Using curiosity and creativity to find happiness in your life

The world is filled with stories that transform industries.  The story of how 20 refugees transformed the nail industry will keep help you see what curiosity can do for your career, your team, and for an industry.

TedX speaker Van DuMone shares her story and tips on how you can use curiosity and happiness to move into your life’s work.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: 0:00

Welcome to the summit. A podcast focused on bringing you the knowledge and insights for industry leaders. I’m your host Kyle Hamer, and I’m on a mission to help you exceed your potential. As a sales guy, turned marketer, I am passionate about building sustainable businesses. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 20 year career is that you won’t find an overnight growth scheme, a shortcut to success or way to hack yourself to the top. Nope. Success is the by-product of hard work, great relationships and deep understanding done over and over. We’re here to help you unlock that success with some secrets from other people, one conversation at a time.

Kyle Hamer: 0:34

Welcome back to another episode of The Summit Podcast. I’m your host, Kyle Hamer today. Our show’s guest is Van Demone. And I’m assuming it’s France . Is that right, Van? There i s a whole story behind that is not French. Oh no, I should probably tell that accent then. Yeah .

Van Demone: 0:53

What it is a French last name. My husband is from Greece and is his con artists . Father was trying to open a French restaurant. So changed the name to Domo from Spilly topless .

Kyle Hamer: 1:06

Oh , you’re well, look, the moon’s a whole lot easier to say than

Van Demone: 1:10

That’s true. Yes . A lot easier to write down too many. I don’t know how many letters isn’t [inaudible]

Kyle Hamer: 1:17

Well, you know, when you say con artists , father, like that just has to make for some fantastic holiday.

Van Demone: 1:23

Oh yeah, absolutely. Maybe we just change the whole theme of this podcast.

Kyle Hamer: 1:29

No , let’s not. Let’s not. Let’s focus on the positive. For those of you who don’t know, van van is the founder of WorkSmart she’s a progressive team development and leadership training consultancy. She utilizes creativity, play experimental learning to help involve things like mindset and skillsets and behaviors inside your workplace. Her work is built on the foundation that we’re all creative. Good ideas can really come from anywhere. And everyone inside of an organization have a chance for their voice to be heard. Van has, what is the, what do you call it is an author, no speaker and Ted talks Ted talks, ex ex her episode, or her Ted talk is called. What if the life changing power of curiosity? I had a chance to watch that I would highly recommend you go out and watch it. Outside of that, she’s highly decorated academic, incredibly involved with local organizations like the honors foundation. And when she’s not doing that and working with companies like LinkedIn and Pandora, Google, you’ll find her hanging out with guys like me on podcasts or taking care of her family. Does that sound about right?

Van Demone: 2:39

Well, I don’t know who you’re talking about it. She sounds amazing.

Kyle Hamer: 2:43

Sounds like the person I’m talking to.

Van Demone: 2:45

That was great. Thank you. Yeah, that sounds just about right. And I’m tired. I know what I’m so tired. There’s a lot of things I’m doing.

Kyle Hamer: 2:52

No kidding. Like you might, you might need to, you know, sit down for a minute just yeah . Right . Five minutes,

Van Demone: 2:57

Sit down for a minute. That’s awesome.

Kyle Hamer: 3:00

No , and today’s today’s topic thing we were going to talk about on today’s show is happiness, finding happiness in your work, in how you can be fulfilled through creativity, exploration, and just being curious. But before we get too far into that topic, what I’d really like to start with is if you would share with us just a little bit about your backstory and if I remember correct, your backstory really starts was it two weeks or two days before you turned to ,

Van Demone: 3:30

It was about, about the two or three weeks before I turned two.

Kyle Hamer: 3:34

Well, why don’t you, why don’t you for our listeners share love just a little bit of that story. You don’t have to get all the way into it, but just kind of the, how did you get put on this, this a path of creativity and exploration and curiosity?

Van Demone: 3:45

Sure. So it was definitely not a straight and narrow path. So when I was two years old, we were, I was born in Vietnam and I was born right at the end of the Vietnam war almost two years old to end the Vietnam war in 1975. And my dad was a Colonel in the South Vietnamese air force. So we had to get out of there. And on the day, Saigon fell to the communist party. He was told to get his family out of the country any way he could. So we found a way out. And our first home here was in California, was camp penicillin, Marine base in San Diego. And then from there, we were sent to an integration center up in Sacramento called hope village. And it was there that my mom met Tippi Hedren, a Hollywood movie star, who was a volunteer there, who is her, her position. There was to help these women find a career to start their new lives. So be abroad in like a seamstress and a typist because those were careers are fairly easy to learn and easy to get into. But my mom had a group of other Vietnamese we had about 90 other women were just curious about Timmy’s long red manicure nails. So that led them down this path of saying what EFT curiosity, right? Curiosity led, led them to say what F so with that, what if tippy brought in her personal manicures to teach him how to do nails? And then from there they loved it. So Tiffany said, well, what if we actually get these women licensed as heroes ? So she went to the local beauty school and asked them if they would take on these 20 women who did speak English, who who couldn’t afford tuition, they would take them on as students. And that school said, yes. So 10 weeks later, these 20 women all got tested, did their practicum and were licensed manicures . And they went off into the, in the world and each of them started doing nails and it was the refugees and immigrants who came after us, who learned about the profession from their friends and their friends from them. And now 40 something. Plus years later, it’s an $8.3 billion industry. And whenever I do this talk, I always start with the question, like, how many of you had your nails done by Vietnamese manicures? And I would say 99% of the room always raises their hands because that’s just the industry that we, that we’ve kind of taken over because of the kindness of Tippi Hedren and the curiosity of these 20 women. So it’s quite the history.

Kyle Hamer: 6:02

Well, and it’s, it’s, it’s quite a, as you said, it’s not a straight and narrow path, so it’s quite an adventurous route to get you to where you are today. Additionally, it’s really, really interesting to me that the similarities between one, the butterfly effect and just a simple gesture of kindness, what that meant for the revolution or, or disruption of an entire industry, as well as you look at, you know, 40 years ago. No , but you know, you ask, has anybody had their nails done by a Vietnamese manicurist? And they’d be like, you know, maybe, maybe one in a thousand or one in 10,000 and now like, it’s the opposite. If it’s not somebody who’s Vietnamese doing that, you know, they’re like, well, where are you getting your nails done? Like what’s what’s happening. So there was a, there’s a market disruption. And in that journey, now you take that and you’ve turned that into your Ted talk. We really have these kind of three core defining principles. And I’d like to start there in, in kind of as our backstop for talking about happiness, because those three, those three elements are really, really important. What are they?

Van Demone: 7:12

So I talk about this within this or my Frameline for the story, with this idea of following curiosity. Right. And I, and I love this concept because I feel like we’re all as human beings, very curious, but we’re often too busy to even acknowledge our curiosities. So really to recognize when you’re curious about something and then taking that minute to say like, what, and then the next one is like, what F right. So taking that curiosity like, well, what if , what if I followed down this path of, of this curiosity, what could that look like? And then taking small steps to get there? Cause I think often, like if, even if you can get past the idea that I’m too busy, I can’t even think about it . Curiosity, even if you can get to the point where like, Oh yeah, I recognize that. I noticed I had that curiosity. And then we start think about possibilities sometimes that’s where we end because like, Oh, well that’s never going to have a great, I’m curious about that, but that possibility because of whatever it might be because of the limitations on the , I put it on my own life. That’s not that possibly is actually a reality for me. So I’m going to move on. But when we add on that last step of taking a small step, you take away the overwhelm of this being an impossibility, and you change it to just one small action that you can do to get you closer to whatever that possibility might be.

Kyle Hamer: 8:30

Now you use that as kind of the three back backbones and , and frameworks for what you know, what you talk about in your Ted talk, how things are you know, we talked about in your Ted talk and then how you run your, your organization work smart, right? Like you you’ve had a career that’s been built on kind of this be curious explore it a bit. And, and then, you know, with the, the, what if, and then taking these small steps, why is that so powerful for people? Is it, is it because that we are scared by the big unknown in the, the big risk or when , why is that such an empowering thing for helping people find their, their way and their happiness?

Van Demone: 9:15

Well, I think that’s exactly right as humans, we are, we’re built to be fearful of change. And I read a book and by Dr. Robert Mauer called one small step can change your life the Kaizen way. And he’s since become a mentor of mine. And what I love about that book is it gave neurological and neurological reasoning for why we act like this, right? So the part of our brain there’s the amygdala and way back when that Amelia was, was a sense of fear. Like if we were , you know , if Aline was about to attack, you know , founding lives like fight or flight, it triggers fight or flight, but now we’re , we live in this environment is there’s so many stressors. There’s so much going on that, that, that thing’s kind of going off all the time. So when we come up with like a big grant idea, that’s going to shift our lives. Like I want to start a new career, I’m going to move to another country, whatever it might be. If you come up with these grand ideas, the first thing that’s gonna happen in your brain is that Megan is going to wake up like what, like, that sounds dangerous. That doesn’t sound like what we know. So we’re gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna put out these newer receptors that say stop, right. And , and that stops you from making any moves at all. But the way I put it in my TEDx talk is that when we take small steps towards our big audacious goal, you’re typic tiptoeing around that amygdala. So it stays asleep so that you can actually reach your goal by taking one small step at a time, rather than getting into that stage of that state of fight or flight.

Kyle Hamer: 10:46

And so when, I mean, when you’re, when you’re navigating through this and you’re, you’re moving through this this, this phase of fight or flight, you know, I think it’s pretty simple to go, Oh yeah, that’s a lion. I don’t want to get eaten, stay away. It might be a little bit less obvious what’s happening to your body as to why we would shut things down. Talk a little bit about how you , you teach people to break through that or to tiptoe around that, to , to still maintain their level of curiosity and asking what if, but doing so in a safe way so that they can, they can find that unexpected, happiness, or find that unexpected satisfaction in, in something that they never knew that maybe they would enjoy or even was on their, on their path.

Van Demone: 11:29

Sure. So my, so my work is in bringing this whole concept of creativity into the workplace, and I’ll let , let me start back there because what I, I grew up very creative. I was always very creative, human being, but I also grew up in a refugee Asian family where, where you’re going to be a doctor. So why do you need creativity? You can be an engineer. So you , why do you need creativity? Right. So, so it nurtured in my household. And this , as I got older, I really just followed that path of, of getting a degree, getting a graduate degree, getting a job in the corporate environment. And I found myself very unhappy there. So what I did was I had the privilege of leaving that environment because my husband does have a stable job in career. So I had the privilege of leaving my job and going down this path of following my curiosity, asking what had been taking small steps to growing the business I have now. But what I realized is that not everyone has that privilege. I often talk about you hear people say, just do what you love, do what you love. Not everyone has that privilege or that opportunity. So what I teach is take something you love into what you do. So, so that is often how I talk about, about this idea of, if you’re curious about something, you don’t have to blow up your life to pursue it, right. You can think of all the possibilities and some of possibilities may be so audacious. It scares you. Some possible possibilities may be smaller, more attainable, but pick one pick. And just because you pick one doesn’t mean the breasts are unattainable or that the restaurant invalid, it’s just, let’s start with one, start with one possibility. And then what you can do is take one small step. Let’s say you want to start a new career, right? You’re not like, so do you know someone who works at a career have a conversation with them, read a book about it. So just one small step, and then what will come after that small step is either another small step or nothing at all. Right? And then you can move on to, okay, well, what other curiosities I have? I think what , what happens is as human beings, we think way far into the distant future and be like, okay, well, here’s what I’m curious about. Here are the possibilities and how do I get from a to Z? But what we realize is that the, if you actually take those small steps, it’s not going to look like what you think it looks like, right? You have zero idea what that’s actually going to look like. If you really do take the time to take small steps and let, let the next small step emerge from that.

Kyle Hamer: 13:56

Now you , I mean, you’ve , we talked about in your, you know, kind of your intro that you’ve worked with companies like Google and LinkedIn Pandora. I mean, you’ve, you’ve really worked with companies are , are really progressive. And so people might be, well, you know the word you chose was privileged. Those companies are privileged enough to, to embrace that creativity, to allow for that exploration and in the what ifs, why is it important that companies say, no, no, no, this isn’t a privilege that this is something that we should really have afford or make part of our culture. Why, why is that so important in, in, you know, in the workspace, in places that you’re, you know, you’re, you’re serving.

Van Demone: 14:40

So I , I think there’s, there’s several reasons. Number one, creativity, because creativity is innate in all of us. If you give people the opportunity to, to their creativity, then you’re, you’re tapping into something that we all want to be able to do. And I say this because from experience, like , even as someone, if we have to go into an office and like, Oh, like creative stuff, like I’m , I’m not creative. I don’t even want to be creative, but once you give them the opportunity to tap into that creativity, they’re the ones that like, I have to say, like, you got to put down the paint brushes now . Right. You have to put down the Legos , like it’s time to move on. So again, like one of those things where we’re all creative. So if a company allows people, the opportunity to tap into whether it’s like, like what I do, like visual creative tools, or even creative thinking you’re empowering those people, you empower your people to understand, like, my voice has my voice matters, my ideas matter. And so again, so on a, on a , like a sort of like a people first type of level, you are engaging your employees to realize like they matter to you, they matter to what happens is organization. And as far as for the organization, by bringing in these creative tools, you are tapping into everyone’s creativity. And if you look at the companies who are successful, small, large, whatever, you have people think creatively, you have people innovating all the time, you can’t stay stagnant and grow. You can’t stay stagnant and survive. So, so yeah. So if you think in terms of just survival, that’s why he’s important.

Kyle Hamer: 16:15

But again , that goes back to the fight or flight, right? It may be your organization’s way of saying, Hey, this is what we need to do to survive. You , you picked a couple of words that I think are they’re really relevant in the in the era, the , the social climate that we’re in the , the world, as it is means we’re, we’re navigating this this pandemic, the words, empowerment privilege. And there was one more just Oh, it’s gone. Why do you, why do you think those words are so important to people who participate in your, in your classes or your workshops in, in finding their own, their own way towards towards happiness? Well , why is it that there , the words empowerment or privileged don’t necessarily have to be derogatory or taking away from their , their emboldening in , in helping? What , what is it about those topics that are so enriching to the people who who get to participate in activities that are supported by those, those themes?

Van Demone: 17:20

So I think for me, it comes down to the fact that, you know, companies in the F where we’re at a different place in , in the corporate environment, right? So when I graduated from undergrad, the grad school, when I went in for an interview, it was very clear to me . Like this company is interviewing me. So I had to be at my best. And if they at best, and if they want me, I hope they want me they’ll hire me. But I feel like there’s a whole different generation now where it’s not about that. Companies know it, right. When someone comes in for an interview is a two-way street. Like, is this the right culture for me? Is this a , is this the right fit for me? And, and there’s, you know, like we can make fun of like, Oh, millennials, they’d rather be like, they’re not going to get, they’re not going to take a job. And this was the right fit for them. But I always think like they have, they’ve empowered all of us to see work differently. And , and it is like, and it’s a beautiful thing. Cause you think about how much time we spend at work. We should feel empowered there. We should feel that our voice matters. And then on the opposite, not the opposite, but I think with corporations did a lot of companies did , was like, okay, well, great. We do want to make these people. I won’t feel comfortable here. So let’s get a ping pong table or let’s supply snacks, or let’s go bowling together, which is all amazing and great. I think there are good changes, but empowered and privileged. I think those are words that speak more to the fact that you’re empowering and privileging people. And I wasn’t used to being in a privileged to be a right, to have your voice heard in the, in the workplace. I think that’s what my work does is it’s through these creative tools, you’re giving people who normally don’t have a voice, a chance to have their voice heard and ultimately and you know, studies have shown us surveys have showed it. Those ping pong tables are great. The bully eyes are amazing, but people will stay if they feel like their voice is heard and they, and they are they’re respected in the workplace.

Kyle Hamer: 19:17

Well , I think that’s, you know , I think those are, those are great insights. And I think it’s, it speaks to your true understanding of what’s happening kinetically inside of, of corporates, as well as, you know, the dynamics of balancing between hiring and getting the most out of a workforce. But it doesn’t just happen in corporate America like this, this place of finding surprises and gotchas following your three steps of, you know, curiosity and what F and then small steps, this actually plays well in a lot of places. And you do some work with the honor foundation. Tell us a little bit about that foundation. What, what, what the, what it’s about, and then let’s talk about you know, the BS things in practice.

Van Demone: 19:58

Sure. Okay. So the honor foundation is an organization, a nonprofit organization that works as military special force operators, Navy seals, Marine Rangers, as they transition from military to civilian careers. And you could ask some of these men and women, what their biggest fear is, and it’s not the battlefield is not what they face in the military is that transition time. Right.

Kyle Hamer: 20:24

But why is that such a big fear for them?

Van Demone: 20:27

Think that , I mean, if you think about having been in the military for many, many of them for their whole career, there’s a certain culture there, right? There’s a, there’s a specific culture of the military. It’s a tribe. It’s a, it’s not just a job, it’s their , it’s their whole life. And to leave that to go into the corporate world, is it civilian civilian career? There’s so much unknown is all that unknown. So, so,

Kyle Hamer: 20:55

Okay . Is it the, it was just say, is it , is you think it’s the fear of the lack of structure link or you think that they’re afraid of? Cause I mean, you guys that are special forces, right. They’re used to taking orders, they’re used to having a chain of command there’s there’s structure and order in everything that they do. Yeah. They’re very they’re very exceptional. They’re , I mean, they’re high performers at what they do. Right. And, but there’s this as they transitioning, I think it’s the fear of man. I look at civilian life and it looks chaotic compared to what I have.

Van Demone: 21:24

I would have to say that individually I’ve , I’ve talked to some of these men and women who, who are , are craving that, like they want more of that. And then there’s some that , that, that is the fear it’s like, I’ve been, you know I lived a very tactical and structured life and now what, what is going to look like, but I think it’s , it’s there it’s the same for all of us. Right. Any type of change is going to bring some sort of fear. But the , but, but you’re so embedded in a very various very close culture like that and a close tribe like that for so long. I think that even more makes it harder to walk out of that. You know, so it was about why, but

Kyle Hamer: 22:05

You think it’s more, you think it’s more about the community and the culture in the tribal effective of who’s around them and what they’re comfortable in versus structured or unstressed .

Van Demone: 22:16

Yeah. And just like the unknown of what that might look like that might look like. So I think that’s why organizations like the honor foundation are such a great tool for our transitioning military because there’s for the , the honor foundation in particular , they put them through a three-month program called the Waypoint program and it’s free to the military , these military service men and women. And they start off with like, what’s your why? Like Simon Sinek , what’s your, why what’s your story? Tell your story. And, and then like at the end of the three months, they start talking about like, okay, so here’s how you write a resume. Here’s how you interview, but really is about discovering what your purpose is. First, before you get into this, these logical logistical and tactile things. And then what I do is I come in at the very end, right before graduation, I do something called transition nights and as an evening for us to get together and use my creative tool. And I can’t give too much away because , because I don’t want it to be, you know, we , we try to keep it hush, hush up for the , for the men and women that go through it. But we use these creative tools to talk about possibilities for their future. And it’s incredible to see the possibilities they can come up with when, again, not thinking so , so much in terms of , of tactics, but in terms of just creativity and possibility.

Kyle Hamer: 23:37

So when people, when people are put in this, in this moment where they’re transitioning either they’re in the middle of their tribe, because it’s part of their company and they’re , they’re having to this exercise, or they’re going through the honors, the honor program, or they’re in their own life, what are the things that they should be looking for? What are the things, what are the rules, if you will, of really, truly finding that happiness or finding that aha moment that creativity affords them that maybe they weren’t going to be able to see before.

Van Demone: 24:08

Okay. So I’m going to say that it’s different for everyone, but what I have seen in my work is it’s not, it’s not, it’s not necessarily in the result, right? It’s not in the product, but it’s in the process. So, so even you’re putting in a creative tool for someone so that they can think in a different way. Like there’s one thing I use called force connections or visual visual clues. And this is a , this is something that I do with the honor foundation, with some of the other organizations I work with. I was put a picture in front of them, a tree with roots or a boot, and ask them, think about what you’re thinking about, what possibilities for yourself, or think about the problem you’re trying to solve and look at the, look at the picture and what characteristics of this image represent the possibilities for you. And it’s, it’s honestly incredible to see what people pull out of these images. Right. And in that, that one exercise alone is allowing them to use the right side of their brain, which is also going to draw out ideas from them that left brain thinking alone cannot do. So even that like that, right. There are people are wowed by like, Oh my gosh, like, it’s almost like even having that , that new thought is is enough of a a payoff, right? It doesn’t have to be like, Oh yes. I discovered like, this is what I want to do in my life. Or I, or I, I came to this conclusion is just like, wow, like I can use that now in so many different areas of my life. Like, I’m , I have the ability to come up with these ideas

Kyle Hamer: 25:48

Are some of the limiting factors sometimes for people embracing creativity or, or being able to, you know, emphasize right. Brain versus left brain. Cause I think there’s enough out there where folks are like, yeah, I understand that if, if I could get creative that it might be interesting, but the fear is that when you get creative, it has to be something that’s going to go in the Guggenheim or that it’s going to be seen at, at at the mat, you know, as a , as a, as a grand opera or this, this incredible production is there, is there a place where people can start to get safe that it’s, you know , in these small steps where it’s like, you don’t really, it doesn’t have to be a grand production. Like what, what is it that helps people get over that hump where I’m an accountant? And I just deal with numbers that I can embrace the, well, you know, if it’s colored in, it’s outside of the lines, then , then maybe I’m seeing something that’s different. How do you help folks get through that or, or embrace that other side of the brain? So the

Van Demone: 26:44

First thing really is like the like kind of like trying to get people to understand what creativity is like, number one, understand what their definition of creativity is and then helping them redefine that. So a lot of people think creativity is being able to think opera or paint. And I talk about creativity and a lot of my work is educating rather than it is starting the work. So I talk about creativity as a capacity and not a skill, right? So like, yes, opera singing is a skill oil painting is a skill, but the capacity behind that skill , the creative creativity behind that skill is the capacity. And we all have a capacity for creativity. It looks different on all of us. So, you know, the creativity looks different, all of us. And for some people it does look like being an amazing artists of visual artists. For some people like an accountant, it looks like, you know, accounting is hard to understand, but I can creatively come up with language to talk to my clients. So it’s understandable. So th and the idea of putting, putting the two things that are, that have no that have nothing in common and being able to combine, combine two ideas, right? So like if the accountant who can take an Excel spreadsheet, which I can’t read it all and use words and imagery and, and metaphors to help me understand it, that’s creative. Right ? So again, there’s like Gabriel created , it looks different and yes, although oftentimes I will bring in an art project. I don’t, I, I always make sure people like the art project isn’t about, I like testing your ability to do art. We use art projects at the end of a lot of our our sessions as artifacts, because I know from my experience, I go to meetings trainings, and I’ll write down copious amounts of notes and then never open that notebook again. But I have, I have a little, a little artifact with me that had the , I’ve created with some of the thoughts or ideas from that, for that program, for that workshop. That’s something I’ll come , I’ll always remember. I can always come back to it cause sitting right there in my face, remind me,

Kyle Hamer: 28:53

So there there’s, there’s a couple of things there . I think that are really powerful. I love the, I love the distinction between capacity and skill, because I think we, as a, as a society or as a human being, we want to be successful. And we project on the skill, right? We know that with practice, you can develop a skill. I mean, there’s a , it was a 10,000 hours. There’s a book that talks about, you know , the amount of time it takes to become a master elite at something that is different than the capacity, which, you know, fuels whatever that skill is as it’s manifested. So that’s, I think that’s a really, really powerful distinction that, that can help people navigate that safe space where it’s like, I maybe I’ve never done a jumping Jack, or I’ve never climbed a rope, or I’ve never done a pushup . Well, the first time you do any of those things, it’s not going to be very pretty, right. Like, it’s just, it’s just not, but it’s, you’re learning something new, you’re expanding things. So that’s , I think that’s really cool. The the last thing that you touched on there in that Oh man, I just lost it. Cause I thought it was I thought it was really, really important. So I, I apologize. It just slipped my mind.

Van Demone: 30:08

Now I can’t remember.

Kyle Hamer: 30:10

It’s gone, like I’m having old timers over here. What I was w what I want to ask is when you, when you think about, so we’ll cut here. But when you think about the , the happiness and understanding the difference between capacity and skill, if I’m a , if I’m a manager or I’m a participant on a team where I have some, I have some influence, maybe I’m not the titled leader, but I have some influence and I have some challenges. Are there practical things that I can take without having to go through? One of your courses, are there they’re little tips that you could say, Hey, here’s some anecdotal ways to maybe just do a couple of these things, going back to your curiosity, small steps. What if, but embracing that to begin creating that culture, creating that safety, that space, where it’s acceptable to be seen as where maybe it’s, you’re more successful as being seen as somebody who is trying new things. And, you know, the, you know, the outcome that, that somebody should have, or the ways that people should be behaving to , to really embrace happiness through creativity. If I’m inside corporate America today, and I can’t take your course because you’re in California, what are the things I can do with my team or things I can encourage my, my leaders to, to embrace.

Van Demone: 31:32

So I think, I think the it’s all it does. It, this is something that’s that has to be top down , right? I teach this idea of bottom up like that , as much as we can, we want it. We want it to grow things from the bottom up. But because this idea of being created in the workplace, it’s not going to work unless it’s from the top down, like people from the top have to embrace it first so that they can spread it. So, so I think a lot of it, first of all, is , is , is your mindset. So if you believe that everyone in your organization on your team has that creative capacity and believe in that philosophy that you talked about in the very beginning, one of our foundational principles is that good ideas can come from anyone in your organization. And you can really embrace those two things. You will act differently anyway, right? You’ll ask people questions. As you walk by their desk , you’ll ask people, other people for ideas. So those types of things to begin with. So changing your minds around, like, where do I use come from in my organization? And the creative department, the marketing department are not the only creative peoples here. Like we’re all creative. So even having that mindset will change the way you act. And then when people are being creative, not to you know , let them fail and let, I let even bad crazy ideas come to the table and come up for discussion. Because what that does is it allows someone’s idea. Even as all comes with the idea in your head, you think , Oh, that’s never gonna work. You know what, if you ha, if you get three people together into discussion about that wild and crazy idea, that can be honed down and chiseled into something that might work, but you’ve knocked that down right away and say, that’s never going to work well , you’re right. It’s never gonna work. A great tool that people can bring into the workplace for that is from improv called. Yes. And have you heard of that tool? No . Have not that tell me more so yes. Yes. And it comes from improv. So when you’re, when you’re in improv, if you’re an improv artist, you don’t have the opportunity to get on stage . And if someone says something, you can’t say like, Oh, I don’t want to do that. Let’s do another one. Right. You just have to roll as a yes. And, and then make something up. So the same thing. So this is something that you, this is often used a brainstorming in companies where, you know, you ask the question, someone comes with an idea, the next person has to say yes and, and build on that idea. So you do this in a group for awhile . I always do it two ways. I , I first say, we’re good. We’re going to do it. But we say, but you know, like you had a couple of idea . I’m gonna say yes, but why wouldn’t work ? And you can see, you can just feel the energy of the room, like lowering. And then we switched it up. It was like, okay, now you’re gonna come with idea. And the next person, the next what’s , the next one is going to build up, I think. Yes. And , and all of a sudden, like you , and like, even when I say like , you can see me, no one else on the podcast, but I’m like slumping down when I say yes, but the second I said , yes, and I’m sitting up. So it’s, it’s a way to have everyone’s ideas matter, be supported and in a non-judgemental environment. So after your yes, and exercise, all the ideas, get on the board and now you can set criteria. Right. We also call it, we also called this protocol divers and conference and thinking. So, so I’m just giving you, I’m going all over the place, but the yes, and this is great. The other thing and the other principle that can be used immediately by anyone is this concept of divergent and convergent thinking. So again, you have a problem you’re trying to solve a challenge is trying to overcome. The first thing you want to do is divergent thinking. You’re going to get a real with your team. And you’re going to tell her we’re going to do divergent thinking, which basically means here’s the question. Here’s the challenge. Let’s get every single idea on the table. And you’re going to keep doing that until every ideas on the table, even the wild and crazy ones. And, and no one can say, Oh, that’s not gonna work. No one says aiding you, everyone everybody’s idea gets on the table. And then you can move to convergent thinking. And then converse is thinking now, as a leader, I might say, great, all these ideas are amazing. Great, invalid, thank you for those ideas. But we, but let me give you the parameters. This has to be in four weeks, this is our budget. These are the people that need to be involved, and now you have parameters. So now you can go back to your divers and thinking ideas and be like, okay, well, these are the ones that will work in the parameter. And then you can work on developing those. But the I , but the concept like the everyone’s I did on that table is going to make it more likely that by the time you get to whatever the end result is that you have more people on board,

Kyle Hamer: 36:03

It makes it makes sense to me. I mean, it , yeah , it does. Just, just given the fact that you’ve been part of plenty of brainstorming and discussions where the first thing the person facilitating wants to do is they’re their words . No, we can’t do that. No, no, no, no. Yeah . And the thing that I think is really amazing that I think you, you very pointedly pulled out is, is how powerful language really is. You only changed one word, but the one word that you changed you and versus , but same response and versus , but has a dramatic impact on the emotion, the response, the creativity, the empowerment of that room and the person facilitating is the person who has the privilege of giving or taking away those feelings with just a simple word choice.

Van Demone: 36:59

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it goes, and that’s what we talk about that yes, an exercise, as it’s funny, can , it can get funny and again , you know , it’s a way to involve everyone, but really ultimately what you’re, what you’re doing is building trust.

Kyle Hamer: 37:16

Absolutely. 100% about, Oh , is this is 2020. So what have been for 1350 11, 11 to 13 years ago, Melissa Mayer Meyer was the, I want to say COO or director of, of design. She was, she was a head up in Google. She was, she was high up in Google. And I saw a segment where somebody had done kind of like a day in the life of one of their design sessions or day in the life of an engineer of a product engineer at Google. And the, in the segment. One of the things that I thought was was brilliant about what Melissa had done is she would say, I , I understand what you’re saying. And I agree with the , the solution that you’ve provided, but I disagree with your problem statement. So she, she kept coming back to, I agree with what you’re saying, but we haven’t defined the problem appropriately yet. Let’s go back to what the actual problem is, which I thought was just, was a fascinating way to think. It was like everything everybody was saying, everyone was looking at the solution. And she was saying, I don’t, I don’t disagree with your solution. I, as a matter of fact, if you guys started with that problem statement, I would come to the same conclusion as you, we need to readdress the problem statement. How often do you find when you’re working with, with groups or companies or, or individuals as you’re talking to them, that the problem that they’re really struggling with, the, the limiter isn’t the creativity, it isn’t their ability to be willing to fail, but it’s their inability to effectively define the problem they’re trying to solve.

Van Demone: 39:01

Yeah. So that , that does happen again because we are such as, you know , we are so reactive and we want to find a solution so quickly that oftentimes the first step is coming up with a problem and whatever seems at hand seems to be the problem. So, but what we really want to look at is like the root of that problem. I kind of like, I love that idea of like, just kind of going back and seeing like, if someone States that there’s a problem doing work around that, like clarifying that like clarifying , if that is really the problem. And we do an exercise, I don’t, I don’t do a lot of strategy work, but when we do, I also use this, this process of of moving backwards from like a tree. Right. So, so if you look at the, the, like the dead leaves, like what’s going on, like, what’s , what’s the problem. Like they started the , the leaves like, well , so what’s the problem. And people think like, that is the problem, but then we’ll go deeper. Okay. What’s in the, like, what are some of the symptoms of that problem? And we’ll go like , into the reason, like, okay, here’s what it was happening. And they kind of dig into the roots and then you’re like, okay, so what you’re seeing in the roots, that’s the actual problem. You were trying to treat a symptom

Kyle Hamer: 40:10

And in the , not maybe thinking of a different Kaizen, but the Kaizen that you mentioned that you were mentor mentor before, was he the person that was part of the the Kaizen events inside of the six , six Sigma ocean Conrad . Okay. Because the there’s they , they have, what’s called a Kaizen event where you ask the five whys and the five whys are, you know, w why do we have this problem to your, to your point of the leaves are Brown. Okay, well, why are the leaves Brown? Will the leaves we should go get paint and paint them, or we should water the tree. Well if, you know, if you go through the five fives and you find out, well, the reason that the leaves are Brown is because the tree has been drowned. And the last thing that you should have done was water the tree. Like , you know what I mean? Like it’s, it’s, it’s understanding what is the actual root of the, of the problem to get, to solving it now in your, in your time, working with folks across being , you know, varied, whether they’re, you know, super straight laced all the way to maybe there are creative inside of a sales or a marketing organization, they’ve found have been some fun stories. Are there one or two aha moments where you’re just like, you know, this was, this was really special for that person and help them have this breakthrough or , or find something that normal people wouldn’t have seen.

Van Demone: 41:25

Yeah. I’ve , I’ve seen that at like a group level and an individual level. So from what I, I love working with the honor foundation is one of the highlights of my career. And I love getting emails from these again, like Navy seals, Marine ranges , like that class was amazing. I really had some, some breakthroughs about what I want to do in my life. And one very specific one was was in , in, in one of the, one of the programs, the first question is like, so what build one possibility? Like we work with Legos plate or whatever it is, build one possibility for your future. And often, and this one, Jen was like, well, I want to be the CEO of a, you know, a governmental like on like engineering farm or something like that. But his last, but his last build was like, you know what? I’ve always wanted to be a travel writer, the mailbox for that. So I was like, this is like, this is what creativity does. And this is what allowing yourself that time to be creative allows you to really get to what you love rather than what you left brain thinking, think you should be doing. So that was one, one story on an individual level. And then there was another organization I was working with where they had multiple satellite offices. Everyone would do something different. There was no cohesion between any of the offices. So we started building build ideas to solve the problem of how can we be a more cohesive worldwide company. And so on had built this little a little metaphor for beam me up Scotty from star Trek, right? And again, like, could you imagine you’re in a corporate office? And you’re like, Oh wow . It was being people to another Caucasian that clearly wouldn’t go over well, but because we’re building, they could build this model as , and wild and crazy ideas are welcome. That idea made it to the table. Of course, cause all I do is make it a table. And then within conversation, what that idea of beam me up, Scotty ended up becoming and they ended up using, it was this concept of a work abroad program. So they developed this work abroad program where someone from the marketing team in Los Angeles, we’d go for a weekend and shadow the marketing team in London and then come back with those ideas. They weren’t exactly beaming them to London, but that’s where that concept came from the idea of a study abroad program or a work abroad .

Kyle Hamer: 43:39

That’s pretty, I mean, that’s pretty fun given, you know, a traveling, it sounds like it’d be a blast right now, given the we’re all a little bit limited in where we can go, but You might come out with a radioactive glow who knows what it’ll happen at this point? Oh favorite book from the last 24 months, the best book you’ve written the last two years,

Van Demone: 44:03

I just finished reading. I read so as you don’t have a seven year old. So I really haven’t done that much reading in seven years or at least not a full book, but I would have to say my favorite book that I’ve recently read is called Israel, Elizabeth Gilbert, big magic. It’s an , a phenomenal book and speak to a lot of the work that I do around creativity. And there’s one idea from her book that I’d love to share. It’s kind of end this as the idea that ideas are ideas, our energy, right? So ideas are floating around us all the time and they are tapping on our shoulder asking us to bring them to life. Cause I dig it only come to life through a human being and they can tap for a moment. They might tap for years, but if you don’t answer them, they’ll find someone else. So I think ideas come to us as our curiosities. So that’s why I think it’s so important to pay attention to those curiosities because the idea tapping on the shoulder saying like, listen to me, I want you to bring me to life.

Kyle Hamer: 45:02

I really don’t think that there’s any better way to end this. Then with that concept of a way to bring your ideas to life and finding happiness and things that you know are creating something new. That’s , that’s just fantastic. If somebody wants to get ahold of you, if they’re there, you need to reach out. They’re like, Hey, I th this has been great. Bernie. Brown’s like, Hey, I’ve got to get ahold of van . What , what’s the best way for them ?

Van Demone: 45:28

And you can find me on my website@worksmartadvantage.com. And I basically live on LinkedIn. So you can also find me there under my name.

Kyle Hamer: 45:38

That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for, for your insights and sharing. It’s been a delight to have you on the show today, van.

Van Demone: 45:45

Yeah. Thank you so much, Kyle. I really enjoyed it. I thank you for your time as well. And for having me on,

Kyle Hamer: 45:50

Oh, it’s been fantastic. I’m your host, Kyle Haimer . You’ve been listening to The Summit Podcast until next week. Make sure you like follow or subscribe and check out the comments and description for links to Van’s information. So you can get in contact with her again. Thanks for listening. And until next week, keep growing, keep grinding and keep finding your greatness.