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capella.edu. Hey,

1:06

it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm

1:09

the founder of Lead Above Noise, a

1:11

firm specializing in activating workplaces, helping

1:14

leaders bring simplicity, ease, and big, giant

1:16

results to the forefront. So

1:18

today's episode is an interview with one

1:20

of my newest heroes, Kevin Irvin Kelly.

1:23

He's the author of the new book,

1:25

Irreplaceable, How to Create Extraordinary Places that

1:28

Bring People Together. I

1:30

picked up Kevin's book kind of by

1:32

accident. It's a long story, but

1:35

I loved it so much that as soon as I

1:37

finished it, I went back to the beginning and read

1:39

it again. I reached out to him,

1:41

and now the rest is history. Kevin

1:43

is an award-winning architect, a

1:45

brand innovator and co-founder of

1:47

the strategic design firm, Shook Kelly.

1:50

But trust me, his work and his

1:52

writing on design is all about

1:55

creating spaces that draw people in,

1:57

that help us have our best experiences. that

2:00

connect us and empower us and allow

2:02

us to achieve tremendous things. It's

2:05

incredible how much insight he has to offer

2:07

to anyone striving to achieve workplace success. I

2:10

hope you enjoy my conversation with Kevin Kelly.

2:13

Kevin Kelly, author of the

2:15

tremendous new book, Irreplaceable, it

2:18

is such an honor to have you on the

2:20

Modern Mental Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. Thank

2:23

you. I'm the one that feels honored.

2:25

I'm so happy to be here and so glad to be

2:27

a part of this show. So thank you. So

2:29

I feel like the first thing we just need

2:32

to put out there, Kevin, you and I were

2:34

chatting a little bit in the green room and

2:36

I was saying that I picked up your book

2:38

a little bit by accident because there is another

2:40

author by the same name. And

2:42

if somebody had told me I was picking up

2:45

a book written by an architect, I would have

2:47

just put it back down. But

2:50

I picked it up and was by the time

2:52

I realized you were not the author I thought

2:55

you were, I was so hooked

2:57

and I was so blown away by just

2:59

how relevant and resonant a book

3:01

by an architect could be to a person

3:03

who specializes in the workplace and workplace dynamics.

3:05

So why don't we start there because I

3:07

don't want people tuning out thinking, well, I'm

3:09

not an architect. I'm just going to say

3:11

you don't have to be. Tell me a

3:13

little bit about like just the ethos of

3:15

this book. Like what was

3:17

your intent with it? Well first of all,

3:20

say and you and I were chatting about

3:22

this that serendipity is such a great quality

3:24

in life. Almost

3:26

every event I think we can think

3:28

of in life that was life changing

3:31

generally happens by accident and nothing you

3:33

planned. I teach marketing

3:35

courses at great universities and

3:38

they often ask me, you know, do your

3:40

plans always go according to plan and they

3:42

don't. The biggest deals ever

3:44

got happened, you know, by accident. I met

3:47

my wife in baggage green at

3:49

LAX airport. So go figure. I

3:53

think the lesson in that though is

3:55

cultivating serendipity. I think that's the

3:57

real trick is how do we find ways

3:59

to keep. heat making accidents

4:02

happen. And so that's a

4:04

good segue into the topic

4:06

of the book. Just because

4:08

we're in this spot, I think accidental

4:10

encounters are the secret to life. And

4:13

what I mean by that is when you go to

4:15

the market, when you go to an orchestra, when you

4:18

go to the park, when you just take a walk

4:20

around the neighborhood, running into

4:22

people and seeing people and striking

4:24

up a conversation that you didn't

4:26

plan to have is

4:28

so natural we're so hardwired for

4:30

it and it allows great things

4:32

to happen. And I think

4:34

we'd all agree when Starbucks first came on

4:36

the scene that accidental encounter

4:38

was so powerful. It wasn't that we

4:41

absolutely had to be caffeine

4:43

up all day. It's that it was just such

4:45

a nice break to be around humans and

4:48

a space. And we have

4:50

this quality in that we like to find

4:53

our distances in spaces. We like

4:55

to, we're kind of voyeurs of

4:57

life but we're also participants. And

5:00

like a dance floor, sometimes we want to be on the

5:02

perimeter and sometimes we want to

5:04

be a little closer and sometimes we want to be right

5:06

in the thick of it. But we're losing this quality. We're

5:09

losing these accidental encounters which

5:12

started around, this quality of losing

5:15

started around 2008 with mass adoption

5:17

of smartphones, the rise

5:19

of social media, online shopping, delivery

5:21

apps, binge watching. And

5:23

none of it was intentionally harmful

5:26

but it is hurting

5:28

us. We're making less eye contact. We're going

5:30

to the market less and we're having less

5:32

social encounters with other humans. This

5:35

is particularly dangerous for kids

5:38

who need to navigate the world and get

5:40

out there and develop their skills of

5:43

socialization and how to deal with

5:45

others. So the book

5:47

is really about this crisis of

5:50

place and trying to strike a

5:52

balance. We live

5:54

in a replacement economy of Digital

5:56

options and that's not going to stop. Wall Street's

5:59

not going to stop. That it's don't and

6:01

neither is Facebook. But we we have

6:03

to strike a balance or we're gonna

6:05

lose ourselves. Adding up all incredibly

6:07

well there you know. One of the

6:09

things I appreciated about your book is

6:12

that it it happens to be written

6:14

or at least published post poll that

6:16

and see you are certainly acknowledging in

6:18

addressing the reality of are being post

6:20

pandemic. But the point that I'm taking

6:22

away his this didn't begin with the

6:24

pandemic he did. this is just connection

6:26

that we're experiencing certainly predates that I.

6:28

I do think that the pandemic and

6:30

and the real shifts to virtual and

6:32

hybrid working. Probably. Exacerbated it.

6:35

But this is not as new

6:37

as some of us may think.

6:39

What I would love to start

6:41

with: haven't If you know again

6:43

you are an architect and your

6:45

your expertise keep me on. It

6:47

is in designing places and spaces

6:49

and yet he doesn't. Have a. Word

6:51

that keeps coming up in your book is

6:53

the said. He has the experience right a

6:55

places more than just. The. Stuff

6:57

of at the architecture of it It really

7:00

is about how we are crafting experiences that

7:02

people had and in a One of the

7:04

things I really appreciated about your book is

7:06

that you took the time to to define

7:09

the word experience which seems silly. it's a

7:11

it's a fairly standard word used in the

7:13

English language and yet it's self important and

7:15

I would love for you to just explain

7:17

that a little bit in what defines and

7:20

experience for you. You do,

7:22

We all might remember that joke

7:24

were the older face as younger

7:26

fish you know I'm how's the

7:28

water in the younger for says

7:30

what's water on birth control What

7:32

we are as humans there is

7:34

no time there were not in

7:36

a place where always in a

7:38

place even more troops to your

7:40

doom, School and. no matter

7:42

where we are we're in a place but

7:44

we're not really aware sometimes we sit him

7:47

were in an environment but actually the environment

7:49

is an office just as much as the

7:51

food we herbs and if you live off

7:53

of diet junk food and bad food you're

7:55

going to have an unhealthy like to call

7:57

your life is going to say the

8:00

same with environments. And if you're in

8:02

bad environments, which are all over society,

8:05

and oftentimes people don't get to choose their

8:07

environment they're in, most of the

8:09

time they don't, then your quality

8:11

of relationships, your longevity, your

8:13

sense of loneliness

8:15

or connectedness are greatly affected.

8:18

And so every

8:20

day we're out walking, going to

8:22

places, but we aren't conscious that

8:24

we're making decisions all day long

8:27

about where we're going. And

8:29

that's because our brain's running off around

8:31

a 60 watt light bulb literally. And so

8:33

we don't have a lot of power

8:36

to study everything. So we let

8:38

our senses and our emotions make

8:40

a lot of our decisions for us. So

8:42

all through the day, we're either the way

8:45

I would describe it is we're swimming towards

8:47

things we want, or avoiding the

8:49

things we don't want to be dealing with.

8:51

And that's because our lizard brain kind of

8:53

looks for two things, enhancements to life and

8:56

impediments. And we avoid things

8:58

that just are threats for us. And we

9:00

can't get rid of that. And

9:02

so going to places that

9:05

we like feels good, it makes us

9:07

feel connected. And we need a sense of, of

9:10

not only physical safety, but psychological

9:12

and social safety. And so all

9:14

that kind of leads up to

9:16

the quality of experience. When

9:18

we get to a place that we really

9:20

like, and it might be, it

9:23

might be a beautiful restaurant, it might be

9:25

a vineyard, it might be

9:27

a big outdoor shopping center, when

9:29

we get to a place we like, we

9:32

all of a sudden start feeling and energy, literally

9:35

physically, our hair might rise up and we

9:37

get close to a state of awe, all

9:40

is a little bit different, which happens

9:42

by ourselves and generally, and it's where

9:44

we kind of sense that there's

9:46

a universe bigger than us. Well,

9:48

what happens with experiences and places

9:51

is that we feel a sense

9:53

of social bliss and social harmony

9:56

and social connectedness that

9:58

creates a vibrancy in us. energy and

10:00

I said we want to be a part of that. I

10:02

will say if I can extend this is that I

10:05

take a lot of issue

10:07

with how the word experience is thrown out

10:09

and it's thrown out too often is either

10:12

theme-y or like

10:14

a Disneyland or Planet Hollywood if you

10:16

remember way back when or Hard Rock

10:18

Cafe and that kind of insults

10:20

the customer and it commercializes them in a way

10:22

they're uncomfortable with or we

10:25

talk about it in this very intellectual

10:27

way abstract art

10:29

and and humans don't think

10:32

about that when they're going in their

10:34

spaces as mentioned everything's subconscious so the

10:36

experiences I'm talking about are biological and

10:39

emotional and kind of sociological

10:43

and you can see it by the way 90%

10:46

of what we need to know in my office

10:48

about how humans behave we can

10:50

see visually on people's faces we

10:53

can tell whether they're having a good time or

10:55

not just as much as you can tell whether

10:57

a movie is working or not by watching people

10:59

come out of the theater. Yeah for sure you

11:01

know I think I think that was

11:03

one of the themes running through your

11:05

book that most struck me which was

11:07

you know by no

11:09

means are you coming off

11:11

as anti-technology but rather you

11:14

are so pro just watching

11:16

and sort of consuming the

11:18

data of seeing how

11:21

singular individuals are navigating a space

11:23

watching their faces watching their body

11:25

language watching their interaction and I

11:28

think it really resonated for me because

11:30

you know I'm not I am NOT

11:32

an architect and I am NOT a

11:34

designer of spaces but I am a

11:37

designer of conversations and leadership experiences

11:39

and human experiences and I think

11:42

that's a big piece of how I like

11:44

to work I am thinking about how

11:47

do I want the people sitting around

11:49

this table engaging with each other how

11:51

am I going to facilitate more vulnerability

11:53

more real conversation how am I going

11:56

to facilitate them leaving at the end

11:58

of the day feeling Tired

12:00

not because their souls have been sucked

12:02

through their eyeballs, but tired because we

12:05

made a space for them to do

12:07

work, to really be together and accomplish

12:09

something. And I think that right

12:12

now we're so busy with AI and

12:14

just reams and reams of data. How

12:16

much more data can we generate? And

12:18

we're doing surveys and is it statistically

12:20

valid and is it global? And it's

12:22

like, you talk a lot about

12:24

just sitting in a Harley Davidson dealership or

12:26

sitting in a Trader Joe's and just like

12:29

watching the people as they engage with it.

12:31

And so, you know, one of the things

12:33

I would love to ask you about is

12:35

how do you have these conversations

12:37

with clients of yours? And I want

12:39

people to understand, I want

12:41

this to feel relevant to you, audience,

12:44

whoever you are, maybe you're a

12:46

marketing manager, maybe you are a

12:48

nursing manager, but you know, as

12:50

you're thinking about how to bring

12:52

intelligence, how to be adding

12:54

thoughtfulness around your workplace experience. Kevin,

12:56

how do you sort of encourage

12:59

clients to say, yeah, we have

13:01

lots of data, the hard quantifiable

13:03

data, but how do you encourage

13:05

them to be thoughtful about the

13:08

more anecdotal and experiential data that

13:10

you're collecting, just by observing? A

13:13

great question. You know, the

13:16

thing that most people won't admit,

13:18

including designers, is that we are

13:21

very visually and sensory

13:25

deficit. You know, we have a visual

13:27

illiteracy that we have to train the

13:29

eye to learn how to see. And

13:33

what I mean by that is we

13:35

don't know why we're attracted to things.

13:37

There are certain neuroscientists that do know,

13:39

but designers and business people don't. And

13:43

when we go to school to learn these things,

13:45

and I work for some super smart, amazingly

13:48

talented people who don't know how to see.

13:51

It's a common week for me to fly

13:54

somewhere in the world, meet with

13:56

a CEO that has had a say a store

13:58

or an orchestra hall for a whole year. hundred

14:00

years and has never seen it.

14:02

And I will walk with them in one trip

14:05

and show them things that they'll ask me, how

14:07

do you know that? How do you see that?

14:09

And what I really understand and

14:11

my team understands is the ability of the human

14:13

eye and what is it where the eye goes.

14:15

And we'll start with the eye because it's only

14:17

one of the senses. It's the most

14:19

dominant sense and over a 30 year brain

14:22

is dead it came to your eye. It's not

14:24

necessarily your most powerful sense but

14:26

we have an involuntary visual system. We don't

14:28

tell our eyes what to look at. Our

14:30

eyes look at what it believes is most

14:33

pertinent. Again back to

14:35

enhancement impediments. And so if you don't

14:37

understand the involuntary eye then you're gonna

14:39

have a really hard time understanding how

14:41

to attract people. Now your

14:43

other senses are involuntary too. We don't tell

14:45

our nose to smell something most of the

14:47

time. It smells what it wants

14:50

and it hears what it wants and in fact it

14:52

puts all those things together. Visual

14:54

hearing, auditory, olfactory

14:56

glands all work together in this

14:58

beautiful kind of symphony to help

15:01

us decide about our world. There

15:04

are times when voluntarily tell our eye

15:06

to look at something or we voluntarily

15:08

say smell that cheese. Those

15:10

are great moments. We just can't be in that

15:12

mode all day long. And so

15:14

you were mentioning the workplace. You know

15:16

that's a great venue to

15:19

look at and something we study a lot

15:21

is people come into their offices with a

15:23

full tank of energy. Kind of

15:25

like an electric car. Their batteries fully

15:27

charged but then as they

15:29

navigate working through the office phone calls

15:31

emails go out to lunch their battery

15:33

starts to wear down and by the

15:36

five o'clock they're starting to go I'm

15:38

really tired. In the

15:40

book I reference that's when your spouse calls

15:42

and says hey would you mind going by

15:44

and you're the dry cleaner the supermarket and

15:46

we just we blow a fuse because we

15:49

can't imagine expending any more energy. That's

15:51

because our days wear us out. Now

15:54

some environments actually have the ability

15:56

to recharge us. We can all think about

15:58

places we go to that really restore

16:00

our energy. Nature generally

16:02

does, a

16:07

lot of places that restore is going out for

16:09

wine at a beautiful cafe that is going to

16:12

a movie theater recharges. And

16:14

so what really helps people in the

16:16

work world is one to notice when

16:18

people's batteries are being drained and when

16:20

they're being filled up. To

16:22

notice what people gravitate to and notice

16:24

what they void. In our work we

16:26

look at where people stand, where they

16:28

talk, where they don't talk. It's

16:31

very common for me to go to 100,000 square

16:34

foot venue and find only 20,000 square

16:37

feet of it being used and the others

16:39

wasted. Because they don't

16:41

understand how the human body gravitates

16:43

to places, gets refueled. I

16:46

could talk about that a lot more but I think you get

16:48

the general gist of what I'm saying. Spectrum

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right away learn how Capella can make a

18:07

difference in your life at Capella.edu So

18:12

I want to talk about this concept you write

18:14

about in the book you call it bonfire moments

18:17

And this really popped for me and

18:19

I'd love for you to explain a little bit about What

18:22

makes a bonfire moment and how do you create

18:24

one? You know when I was a

18:26

kid I lived out in the kind of near

18:28

the swamp lands in South Florida our house was

18:30

on a dirt road There

18:33

wasn't a lot to do But

18:35

everybody that lived out in that rural community Every

18:38

Sunday we knew that we would

18:41

go two miles out into the

18:43

horizonless swamps to a kind

18:45

of a redneck Riviera called the mud

18:47

flats and We'd

18:49

spend all day Having fun

18:51

and we'd build these elaborate swamp buggies

18:53

and vehicles that can navigate any train

18:55

that looked like something out of a

18:57

Mad Max movie But

18:59

what I was fascinated with without

19:02

any formal organization or formal hierarchy

19:04

or electing officers to our mud

19:06

flats corporation a self-appointed

19:09

bonfire master would take charge

19:11

and build this bonfire and

19:13

a group of people would Be

19:15

willing to work for that bonfire master and

19:18

collect Boxes and you

19:20

know other items to build this

19:22

pyramid bonfire shape and

19:24

again none of this was organized We just knew that

19:26

that was the highlight of the day and

19:29

then a group of strangers who were

19:31

oftentimes very competitive with each other Because

19:33

of different high schools different regions or

19:35

different dating Situations, but

19:37

we would collect together around

19:39

this beautiful dusk Kind

19:42

of setting drink beer and sing

19:44

redneck anthems and unite in a

19:46

very powerful way And

19:48

Carl Jung called that quality

19:51

participation mystique It is

19:53

this ability for humans when they

19:55

get together to feel this kind of social harmony

19:57

and bliss and I thought wow That's really powerful

20:00

And as I moved through my life

20:03

going from the swamplands to Melrose Place

20:05

to Beverly Hills, I started seeing bonfires

20:07

everywhere. I started seeing these moments where

20:10

humans came together around an

20:12

idea that was bigger than just the

20:14

individual, the selfless individual, but

20:17

was really concerned about the collective. And I

20:19

thought, how do we recreate that? And

20:21

so when I'm talking to my clients,

20:24

they'll tell me oftentimes, oh,

20:26

well, we're not on the right corner. We're not

20:28

in the right intersection or we're too far out.

20:31

My goal is to say, look, we need

20:33

to create a place that people will crawl

20:35

through mud to get to. They'll crawl through

20:37

Bob where to get to. It has to

20:39

be that strong, which really gets to this

20:41

issue of what we call work versus payoff.

20:44

All day long, you're subconsciously making decisions about,

20:46

do I want to go there? Do

20:49

I want to go to that mall or do we want to go to

20:51

that great fish house way out

20:53

there? Or do we want to go

20:55

to the beach? Whatever place you're thinking about the orchestra

20:57

is the perfect one. Is

21:00

that you have to think about the amount

21:02

of work you're going to expend. Parking, driving,

21:04

getting everybody ready, dealing with

21:06

snow weather and then the payoff. And

21:08

those payoffs in this new era of

21:11

the digital replacements cannot be commodities. They

21:13

can't be lowest price, fastest

21:15

delivery, greatest variety. They have

21:17

to be emotional social payoffs.

21:20

You have to give somebody something so powerful

21:22

that they feel like, wow, that was worth

21:25

it. And I can name hundreds of places

21:27

that people go out of their way to

21:29

get to. And I did, obviously, when we

21:31

were going to the swamplands. We

21:33

went through a lot of mosquitoes and effort

21:36

to have that bonding experience.

21:39

So I look for those bonfire moments everywhere I go.

21:42

What I love about that is one

21:44

of the things I'm always preaching to people is

21:46

I think it's great to be looking out for

21:48

the next trend. And to sort of stay focused

21:51

on what's coming and to always be learning

21:53

and accumulating knowledge. And

21:55

yet I think one of the things that could

21:57

benefit all of us is. taking

22:00

a step back and reflecting a little

22:02

bit on our own past experiences and

22:04

looking for these types of hindsight opportunities

22:06

that have already taught us the things

22:08

that we need to know, right? You

22:11

didn't go out and go to some

22:13

big innovative conference and learn

22:15

about these bonfire moments. You

22:17

just took a step back and you reflected on, what

22:20

does this remind me of? What does this feel like?

22:22

And you just sort of looked back on your own

22:24

path. And I think all of us could just benefit

22:26

so much from doing that if we can

22:29

create the discipline to find that time

22:31

in our day. So one of the

22:33

things I would love, you know, Kevin,

22:36

you work in a world where your

22:38

customers are customer facing, right? They are

22:40

trying to acquire customers. They're kind of

22:42

bring their customers in. I

22:44

work in a world where my clients, customers

22:46

are their employees, if you will, right? I

22:48

work with leadership teams. And so I don't

22:50

want to put you on the spot here.

22:52

But what advice, what can you

22:54

take from the world of retail and

22:57

the spaces that you've worked in? What

22:59

advice can you give to senior leaders

23:01

within organizations who want to be getting

23:04

closer to creating these bonfire moments

23:06

within their organizations for their employees? You

23:09

know, there is such a hot debate

23:11

now about return to office versus hybrid

23:13

versus virtual. And how do we make

23:16

people come in? And how many days a week can

23:18

we compel them to be here? And, you know, I

23:21

think one of the things you and I chatted about

23:23

over email is, you know, what if what if that's

23:25

the wrong question? What if the question is, how do

23:27

we how do we create

23:29

an not a fancy space, not bagels,

23:31

but like, how do we create a

23:33

space, a set of experiences that actually

23:36

draw people in where that payoff actually

23:38

feels worth it where they actually want

23:40

to do the work of commuting at least

23:42

once or twice a week? Do you have any

23:44

advice on that? Yeah, those are all

23:46

excellent kind of comments and questions. And I'll

23:49

try to weave in a couple of things

23:51

because you kind of hit, you know, personally,

23:53

how did I get there? And then also,

23:55

you know, Where we add and

23:57

so I'll start with the bigger topic. Yeah,

24:00

I got a lot of conferences and I don't think

24:03

I've gone to any conference. That. Is

24:05

an overwhelming about Ai? That's all

24:07

they talk about. It Added: It's

24:09

almost exhausting because each one thinks

24:11

they're unique and talking about Ai

24:13

That almost all commercialized sponsored advance

24:16

and were were so enamored with

24:18

the new, the shiny new object

24:20

that we don't ask the question

24:22

what's missing And if you ask

24:24

that question, what is missing and

24:26

which I do every day, my

24:29

team does every day. What's missing

24:31

is social connections, trust and neighbors

24:33

having a great time. Stability and

24:35

in there so many things that are

24:37

missing in our lives. in particular years

24:39

you get into all this sub groups

24:41

and within an office or I think

24:43

that's one of the things you have

24:46

to ask regular your be your employees,

24:48

your boss's is what's missing but I'll

24:50

add another layer to that and that

24:52

is the thing I'm most are interested

24:54

or what do people care about and

24:56

I will start with the individual first

24:58

would you care about and really think

25:00

about that and when I was or

25:02

even exaggerate this to say and. I'm

25:05

I'm a very hyperbolic person

25:07

for fact, Is

25:09

that would be willing to fight for

25:11

what would you put another person's ear

25:13

off of Reform? I'm exaggerating but when

25:15

I was young I would I would

25:17

fight over the were restaurant was designed

25:19

I just believed the lighting level should

25:21

be a certain way the table to

25:23

be a certain with and I hated

25:25

even as a kid seeing a restaurant

25:27

give up. I don't want to see

25:29

to the opinion since the garbage and

25:31

bad lights are horrible. Bathrooms. and

25:34

when i got into the work field i'm

25:36

at a lot of executive the didn't care

25:38

and i make the new should be doing

25:40

this you know none of business finding out

25:42

what you care about is very first important

25:44

which is german could be some you're willing

25:46

to fight for the second thing is to

25:49

really figure out what you do your bosses

25:51

are clients or customers care about and start

25:53

trying to find an overlay of those tears

25:55

and this isn't going to be something he

25:57

saw than and one hour it's can be

25:59

said you think about until you go this

26:01

is what I care about and this is

26:03

what these people care about. And so I

26:06

can give you tons of case studies where

26:08

I've gone into a company that's 30, 40

26:10

years old not doing well and

26:12

they won't reveal what they care about. That's the

26:14

key word. They won't reveal. They're like well I

26:16

don't know that's my personal opinion. I'm like that's

26:18

what we want. We want your

26:20

personal opinion. So if you care that beef

26:23

isn't made a certain way which one of

26:25

my clients did then tell us how beef

26:27

should be done, how it should be raised

26:29

and how it should be fed. And it's

26:31

a big dare. So finding those cares are

26:33

really important. Mining

26:36

your past which you hit. I really believe in

26:38

mining your past and finding those odd little things

26:40

that you did as a kid. So here was

26:42

my very odd thing. I was very observant how

26:45

people came into a room. I could tell by

26:47

the way people put a key in a door

26:49

at my house, ice cubes in a

26:51

glass, whether there was going to be a fight that

26:53

night or whether the environment is going to be what

26:56

I call pro social or harmonious. And

26:59

I knew as a little kid I couldn't do

27:01

much but I knew if I could turn the

27:03

lights down low, get the music just right that

27:05

I could make people happy. And

27:07

my little body couldn't do much else and I thought well

27:09

that's what I'm going to do with my life. I'm

27:12

going to make people happy by creating a better

27:14

environment and day in and day out I can

27:16

prove that that works. But that's my Piccadilly. Each

27:18

of us has something we care about and can

27:21

give to the world. I know there

27:23

are a lot of people out there and I

27:25

hear from a lot of them every day. People

27:27

are kind of struggling a little

27:29

bit with their feeling of purpose and connection

27:31

to their work right now and not necessarily

27:34

in a really existential way how am I

27:36

saving the world but rather how

27:38

is the minutia of my

27:40

day contributing to something that

27:43

I feel care about. And I will just say

27:45

it sounds like you got lucky

27:47

in that you discovered that early and

27:50

you on some level at least had

27:52

that intelligence and you pursued it and

27:54

I think that's pretty tremendous. The

27:56

joke I tell people is that but

27:59

I'm meaning it. and that's what jokes

28:01

do, there's truths in jokes, is that

28:04

I took my neurosis that I wore on my

28:06

forehead and put it on my

28:08

back as a propeller, and my

28:10

neurosis was I was way

28:12

too observant. I was an

28:15

empath and really spent a lot of time thinking

28:17

about how people feel, but I

28:19

tell all my friends and family, I'm like, what

28:22

do you care about? What is most

28:24

important? And don't hide from that. And

28:26

I know people that'll fight over a

28:28

stitch and a piece of leather that'll

28:30

fight over how a plate is, food

28:33

is put on a plate, and that's where you should

28:35

go. But we're afraid to do that. I mean, we

28:37

are. So you have to really get that courage to

28:40

go, I'm gonna do it. Most people I know that

28:42

love something, will tell me, I could never do that.

28:44

Really what they're telling me is I'm afraid to do

28:46

that. So I'm

28:48

curious, you talk about

28:50

just the power of observation, watching

28:54

people, how they're engaging, interacting, and this

28:57

gives you an intelligence about how something

28:59

is gonna go. That sounds like

29:01

a superpower that's been honed over decades. And

29:03

so I'm not gonna ask, how do you

29:06

do that? But I guess what I would

29:08

ask is for people who are in the

29:10

workplace and feeling like they are

29:12

maybe struggling to find traction on something, I

29:14

have been trying to pitch an idea and

29:17

I don't feel like anyone's listening, or I

29:19

have been trying to get myself nominated for

29:21

a promotion and I don't really feel like

29:24

I'm on people's radar. Is there any advice

29:26

you can offer to people around

29:28

how they can step back and just be

29:30

a little bit observant about the workplace, about

29:32

their leadership, about the dynamics in their workplace

29:34

that might give them a little bit of

29:36

information about what to tweak or what to

29:38

play with? I know that's kind of a

29:41

big question. No, no, no, I can

29:43

definitely give you thoughts on that. The number

29:45

one thing I have to teach young

29:48

staff that come in our firm, both designers

29:50

and creatives and kind of research folks, is

29:53

that everything communicates, everything.

29:56

The necklace you're wearing, the watch

29:58

you have on, the shoes you have on. the car

30:00

you came in or the bike you came

30:02

in, everything communicates. If we

30:05

didn't care about these things, we'd all

30:07

just wear white track suits with

30:09

the same watch but we do

30:11

and humans have a need to

30:13

differentiate themselves. Generations particularly

30:15

have a need to differentiate themselves

30:17

from other generations and so we

30:20

adorn ourselves with certain items and sometimes

30:22

people get freaked out because they thought

30:24

that's the wealthy. We all do it.

30:26

If you drive a pickup truck, you're

30:28

communicating. If you drive a Rolls Royce,

30:30

you're communicating and really what it boils

30:33

down to is signaling. If

30:35

you want to try to start understanding your fellow

30:37

workers, your bosses or

30:39

your clients, start paying attention to the

30:41

signals they put together. Is their shirt

30:43

always untucked? It's like okay that's a

30:46

signal. Is it always tucked and very

30:48

tight? Do they wear timber lens or

30:50

do they wear high-end

30:53

shoes and start paying attention. In

30:56

our firm, we notice socks. We

30:58

notice cars. We definitely

31:00

notice watches. The purpose

31:02

of watches is to tell time. That's it. Most

31:05

people don't. Often times their watches

31:07

aren't totally working. They have an iPhone. They're

31:10

wearing a watch because it's the signal of

31:12

what they believe in and so what's

31:15

fun is to break all those signals down

31:17

into categories and just start looking what each

31:19

of those signals mean and

31:21

it can happen in your background. This doesn't

31:23

have to be this exhausting thing. Once

31:26

you start learning to observe, it's very

31:28

natural. I will say that

31:30

if it helps a boxer that goes into

31:32

a ring, constantly looks at people where they

31:34

stand. Do they stand on their heels, which

31:36

means they can't back up well. Do they

31:38

stand on their front feet and

31:41

they're constantly paying attention and

31:43

they do it in their background. That's kind

31:45

of what is a good skill to develop

31:47

regardless of what industry you're in. That

31:50

is super helpful and insightful

31:52

and actionable. In

31:55

my experience and I think

31:57

in most of our experiences, everybody is just so.

32:00

busy and so overwhelmed and so

32:02

burned out. You know the name

32:04

of my business is Lead Above

32:06

Noise. I named it that

32:08

because I really did feel

32:11

like the crux of success in

32:13

an organization, the crux of leadership,

32:15

is so much about being able

32:17

to distinguish the single from the

32:19

noise and really be

32:22

intentional about where we

32:24

invest our energy and our focus. And

32:26

so you know what's interesting to me is that

32:28

what you're talking about right now, this sort

32:31

of taking a step back, this observing, this

32:34

kind of being present, I'm not suggesting

32:36

that somebody needs to schedule an hour

32:38

to sit down and do that, but

32:40

it does take some percentage of our

32:42

energy, of our attention, which means we

32:44

have to deflect that

32:46

from someplace else. And I think for people

32:48

right now that's kind of the hardest thing

32:50

to do, to take

32:52

energy out of something that feels

32:55

quote-unquote productive, something that is deliverables

32:57

based and just kind

32:59

of sit back and be quiet a little bit and

33:01

just observe. I've been sitting with this

33:03

idea that there is so much conversation about

33:05

the future of work, right? Future of work

33:07

is a big hashtag, everyone's talking about it.

33:10

I'm so much more interested in talking about the

33:12

present of work, observing what's

33:14

happening now because we're all trying

33:16

to predict what's next and yet

33:18

there is so much unsettled

33:21

right now and I think if

33:23

we create some discipline

33:25

and just pay attention, there's

33:27

so much intelligence screaming at

33:29

us and so yeah. I

33:31

love that. Well said. I think you

33:35

know for me it's not work and

33:37

we teach a lot of our staff about

33:39

being observant, it really is about what you said,

33:42

it's about being present and when you're present your

33:45

senses are heightened and

33:47

your attention is kind of focused on

33:49

what you're present to, whether it's a

33:51

conversation with an individual, a blue

33:54

sky or a beautiful piece of art or

33:57

a beautiful teapot, being present

33:59

to that. allows your senses

34:01

to be activated and stimulated.

34:03

I would say that

34:05

there's nothing in your head and

34:08

anybody's head that doesn't first come through

34:10

the senses, period. So it's so pivotal

34:12

for us to understand our senses. Our

34:14

language is full of sensory words. At

34:16

the end of this call people may

34:18

say Kevin's kind of slick or he's

34:20

rough on the edges or hard as

34:22

concrete or nail. These are all real

34:24

physical qualities and that's the way we

34:26

teach our children, right? It's the way

34:28

they gravitate is through sensory metaphors and

34:31

so even the word we were

34:33

talking about signal is a metaphor.

34:36

Once you really understand that, that's another thing

34:38

I pay a lot of attention to. When

34:40

I listen to people talk, I try to

34:43

figure out what metaphors are they using? What

34:45

sensory things are they signaling? Which again ties

34:47

back to what they care about. I

34:49

would agree with you, we are freaked out about the

34:52

future of work when we're

34:54

drowning in uncertainty and instability

34:56

right now. The one thing that isn't

34:59

helping us and I'm going to sound

35:01

like a cliche here beating the same drum

35:03

but our devices are

35:05

so addictive that

35:07

we cannot focus and we don't have

35:09

boredom. We don't have free time. We

35:12

don't have contemplation time and we are

35:14

going to look back 20 years from

35:16

now and realize we were

35:18

doing serious damage to ourself.

35:20

It'd be like drinking or doing drugs

35:22

all day and it sends

35:25

out same chemicals as certain

35:27

drugs and we are not doing enough restorative

35:30

qualities to recharge our batteries. We

35:32

have to get the cell

35:35

phone out of our hand for a while. Good

35:37

luck. I've got teenagers. I don't know about you

35:39

Kevin. It's terrifying

35:42

and you know we're hardwired

35:44

to be attracted to movement. There's

35:47

two things, change in movement and

35:49

movement really captivates us and

35:51

so it's almost impossible for kids not

35:54

to be attracted to that movement but

35:56

it rewires their brain literally. I know

35:59

literally. literally for sure. So speaking

36:02

of kids and speaking of kind

36:04

of dipping back into our past,

36:07

you talked a little bit about Mr. Rogers

36:09

in your book. I'm

36:11

gonna date myself here. I don't know that everyone

36:13

in my audience even knows who that is. Mr.

36:16

Rogers' neighborhood, childhood, show,

36:19

super amazing with his card against fire, putting

36:21

on his shoes. Can you just

36:23

share a little bit about how inspiration

36:25

in him? Well I'm so inspired

36:27

that you picked up on that. You're

36:30

the first one that really has. You

36:32

know we all belong to

36:34

a certain associations and guilds

36:36

and tribes that and

36:39

in every subculture, this again might be

36:41

relevant to your listeners, is that culture,

36:44

the sense of community is based on shame

36:46

and reward and that's not a great word

36:48

shame but it's how motorcycle gangs decide how

36:51

they want people to behave and it's how

36:53

corporations decide how they want people to behave

36:55

or people in the symphonies. And

36:58

we reward those behaviors we like and

37:00

we shame those behaviors we don't like.

37:03

Me growing up in the architecture

37:05

world, they couldn't stand

37:07

anything that involved capitalism, nothing that

37:09

involved cash registers or neon signs.

37:11

It was considered low. In fact

37:13

one of my professors told me

37:15

that business was the enemy to

37:17

design and I thought wow and I

37:19

went it really created such a

37:22

question in my mind. I thought is that

37:24

possible that the entire

37:27

world is based on this free market economy

37:29

not the entire world but at least America

37:31

and certain Western world and

37:33

I thought well I'm not necessarily a

37:36

capitalist but it is a force just

37:38

like earthquakes or termites are a force

37:40

and we study termites and I don't

37:42

love termites but it informs my design

37:44

and like shouldn't we study capitalism,

37:46

business and free market economy as

37:48

a force and once I started

37:50

getting into that I realized that's

37:52

what needed to be changed because

37:54

every place I go to is

37:56

lubricated by the human exchange.

38:00

money but ideas and cultures and rituals which

38:02

you can see in the ancient Agora and

38:04

the market. And I started

38:06

trying to think about people that were trying

38:08

to change their guilds

38:10

shame and reward system and

38:13

Mr. Rogers hated TV. He thought it

38:15

was the ruin of kids. He said

38:17

this is gonna destroy our kids and

38:19

he hated it so much that he got

38:22

into it to change it and he did.

38:24

He changed it for kids and kids education

38:26

and the way they learn and he set

38:28

into motion a whole guild of people that

38:31

believe this tool we all have

38:33

in our homes can be used for the good.

38:36

I believe retail and

38:39

really the great value exchange is a

38:41

critical part of our society and I'm

38:43

frustrated that architects have abandoned it and

38:45

consider it too lowbrow for

38:48

them to touch. Yet

38:50

it's what most of us live with.

38:52

I love that story and I

38:54

love that understanding. I mean at the end

38:57

of the day, you know, trying

39:00

to beat things that are

39:02

so inherent in our system rather

39:04

than figuring out how to use them for

39:06

good I think is just the wrong use

39:09

of energy. I mean even

39:11

with cell phones and digital

39:13

media and all this sort of thing, you know,

39:15

I think we have sort of defined it as

39:17

bad and evil and I do think that there

39:19

is a lot of negativity that comes from it

39:21

and also I've actually watched

39:23

my kids use it, use social

39:26

media in some really amazing ways

39:28

in which they discovered

39:30

new forms of art and have found communities in which

39:32

to express their creativity and make friends all over

39:34

the world and I think you

39:36

know villainizing or demonizing something rather

39:38

than stepping back and asking ourselves

39:41

is there a force for good in here that we

39:43

can create if we get... It's just fascinating.

39:46

My test on that is we

39:49

need tools and tools in our life help

39:51

us and if technology when we use it

39:54

as a tool it's great. When I was

39:56

a kid, I mean thinking of NASA and

39:58

all the things are tools

40:00

that allowed us to do things, it's just when

40:02

we become the tool. That's what

40:05

scares me. When we become the tool of

40:07

a few billionaires in Wall Street, then I

40:09

start going, we're being exploited.

40:11

But without a doubt, we're

40:14

going to use technology. I use technology every

40:16

day. That's right. For sure. So, you

40:19

know, one of the last things I wanted to

40:21

mention was we had gone back and forth a

40:23

little bit of our email and I had, I

40:25

had referenced to you a piece that I had

40:27

read, and I'm sure you were familiar with it

40:29

as well, about this Dutch grocery chain that I

40:32

think maybe did some of the kind of

40:34

contemplative work that you've been talking about. And

40:36

they were observing how, you know, and certainly

40:39

here in the US, there

40:41

is such a drive for and a focus

40:43

on efficiency. How do we make it faster? How

40:45

do we get people through quicker? How do

40:47

we churn and burn and people are

40:49

in a hurry and people don't want to

40:51

deal with people. And so you're here in

40:53

the US, we're seeing more and more these

40:55

kind of self checkout lanes or mobile ordering

40:58

apps. I mean, the degree to which we

41:00

actually need to engage with humanity at this

41:02

point is extraordinarily low. And so

41:04

this chain of grocery stores actually

41:06

recognized there are for some people,

41:08

that's great. Some people are living

41:11

really busy lives and efficiency is

41:13

king. But for some people,

41:15

something is really being lost. Something that

41:17

is maybe not so quantifiable, but

41:19

just human connection. So these this

41:21

chain of Dutch grocery stores, they've

41:23

actually taken a step. You

41:26

could say back, you could stay forward,

41:28

I don't know. But they've reinstated these,

41:31

I think they call them their slow

41:33

lanes, right? And they are typically designed

41:35

for people who are not in a

41:37

hurry and who actually just want to

41:39

have a brief human interaction as they

41:42

transact with their groceries. And I

41:44

was curious what your thoughts were

41:46

on that story. Yeah, yeah. It's

41:49

so great. I mean, just to hit a

41:51

couple of those real points real quick. You

41:53

said earlier,

41:55

people aren't totally feeling good and

41:58

struggling and That's a

42:00

lot of our work. We survey

42:02

customers every day for 30 years

42:04

and never before have we

42:07

seen people so uncomfortable with the

42:09

world right now for a variety

42:11

of reasons. And one

42:13

of the reasons is that we

42:16

have somehow jumped so far

42:19

into a linear mindset that

42:21

efficiency, ruthless efficiency and

42:23

getting rid of friction is the

42:25

goal in life. And we've done

42:28

this to the detriment of understanding

42:30

any mythologies, of understanding any meaning and

42:32

if there's a crisis in our world,

42:34

we have a crisis of meaning. We

42:36

no longer believe anything. We're so cynical

42:39

and jaded and we kind of lean

42:41

towards the bad and we're

42:43

having a hard time being

42:46

more connected because we're staying

42:48

in our homes too much up to 105 days a

42:50

year, seven and a half hours a day in

42:53

front of a screen. So it's 105 days that

42:55

we've kind of taken out of the human contact.

42:58

And human contact, you know, we can go

43:00

to the extreme, a baby dies if it's

43:02

not touched, a puppy dies if it's not

43:04

touched. We have to be

43:06

touched and we have to interact or we

43:10

embrace loneliness, we become a

43:13

little more dangerous to society.

43:15

So casual conversations are

43:17

very important and we saw this

43:19

during the pandemic. People, older

43:21

people particularly in younger teens were not

43:23

having conversations even with their friends on

43:26

the bus, the barista, the

43:28

grocery store clerk and sometimes that's the

43:30

only conversation somebody has is

43:32

the cashier. My mother knows every

43:35

cashier and they give each

43:37

other gifts and Christmas cards and they know

43:39

each other and so these conversations are important

43:42

and we're losing that. Think about we're

43:44

the only species that can have these

43:46

conversations. Dogs can't talk and whales can't

43:49

talk the way we talk with language

43:51

that we created and yet

43:53

we're denying this one-on-one skill that we

43:55

have and so the

43:58

public is in a massive uproar. over

44:00

this self-checkout,

44:03

most of the public. And

44:06

they're very upset with it and people think,

44:08

wow, it's just this kind of fear of

44:10

the future. They're calling them Luddites. No, we're

44:13

afraid that we're losing our humanity.

44:15

And so the brands that do well are

44:18

the brands, in my opinion, Amazon

44:20

and other brands are gonna win this

44:23

giant scale commodity, Ruthless Efficiency

44:25

game every day. Let

44:27

them do that, but there's a whole

44:29

new opportunity for feeding human

44:32

souls with human energy and

44:34

human conversation. And I

44:36

can show you many concepts. We just opened

44:38

one down in Costa Mesa

44:40

called Northgate Mercado. It's a Mexican concept.

44:43

It's unbelievable. It brings all these people around

44:45

together to go to 20 stalls

44:48

or puesstas to be around other people.

44:50

It's not a good efficiency. When

44:52

did we decide friction is bad? Buying

44:56

a gift for my wife on anniversary

44:58

takes effort. I could

45:00

have a AI write a card to her, but

45:02

it's the effort that makes the meaning. And

45:05

so we need to reacquaint ourselves with

45:07

why meaning is so important and why

45:09

effort and why friction are there a

45:11

part of our life. Talking to your

45:14

neighbor requires effort, but it's an important

45:16

thing to do. I

45:18

love it. I love all of that. And I will

45:20

just say my shorthand sort of

45:23

encapsulation of that is when I

45:25

encounter an organization whose head of

45:28

HR reports to their CFO,

45:30

that is the kiss of death to me.

45:32

Because I do think that's a big piece of the problem.

45:34

A lot of what you're talking about flies

45:36

in the face of cost

45:39

containment. And I think that's

45:41

just a big part of the challenge. But

45:43

we are on a journey, yes? Yeah.

45:45

We're heading down that path. I mean, the one

45:48

thing I tell your listeners, because I tell this

45:50

to all my clients and my customers that we

45:52

work with and my friends, is be

45:54

careful at getting so comfortable with all the

45:56

conveniences we have that allow us to never

45:59

leave and get out of

46:01

her pajamas. I almost guarantee you when I

46:03

say almost, I'll give you 90% guarantee that

46:06

if you get up and go out and

46:08

do something, you will be happier. Just

46:11

get out there and engage with the

46:13

world because that serendipity that you talked

46:15

about at the beginning of the show

46:17

happens through these accidental encounters

46:19

and through seeing. If you let this

46:21

beautiful brain of yours and sensory system

46:23

of your body go to waste, you're

46:25

going to go to waste. You have

46:28

to get out and activate and stimulate

46:30

your senses or you're going to experience

46:33

loneliness and cognitive impairment. It's

46:36

that fundamental to us to

46:38

get out. Unbelievable.

46:41

So Kevin, I know that we

46:43

are getting close to the end of our time

46:45

and I want to be respectful with yours. Is

46:48

there anything that you feel like I haven't asked you

46:50

that feels really important to put

46:52

a capstone on this conversation? No.

46:56

I mean, I think you've really covered most

46:58

of it except that I would ask you

47:00

to think about the fabric of your communities,

47:02

each of you to think about where you

47:04

live and that if everything

47:06

is delivered to your doorstep and you

47:08

can get all your entertainment, you can

47:10

date online, you can do everything without

47:13

leaving the house. Is

47:15

that the kind of society we want? And

47:17

the more we do that, the more

47:19

your main streets, your commercial corridors, your

47:24

downtowns from the work from home revolution,

47:26

all of these things start to

47:28

go away. And I get that

47:30

there aren't easy answers, but it's

47:32

very important that we have the

47:34

semblance of gathering, of coming together

47:36

in different ways to

47:39

interact with the other. And that's the, when

47:41

I say the other, we can't just have

47:44

our own camps that we are friends with

47:46

online. We need to go out and meet

47:48

other people, which often happened at the market.

47:51

You would meet people from other cultures, learn

47:53

about that culture and be

47:55

enlightened. And I Worry about that

47:58

state, particularly for our young. Who

48:01

are given me a lot of hope because

48:03

they're figuring out that. They don't

48:05

wanna live the way their parents lived and they

48:08

don't want to be doomed scroll And that I'm

48:10

relieved to hear it. Potentially author of

48:12

Irreplaceable. Truly one of the most

48:14

mind blowing bucks I have read

48:16

in a long time. Thank you!

48:18

So. Much for joining me to say

48:20

thank you so much And I can't

48:22

say enough about me, your show and

48:25

but you do and your ability to

48:27

just synthesize down a really fascinating ideas

48:29

not only in this book but a

48:31

know the ones I I've I've heard

48:33

what you do and I'm too so

48:35

me so I look forward to a

48:37

long conversation with you down the road.

48:39

Absolutely thank you thank you. I

48:42

hope you enjoyed my conversation the top

48:44

and you can pick up a copy

48:46

of his. but irreplaceable how to create

48:48

extraordinary places that bring people together wherever

48:51

books are sold, Throwing. The

48:53

next week for another great episode. On

48:55

visit my website at Elite about Noise

48:58

That com as is your workplace could

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much for listening and have a successful week.

49:14

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