, sometimes it feels very
• 28:05
  challenging, but often times it feels really enjoyable and fun
• 28:08
  because you're able to know so much about so many different
• 28:12
  things. Do you think some people are
• 28:14
  just more naturally curious and wanting to learn than others?
• 28:18
  I think so, absolutely. Often times I think about the
• 28:22
  difference between people that are keep things on the tracks,
• 28:26
  people versus curious people and innovators and and visionaries.
• 28:31
  And I think both are really needed in the world.
• 28:33
  Seth Godin talks about this a lot in his book The Linchpin.
• 28:37
  So, yeah, I think absolutely. Some people are like, I just
• 28:40
  want to make sure there's gas in the car, and I want to know that
• 28:43
  car is going to be trustworthy for a long time, and I'm just
• 28:46
  going to do my thing. And some people are, you know,
• 28:49
  always reinventing and thinking differently about how the world
• 28:53
  works and trying to break things just to break them and see if
• 28:56
  they still work and equal that we need each other.
• 28:59
  Yeah. I always wondered about that
• 29:01
  because whether it's like a business conversation.
• 29:03
  I remember the dating days, you know, you're going on dates and
• 29:06
  stuff and it's like you'd meet some people that were genuinely
• 29:09
  curious about you and want wanted to know like, oh, what
• 29:12
  made you get into that? And well, that's interesting.
• 29:14
  Like what, why'd that happen or what's going on over here?
• 29:17
  And then you get some people that just didn't seem
• 29:19
  interested. They just didn't seem curious.
• 29:21
  And whether it's like, I don't, obviously there's an interest
• 29:24
  level between the person, but even outside of that, it was
• 29:26
  just like, they're just not that curious.
• 29:29
  Like cuz even if I'm not interested in someone, if I'm
• 29:31
  sitting across from them, I'm still going to be curious.
• 29:33
  Like, well, how'd you get here? What are you doing?
• 29:34
  And well, why does it matter? And I don't know, I'm just
• 29:36
  genuinely curious about things. So I may see an article about
• 29:39
  something and I'm down a rabbit hole about, you know, how fast
• 29:42
  the Earth's moving in space or something.
• 29:43
  It's just. Like it's just like, I don't
• 29:45
  know, I'm kind of drawn into that stuff.
• 29:47
  But I feel like you encounter some people that just don't seem
• 29:49
  to have that natural curiosity or wanting to learn the desire
• 29:54
  to. Like I am obsessed, obsessed
• 29:55
  with learning new stuff all the time to the point where I like
• 29:59
  get I have like 15 books I need to read and I haven't read any
• 30:02
  of them because I'm just like, I'm like, this would be cool.
• 30:04
  This would be cool. Like Alex, you actually got to
• 30:06
  read the damn book. Like don't buy 15, just buy one
• 30:09
  and read 1 at a time. But I think that's kind of what
• 30:12
  you're talking about, which is like having the visiary the the
• 30:15
  curiosity mindset versus some people are a little bit more
• 30:18
  like I'm going to read the book 10 pages a day, 20 pages a day,
• 30:22
  keep it on track. And other people are like,
• 30:25
  right, Trying to do something new or figure something out.
• 30:27
  Right. And then the question for
• 30:28
  ourselves, is it obligatory or not, right to read that book?
• 30:31
  Do you feel like you should or are you really enjoying it?
• 30:34
  Yes, I think there's a lot to say there.
• 30:36
  But yeah, just the sure sign of knowing if somebody's really
• 30:39
  curious in my mind is people that ask questions without
• 30:43
  having to ask questions. That's right.
• 30:44
  They just ask them. Yeah.
• 30:46
  And you know, the art of wedding friends and influencing people,
• 30:50
  That old Dale Carnegie book still stands true, still true
• 30:54
  today. Yeah, go read it if you haven't.
• 30:56
  I mean, it's a dinosaur of a book, but it's just the
• 30:58
  principles in there. Golden.
• 31:00
  Spot on. Yeah, it's really that that is
• 31:03
  such a small thing that people, it's such a simple thing that
• 31:06
  people can do, you know, if you want to increase business or you
• 31:09
  want to make more friends or you're you're dating.
• 31:11
  If you just show interest in other people and get curious
• 31:14
  genuinely too, you can kind of tell them people like, how's it
• 31:17
  going? Good, Good.
• 31:18
  How are you good. I don't like that.
• 31:20
  I try to avoid that as much as possible.
• 31:23
  I think it's become like a Norman society.
• 31:24
  So it's fine. We all say it like, hey, how's
• 31:26
  it going, you know, But I I try when I hop on like calls with
• 31:29
  clients, I try to think, how can I start this conversation a
• 31:31
  little differently than just how's it going Good.
• 31:34
  How are you good? What was that?
• 31:36
  You know what I mean? It was just like a formality
• 31:38
  type of thing where maybe I'll try to ask like what's exciting
• 31:41
  right now? What are you working on that
• 31:42
  you're pumped about? Or man, how did that concert go
• 31:44
  last night or something that maybe you know about them?
• 31:47
  Right. I think that's key.
• 31:49
  It's fun to think about those kinds of conversations as ice
• 31:52
  breaker conversations, almost like from an improv point of
• 31:55
  view. Right?
• 31:55
  Yeah. The second city thing.
• 31:57
  Yeah. And the Yes.
• 31:58
  And you know, having a good. Time with it, yes, so.
• 32:01
  Thinking about like, OK, I'm going to this party or I'm going
• 32:03
  to this conference or whatever it is and just like, OK, what
• 32:05
  are some fun questions that I could ask knowing my audience
• 32:08
  and thinking about what do I really want to learn from these
• 32:10
  folks that are here? Just a little bit of thought on
• 32:13
  that is so it makes your own experience and everyone else's
• 32:17
  experience so much more. Yeah, fruitful.
• 32:19
  And sometimes you don't have time to ask like go down that
• 32:23
  like if you're on a call with somebody, you got a little bit
• 32:24
  of time, you can ask like, hey, what's what's exciting right now
• 32:27
  that you're pumped about? You got time.
• 32:29
  But if you're crossing pass, this happens a lot.
• 32:31
  You know, we're just kind of like we're crossing the hallway
• 32:33
  or like walking to our car or like something like that.
• 32:36
  And it's like, hey, how you doing?
• 32:37
  Good. How are you?
• 32:37
  Good. I think in those cases, I try to
• 32:39
  say like good morning or good afternoon or hey, versus being
• 32:42
  saying something that just doesn't feel as genuine, right?
• 32:46
  Kind of just going through the motions, right.
• 32:48
  And I know some people might be like, that's what's the big
• 32:49
  deal. It's not a huge deal.
• 32:51
  Yeah, I don't know, being a little bit intentional.
• 32:55
  Absolutely. And you know, people remember
• 32:58
  how you make them feel more than what you ask.
• 33:00
  So sometimes people get really nervous about figuring out what
• 33:03
  those questions are or what should I say?
• 33:05
  And a risk is better than no risk.
• 33:07
  I agree, yeah. And you never know what people
• 33:10
  say, even though it might turn into feeling like an SNL episode
• 33:13
  or something or something like that.
• 33:15
  You. Gotta be prepared for that.
• 33:16
  It goes there. Yeah, totally.
• 33:18
  So if you had no budget for a company, what is what are some
• 33:23
  ambitious learning kind of tools or systems that you might create
• 33:27
  for a company listing right now that they're like all right,
• 33:30
  small to medium sized company. We don't have huge funds to
• 33:33
  build some big, you know, intricate system or whatever.
• 33:35
  But what are some things we could do the next 90 days to
• 33:37
  help our people and team and company as a whole learn more?
• 33:41
  And I guess the second question is, what are they learning
• 33:43
  about? Is it their expertise?
• 33:45
  Is it, you know, is it team building?
• 33:47
  Like what? What is?
• 33:47
  What should they focus on? Yeah.
• 33:50
  I think with no budget, if they were going to do it internally,
• 33:53
  I think first and foremost figuring out what that learning
• 33:57
  plan should be from a business or organizational perspective.
• 34:01
  Like, what are our goals for ourselves and our people, and
• 34:04
  doing the hard work to figure that out, almost like writing a
• 34:06
  strategic plan. Yeah.
• 34:08
  So that everyone's holding hands around those ideas and everybody
• 34:12
  knows where they're going. What's the North Star?
• 34:14
  That's key. Otherwise it's like, oh, we're
• 34:15
  just learning shit, you know, it's like, but we're learning it
• 34:17
  to get to a place. Yes, yes.
• 34:19
  So what do we want out of any kind of learning engagement And
• 34:23
  then what do we want our learners to get out of a
• 34:25
  learning engagement? Where do we want to take them?
• 34:28
  Where do we feel like there's holes in there learning?
• 34:30
  Do we need to upskill them around a new product or service
• 34:33
  or leadership development kinds of situations, whatever it is.
• 34:37
  And then asking the learners, truly, not just surveying them,
• 34:41
  but asking the employees or the customers, whoever those
• 34:44
  learning audiences are, what do you guys really need and want to
• 34:48
  learn? And often times they have never
• 34:51
  been asked. In our experience, truly they
• 34:54
  have never been asked. So just having a really good,
• 34:58
  authentic, frank conversation about what do you feel like you
• 35:03
  could learn here and what are you curious about?
• 35:06
  Where are you going in your life?
• 35:07
  And many people don't feel like they have social permission at
• 35:10
  their place of work to be that honest until asked.
• 35:14
  So asking them and inviting them in is I think the next step
• 35:19
  around this question. And then the third is to, you
• 35:23
  know, kind of search a workshop through Co create together
• 35:27
  around what is it that we could build that would support this
• 35:31
  desired response from the learners and then also support
• 35:35
  our strategic goals as a company?
• 35:38
  What would you say to the CEO that's like, look, they're going
• 35:40
  to learn from doing the job here.
• 35:42
  If they want to learn outside of that, they can do it on their
• 35:44
  own time. Yeah.
• 35:46
  I think in our experience, when people talk about learning on
• 35:51
  the job, there's a lot of gaps. They think they know, but maybe
• 35:56
  they don't know how to do it correctly according to the
• 35:58
  company or organization or they want to learn more in order to
• 36:03
  move up in the company. And of course the benefit for
• 36:06
  that company or org is retention and historic knowledge that's
• 36:12
  inside that person that it would cost a lot of time and money to
• 36:16
  onboard that next person. So even if they're learning on
• 36:20
  the job, in my POV there's always opportunity to make that
• 36:23
  a better experience for everybody involved.
• 36:26
  I agree. And what would you say on the
• 36:28
  flip side, if we have a huge budget, we want to go all out.
• 36:31
  We want to just, you know, do whatever we can from a learning
• 36:34
  standpoint. What would you do then?
• 36:36
  Yeah, well, of course my mind goes to what we do at Descalate.
• 36:38
  Yeah, yeah, of course. No, that's exactly it.
• 36:40
  Yeah, yeah. We, we offer series of workshops
• 36:44
  and those all tee up together and then they stack.
• 36:48
  So we now have a lot of annual subscriptions with clients that
• 36:54
  we rinse and repeat and do multiple workshops and work that
• 36:57
  glues those workshops together. So the first one is an insights
• 37:01
  workshop where we gather data that I was just describing in
• 37:06
  partnership with the leadership team to understand what the
• 37:10
  learner needs and wants, what the org needs and wants.
• 37:12
  And we do a workshop to talk through all of those insights
• 37:16
  and then deliver a synthesis doc back to the to the org.
• 37:20
  And then we do blueprinting, which is strategic planning for
• 37:23
  learning. So it's a big learning strategy,
• 37:26
  get everybody on the same page, deliver a strategy at the end of
• 37:30
  that. And then the third one is
• 37:32
  innovation workshop. So this is where we work
• 37:35
  together to really develop a program like soup to nuts from
• 37:40
  ground up or we look at a program that's been around for a
• 37:44
  while and we really volumize it and change it up and think about
• 37:47
  it from that learner ecosystem point of view to make it better,
• 37:50
  sharper, more effective on all those levels.
• 37:53
  And then we offer a learning in the Wild retreats there.
• 37:57
  You go book. Yeah, to kind of talk through
• 38:01
  those learning principles, those ideas in the book.
• 38:03
  And then we do field trips to to take people out of the office
• 38:07
  and help them understand something new.
• 38:10
  So maybe it's just somebody else's factory floor or to 10
• 38:16
  coffee shops or to a leadership retreat to talk with them about
• 38:21
  leadership best practices. And so it can look different,
• 38:25
  but we're the facilitators of those experiences to get people
• 38:28
  out of the office and into a new place to learn and talk about
• 38:31
  some of this stuff. How is AI changing the way that
• 38:33
  we learn? Because I read a lot of articles
• 38:35
  and stuff around it's making us Dumber because people are going
• 38:38
  to AI first before trying to solve a problem or think
• 38:40
  creatively instead of using it as an assistant or something you
• 38:45
  can kind of Co work with. A lot of people are just going
• 38:47
  straight to AI. Yes, there.
• 38:50
  I like to call it a dance partnership, Yeah, because it
• 38:53
  humanizes a little bit and because you need the human to be
• 38:58
  in that dance partnership. You can't outsource the whole
• 39:00
  dance. Right, exactly.
• 39:02
  Exactly. And you shouldn't, right?
• 39:03
  Some people are. Unfortunately, exactly.
• 39:05
  So I think it's changing a lot about how we learn and how we
• 39:07
  work. AI slop is a real, real thing,
• 39:11
  and it's getting worse. Essentially the idea where you
• 39:16
  put something together just minimum into AI and you have it
• 39:21
  make something and then you give it a little more direction.
• 39:24
  You have it make something again and then say you're like 10 reps
• 39:27
  in to that outcome and you're like, this is not good.
• 39:30
  This is slop. I should just start over with my
• 39:33
  own brain. And we've all been there and
• 39:35
  it's frustrating because you've just wasted an hour and now you
• 39:38
  have nothing. Thinking you were taking a
• 39:39
  shortcut and then you got cut short and then you had to start
• 39:42
  over, Yeah. It's like a teacher saying this
• 39:44
  paper is terrible, you need to just start from scratch.
• 39:47
  It's the same emotional feeling. So how do we prevent that?
• 39:52
  How do we think differently about that?
• 39:54
  I would say, yeah. To your point, we talk a lot
• 39:57
  about desk light, about not outsourcing our creative writing
• 40:00
  ability because it's important and we don't want to lose our
• 40:05
  our ability to write well and creatively and thoughtfully so.
• 40:11
  Pushing ourselves and our teams to continue to write in journal
• 40:14
  and whatever that looks like to make sure we stay human because
• 40:18
  it's not only good for ourselves, but in terms of the
• 40:21
  tech outcome, we need good stuff in the tech in order to continue
• 40:26
  to have an ability to have AI shape us.
• 40:29
  So yeah. That's a big piece that you hit
• 40:32
  on too, which is, yeah, we're looking for the output that we
• 40:35
  want to use with our writing or whatever we're doing,
• 40:38
  journaling, whatever. We want to create something
• 40:40
  that's good potentially for the world, hopefully, and maybe use
• 40:43
  a little AI in there. But it's also good for our soul.
• 40:45
  It's also good to like, you know, stretch the creative
• 40:48
  muscle. It's just like anything else.
• 40:49
  If you don't use it, you kind of lose it.
• 40:51
  Yeah. You know, like, I was huge into
• 40:53
  doing these creative skit videos for a while.
• 40:55
  Stop doing it. Focused on other stuff, which
• 40:57
  I'm happy with, but I'm coming back to it.
• 40:59
  And I remember just like, looking at the blank, like Notes
• 41:03
  app. And I was like, where do I start
• 41:04
  with this shit? Like, I haven't done it in
• 41:06
  Seoul. I'm like, it seemed like I was
• 41:07
  just coming up with creative ideas after idea after idea
• 41:09
  after idea years ago. And now it's like I'm sitting
• 41:12
  there. I haven't changed.
• 41:13
  I haven't gotten like less creative.
• 41:14
  I just haven't like stressed that muscle.
• 41:16
  I haven't used it. And then sure enough, I'm like,
• 41:19
  just go in and Alex, because you've learned this before.
• 41:21
  If you, you just got to like start doing it, It doesn't
• 41:23
  matter if the quality is good. You have the best idea.
• 41:25
  Just start the writing process. And then before you know it, I'm
• 41:28
  like coming up with stuff And then how I used AI in there.
• 41:31
  Like I thought of this skip video where someone uses AI in
• 41:34
  automation for like everything. Like it's their shortcut.
• 41:37
  And then pretty soon AI like replaces starts replacing them
• 41:40
  slowly. And it's like this whole like
• 41:42
  Black Mirror kind of skip video. It's really cool.
• 41:44
  It'll be cool when it's done. But what I did with ChatGPT is I
• 41:47
  said, hey, I'm working on this. This is the skip video I'm
• 41:49
  working on. Here's what I want to have
• 41:51
  happen. I want to be like a Black Mirror
• 41:52
  episode. Here's the start of it and then
• 41:55
  maybe I'll have it like give me some ideas.
• 41:57
  I'm like, what are some one liners that might be funny or
• 41:59
  what are some angles? And it gave me a couple.
• 42:01
  It's like, oh, you're at the office and then someone walks by
• 42:03
  and says, Hey, man, your, your comments recently have been
• 42:06
  weird. Like you're doing a bunch of
• 42:07
  rocket emojis and you get a quote from Des Rodman.
• 42:09
  It was like, what's going on with you?
• 42:11
  And he's like, wait a second, I am.
• 42:12
  And he's like, you know, then he starts going down this rabbit
• 42:14
  hole. But it didn't write the whole
• 42:16
  thing. It was, to your point, it was
• 42:17
  like a little bit of a dance partner that I kind of pulled
• 42:20
  in. But I had the dance, I had the
• 42:22
  song, I had the the the vision for.
• 42:24
  It and there's a gem. There's those gems like you're
• 42:26
  saying, like, oh, that's interesting, yeah.
• 42:28
  Almost like a creative director, a club dancer and choreographer,
• 42:31
  like, oh, I'll take that piece. And that piece is interesting,
• 42:34
  yes. But yeah, it didn't rewrite the
• 42:36
  entire thing exactly. Yeah, that's great because if if
• 42:39
  you try to do that, if you just say, hey, write me a skip video
• 42:41
  on XY and Z, it's going to fall short.
• 42:44
  It's and it's not going to be you and you're not going to be
• 42:46
  able to flex those creative muscles.
• 42:49
  We got a couple questions from and then I want to talk about
• 42:51
  your book. A couple questions from our
• 42:53
  founder Talk Club, which is full of people that listen to the
• 42:56
  show. They ask questions about, you
• 42:57
  know, on the guest and then the the founders that come on the
• 43:00
  show. You guys are part of a, a
• 43:01
  lounge, a VIP lounge. If you want to be a part of it,
• 43:03
  connect with other founders. One of the questions was from
• 43:06
  Magdalena. She said.
• 43:07
  Where do you see the biggest opportunities for innovation in
• 43:10
  workspace learning over the next three to five years?
• 43:16
  Gosh, I think it goes with a lot of the things we've been talking
• 43:18
  about. I think we'll see less formal
• 43:25
  learning in terms of innovation, not calling it learning
• 43:30
  necessarily. We'll see less.
• 43:32
  Calling it what though? Calling it, not even calling it
• 43:36
  anything like burying it inside of the workflow itself.
• 43:42
  That's to me where the innovation lies in learning and
• 43:45
  development teams that, you know, partnering with HR leads
• 43:50
  and chief learning officers to think about what if we embedded
• 43:54
  inside of the innovation innovation practice or created
• 43:58
  more links with the innovation practice in general.
• 44:01
  So we're not only teaching people things explicitly, but
• 44:07
  they're also part of the workflow every day anyway.
• 44:11
  So I think we'll just see more innovation in terms of like
• 44:17
  closing that gap because culturally we want people to
• 44:22
  uptake things and be more excited about learning.
• 44:26
  And if we don't call it learning and we call it just, you know,
• 44:30
  getting a bit better, faster at this particular task tomorrow,
• 44:36
  it's easier to digest. Next question from GAIL.
• 44:40
  She said how do you turn in person training to virtual and
• 44:44
  vice versa. She said as a training
• 44:46
  facilitator, that's my biggest challenge.
• 44:49
  Also, how do you handle tough conversations with clients who
• 44:51
  see training as a check the box where it's growing slash
• 44:54
  investing in people long term. So let's do the How do you turn
• 44:57
  in person training to virtual and virtual training to in
• 45:00
  person? Yeah, I think hybridity is
• 45:03
  definitely best if you can do it have a bit just slimmer, slimmer
• 45:08
  version of the in person and then bring the rest of it,
• 45:11
  whatever it is into into an online forum.
• 45:16
  I think if you have to go 100% virtual, you can think about it
• 45:19
  being live time in a Zoom with people in the cohort or the
• 45:25
  webinar or whatever. And then also change it into
• 45:29
  change some of it or or most of it into async so people can
• 45:34
  learn in their own time without having to show up for a webinar
• 45:38
  at a specific time. So that's something that
• 45:41
  sometimes our client partners haven't really thought about,
• 45:43
  like it has to stay virtual, but there are still opportunities to
• 45:46
  design what that looks like and how that feels.
• 45:49
  So it can be async, it could be sync, and then it could be micro
• 45:53
  learning on your phone. And we have tools that we use
• 45:56
  that, you know, we can make 3 minute 32nd micro learnings that
• 46:01
  show up on people's phones, they click, they roll through it and
• 46:04
  they're done. And then they can come back to
• 46:07
  that, you know, live Zoom and then the async.
• 46:10
  Gotcha. Yeah, and it all kinda goes
• 46:12
  together, so that's kinda cool. There's ways around it to design
• 46:16
  it that are still enjoyable for the learner.
• 46:19
  Yeah. Do you guys use apps and things
• 46:21
  like that or do you have your own proprietary systems or?
• 46:23
  No, we're LMS and tool agnostic. We use third party tools nice to
• 46:29
  make things that make sense for the.
• 46:31
  Learning. There's a bunch of cool stuff
• 46:32
  out there. Yeah, there's.
• 46:32
  So many things that are already great, yeah.
• 46:34
  And then we just customize them. Why start a software company?
• 46:37
  Yeah, it's not worth it. Yeah.
• 46:39
  So you wrote a book, Learning in the Wild.
• 46:41
  Curious what made you write that book?
• 46:43
  Yeah, I wanted it to be a love letter to our clients.
• 46:46
  I felt like there were a lot of articles that I've written on
• 46:51
  our website and on Medium and all these different places with,
• 46:56
  you know, professional associations and clients and
• 46:58
  things like that. And also just wanted to share my
• 47:01
  experience of having worked 100% of my career as a consultant and
• 47:06
  specifically as an innovation consultant, from being a young
• 47:09
  designer and what that means to bring that calibration of
• 47:15
  consumer innovation to the world of learning.
• 47:18
  And in quick conversations that just felt really hard to convey
• 47:24
  all of that information and all of what I was really excited to
• 47:27
  share with our clients and prospective clients.
• 47:29
  So I put it all in a book. What was the writing process
• 47:33
  like? I'm always curious because I
• 47:34
  think one day I'll write a book, but I think it's got to be
• 47:36
  something like really calls to you because I got to write a
• 47:38
  book, right? Yes.
• 47:40
  What was the process like? Because I imagine, Oh my God, it
• 47:43
  just seems so, so much. Yes, it it can feel very
• 47:46
  overwhelming. It certainly did feel very
• 47:48
  overwhelming at first. Just writing every day or like,
• 47:51
  how did you no. No, Jenny Blake was a coach of
• 47:56
  mine at the time and she's written a few different books
• 48:00
  and she's wonderful. She also wrote something online
• 48:04
  about how to support authors to create their books.
• 48:08
  So she has a bit of a rubric for what success looks like.
• 48:11
  And so I went through what she had taught me and started with
• 48:16
  post it notes on the back of my office door and I, I've pictures
• 48:20
  on my Instagram. I, I sort of documented the
• 48:22
  whole journey of what it felt like to do this.
• 48:25
  So yeah, started with just post it with random ideas that I
• 48:28
  would come up with, and then those random ideas became
• 48:32
  sections, and then the sections started to become chapters.
• 48:36
  And then at that point I took a staycation in Chicago and I just
• 48:42
  went downtown. I spent the night and I wrote as
• 48:45
  much as I possibly could really for as long as I could around
• 48:50
  these chapters. And then I let it simmer for a
• 48:53
  couple weeks and then I did it again.
• 48:56
  And so another, a mentor of mine had told me to treat this like a
• 49:02
  client project. So I really did.
• 49:05
  And I really, you know, put it into my daily routine and into
• 49:09
  our project management system even to say like, I'm working on
• 49:11
  this project and that's how I got it done.
• 49:14
  Otherwise, as a business owner, I don't know how it I would have
• 49:18
  ever gotten it done. I think it might be a good way
• 49:20
  to do it is kind of like chunk it out, you know, I think for
• 49:22
  me, if I could like maybe if I could audio book it or like, you
• 49:26
  know, verbalize it, maybe like do because I do a lot of like
• 49:28
  voice notes and like voice to text.
• 49:30
  I think that potentially could work for me if I was able to
• 49:33
  just like talk, like take a chapter or subject and like just
• 49:36
  talk and then put it into text or record it and have AI
• 49:39
  transfer or whatever, you know? Yeah, I, I have a few folks in
• 49:45
  my network that have done that with ghost writers too, where
• 49:47
  they take voice notes and make it into a book, which is great.
• 49:51
  Yeah, yeah. Different ways for different
• 49:54
  people. For sure, I think everyone's a
• 49:56
  little different in the process by their creative process.
• 49:58
  Yeah, yeah. Was it worth it, though, writing
• 50:00
  a book? Like, has it been now that
• 50:02
  you're through it and looking back, yeah.
• 50:04
  Are you glad that you did it? Definitely, yeah, it it helped
• 50:06
  me get my ideas out of my head and into a book for sure.
• 50:10
  And organize some of that value. Somebody once said a a book is
• 50:16
  like the best possible business card to reflect who you are and
• 50:19
  your value proper? It's an asset.
• 50:21
  It's an asset considering the audience here around founders
• 50:25
  and business owners. It's been the best possible way
• 50:29
  to have more of a stage and be at these conferences and share
• 50:33
  your ideas with people and bring value to people, Yes.
• 50:36
  So it's a door opener for sure. I feel like it's almost like
• 50:40
  before the Internet, the books were like how you got on stages.
• 50:44
  Now we have the Internet and social media, but books are
• 50:46
  still very prevalent. Like they're still really
• 50:48
  important, I think. But you also can do, if you
• 50:50
  didn't want to write a book, some people have done social
• 50:52
  media or video or maybe then on YouTube or LinkedIn or Tick Tock
• 50:55
  or whatever it is. And I was like, that's cool that
• 50:57
  you can do it from that standpoint.
• 50:58
  Or podcasters, a lot of big podcasters, but even a lot of
• 51:01
  those people end up writing books.
• 51:03
  It's like kind of funny how that works.
• 51:05
  And then the book writers end up doing content because they want
• 51:07
  to reach the audience online. And so I think they really can
• 51:10
  play hand in hand. Absolutely.
• 51:12
  Well, yeah, depending on what you enjoy doing and what you
• 51:14
  want to put the time into. We're putting together a
• 51:17
  Learning in the Wild workbook now in order to have that
• 51:20
  available for the retreats we're doing.
• 51:22
  So there's all kinds of ways to kind of put together that system
• 51:25
  depending on and what you're looking to do.
• 51:27
  What would be the maybe couple sentence value prop?
• 51:31
  If someone's thinking about maybe I'll get this book, maybe
• 51:33
  I'll pick this up. You have positioning as a
• 51:36
  learner so you can inspire more people in your world on your
• 51:39
  team to learn as well. Nice.
• 51:41
  That was very concise practice that I can tell.
• 51:44
  The last question I have is on your LinkedIn banner, it says
• 51:46
  don't chase certainty, chase growth.
• 51:49
  What does that mean to you? Just the idea that I feel like
• 51:54
  as business owners, as leaders, we're often always thinking
• 51:59
  about what a sure thing looks like.
• 52:02
  And to your point earlier about scale and efficiency, always
• 52:06
  chasing that North Star. And I think that's great to a
• 52:12
  point, but always pushing ourselves to continue to learn
• 52:16
  and ask those big questions so we don't get stuck following the
• 52:19
  North Star and realizing that's not something we wanted to
• 52:22
  pursue in. The first place.
• 52:24
  So continuing to to focus, yes, but also stay open and and true
• 52:30
  to who you are and what you're really looking to grow in
• 52:32
  yourself and your people around you.
• 52:34
  I think it's good to be obsessed with growing as a person and and
• 52:38
  you could say business, you could say personal, but I think
• 52:40
  if you're obsessed with how do I get better?
• 52:43
  I want to get better than the person I was yesterday.
• 52:45
  Yes. I just think that's such a good
• 52:47
  place to come from because then it's like the, the money or the
• 52:50
  scalability or this or the car you do or whatever it is, it
• 52:54
  doesn't really move you as much as am I doing something I'm
• 52:56
  fulfilled by? Am I making an impact and am I
• 52:59
  growing? Am I getting better?
• 53:01
  And that's why it's, it's actually easier to go through
• 53:02
  tough times when you fall back on man, I'm, I'm going this, but
• 53:06
  I was meant to go through this, right?
• 53:07
  Like I needed to go through this to learn some shit here.
• 53:10
  And I'm gonna, it's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna come out
• 53:11
  the other side better. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
• 53:14
  The better be better than you were yesterday.
• 53:16
  I, I, a fitness coach said that to me in Colorado a few years
• 53:21
  ago. And it's so applicable to every
• 53:24
  area of life, not just fitness. And yeah, you're right.
• 53:27
  Like, you can be grateful for the hard times as well as the
• 53:30
  good times, as long as you know you're working on yourself.
• 53:34
  And often times people don't know what those things even are.
• 53:36
  And they don't need to know what those things are because only
• 53:38
  you need to know. And as long as you feel like
• 53:41
  you're making your way and doing better, then you can take you
• 53:45
  can weather those storms. Yeah, Aaron, I appreciate you
• 53:48
  coming on the show. Where can people find you,
• 53:50
  connect with you, learn more about what you guys do?
• 53:52
  Yeah, Desk late learning.com is our website and yeah, hit me up
• 53:56
  on LinkedIn and I'm always up for a good a good chat.
• 53:59
  Yeah, appreciate you. Coming on, we'll link everything
• 54:01
  up in the description so people can find it.
• 54:03
  Book, website, contact LinkedIn, all that good stuff.
• 54:06
  So. Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 54:07
  Thanks for coming on. Thanks.