Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Stanford Professor Tina Seelig on Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: May 11, 2017

Tina Seelig is a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, and a Faculty Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University School of Engineering. At Stanford, she teaches courses and leads three fellowship programs focused on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Seelig earned her PhD in Neuroscience at Stanford Medical School, and has authored 17 books, including Insight Out (2016), inGenius (2012), and What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (2009). She is the recipient of the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, the Olympus Innovation Award, and the Silicon Valley Visionary Award. Tina is on it -- In this conversation we talk about: -the difference between innovation and creativity -how she defines an entrepreneur -having the proper mindset and skills to succeed -the different ways to frame a problem -the power of asking the right questions -why diversity and teamwork are key to successful ventures -how you find out what your passions are, how to unlock creativity -the model she created : the innovation engine This was so much fun -- really hope Tina's path and insights help generate ways of thinking and doing, to help you become the very best you._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out, get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life. When you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. Now this conversation is with Tina Selig. Tina is a professor of the practice in the

department of management science and engineering and a faculty director at the Stanford technology ventures program at Stanford University School of Engineering. So at Stanford, she teaches courses and she leads three fellowship programs focused on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Selig also earned her PhD in neuroscience at Stanford Medical School, and she's authored 17 books, including, which you might've heard of, Inside Out, Ingenious, and What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. It's a fun book. Okay. She is the recipient of the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, the Olympus

Innovation Award, and the Silicon Valley Visionary Award. Tina is on it. And in this conversation, we talk about the difference between innovation and creativity. And she's got a really clear and crisp idea between those two. She talks about her definition of entrepreneurship. We have conversations about the proper mindset skills that she's found to be valuable in success, the different ways to frame problems. We talk about why diversity and teamwork are key to successful ventures. And we talk about how to find your passions. If you've ever had that conversation with yourself,

like, I'm not sure what I'm passionate about. Pay attention. This conversation is going to touch on that. And it's brilliant. It's wonderful. And then, you know, along with that is she's got great insights on how to unlock one's own creativity. She created a model around innovation. She calls it the innovation engine. We get into that. This is just a fun conversation. And I really hope that Tina's path and her insights will help generate ways of thinking and doing for you, for you to become your very best. That's the whole game that we're trying to sort out. And so with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Tina. Tina, how you doing? I'm doing great. How about you? Yeah, I am. And, you know, I, I hope that we can do justice to

what you've come to understand. And that's always the challenge that I have. And I'm really excited to talk to you about innovation. And you know, what you've come to understand about the ecosystems and the people that innovate and create and how they use their imagination and their culture to help change the world, hopefully. But before we get into that space, I'd love to learn about you and celebrate how you've come to be in a position of influence in and around the concepts of innovation. So where would we start? Oh, good question. So I just was thinking in advance of our discussion about where we were going to go. And I was really looking forward to talking about the influences in my life. And I

realized that my parents were a huge influence on me. My parents are both immigrants from Europe. They came during the war. And they were extremely motivated to make a better life. They were so hardworking. And my dad is a remarkable person. He leads with curiosity and debate and really questioning everything. And so that was just drilled into me from an early age, this asking a thousand questions. What was the dinner table like? Oh my gosh. Every dinner table conversation was a wild discussion about something. And my father would turn everything, everything into a science experiment. So we would be at dinner and there might be at a restaurant and there'd be some green and black olives on the table. And he would say, I bet you can't tell the difference if you

were blindfolded. And he'd blindfold us all. And we do experiments to see if we could tell the difference. Or someone had left the cap off the toothpaste tube, and he would line us all up and take our pulses and turn it into a lie detector test. No, that is really, really... Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So he would take our pulses. What is your name? What's your favorite color? What's your birthday? Did you leave the cap off the toothpaste tube? How many brothers and sisters? I have two siblings, my sister and

brother, and they're younger and they are twins. And so he would do things like this all the time. And even with my son, who's now in his 20s, when he was little, he would always do these observation exercises with him. We'd go into a room and after we'd be there, let's say it was a party, he'd have my son and his nephews shut their eyes and he'd do, it's like, okay, how many doors are there? How many lights? What color is this? So they would get used to going into any room and doing this very detailed observation. So they would be prepared for their grandfather to test them on whether they were paying attention. Oh, I love this. I love this. Okay. So wait, I want to be really mechanical for just a moment is that your, wait, um, your dad would put you under like creative experiments where you would have to use some sort of internal awareness or whatever to be able to,

you know, navigate this stressful environment, mock stressful environment that he would create. So that's like one experiment. The other experiment is that closing your eyes and using your imagination for the physical form and structures around you. And that was a preparation for when grandpa came in, he was going to do something along those lines. So this is like a family structure of being able to use your internal resources for clarity. Does that sound? Yeah, yes. And you know, it was really about paying attention and questioning everything. My dad was very proud that he used to have a sign on his desk at work. He would tell it to you today, he's 90 years old and sharp as a tack.

And he would tell you, he always had a sign on his desk that said, let's argue so we can get to the best outcome. So I grew up in a debate culture where you are really welcome to have a very different point of view. And you're expected to support that argument. Okay. And what did that do? So he came to this country with nothing when he was eight years old from Germany. And the family had literally $25 in their pocket. And his father was a watchmaker who would, you know, basically was unemployed, and had to really build from nothing coming to this country. So my father became an engineer, because that was a very practical thing to do. And he's super sharp. And he just kept getting promoted and promoted and promoted.

And he ended up being a multinational corporate executive when he retired. Yeah. And I actually wish I wouldn't ask the question, what did he do? Because I was much more interested in the story of him and how he came to have such a, I don't know, maybe a, what's the word I'm looking for? Like just a really unique way of engaging with kids, like his kids. Like that's a really, it sounds fun. It sounds sharp. It sounds pointed. It sounds, you know, yeah. Well, he also was just an amazing storyteller. And so he would just, he could weave these yarns that would be very imaginative and really draw you in. And it's wonderful because I, of course, benefited from

as a kid, but I then watched him do it again with his grandkids and how they are incredible memories of sitting down and crafting these stories, you know, with their grandfather. But one of the things that's super important about my dad is that he attributes so much of his success to luck. And my son has a very, very different point of view. He says there's no such thing as luck. It's all hard work. And so we have a lot of debates in our house about the role of luck and hard work in your success. And so that's another really interesting thread that ties through. My father is just very, very optimistic. And whenever great things happen, he sort of thinks, wow, wasn't I fortunate? Wasn't I lucky? And so did, okay, so if when people explain events like that, now let's get into the weeds, just a little bit on a little bit of psychology. When people explain events and there's an external influence and explaining things that was transient or external and stable?

Or did he actually, in fact, have a way of explaining things by being more internal and stable? A really good question. I think he sort of looks at the world as external and transient. Things are changing, and I don't know what's going to happen. And he's always feels as though in many cases, he's been incredibly fortunate by the things that have happened in his life. Yeah. So it's and your son is 20. So he's in the millennial age, right? Right. He's 27 right now. Oh, 27. Okay. Is that still that's that's still a millennial. Yeah. Right. And so they just have a really unique and different way. And I'd love to hear your take on it because you're around

them so often, but and raised one, but they have a really different way of viewing the world. Some are beautiful ways that are changing the world for good, and some are really challenging. And so does he have a more internal, control over what happens. But he is a really interesting fellow. And I'm always in awe of the amount of work and effort and focus that he puts into every single thing that he wants to accomplish. So what is it like? Do you have a sense of what it's like to be a 27 year old man with mom, who's incredibly successful, smart, you know, running innovation labs and VC, you know, uh, ventures basically not actual venture, but VC ventures on, um, helping, helping companies and organizations and the next generation of students use their imagination and culture and, and internal and external resources for innovation. Like, what is that like for your son? I think it's been super interesting because he gets to participate in conversations

and learns things. One of the things that we all know is that a tremendous amount of your education takes place at home. I want to just double-click on that a bit because I teach at Stanford and I run a lot of programs on innovation and entrepreneurship and leadership. And many of the programs I run require interviews. And I meet all these kids who come from very different backgrounds. I mean, this is how it ties in. And so I think about my own kid who's the same age as many of the kids that I'm interviewing. And I realized that growing up in an environment where you're talking about innovation and entrepreneurship and leadership and people are modeling those skills is essentially a lifetime of education. And those kids who come from different backgrounds are quite disadvantaged and that we need to really think about not just picking kids who already know this stuff. It's already baked into who they are.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Is that so? I think the reason when it comes back to my son is he's been living this. So this entrepreneurial attitude and mindset is so baked in because he sees it every single day. Got it. Okay. All right.

And so I don't want to lose this thread of this internal-external, but at the same time, driving in to have this conversation with you, the thought that was like really, I couldn't get it out of my head, was when we're talking about innovation and creativity. And I know that they're separate and they're very, they're kissing cousins maybe, but they're separate. And when you think about creativity and innovation, do you think about the masters of craft that we all recognize that they are innovators and creative people, perhaps? Or do you also think that, or how do you think about a single mom or a single dad who is in a lower socioeconomic status or bracket and is able to figure out how to get their first generation of kids into college or where they all have jobs that they're now in middle class? Or if we take the lid off it, that they become the president of the United States, whatever the lid might be. So like, how do you think about creativity innovation when it comes to a traditional lens of people revering the output that someone has created and the non-traditional where it's like hidden or it's not, it's not respected, if you will? Oh, well, first of all, I would, I would actually argue that it is respected. I mean, somebody who goes and is able to break out of a really difficult situation, I mean,

I think that's extremely respected. Creativity, let me just give you my definitions of these so that we are on the same page here. I look at creative ideas as new to you and innovative ideas are new to the world. And so that's a super simple differentiator, but people often conflate the two. And it's really important to say, you know, if I invent a peanut butter sandwich, that might be new to me, but it's not new to the world. But if I invent a flying car, that's innovative because no one's done it before. So that's the difference. So I also think, though, that we can be incredibly creative and innovative in our everyday lives. And this is something we should be teaching to everybody. These skills get baked in very, very early. And it's kind of embarrassing

that I'm teaching them to graduate students at Stanford. It should be something that is remedial by then, and that people should be given these tools at a very, very young age. Kids are naturally creative. They're naturally innovative. They're exploring the world. They're coming up with solutions to problems. And we should be fostering this and building upon it. So when you talk about the difference between someone who's in a really challenging environment

and they've just figured out how to survive, that's really, really powerful stuff. And I think we should never think of that as any less valuable than someone who then takes those same skills and comes up with some technology that ends up having a larger impact. Yeah, I a thousand percent agree. That's why I wanted to kind of get your take on it. And when I said earlier about respected, I don't mean that I or you or somebody listening wouldn't respect that person. It's just that we don't herald them enough on a global stage to say, let's celebrate this achievement or experience that happened in one home in a neighborhood, as opposed

to somebody who invented the light bulb. Like we know who those people are. We don't necessarily know who, you know, the moms and dads that changed the family structure or legacy forever. Exactly. But I think of some of my most creative moments or as a, as a parent trying to get out of a really tricky situation where you're, you know, you're in a situation of thinking, okay, how do I deal with this? And those moments where you can draw upon your creative abilities end up really making your life much more pleasant, meaningful. And so anyway, the kid asks a question that you don't understand and you come up with

some clever, creative way or some metaphor to explain it. That's really great. You know, every year I'm fortunate enough to be part of a team that interviews and works on a selection process for the next generation of athletes to come into the NFL. And so I think this might blow you away, but maybe not. Is that I'll ask, I'll ask this question often. Like what's, you know, what's some tough stuff that you've been through? There's lots of different ways to get to that question. And this one sticks out to me.

It happened this year. He said, you know, it wasn't what you think it was. The toughest part was not when I would come home and all of my family's stuff would be on the front lawn because it's the fourth or fifth time we've been evicted. That wasn't the hard part. The hard part wasn't trying to figure out where we're going to go and like which neighbor we're going to knock on like which neighbor we're going to knock on and the family splitting up. That wasn't the hard part because we knew eventually we'd come

back together as a family. We'd figure it out. The hard part was just that moment coming home, knowing that everyone else knew that we were evicted again. And it was because my mom was out on drugs and running the streets again. It was the embarrassment was the hardest part. So I share that with you because the thought about the ingenuity, the creativity, the gumption to be able to figure out the next moment of survival is a real thing. And to just honor what that might have been like, I think it's hard to imagine. But those internal resources that are built over time for those folks can be depleted or magnified for what they're going to go do next. Great. So I'd love to hear your riff on that.

Yeah, yeah. Well, so this is a super interesting segue to the question you asked me before about the models that I've created to help understand this process. Because I think of creativity and innovation being influenced by your knowledge, your attitude, and your skills, right? And so you basically, you're going to go into any situation and you're going to have your mindset, right? Are you looking at yourself as a victim? Are you going to look at yourself as a hero? Are you going to say, okay, I can solve every problem as an opportunity. I can solve any problem. Or are you going, oh my gosh, this happened again. You know, I feel so mortified. I need to crawl under a rock. So your mindset

is really important, but also your skills. You need to actually have some tools at your disposal that you can draw upon. And the more creative problem-solving skills you have, the more you're going to be able to really use that engine of your mindset to actually do something. Do something that's going to be helpful. Yeah, okay. And then that's a nice double back on this idea of how do you explain events and experiences in your life? Do you externalize that it's the world that has created an environment that I've just been fortunate enough to experience? Or is it like your son, the internal model, which is, no, no, no, I apply leverage, I have volition, I have control. And if I work hard or I don't work hard, it's an influencer, a significant influencer in how things work in life. And so when you talk about mindset, are you are you do you have almost like an archetype for the different mindsets that people can have? Or is it looser for you? It's it's actually looser for me. But we do spend a lot of time in our classes focusing on the

attitudes that are required to be entrepreneurial. And I want to point out when I talk about entrepreneurship, I am not talking about just starting companies. That is the tip of the iceberg or one piece of the iceberg, because we think of entrepreneurs as those people who do much more than imaginable with much less than seems possible. So it's about essentially seizing opportunities, seeing problems as opportunities, leveraging resources, and making things happen. So the mindset that's needed is one of saying, okay, here's a challenge. I know that there is an answer and I feel empowered that I can actually tackle it. And so really giving people the opportunity, starting small, and it

might be those small sort of family situations or something going on with your friends or anything in your environment and building up the confidence to go, you know what? I actually know that I could take on anything and bring it on. I know we don't know each other well, but you can't imagine how excited that that string of thoughts is for me because I want to double click one more time to use your language. Is that a mindset which is more stable Or is that just a very temporary self-talk? How do you link those two together? I would argue that it is something that you can make a much more stable part of how you view the world. That's when it does become a mindset. Exactly. And then you say, okay, I now am the sort of person who walks in and says, okay, wow,

here's a problem here. How am I going to fix it? And it's the most interesting thing to me. I've been paying a lot of attention to the people who I come in contact with and just seeing the very different ways in which they engage with the world and how that in the way they engage has huge ripple effects on the way the world responds to them. And yet they often don't see that the world is actually responding to them based on what they already did. And so then they can look at the world and say, wow, the world is a fair or an unfair place, but you realize they actually started it, right? The

ripple started with them and then bounced back. Does that make sense? A thousand percent. You know, we are agents of our environment as well as contributors. So I love the simplicity of the idea. And is there a particular story that comes to mind when you think about those who have innovated with an incredible awe experience for you as somebody who understands innovation and creativity and imagination? Is there a particular story that rings true for you? There are so many examples. I mean, one of the things that I spend a lot of time in my classes doing is giving students lots and lots of opportunities to experiment with these ideas. So giving them a problem to solve. Then one of the most powerful pieces of the puzzle is how you actually frame the problem, right?

So I can give you a problem i let's just think about something um well i did a project with my students last year on redesigning the experience of going from prison to freedom and we were working with the men who participated in a program called the last mile at san quentin prison so i brought the students up to the prison and they taught the men the things we were learning in our class. And along the way, they got a chance to really get to know these guys and understand what the challenges they were anticipating as they were going from prison to freedom. And so each team picked a different part of the puzzle to tackle.

I mean, some ended up picking looking at housing. Some looked at employment. Some looked at getting integrated into the community. And each of them ended up resulting in a very, very different set of solutions. And so it's important to not just take the problem at face value, but to look at it from very different angles. I hope that sort of gets closer to answering your question, is that the problem is just the first way you look at it, but it's one of the tools that you learn is how to then actually walk around the problem and see it from different angles to say, aha, here's the key to getting unstuck.

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and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's felixgray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. Are there particular frames that you help people reorientate in their questions? So question, reframing the question is a, like a, it's a, it's a real skill. And I'm wondering if you have frames that you work from, or is it more intuitive for you? Yeah, it's a both, but the super easiest frame has to do with asking why, right? Why is this case? So a simple example is I could ask you to build a bridge for me and you could, you know, run off and design that bridge, or you could say, Tina, why do you want a bridge? And I say, well, I need to get to the other side of the bay.

And you go, oh, well, there are lots of ways to solve that problem. Right? Because take a boat, we can have a tunnel, we can have a hot air balloon, we could walk, we could swim, right, zillions of ways. So the assumption that when I asked you to build a bridge, there was an assumption that I needed a bridge. And if you say, well, why, that opens up the frame dramatically and gives me many more solutions. You could also say then, well, why do you need to get to the other side of the bay? Again, that opens up the frame. Well, I work over there. It's like, oh, well, maybe I can solve that problem. So by asking why is a great, great, great way to open up the frame and see things from different possibilities. I think it was research. It might be anecdotal. I can't remember right now. So I'll put an asterisk next to this question. But are you familiar with the research about when you ask the question why five times?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The why ladder. Yeah. Yeah. Is that research-based or is that more of just a folklore? You know what? I am not an expert on the methodology. I mean, but I do know that it usually ends up into, you know, the last thing is, okay, peace, love, happiness, you know, ultimately everybody wants, you know, wants to be loved. But if you ask it a couple of times,

it ends up being a really useful tool. One of the other things is just even to change some of the adjectives that you use. So I could say, let's plan, or one word in a prompt. I could ask you, let's plan a birthday party. Well, let's plan a birthday celebration. Well, let's plan a way to mark your birthday. Right? Each one of those is a different way to look at a problem. Let's make it easier to travel. Let's make it more comfortable to travel. Let's make it joyous to travel. It's amazing when those adjectives,

how that'll just set somebody's train of thinking, thought train, like in that direction. Yeah. Exactly. The importance of questions. I'd love to hear your take on this because I think it is one of the most powerful tools we have towards relationships and towards creating something, whether it's in business or family, that is like, it is unbelievably powerful and significant as a salient and quiet and slippery contributor to the direction of our lives. You bet. In fact, the framing, you know, just when you walk in a room and you see something happening, we create a frame instantly about what we think is going on. And, you know, we always then tell ourselves a story about what's happening. Well, if you shift

the frame, oh, maybe it has nothing to do with me. Maybe it has everything to do with me. Maybe it's, you know, has to do with someone else. Yes. And being able to shift the frames is critical, just even, as you said, in our own happiness every single day, where we're creating frames of reference in our mind to allow us to understand what's happening. But those are often wrong. Yeah. So one of my early mentors would say to me, he'd say, so what do you, we go to a restaurant, he'd say, so what do you see happening? And I'd make up a story. And it was kind of a fun little game, almost like a profiling, but not really intense, but just like, what do you see happening? And then after a time, what I realized what he was doing is he would say, so what's another story?

And what's another story? Well, that's interesting, but what else could it be? And he was getting me to examine my own stories. Like there's so many different ways that we could look at something. And so keep exploring, keep exploring, keep exploring. And then that relentless shifting of frames creates like way more space because I get locked in less than I once used to. And I'm sure I get still get locked in. Oh, I think it's so important. I mean, I was

thinking the other day is that, you know, you're teenagers acting out, right? You go, oh, you get mad. But if all of a sudden you shift the frame, like, wow, what must be going on for them? Let me have it. Well, so the shifting frames, I mean, empathy is a very, very powerful way to shift a frame where you start saying, I'm not going to look from my point of view, let me look from someone else's point of view. And of course, that gets used a lot in product design and where you sort of say,

let me really understand my user. So it's, and it opens up the possibilities that are really, really, really important. Okay, I want to, I'm not sure if this is the right question for you, but you've been around it and, you know, at ground zero at Stanford and which, you know, the Palo Alto area for innovation for a while. And like, that's a really hot place for technology, create creative technologies and innovation. So it's, have you put together a thread that strings together the types of people that are game-changing? Not just small innovation, but like magnat, what's the word?

Magnagamous? Is that a word? Magnanimous, yeah. Yeah, like they have done it on a global stage and really disruptive for entire industry. Have you put together any characteristics that thread between those types of folks? So it's really interesting. I get a chance to visit lots of different companies, to interview lots of different leaders. And the wonderful thing is that there's huge diversity in the type of people who want to solve problems.

I mean, really, that's what being an entrepreneur is, is a problem solver. They say, wow, this is something that should be different. I see the world the way it is and it should be different. And I can fix something or I can make something. And those people come in all different shapes and sizes. And we often have an archetype. You know, we read the paper. and those people come in all different shapes and sizes. And we often have an archetype, you know, we read the paper, we see, you know, iconic leaders, and we think you need to be like them. But if you really, really look, you'll see that the range is much, much more diverse.

I mean, they're extroverts, they're introverts, they're people who lead from the front, they're people who lead from the back, they're people who are great salesmen or saleswomen, and they're people who are, you know what,'re people who are great salesmen or saleswomen. And they're people who are, you know what, they're the idea person, but they really want someone else to be, you know, the front person who's going to communicate with the world. So the one thing I would say is that if you really want to solve a problem, you shouldn't be deterred by saying, I don't look like this archetype because you can fill in the gaps. You can go, you know what, I'm really good at this piecepe, because you can fill in the gaps. You can go, you know what, I'm really good at this piece of the puzzle. I need to have a team. And that's

what's really important to keep in mind is nobody does these things alone. These are real team efforts. And the key is being able to put together an effective team where people complement each other. I think one of my most proud moments when I was starting my first company was I was sitting around, you know, there were probably six or seven of us in the room. And everybody, we were going around and everyone was talking about what they were doing and how, you know, the status update on their pieces of the project. And everybody thought they were doing the easy job. Now, why was that? Because everyone was doing what they did best and what came naturally to them. Nobody was forced into some unnatural role. And so people

looked at what I was doing going, oh my gosh, I could never do that. Thank you so much. That's great. And I'm thinking, well, that came easy to me. Of course, I'm happy to do that. And then I'm looking at someone else and going, wow, that was so hard. And they go, that wasn't hard. That's what company. So I think the key is putting together a team where everybody's doing what they're really tuned to do. And then everybody respects everybody's contributions and the whole is certainly greater than the sum of the parts. And then, so to do that, do you have a way that you profile that's too strong of a word, but understand what people's gifts and talents and proclivities are? Is there a way that you go about doing that? One of the things that's important is giving people a chance to try lots of different things,

right? You don't know if you're good at something unless you actually try it, right? You can't take a little baby and say, Oh, this person's going to be an amazing programmer, right? Or this person's going to be a great salesperson. You have to give people a chance to try out these skills. And that's what's wonderful about being in a school setting is you get to, in a low risk environment, experiment and see where your strengths lie and where you want to actually leverage other people. So I would say you've got to try lots of things and keep what works. I mean, that's been the story of my entire life. It's funny because my students often, and I see it just all the time, people want to have a script for their life.

They want to feel some sort of sense of certainty. And I realized that in my career, I did not hit my stride until my 40s. I'm going to be 60 this summer. So the last 20 years, my career has really taken off. Taken off more in terms of not just external measures, but my own internal measures of feeling like this really resonates with who I am. But I did so many things between my 20s and when I was 40. So many things that set the stage for it. Many of those things were not really, I was not really well tuned to, but they were skills and knowledge that I gained

that allowed me when I finally got in the right environment to really thrive. Is there a word or a phrase that cuts to the center of what you understand most? Oh, that's interesting. I love that question. I mean, I wish I had like a tattoo. You know what? Okay. Yes. Yes. Were you going to say a tattoo? I was going to like tattoo it. And then when I said I was going to get a tattoo, when I said I was going to get a tattoo, I realized, of course, what I would tattoo. And then I had the answer.

Yeah, I saw you working there. I've done the same thing to myself. Like, okay, what would that word or phrase be? Okay, so it's a phrase that I introduce in my book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. And I'm going to give a little preamble here because I didn't even realize that it was such a powerful phrase until I get emails, letters, postcards, people stopping into my office, all repeating this phrase. And I realized it's a really, really sticky and important concept. And the concept is never miss an opportunity to be fabulous.

And the reason is, and it doesn't mean, oh, wow, I'm fabulous. It means always deliver more than you even imagined. And I am total believer that this is what makes people more successful is when they always squeeze a little bit more juice out of every situation. I mean, think about it when you're in school and the teacher says, okay, this is what you need to do to get an A. What happens? People do the minimum amount to get an A. I mean, I see it all the time. So I will never, this is how it came about, I will never tell my students ever, ever, ever what they need to do to get an A in my class. I mean, I just think that's totally counterproductive.

What do you say to them? How do you challenge them? challenge you to never miss an opportunity to be fabulous. Hit the ball out of the park. And the thing is, it's so sticky. People have it, you know, written on their back, engraved on the back of their iPhones. They have it as their screensavers. They, you know, they, they do make all sorts of ways to capture this and keep this, this message in front of them, because they've been so used to being environments where people tell them, you know, what they need to do to get an A. And that's, you know, you can use that as a metaphor, like, okay, here's what you need to do to just get by. Well, of course, then people just get by. It's amazing that that standard that we will sink to, even if it's a high standard, right, relative to others, but it's the opposite of potential.

Well, exactly. And here's what the issue is. And I'm seeing this by looking at the way different people teach, is that they're the people who teach and try to get, right, they want to tap into the student's external motivation, right? They're motivated to please me, that's not going to sustain beyond the class, right? When the quarter's over, they're on to the next thing. But if I can get them to really tap into their own internal motivation, they then take this with them for the rest of their life. Yeah, that's right. So we know that being around world performers that are highly externally motivated, it becomes just this nasty trap that you have to help them get reconnected with something bigger than they had yesterday. And it's endless. And it's just like, it's tiring. And so tapping into the internal drive, you get to just step away because they're now on fire in a particular way to feel that feeling again.

And that's for me, that's all internal motivation is. It's feeling the feeling and feeling the feelings that are important to me as often as I possibly can. And how do you think about internal motivation and drive? Well, one of the issues that you bring up is really important because if you're constantly responding to external cues about what success are, A, you're never going to be satisfied. But you then don't even know how to listen to yourself, to your internal self. And this is why I see a lot of young people and older people struggle with, well, I don't know what I'm passionate about. Well, how come?

Because they've never been given that opportunity. They're so told all the time how they're going to meet someone else's goals for them, as opposed to listening to themselves about, wow, what is it that makes me happy? What is it that drives me? What is it that, where do I feel the most connected? When you just ask the question about what are you passionate about? And they say, I don't know. Yeah. And that happens all the time. Yeah, I know.

And especially as folks get, you know, in their thirties and forties, because they've jumped on the treadmill and the family treadmill, if you will, which is okay, you do this, this, this, and this to be successful. And that family treadmill for many people is like, okay, you go to high school, you play some sports, you do some music, whatever. And then you go to college and you do a couple things. And then you go get, if it's law, you go get a law degree and go into a law firm. If it's sports, then you go into try to make the pros or whatever. Like there's this treadmill that people get on this virtual treadmill. And how do you help them get to a place where they can

reconnect to what is true and authentic to themselves? So one of the things that I had an insight about just in the last couple of years was the concept that before something is your passion, it's something you know nothing about. That you can't assume that I'm just going to sit quietly by myself and my passions will reveal themselves. That's not the way it works. I mean, people have this fantasy that, you know, I'm going to go sit on a desert island and my passions will reveal themselves. No, you need to be engaged in the world. You need to try lots of things and see what resonates. and your passions reveal themselves through experiences.

Are you from, are you familiar with the, um, the big five, the personality test? No. Okay. So there's this big five, uh, personality functions and one of them is openness to experiences. And so would, do you think that like, if you were low on openness to experience on that scale, that it would be hard to be passionate? Well, so what are the other ones? Okay. So it's openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. So interesting. Okay. So, okay. Really good, really good point. I think I would, you know, it's funny. I'm thinking, which would I be? Here's what my thought is about. Here's what my thought is about these tests, though. Okay.

These tests are all wrong. Listen, I've got problems with tests, too. Subjective tests are really, you know, it's like, let's box it in. Here's the thing that's fun. I mean, just one sentence about this is that these tests are interesting in that they're provocative and they get the conversation started where you can say, oh, I'm open to experiences or I'm neurotic or I'm conscientious. And so we can have a conversation about it. I mean, whoever put it together, that's sort of a construct that is interesting. So what was the question about that? Do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I like that we just didn't spend too much time on subjectives and psychological exams

and how riddled they are with some challenges. But okay, so openness to experiences. If you were low on that scale, right? And I like looking through the lenses of the world with some research behind me and saying, oh, that's maybe something that I could link onto. But openness to experiences as just a concept, if you're high on that scale or that function, if you will, do you think that those folks tend to live more passionately because they're open and engaged and curious and interested in something new? I would expect that to be the case.

Yeah. Doesn't that seem like that would be like, so when we say the word passion, I'm thinking right now as we're speaking that maybe one way to unlock passion is to question or to get some clarity about like, how open are you to new? Right. And you're paying attention to, right? Because every day we are passing thousands of things that need fixing, right? That you could get engaged with. Oh, what, yeah. What was that? You do something like a safari at Stanford. Is that, was that, was that with you or was that? Yeah. I was describing a friend of mine's class called the Stanford Safari.

You're right. The idea is that you can go through your own environment and act as if you're a naturalist in your own environment. I send my students out with a lab that they do at the Stanford Shopping Center. And they go into all these stores that they've been into many times before, and they look at it with fresh eyes. And they're blown away by all the things they didn't notice before. Of course, you realize this harkens back to the exercise my father always does, right? Yes, this is definitely family influence. Yeah. Okay. So you send them out and you say, what are the bumpers of the experience? What are the boundaries? And maybe there come and greet you? You know, all sorts of things like this. It was their music playing. What was the music? You know, all sorts of things like this. I mean, it's, you know, two pages of questions

and they walk out and go, oh my gosh, I just had no idea because they go into, you know, six different stores and each one is a totally different experience. It's like a forcing function for mindfulness. Exactly. Exactly. Like eating mindfully. I don't know if you've ever practiced that particular way of mindfulness, but eating mindfully, maybe you could try this out with some of your students, is just put a raisin in front of them or put a sandwich in front of them or whatever, and just give them five minutes to eat that raisin, the one raisin. It's ridiculous what happens.

Right. But I think the point that you're bringing up is very, very important, is that we go through life with blinders on most of the time. We're not paying attention. And that is one of the key steps to unlocking your creativity, unlocking innovation, unlocking your passions. And of course, as you point out, it also probably makes you a much happier person and more mindful if you're engaged with the world that way. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft,

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conversation because it feels like it's organic and it's just unfolding. I also want to understand what you understand most. So let's go back to that question. Like what is one thing or one word or phrase that cuts to the center of what you do the best? Okay. What I do the best me personally. Okay, great. I love to take, first of all, I've become very, very passionate about understanding how to unlock creative problem solving. And I say that intentionally creative problem solving, because people think creativity is, oh, it's coloring and art and music, and which is all great and fabulous. But really, you can apply those tools to really addressing big problems

in our lives. So creative problem solving. And I've put together a couple of models that I present in my last two books that help me understand the levers that we have at our disposal to unlock creative problem solving. So interesting enough, when I wrote my book, Ingenious, I wrote the first draft of the book and I got to the end and said, this is garbage. I had a whole bunch of things in it that were interesting, but it didn't hold together. And I realized I needed to go back. And it was actually my husband who said, maybe you can create some sort of framework that holds all this. And that was an aha. It's like, okay, how does this all hold together? And so you referred earlier to this Mobius strip. I created this framework, which I call

the innovation engine. And it looks at what actually has to happen on the inside for you personally, and what has to happen in the environment to unlock creativity. So the inside has three pieces, your knowledge, your skills, which is your creative problem solving skills, and your attitude. And they affect each other, right? So your knowledge is a toolbox for your imagination. And your imagination, of course, can get deployed to solve these problems. But your mindset is critical. It's the fire that gets it started. And this is all well and good, this sort of mindset, attitude, creativity, and knowledge. But if you're not embedded in an environment that really supports it, you really are at a

huge disadvantage. And this is what happens to a lot of creative people when they go into organizations that don't work. So the outside is the resources that you have, the habitat, and the culture. And so you realize these actually are sort of external manifestations. So right attitude, if you expand attitude outward, it becomes culture, right? So collective attitude is culture. resources is um essentially is from knowledge right so the more knowledge you have you can expand that out that becomes resources and and skills um expands out to to habitat now habitat is a whole bunch of things it's the team you're on the rules the rewards the the um physical space So it's easier to look at it in person, to look

at the image, but the concept is that you have all these levers and they all affect each other. I'll put a picture up so people can see on the website. And it looks almost like a double helix, like interlocking triangles. Exactly. Okay. So, all right. Where do you start? Let's say you're a head coach, a new head coach to a team, right? And let's pick a sport, basketball. And I'm kind of trying to take you out of business for a minute, right? Because I know you understand that so well. And so if you were going to start a new team, let's say it's in the professional ranks and you've got a bunch of young talent and there's no one clear alpha, right? There's not that one Michael Jordan or whatever.

Like there's not a clear alpha in the group. They're all young. They're all pretty talented, open to learning. And they're looking at you and you're, you are, um, you're also new, but you have all of this stuff that you Tina understand. Okay. So let's, let's create that scenario if you will. What would you, what would you do? And you've got, understand. Okay. So let's, let's create that scenario, if you will. What would you, what would you do? And you've got, you've got some, some legitimate resources, external resources, but you have all the internal resources that you have come to understand over your life career. What would you do? Where do you start? How do you get going to create a world-class organization? Right. So let's, you as the person who

leads the organization is in charge of this external environment, right? So you can A, set the culture, you can determine what resources are available, and you are creating the habitat. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. I love this. Okay. So you start outside, then go inside? Well, because if I'm the leader, those are the levers I have. I don't have control over each individual person's knowledge, skills, and attitudes, but I can create the environment that allows them to build those, right? Okay. All right. So then how do you set culture? Do you just sit down, whiteboard it? Do you bring people in and say, let's set the culture? How do you recommend that? Great. I love this question because I spent a lot of time

thinking about this and trying to implement it and teaching it to my students. There are many, many levers that determine what the culture is. And you need to first start with what the culture you actually want to create and then work backward to figure out how you're going to get there. So there are things as simple as the physical space, right? When people walk into a room, the room tells the story about what your behavior should be there, right? If it looks like an auditorium, right, where there's a stage, it looks like one person's going to be on the stage and everyone else is listening.

If you had the chairs where it's all around in a circle, that's a totally different setup, right? We know that everybody's equal. So the physical space matters, the rules, the rewards, the incentives, the people who've chosen to be on the team. All of these things play a huge role. When we walk into any organization, any team, any family, we are so tuned to figure out what the rules of that game are. Okay. So you would start with culture, resources, and habitat. And when you're trying to sort out culture, I hear what you're saying to me is like, think about Habitat because it influences culture. And then I've always thought like culture begins with an idea. And I, but maybe I'm really wrong on this, but if like culture is an idea of how I want

to shape the interactions and the relationships with people that I'm engaging with, then I, what I'm curious about, do you start, would you recommend to that head coach, you know, which is you, would you recommend that that person start with the idea by themselves and then, you know, hear from other people or should it be a group environment? Like, and maybe this is a, maybe this is a really bad question. No, but it really is, is a good question. And, and the, the, the culture is shaped, is the collection of all the attitudes of everyone who's in the room, right? And the leaders, the leaders can shape that though. The leaders can shape the attitude.

They also shape who's in the room, right? I mean, that's one of the most important levers you have is picking who is on your team. Okay. Let's say they're handed to you. Let's just say that the previous coach picked them and these are your people. So I'm kind of stripping some resources away from you. People respond very, very strongly to what the rules are. So for example, if you get punished for failing, no one's going to try anything big and new because you know what? I don't want to get punished. So I'm not going to even take a risk. If people get celebrated by taking a risk and doing something that's bold and saying, you know what? Wow, that didn't work, but I so excited that you tried something we've never

done before. Then you go, oh. So those are explicit. What about the implicit things? See, this gets really tricky for me, right? And so the explicit- There are a lot of things. Yeah. Oh, I know. So let's go explicit, implicit. And I still want to come back to the culture thing in a minute. But explicit is like, I reward you or I shame you or whatever, right? Like I support you or tear you down for going forward or failing or whatever. But the implicit, let's say we have a set culture and somebody challenges the culture, challenges the leader, is rude, is aggressive, is condescending, and nothing happens.

So that's implicit, right? So I don't know why I'm rat-holing with you on this, but I think that this is really important. One of the things that's most important is people are going to be looking at your behavior as a leader, right? They're modeling what you're wearing, how you're talking, how you're standing. They're paying, people are paying incredible attention to what the leader is doing and seeing, oh, those are the norms. And it's one of these things that's very powerful is not even what you say, but what you do, right? I mean, this is true as parenting as well. The kids are watching their parents' behavior. If I say do one thing,

but I'm doing something else, there's an inconsistency. And the kid says, listen, I don't trust that. I don't trust that rule, right? That's not the way it works. So what you model, I mean, and if someone is rude, and if you let them get away with it, they're going to quickly learn that, I guess, they said we shouldn't do it, but it looks like someone else did it, so I'm going to do it too. So it's clearly important to make it very clear what the expectations are and what the consequences, positive and negative, right? I mean, it's not just punishments. It's like, what gets rewarded? I did a quick little investigation on how empires fall and they rot from within was a threat that I came across. And so that rotting from within is really an erosion of culture and an erosion of the ideas

that got them to the higher ground. But then that internal rot is the thing that, you know, weathers the cliff side where people just start to, the culture falls apart. So I'm wondering, you know, did I mix metaphors? No, it's okay. It's okay. In my mind, I had this wonderful cliff that we all kind of got up to and then, you know, the erosion anyways. So for, for, for, let's go back to this, your,

your double helix and your, here, is that for culture, you want to influence habitat and resources, and then you start there first before you go to the internal. Well, here's the thing. The reason in this model that everything is woven together is that everything affects everybody else, everything else, right? When we go into a situation, we have, we walk in with our own attitude and our skills and our knowledge, and we're embedded in this organization. The organization affects us and we contribute to and affect the organization. I mean,

you've probably been on a team where one person shifts in the team, right? Somebody leaves, someone new comes in, and everything shifts. There's just a shift in center of gravity based on having a new person in the room. And so you need to be aware that no matter where're sort of figuring out how to build the team, but also where to put the emphasis at different times. Okay. So what are some of the traps that people who are in a position of leadership run into that you would say, like, listen, just saying these, hopefully people can get better at them. Yeah. So one typical one is not, is, let's say I bring in somebody who is really talented, but is culturally not a good fit. Right? So that happens all the time. Right. And so, you know, we've got sort of the no asshole rule, right? Is that you can bring in, and we've had to do this, we've had to be very explicit about it is that no jerks, because you can get people who look really great

on paper, who are really skilled, but they're, they're, they're going to be toxic to an organization. It's not worth it, right? Because it's such a poison that it, it affects everybody, right? You can't just say, well, that one person will just kind of keep them in the corner. It doesn't work that way. Not if they're powerful. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So what if we went into like environments that are very dangerous, very risk involved, and very alpha, meaning that not many people are going to want to be in that environment because it's dangerous, there's risk and whatever, right? And I'm thinking of physical first because emotional risk is the higher risk for most people, but physical risk is the one that most of us like

think about first. So very physical risking environment. And to do that, you've got to kind of be, I don't know, there's an edge to you, right? And now you put a collective group of people that have that same edge and they're all going likely to be some people that have gone too far with edge and they've just got a big chip on their shoulder and it's like an F you to the world I'm going to show you. Do you have any thoughts on how you'd corral them based on your model? And corral is like a purposeful word because it's, you know, you want to let the stallion run, but at the same time, you want them to come into in the fences as often as they can to be part of something. I think in these situations, the key thing is to be very explicit about what the expectations are.

You had to say this is the environment we're in. Here are the the the skills, approaches, the mindset, that we expect people to have in this environment. And this is the culture that we are building here. The thing that gets crazy and difficult is when it's unclear what the expectations are. What if it is really clear? And I'm thinking of an Olympic head coach that is unbelievable and he's very clear. And he's dragged a couple of people through the courtyard, which is a kind of an awful phrase, but sometimes, you know, like that. I mean, for not performing?

Yeah. Okay. Right. So like kick them off the team, you know, whatever, whatever. Okay. And the thing is still not beautiful. It's still not quite working the way that the vision that the head has in place. You know what?

We're sort of getting out of my area of expertise. And I'm thinking about colleagues of mine who would be really knowledgeable about this, not me. But I can tell you just based on my experience, people obviously are very different. And I've had a situation the last few weeks where i've had some students come to me being very uncomfortable so each classroom is its own little ecosystem right and some of my colleagues teach in a way that's very aggressive they really kind of that whiplash you know the movie whiplash with the you know with the sort of very um you

know really pushing students in a way not that extreme you know, with the sort of very, you know, really pushing students in a way, not that extreme, you know, but the point is like really pushing students. It's like, you can do better, you can do better, you can do better. And then there are other people like me who tend to be much more nurturing in their approach. And I've had students where I, you know, you realize, you know, that environment is just uncomfortable for them. And it might be that you say, you know what? Maybe people just really respond to different types of coaching. God, see, Tina, this is squarely in your wheelhouse, like right center. Your model is like, I don't know if you've applied it to some of the questions I'm thinking, I think about, but you are like, there's a whole opportunity for you to teach your insights to the world of

innovation in sport. Well, I think it's really relevant in any organization. Yeah. Where there's relationships. Yeah, right. Exactly. And the thing is, it's very complicated when you have a very extreme environment, you have a very different set of rules. But I think if you're not explicit about the, I mean, if you're in the military, for example, the rules are very clear, right? They make it very clear what the hierarchy is, what the reporting structure, how you deal with people in different levels. There's no surprise every day and people know exactly what to expect. I think what happens is that if it's not clear, people get very confused. And if it's not clear and it's not consistent, that's what gets really problematic. So I want to go back to something. Can I just go

back to something that you said earlier about risk-taking? Because I think about it a lot, right? Especially in the world of innovation entrepreneurship, you need people to take risks. If I asked you, Michael, are you a risk taker? Would you say yes or no? Oh God, you know, I ask this in every conversation I have. And I want to play back to you the same question. For sure, 100%. I like to think myself as a risk taker. And I also, I'm very clear that there's so much more risk that I can take. Well, so, okay. And so that's super interesting that you say it and you treat it as if it's something binary. But I think of risk as being much more nuanced, right?

Just as you mentioned, there are physical risks, there are emotional risks, there are social risks, there are intellectual risks, there are financial risks, there are ethical risks. And I think we all have our own risk profile. And so I do a lot of exercises with my students where we start teasing apart this risk profile and you start comparing it to other people and you start saying, wow, I would never do what you would do. Like you might jump out of a perfectly good

airplane and I never would, right? You might be willing to put a lot of money in the stock market. I might not. So we have different risk profiles, but I'm willing to get up and give a talk in front of a thousand people. And someone else goes, you got to be kidding. You couldn't pay me enough to give a talk in front of a thousand people. So it's really, really important to understand your risk profile and to get into environments that A, play to your strengths, right? What you feel comfortable doing. And also to fill in the gaps. If I need somebody else on my team, who's going to be the social risk taker, who's going to be at up in front of everybody and give a talk. And I'm the person

who's going to take the intellectual risk and really push forward with my technology. Yeah, I think, I think you're right on the money for a profile because there's all different types of risk. I think emotional risk, and maybe this is me putting my lenses and my challenge on the profile, on the variables, right? The variables of risk is that the emotional risk, and it's also an observation, the same coin, but opposite sides. And for me, at least. And that emotional risk is really hard to talk about the things that are difficult to talk about is a real challenge for so many of us. And physical risk is, yeah, that's cool. And we can, you know, we can experience that or financial or whatever. But when I peel it back, risk, and I want to know if you're a risk taker as well and what type. But when I peel it back, okay, I won't forget my thought because I don't want to influence yours. But how do you think about you as a risk taker?

And then I've got two follow-ons to that. Great. So I am very happy to take social risks. I mean, I do it every single day. I put myself out there. I am very comfortable taking emotional risks, telling people, I do it every single day. I put myself out there. I am very comfortable taking emotional risks, telling people how I feel about things. I am not a physical risk taker. I am not a financial risk taker. I am definitely an intellectual risk taker. I'm not an ethical

risk taker. I'm not going to take that risk. So those are, is there some, one that I forgot, if there's something, ask me, but I'm very clear and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Um, and, and I think it's important for people to tease this out for themselves because if you think of it as just a binary thing, you're missing the opportunity to understand the nuance and, and to realize, Hey, I actually am a risk taker. I take these type of risks, but I'm really not comfortable in this domain. So when you say you're a social risk taker, this was not my follow-on question, but when you say you're a social risk taker, can you help me understand if you're good at it, if

you're good at social interactions, are you a risk taker relative to others or are you pushing your curve up? And like when I, it's not a really clear statement. My hands are like saying my hands right now are making this container capacity, uh, holder. And if I'm, when I push my limit and I take a risk, my container gets a little bit bigger, which means that I can do more with, uh, than I used to be able to do. I think so. I think for me, I just keep pushing it. So it's big, it's much larger. Yeah. I keep pushing it. It's like, Oh, that didn't hurt. Let me try the next thing. Oh, that didn't hurt. Let me try the next thing. And is it easier for

you to do it on those five variables of risk at the social part than the ethical part? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Much easier. I mean, the point is some of them I just choose I'm not going to do. I was like, you know what, that's not my domain. I'm not going to jump out of an airplane and I'm not trying to, I'm not going to do that. So thank you very much. Now, if you were to, if you were to invest in physical risk, would that fundamentally change or alter your capacity for the other variables on risk? A good question. It might be, but it might be that if I put myself, for example, if I said, you know what, I'm going to go learn how to fly an airplane. I'm not going to jump out of it,

but it's like, I'm going to push myself. I was like, you know what, I'm going to put myself, get myself out of my comfort zone. I think it would increase my capacity there. It's like, well, I did that. Yeah, there is a return. Like, I think when we invest in one of those factors, there's a return on the others that is unnoticed until we go invest in that one. I think it's a good point. Now, one thing that's super important is what happens if you take a risk and you fail, right? Let's say I take a social risk and I ask for something that, you know, felt like it was kind of a bit out of my comfort zone

or I do something that's out of my comfort zone and I fail. I think this is the interesting point though, because if you do it and you succeed, that increases, right, your capacity. But if you do it and you fail, then here's what happens. Go, go. Yeah, no, no, go. This is really, really important because there's a window of danger after risk-taking and success. There's a real danger that takes place right after those experiences. And I get my intent to come way up after, because I'm fortunate enough to

work in some very extreme environments where people have changed the way we understand what's possible. And right after success from a radical risk-taking experience, it gets really dangerous for people. Right, because they probably feel empowered that they're going to go do something and they then do something stupid. Right. Interesting. That's a really interesting insight. But let's look at the flip side let's say i do

something and i fail so this is so critical because if you define it as failure you're screwed you need to define it as data there you go you have, wow, I went out and I did this and such, and it didn't work as I anticipated. You know, ask for a raise, right? And I asked for a raise from my boss, and I got turned down. Okay. Or I took a course that was super hard, and I didn't get a good grade. You say, okay, what did I learn from this? And I have my students write failure resumes. Their biggest screw-ups, personal, professional, academic, could be whatever categories they want, and they have to keep it. And many of the students tell me they keep it well beyond the course. Because if you're going to take risks, you're going to get data back

on when it worked, and you're going to get data back on when it didn't work. And if you don't mine that data for insights, you've missed the opportunity. And once you start doing that, you can let go of those quote unquote failures much more quickly if you've analyzed them, mind them, and let them go. Yeah, I love that. I've never heard of a failure resume, but the concept that you're working from is like I'm nodding my head going, I don't use the word data, I use the word information. And people that know me will say, God, Mike, that's exactly, well, that's good information. What are you going to do with it? Is what I'll say often. Exactly.

Okay, so what are you going to do with that information now? So are you going to sit and sulk or, you know, are you going to like become more clear about what happens and what transpired and what you're going to do differently? Yeah. So, so you're, you're more of a information gatherer, data gatherer, and you hold that meta analysis to like this, this top view of what's happening so that you don't get sucked into the first person experience and overwhelmed by it all the time. Yes. And you know, what's super important. I used to not do that. And I, what I would do is I would just perseverate and I was so good. And I know other people are too. And you just keep replaying that replaying the failure

over and over and over, you know, could be weeks and months and years. You're constantly and I'm hoping that people are listening or going, Oh, yeah, I know what that's like. Once you can let go of it. Once you can let go of it, it is so freeing. First of all, not only do you feel better, but it frees up your mind to do something more useful, right? It's a huge waste of effort to continually be going over your, your disappointment a hundred thousand times. Well, you know, it, it is, uh, I, I'm going to a thousand percent agree. That is a, an incredible resource drain.

However, my thought about that is that it is entertaining because there's blood, there's emotion, there's in stimulant. It's entertaining to play that story over and over again, just like a daytime drama on TV. Well, you know what's funny? Sometimes what happens... It's funny. A couple of weeks ago, I was not feeling well. I was sick and I had some strange symptoms and I'm perfectly fine now, but I was going to go to the doctor and I kept replaying in my head all the symptoms and all the things that happened. And finally, what I did is I wrote them all down.

I wrote myself an email. Here's the symptoms and here's what happens. And I could let go of it because now I didn't have to keep replaying it over and over. And I think that that act of actually writing something down that's been painful allows you to free yourself from having to just keep reminding yourself of it. You know, there's and there's a small nuance of that to back your your insight up here or your insight is that when when you fall asleep at night and your head hits the pillow and then all of a sudden the hamster wheel turns on, right? And we're just kind of thinking about stuff. And part of that is to remember what's important. So when you wake up in the morning tomorrow, you can be a better person, right? Or you can be more productive, whatever.

But it's that process of trying to play it over and over and over again so that you get really clear and that you can hold on to it long enough to either experience something new that's better or not repeat the mistake of the pain. Right. But it can be a broken record that you just keep telling the same story over and over and over and over. And in fact, part of it is, you know, if you write it down, put it on your failure resume, let go of it. Okay. This is what I learned. This is what I'm not going to do again. You move on. One of the things when you talk about what goes through your mind at night, I like to give myself an assignment the night before when I go to sleep. I mean, that's how I write books, is I look at what I'm going to write about the next day, and I give myself the assignment the

night before when I go to sleep. So I am thinking about it. And then when I get up, I'm ready to write. So I think you can use that. Think about that reframing of that time instead of perseverating on something that went wrong during the day, actually using it to plan for the next day. Yeah, that's brilliant. That's really good. And what my suggestion often to people is, is to have a little pad. This is not my suggestion. This is something that's been useful for me is that to have a little pad, just write that stuff down. As soon as you notice that you're having to rehearse it, so you don't forget it, just write it down and it's there for you. It's like you've exported your internal hard drive. Right. So you don't have to keep repeating it.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. So let's go back, if you don't mind, go back to the capacity or container building experience that's involved with risk. Because this is, I think if this fits into your model of creativity and saying and moving a creative idea or expression into something that is potentially innovative is maybe the link I'm trying to make in my head. But I want to go back to the risk-taking experience first is that, and this is a fun little question. If you had the chance to be the first person in Mars, the first person to be on Mars, but you had a 50% success rate, 50% chance that you come back alive, 50% chance that you wouldn't, but you'd be the first

person to go. Now I'm not going to give you more information, but I just like, would you go? I think a lot would depend upon where I was in my life. Let's just say now. Right now. Gosh, I have a whole bunch of people I know who would go in a heartbeat. The question is, would I want to go if it was 100% chance of being the first person, of surviving, right? So the question is, you're taking either 50, you're putting the risk in around whether I survive. That's assuming that I want to go in the first place. Well, yeah. So there's a lot of assumptions about this. I don't know that I

actually want to go to Mars. I'm happy for someone else who's passionate about it. I'm happy to support someone else's dream to go to Mars. And I want to hear all about it, but I don't know that I want to get on a spaceship and go to Mars. Okay. So I'm going to give you more information to make it more complicated or more clear for you, right? But first, this goes to the model, because I think if you're lower, self-reported, you're lower on the physical, this challenges the physical. Now, if I move one of the variables around and say that, and this is more social or global, it's more social, which is your strength, okay? So if you were the first person to Mars,

it's significant because you're the right fit for the capsule, for the ecosystem on Mars, you're the best fit across the world. And if we get to Mars via you, that there's potential survival for our, um, uh, our race. So I've now indexed on your strength and then expanded the kind of responsibility. Right. So I'm the right person. I know exactly that I am the person who needs to do this. There's no one else who can do it. So I've said. Right, exactly. And if I don't go, there is a large risk for the other people. Sure. Yeah, I would go then. I mean, the point is that I didn't need to go just for me, but if it was going to be... Yeah. So for me, I find it fascinating that when there's responsibility

to others, we'll do things that we don't think that we should do or could do. But you know, it was funny though, when I thought about it initially, what would get me to go to Mars? If you said my kid was on Mars and I wasn't going to be able to, that was the only way I could see my kid. I was like, well, I'm getting on that capsule, go to Mars. Cause I like it. I need to go either rescue my kid or see my kid. So that's another sort of motivator. What is it that drives you? Yeah. So that's what this is. I'm trying to get out with that question. Like what really drives you? Because our risk profile to use your idea, but the way that we risk or don't risk is either restricts us, restricts us, or creates expansion to be able to

express the thing that really drives us. So the other day I went to this exhibit, it's called the Neuro Society exhibit that's open for a couple more weeks here. And they put you through these exercises like this, where you're in sort of a game show format, and they ask you these questions about what you would do, like, would you kill the terrorists, you know, if there were collateral damage, and then they keep bringing it closer to home, you know, like if your kid was outside, you know, and was going to be collateral damage. And it was super interesting, because I made the decision upfront that I just wouldn't kill anyone that I felt like there had to be another solution for getting rid of these terrorists, or stopping them from causing harm that I didn't need to, I didn't need to. And so I just made a

blanket choice at the beginning. And I think one of the questions that often comes up is how do you make these choices? I didn't, I didn't want to have to make the choice, I was anticipating that I was going to have to make harder and harder choices. And so I figured I'd make the choice. I was anticipating that I was going to have to make harder and harder choices. And so I figured I'd make the choice at the beginning that I would never do it. And therefore it made it easy for me to answer every question. Yeah. So there it goes back to your ethical, um, yeah, your ethical profile, right. Or standards we might say. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Oh, Tina, this has been a lot of like a lot of fun. And I know that we've kind of pushed on the edges of what you might consider your wheelhouse. But I think that this stuff is your model allows for that kind of, I don't know, edge pushing on the human experience as well as the cultural and definitely the environmental

conditions that help people go forward or restrict them to tap into their potential. So thank you for allowing me to muse with you in this way, but I'm not done. If you can have a few more moments here with a couple more questions, is that okay? Sure. Okay. So where does pressure come from? Where does pressure come from? I think for most, well, that's a good question, right? There's external pressure and there's internal pressure.'s a good question, right? There's external pressure and there's internal pressure. There are environmental pressures, right? If you're hungry, that's a pretty big pressure. You know, if you don't have enough food, you don't have housing.

So there are pressures that can come from the environment. But for a lot of people, you know, they are much more driven by their internal pressures. I would say at this point in my life, my pressures absolutely come from inside. And one thing, if I could riff on this for a second, I've been thinking a lot about this, especially as I come up upon this milestone birthday. And I've been doing a project called 60 Weeks to 60, where I give myself, you know, different challenges every week as I get towards 60. I've been thinking about the fact that in each decade of our lives, we focus, we need to focus on different things and change our priorities. So, you know, in your 20s, you might be focused on you're building your knowledge in your 30s, you're building your skills on the 40s, you're building your reputation on the 50s,

you're building your resources, you know, and I'm, I'm, so the pressure at this point in my life absolutely comes from inside. But when I was younger, it was much more external. And what is the source of the pressure? It's about what is going to be meaningful, honestly, is what is going to be the most meaningful use of my time. And that means meaningful to me, but also meaningful to others. Where can I have the biggest impact? And am I doing the right things to leverage my skills? And is the pressure coming from a not wanting to miss being fabulous? Or is the pressure coming from

time? Which is I know, it sounds like it's an external, but time really is a, we interpret time in particular ways. It comes from wanting to not feel as though I just keep doing the same thing over and over again because it's just what I'm doing. Right. I think you can get it's sort of the golden handcuffs where you're in a comfortable position that feels safe and you keep doing the same thing. And the fear that I'm going to just keep doing the same thing because it's comfortable and expected and not getting out of my comfort zone. So I think back to when I was in my 20s and I picked up against everybody's wishes and drove across the country and resettled in California. And it seemed like an incredibly radical and risky thing to do that, you know, would I be willing to do something like that again? Would I be willing to pick up in whatever metaphorical way that means and do something completely different? And so a fear that I'm missing an opportunity because I've become too safe.

Okay. So Einstein said something that I mapped onto, which mapped onto, which is we, there's a fundamental orientation in the world that, uh, it's either hostile or safe. And so I mapped that, that, that thinking, that binary thinking in saying there's a fundamental decision for high performers, either we're going to avoid failure or approach success. And do you have a sense of which one you've gravitated toward? So either avoid failure or approach success. I really try to focus on the approach success as opposed to avoid failure. Since I have a relatively healthy regard for failure as data, I'm not as frightened by it. I feel like I'm in a pretty comfortable

position where I'm not psychologically tortured by a fear of failure. And then success for you is operationalized or defined by? Yeah, it's just super good question. Because at this point, a lot of it has to do with being healthy. And that means sort of healthy mentally, healthy physically, having a healthy relationship with the people around me. So that's one piece. But also being able to influence others in a positive way. There is nothing more powerful than being able to do something that has ripples of positive

impact. And teaching is a really, really fabulous way to do that when you can engage with people in a way where they feel transformed. I try in my classes, and it's a hard thing to do, but I always feel as though I want the students to be a different person when they walk out of the class and when they walked in. And so I create experiences that allow them to really challenge the way they think, the way they feel, the way they act, the way they engage with the world by giving them a brand new tool in their toolbox. God, so that thought probably guides your entire model. Yes, it does. That thought, right? That I want to help people change. Yeah. For the better, right? And to give them tools, give them tools that empower them, give them tools that empower them to really have, uh, to address the challenges they see in their life. So that's how you impact the inner model, your internal model as opposed to the cultural

resources and habitat. Okay. Well, the cultural resources and the habitat are to drive that central quest that you have. So good. Okay. It all comes down to? Well, I think in my mind, a lot of it is that it all comes down to looking at the world as a place that's opportunity rich, that it's a mindset of seeing problems as opportunities. And that if you have that mindset, not only are you an optimist, but you can see you, it opens your mind to seeing the possibilities for solutions. If you have that

mindset that the world is full of opportunities as opposed to full of challenges. I love it. Well, actually, I think challenges are wonderful. Okay, so can I just say that I- Yes, but there are opportunities, right? The challenge is an opportunity. I mean, that's the point is that like, yeah, it is a challenge, but wow, that's pretty cool. And so just to give you a sense, I mean, I write books, right? I've written a whole bunch of books. I only write books about things I don't know about, meaning I pick a topic that I want to know about. And the process of writing the book is a way for me to really dive in and understand it. You know, I wrote my first two books are on the chemistry of cooking. I wrote them because I didn't know anything about the chemistry of cooking. I was not in that field. I mean, I was a scientist, but I didn't understand

what was going on in my kitchen. I said, well, I really want to understand this. So I couldn't find the answers. This was way back in 1991. And I said, I better write this book. And so I spent, you know, a year and a half writing the book. And in doing so, I had to actually get the answers. That is so cool. Okay. So the problem is an opportunity. Yeah, there it is. All right.

Awesome, Tina. Thank you. And, you know, can you just riff on this last thought? It's like, how do you articulate or think about mastery? So it goes back to the innovation engine. Mastery, in my mind, is very much the interplay between your knowledge, your skills, and your attitude. And you control these things, right? You work hard to build your knowledge, right? And you build your knowledge in lots of different ways from just paying attention to the world to actually formal study.

Your skills, that comes from practice, practice, practice. You need to, you know, you're never going to be a chess master or a baseball star if you don't, you know, practice. And then your attitude is something you cultivate every single day. And so those three things, your mindset, your skills and your knowledge, those are the three tools that you control that end up definitely leading to mastery of whatever you want to tackle. Ooh, fits all perfectly squared into the way that you've thought for the last, I don't know, 30, 40 years about how to help the innovation and creative and imagination process for

people in organizations. So really clear. If there's one book that you would want people to buy of yours, like what would that book be? Where do we start? I probably, so the three books that, their trilogy, one is What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, that's followed, and that's sort of having an entrepreneurial mindset. Ingenious is about the, that's the one with the innovation engine. And that's about the sort of a crash course on creativity. And then the most recent book is called Insight Out. And that is really about how you weave together your attitudes and actions to make things happen.

So I probably would start with the first one, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. And if someone likes it, they can look at the others. Tina, if there's one thought that you wish that I could walk away with or do better at or have, for me, and I'm thinking about for me selfishly, Mike, what would you want that thought to be for me? So it's that it all starts with observation. The observation is the master key that opens up everything. And that before something's your passion, it's something you know nothing about. and you need to sort of get starts with paying attention in a way that unlocks

everything else. Yeah. Yes. So I, you know, I've just got this thought as you're, as we've had this conversation today, the world is better because you're in it and how fortunate the people that are, are able to work closely with you and really spend time with you. And I think about the students and the professors and all the folks that you work with on the, on the, the, the technology and business space, like what a gift who you are, who you've become and what you offer to others. So thank you for spending time. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Yeah. And then where can we find you? Where are you on social? At Twitter at TSEELIG. And I've also got a blog on Medium, just Tina Seelig. I'm happy to get comments from people anytime. Beautiful. Lastly, you can find us at findingmastery.net. And then you can also hit us up at iTunes to find this conversation and other conversations you can forward onto your friends. And then you can hit me up at social Tina and I will engage on social over this conversation, I hope. And my social, my Twitter is at Michael Gervais and our Instagram is at finding mastery. Tina, thank you.

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