The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Fixed.: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving by Amy E Herman

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Fixed.: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving by Amy E Herman With Amy Herman’s Fixed., we now have access to what the FBI, NATO, the State Department, Interpol, Scotland Yard, and many more organizations and their leaders have been using to solve their most intractable problems. Demonstrating a powerful paradigm shift for finding solutions, Herman teaches us to see things differently, using art to challenge our default thinking and open up possibilities otherwise overlooked. Her unexpected, insightful, and often delightful methodology is sought after by leaders and professionals for whom failure is catastrophic. Luckily for us, these tactics work— no matter the problem’s scale or complexity. And we don’t need an art degree or previous knowledge about art to benefit from her approach, only a willingness to open our eyes and our minds. Yes, things go wrong all the time. What matters most is what we do to fix them.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The chrisvossshow.com.

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wherever all those cool kids are, wherever the cool kids are playing. You can check them out over there. So we're excited to announce my new book is coming out. It's called Beacons of Leadership, Inspiring Lessons of Success in Business and Innovation. It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021. And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read this book. It's filled with a multitude of my insightful stories, lessons, my life, and experiences in leadership and character. I give you some of the secrets from my CEO Entrepreneur Toolbox that I use to scale my business success,

innovate, and build a multitude of companies. I've been a CEO for, what is it, like 33, 35 years now. We talk about leadership, the importance of leadership, how to become a great leader, and how anyone can become a great leader as well. So you can preorder the book right now wherever fine books are sold, but the best thing to do on getting a preorder deal is to go to beaconsofleadership.com. That's beaconsofleadership.com. On there, you can find several packages you can take advantage of in ordering the book. And for the same price of what you can get it from someplace else like Amazon,

you can get all sorts of extra goodies that we've taken and given away. Different collectors, limited edition, custom made, numbered book plates that are going to be autographed by me. There's all sorts of other goodies that you can get when you buy the book from beaconsofleadership.com. So be sure to go there, check it out, or order the book wherever fine books are sold. Today, we have an amazing author on the show. We only have amazing authors. In fact, we have a lot of authors that come on and they go, hey, can we come on the show, Chris? We're not amazing. And I go, no, we only have amazing authors on the show. We just put them in the Google machine and they come out.

So today we have Amy E. Herman on the show. She's going to be talking about her newest book. She has multiple books we'll talk about. Her newest book is called Fixed, How to Perfect the Art. I'm sorry. Let me recut that. Fixed, How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving. It's going to be coming out December 14th, 2021.

Can you believe we're in December already? Or we're almost there, I guess tomorrow or next day or something. I don't know. Man, I don't want it to be 2022 yet. I'm having a, I'm just barely, I'm just barely getting going in 2021. So there's that. She is a lawyer and historian, art historian, who works with art and to sharpen observation, analysis, and communication skills by showing people how to look closely at painting, sculpture, and photography. She helps them hone their visual intelligence to recognize the most pertinent and useful information,

as well as recognize biases that impede decision making. Welcome to the show, Amy. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me, Chris. Happy to be here. Thanks for coming.

Congratulations on your newest book. I'll get that out. I don't know. I got a stutter this morning or something. So give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Sure. I am at Amy Herman AOP on Instagram and Twitter. And my website is artfulperception.com.

There you go. So what motivated you to want to write this book? CEOs and executives and nurses and beekeepers and prison wardens. What's the common thread here? And I really didn't have an answer. I'm like, I don't know. But then I thought about it and I realized everybody has problems. And this was before the pandemic. Everybody had a problem to solve. And so they thought, you know what, let's go outside the box, see if we can find another way to solve our problem. So people came to me because they thought, well, she teaches people how to look at art and she works with people all over the world. Let's give it a try. And I realized the common thread, everyone had a problem to solve. So I decided

to start putting some of those problem solving techniques, thinking about looking at art and the artist process. And what do you know, a book came out of it. There you go. How to perfect the fine art of problem solving. So we talked a little bit in the green room. Tell us, do we have a good picture of an overall arcing picture of the book or do you want to tell a little bit more? Yeah, no, basically the book and I'm just, I know this is a podcast, but I'm holding up a cover of the book. And what's interesting about the illustration on the front, it's by an artist. The whole book is about every time an artist creates a work of art, they're solving a problem. They have an idea,

but they have to figure out, they have to get the materials, they have to prep it, they have to draft it, they have to get the money, they have to figure it out. And I thought, let's take that process and just put it into bite-sized steps. So when people are facing problems, whether it's an annoyance with your colleague at work or a major problem that you have to shut down the company and start another one, how can we use that process? And I used a disaster, actually, a 19th century disaster when a French boat went aground off the coast of Mauritania in 1820. It's called the Raft of the Medusa. And there were 147 people on the raft and only 15 of them survived. And the ones that survived, dehydration, exhaustion, cannibalism, it was just a scandal in France. And the artist Jericho painted this huge painting called The Raft of the Medusa.

And he had to just undergo so many steps and so many problems. And it all had to do with incompetence of the captain. It had to do with politics. And I thought, yeah, it's a great reflection of everything that's happening in our world. So that's what the book uses that as the model and takes off from there and talks about all the different people that I work with to help solve their problems. And you've been working with the FBI, NATO, the State Department, Interpol, Scotland Yard, and many organizations to help their leaders solve problems. How does that work? That's pretty crazy. I do work with all of those organizations,

and word of mouth is pretty powerful. And I made a cold call to the NYPD 20 years ago. I said, look, I'm working in a museum. I train medical students how to enhance their observation skills, and I think it would be really good for homicide detectives. And I could just see the guy on the other end, who is this woman? Why is she calling me? What is she talking about? detectives. And I could just see the guy on the other end. Who is this woman? Why is she calling me?

What is she talking about? Art museum. And I was transferred seven times. And nobody disconnected me. Nobody's like, all right, we're going to get rid of her. And I finally got to somebody who heard what I was saying. This makes sense. The next thing I know, the NYPD was coming to the museum where I worked.

And it ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And my world exploded. And as I said, word of mouth. You train one up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and my world exploded. And as I said, word of mouth. You train one group from the NYPD, and then the FBI jumps in, and then NATO reads your book, and one thing leads to another. And it's surprisingly a small world. It's really not that big. I'm starting to believe there are only 800 people in the world.

Oh, okay. That's quite a network. Maybe that's the Illuminati. I don't know. I'm just kidding. We've had a number of FBI agents and people who worked to justice on the show, Frank Fuguzi, who else, Peter Strzok, and then I think a few people who worked in the Justice Department. And so, yeah, the work that they have to do, the stuff they have to go on, and the deductions

they have to make. And we talked this in the pre-show, you consult or help Navy SEALs as well. And they have to sometimes make split decisions. They walk into a room with a gun drawn, but they have to decide who's the civilians and who's the antagonist or the people with a gun or that maybe want to hurt them or hostage. There's all sorts of situations they walk into where they have to make split decisions and they have to see everything at once. So how does working with art help leaders and CEOs? I'm sorry, I want to throw that in there. No, that's okay. Let's start by saying that nobody ever has a

complete picture. Whenever you go into any situation, a new client, a new vendor, a new crime scene, a new counterterrorism initiative, nobody ever has a complete picture. You have a lot of pieces that you have to put together. And my guiding quote for this whole program comes from Henry James. He said, try to be the person on whom nothing is lost. Try to be the person on whom nothing is lost. So basically, the example that I'll give you is I had a group of counterterrorism cops, counterterrorism officials at the Frick Collection. And I was showing them a painting. It's called Purification of the Temple. And I don't teach religion. It happened to be a religious painting of Christ throwing everybody out of the temple. It's a violent

painting and people are on the ground and people are hurt. And I said to one of the cops, what's going on here? What would you do? And he points to Christ, not knowing that it was Christ, not knowing that this was a biblical scene. And he said, you see that guy in pink? I'd collar him. He's causing all the trouble. And that's exactly what I want them to do. I want them to take a situation and assess it as if they were there. And then they would point to people, they'd point to someone in the back of the painting and say, that would be a really good witness. No distractions back there. So what I ask them to do is take unfamiliar data. I use art as data and ask them to articulate it with precision objectivity, exactly what it is that they see.

And then I point out what they're missing. And so the idea is let's really sharpen these skills because when you're out in the field, I'm not going to be there. You're not going to have a painting, but you have to look at this as a composite picture. What am I seeing? And what am I missing? And most importantly, how do I communicate it to the guy two feet back from me who's looking out for a lamp? How do I tell him what I see and what he should see and what he's missing? And this can apply to CEOs and business as well. Being able to take in information, store it in a library, look at different data. One of the things I wrote about in my book was my ability to see a lot of things and take in a lot of data and also be able to process that in a way where I could get outside of the box.

And I don't know if you've studied like out-of-the-box sort of theory or the nine-dot experiment or nine-dot, I can't remember what it's called, the nine-dot thing, where you put nine dots and you have to connect all nine dots in kind of a box pattern where you have to draw four lines without lifting your pen. And it's something I learned a long time ago, but I didn't realize at the time that I saw things out of the box. I see things in the format that they are, which is really weird. And I see the archetype behind them. I seek the archetype behind them and why they're constructed that way. And most people don't. They just, oh, okay, this is what, if you hand them something, that's what they have. But using that in a business format and being able to see it has always helped me innovate because I always look at things and go, how can it be better? How can it be done different? Even stuff I created, one of the challenges I had was being able to get

outside of my own box of some sort of innovation or business process that I created. And then being able to a year or two, go back to it and go, why did I design this way? Why does it work this way? Is there a better way to do it? And so there's a lot of business application for this too, I think, for CEO and business people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And what you're talking about is a term that I use. It's the title of my first book. It's called visual intelligence. Visual intelligence means two things. It means how do we filter out all the noise? How do we see what matters? Because we're bombarded, as you said, with social media and texts and emails, and we're just bombarded with

stuff. So how do we really get to the heart of what it is that we need to see? But also for CEOs and business leaders, the idea of visual intelligence is seeing what other people don't. How can you see what other people don't? Sometimes it's right in front of your eyes. And as we were talking about, there are things that you see that other people don't, but how do we leverage that? How do we take that and use it to our company's advantage to say, I see this as potential opportunity, but the key to all of this, Chris, is being able to articulate it. That's one thing to see it, but how do you articulate? Because if you can't, it goes nowhere.

Yeah, you're just collecting information for nothing. And you actually wrote a book called Visual Intelligence in 2016. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Visual Intelligence, Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life. I'm going to have to read that one too. We talked about how, I think this is brilliant. Now you're going to make me look at art in a whole different way.

Like I'm actually probably going to get interested in art where I'm just not a big art fan. I like beautiful art and people are artistic. I've never really been like, I'm going to go look at a Monet, but maybe now I will because I'll be like, Hey, should I talk to that guy with the umbrella or what's going on over there? And I'll probably appreciate it from a whole different level of point of view, but this is really important. We talked pre-show about how when I was young, I'll never forget it. It really hit me. My friend and I, we'd be cruising as teenagers. We'd be driving down the road or going someplace. And I'd be with my business partner, who eventually became my business partner and best friend.

And I would be like, hey, man, do you see that girl that was over there in that park and the store wasn't busy? And I'd pick up all this different data and collect it. And my friend would just be like, uh, I didn't see nothing. So we're driving down the road. I went to hell. And sometimes I'd feel crazy because I'd be like, man, do I collect all this data? And then later when I started my companies and had really bad ADHD after starting my second one, a year and a half on top of starting the first one. So I was running two companies at the same time, which was just insane. But it worked.

But to the detriment of my health, but welcome to entrepreneurism. So I went and saw a psychiatrist for ADHD and anxiety. And he said, the fact that you collect data and use it for business is the only thing that can keep me from committing you. Because if you didn't collect all this data and store it in library, I actually cataloged it. And a lot of it I do subconsciously. And I track trends, I track marketing, I track all this stuff. He goes, if you didn't use this for something, you'd be insane. And so I think that's similar to what you're talking about,

what you're doing and what leaders can do regardless of their field. Absolutely. And one of the things that you hit on that I think is relevant is you said, oh, not really an art guy. What I tell people in my program is I don't care if they like art or not. This is not something where let's go look at Monet for an hour. This is about looking at a new set of data. This is about taking the skills. You said when you would go cruising with your friends and you would see something, it's how you apply that. It's not just that you collect it for your own, whatever you need to use it for. This is what you do with that information. So I'm just giving people a way to channel the information that we all have inherent senses of observation to begin with. But I'm just giving them a place to hang their hat

and say, you know what, let me use this. And you'd be amazed how many people actually become art people. They say, I hate contemporary art. I hate modern art. I'm like, I don't care. That's not what this is about. This is about looking and seeing, not liking and disliking. And how many of them come away? It's empowering.

They're like, that was cool. I love looking at that sculpture and realizing that it actually has professional application for me. What about like abstract art? Can you pick up stuff in abstract art? Yes, yes. And in fact, we break it down. Representational art is about tactic

and abstract art is about strategy. Because to look at abstract art, people say, well, I don't get it. And I say, well, that's not the point here. That's not about getting it. It's about what do you see? How would you describe this to me if I couldn't see it? Because think about it.

Half our world is abstract. Half the concepts we're talking about. You try to describe what is social media to somebody. If you had to describe what is social media, where do you begin? It's an abstract concept that lives someplace else. So we have to describe those things all the time. So usually I save the abstract for a more advanced course, but I use it all the time. A strategy versus tactic is representational.

I see three trees and two monkeys and a dog. And then when you get more abstract, people are like, I can describe this. I can totally do this. And it's strangely empowering. I use the F word. It's a lot of fun. People actually have a lot of fun doing this. And I'll never forget one drug enforcement task force guy came up to me at

the end of the session. He was pretty tough looking and a little intimidating. And he said, can I tell you something? And I thought, oh God, here it comes. He said, you kept talking about taking me out of the box. You took me so far out of the box. I know what to look for when I go back in. Wow. That's what I want to hear. Yeah. That's what I want to hear. I'm not trying to change the way people do things. I just want to give them another tool to look at what they have to look at every day. That's interesting. This is basically how my brain works, which is halfway insane. Sometimes I feel insane because I count things and measure things.

It's how I establish trends. It's how I got on Twitter and rebuilt my career after losing it, losing my companies during the 2008 thing is I started, I listened to trends and all of a sudden there was this Twitter thing and I was like, there's something here and got into that and, and all, all the other stuff we were talking about the pre-show often I've wondered because I've never been a woman. There's still time. Yeah, I know. It's good to know. But to my understanding, women take in a lot of information. They're able to do this much easier than men. Is that really a true difference between the sexes where men are really more singular and they can see something and focus on it, but they don't see and they can miss the whole big picture?

Is that true? See, I see it the opposite. And again, I'm going to sit in the chair of sweeping generalizations. One of my favorite things, I'm going to sit in that chair of sweeping generalizations and tell you that I think that guys see the big picture more often and women are very detail oriented. Oh, okay. So if you have, I'll be walking with a friend of mine, who's a guy and I'll walk by and I'll say, did you smell that perfume that just walked by? And he'll be like, what perfume? What are you talking about? He's like, I was too busy watching the basketball game up on the screen. What do you mean perfume walked by? I said, somebody walked by wearing

very strong perfume. And it's amazing to me that somebody could not smell it. It's in your ether. It's right there. And guys, if they're focused on one thing or a big picture, they're not going to see anything else. But women focus on details in multiple scenarios. And so frequently when I have cops that are paired up and you have a man and a woman or two very different kinds of observers, it serves them well when they're on patrol, because when you're on patrol,

you're looking at not extraordinary things happening and you want to catch that one thing. And if somebody is looking at the big picture and someone's looking at the small details, you have a greater chance of catching what's out of the ordinary. Are women taking in more information though? I think they're looking for more information. So, you know, when I'm on this, when I pass people on the street, I'll notice the pattern in somebody's scarf. I'll notice the socks that they're wearing. We'll notice different

things. And I don't, I can't tell you why there's such a gender, a difference in genders, what people notice. And I raised my son here in New York city and he'd be on his phone and I'd be on the bus and say to him, he was like 10 or 11. I'd say, oh, you're so busy on your phone. Did you see the guys that got on the back of the bus? And he would just need to describe them to me. So we can't discount what we see in our periphery year either, but we just have to be aware of it. Yeah, that's interesting. That's reshaping my theory on, I've always been trying to figure out why I have this crazy brain that takes in all this data. I remember one time, I'm a big story collector. And so I collect

stories and I see stories and I ask and I'm inquisitive and I'll get on a plane and I'll make friends with people in the row. I do that too. Do you see stories or do you see the potential for stories that you follow up? Probably both, right? Yes. Sometimes I'll pass something and I'll say, that must be a great story. Yeah. And I have to pursue it. And sometimes you pass something and you say, I need to just write this whole thing down

because what just happened is just phenomenal. But there are some people, Chris, that go through life and don't see any of that. They don't see any of it. Yeah. That was my setup for the question for you. So an example I had is I would come home. Of course we had a hundred employees and I was spending time. There's always something going on in the office. And as a CEO, I'd have to deal with a lot of it and fire somebody today

for some stupid they did or whatever. But I would always come home with one of my girlfriends and go and tell her I'd have three to five stories. And I always have stories. And then I would, and she was, the interesting thing about her was she was the manager of Delta flight. And so she would have to jump on planes to cover for people that called in. And so she would literally go to three cities sometimes in a day or a shift and hundreds of people pass through a plane. And so she would come home and I would sit at dinner and I'd be like, I'd tell her all my stories. And I'd be like, okay, so what do you got? What happened today, man?

You went to Chicago and New York. And what do you got? Nothing. No. Wait. No way. You were like eight hours. You didn't pick up a story.

Like nothing weird. Nothing. I go into the drugstore and come home with 10 stories. You and me. And she's like, nothing. And she was like my business partner. And my business partner, I'd just be like, is there a hole in your head? And at one point,

and this is a joke I've always told, at one point, it reached the point where I was like, I'm going to pay someone to kidnap her and hold her ransom for, I don't know, two or three days, just so that she can come home and tell me a great freaking story.

Which is a desperate way to do that. And you're highlighting something that's really very common. You have to be open to this stuff. You have to have not just your eyes open, but I believe you have to have your mind open to want to absorb this stuff. Cause some people are shedders. They just want to get rid of everything and they don't want one more thing to go into their brain. They're shedders.

I'll just tell you a very quick story because it had to do with a plane. 2012, I had a massive headache. I'd taught five police departments in five days. All I wanted to do was get on the plane, plug my earbuds in, and go to sleep and wake up, wheels down. That's all I wanted. It does not happen in my life. Who sits down next to me? I thought she was going to be chatty Betty.

She started talking before the plane took off. And I thought, oh, my God, my head's going to explode. I have a headache. I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm tired. I have a migraine. I just want to listen to my music. Well, she was that we talked the whole way home.

And by the time I get off the plane, my head is cracked in three pieces. And I said, it was really nice talking to you. Maybe we'll switch cards, have lunch one day. She said, oh, no, I don't give my card to anybody, but I'll take yours. She said, you're going to write a book for me. I'm a literary agent. I said, I'm not going to write a book. I don't have time to take a shower. She said, oh, you will. And she became her agency is my agency. I don't make a move without that, without my agent. I, and she's now on my third book that I met on the airplane. And if I tell you I am one hair away putting my

headphones in thinking I'm not talking la la la la, that conversation changed my whole life. Book offers, TV deals, changed your whole life. So my point to you is you have to be open to seeing those stories around you and to hearing what people have to say because otherwise I believe some of the greatest opportunities are right in front of our eyes. Yeah, definitely. I've had the same experience where I've gotten on a plane, I'm tired, I'm ornery, I've done a show or event, and I'm just like, I want some peace and quiet. Don't talk to me. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I've opened up and reached out. Usually, I shake hands with people on the plane and be like, hey, how's it going? Of course, it's a pretty corner. Not anymore. The fact that I was on the plane and be like, hey, how's it going? Of course, this is a free corner.

Not anymore. The fact that I was on a plane just identifies that. So are people that have this hole in their head, as I like to call it because I'm a jerk, where they don't pay attention to stuff, can they develop this skill? Is this a muscle they can develop? They can. Because I wish I had a dime for every time somebody came up to me after one of my sessions that I've taught. And I said, this is really going to help me in my work. But God, I realized I haven't been listening to my wife for 20 years. I realized what I have been seeing

and not seeing and saying and not saying. So these are skills. I can't say that anybody really masters it, but people can get much better at it. And it's about opening a part of your brain and practicing and practicing until it becomes automatic. And guess what? It really does become automatic because the people I work with, they don't have room for anything else on their plate. So by looking at art, you're exercising a part of your brain. I told you neurons that fire together, wire together. So by looking at art, your neurons are firing in a way that in the future they will wire together to solve a problem.

So yes, it can be mastered. It can be taught, but it takes some effort, but it's good effort because we're looking at art and it's some of the greatest things humanity has ever created. And people are like, I can't believe I'm looking at art and I'm going to connect it to my work and even better, I'm going to solve a problem. It sounds crazy. It really works. And to my amazement, it really works. Is it something that takes a while to develop?

No. Okay. This is about opening your eyes. My favorite line is, Chris, this is going to sound so corny, but I'm going to say it anyway. When people say, what am I going to get out of this course? You know what I say? Prepare to have your eyes opened

and you didn't even know they were closed. You didn't even know they were closed. And people walk out of there and say, how have I not been seeing this? How have I not been doing this? It's really, I'm the first to tell you what I'm doing is not rocket science. I'm the connector. I'm connecting people to works of art to show them how to solve problems. It's really, it's not rocket science. I love it. It's fun. And people have been making art since the beginning of time. We've got plenty of stuff to look at. Yeah. The, it's just really amazing to me. I've often won. This has been like one of these things that for all my life, 30 years of my career, 35 years of my career, I've just been wandering through going, what the hell? And why

don't people get this? And how can I see things differently than other people? And am I weird? Am I insane? Am I mad? And some people think you're insane because you're just like, why, why do you take in all this stuff? Like I'm, I'm tired, right? They're like, why do you do this? Is that what it is? It's tiring. Is what is the motivation for that thinking? Is it the minimalist thing? Like you mentioned that people are, you said they get rid of stuff. Is it a minimalist thing or something? You know what? They shed. They shed. They shed. I have Huskies, so they do that too. They do. Some people, unless you point something out to them, they don't want to be bothered. The majority of people, honestly,

they go through life going from point A to point B. And when I point out to them that when you go to point A to point B and you don't even look down the street to see what's point C and point D, you're missing a lot. Not only your own personal safety, you're missing a lot. And sometimes it just takes that gentle nudge and say, you know what? Walk a different way to work tomorrow and tell me what you saw this time. People are like, I can't believe what I saw. It's just walking in a different direction. And I'm not asking you to write anything differently. I'm asking you to train your brain to see the world differently. And the rewards are so amazing that I never have to go back to people and say, are you doing this? Because they are. Is it that they don't see value in it or they're lazy or they're stupid or all three of in it? Or they're lazy? Or they're stupid?

Or all three of the above? No, I think it's all the above. Seriously? I don't feel bad at all. No, I think people just need a nudge. And when I say to them, look, you're going to leave here thinking differently about one aspect of your life. And you won't have written one thing down. I don't let anybody write anything down in my class. I'm just going to show you how to see differently. It stays with them the rest of their lives. It's not about me. It's like, oh my God, she opened my eyes. I just looked at a picture.

I can tell you all about it. And now I'm going to go out on the street and tell you what my son is doing or what my son isn't doing when he comes home from school. I'm just going to notice things differently. And you'll be amazed how it just makes life better in every way. All these people take pictures of dinner and put them on Instagram, and I'm like, what the hell are you looking at your food? Who cares what you're having for dinner? But you know what? It's about looking. It's about appreciating what we're seeing and wanting to share that with other people.

So if you want to post your dinner. Knock yourself out. Good, because that's what I do. I post my dinner. I'm one of those people. But I like to wreck other people's diet if I'm wrecking mine. It's a shared destruction. But, no, this is interesting.

And I think, yeah, largely you don't see the value in it. I wrote to my nephew and a big thing on they were just graduating high school, and I wanted to give them some sort of, not an instruction manual, but some sort of, like, guidance on what the future was. And so I sat down and said, what do I wish someone would have told me when I was their age? What do I wish I would have, someone who would have said, hey, you should learn this stuff. And in doing that, I came with this thing. And the one thing I told them was to be story collectors and to go through life and look around, see the sights.

One of my problems is I had a hard time with, I was very goal oriented and I used to want to punch people in the face that would say, it's about the journey, Chris, not the destination. I'd be like, fuck you. I'm like, I'm into goals. We're going goals. We're going to get there and you're not going to stop me. Yeah. And like the journey, annoying, but I'm going to get to the goal. And I missed a lot of stuff. I goal. And I missed a lot of stuff.

I don't think I missed a lot of stuff in life. I paid attention. But I don't think I enjoyed the journey as much as I was until finally enough. I had to go through a few experiences or at least one experience of going through a cathartic experience and realizing the value of what I had. And I think a lot of people do that. They sleepwalk through life. Like I've seen people that do that. They sleepwalk through life and they just accept a lot of social paradigms as, oh, what am I supposed to do? Go to college? Okay, what do I do now? Get married? Have kids?

Okay, what do I do now? And they just, they wake up at like 40 or 50 after the games in the last quarters and they go, holy shit, the score sucks. And how did this happen? How did this happen? And why am I here? Some people call it a midlife crisis. A lot of people reassess their lives at that point. I've done it throughout my life. Anyway, I wrote a thing to my nieces and nephews. I said, take time to look around, enjoy the journey. It's about the journey. So look around because it goes freaking fast. then i also imparted them there's three things that you need to remember when you're looking around number one there's things number two there's things that you don't know so i don't know i know that there's physics but i don't know

them but maybe i can go do them maybe i won't there's the third thing is the thing you're going to watch out for the most the things you don't know that you don't know. And those are the things that will usually get you. And those are the things you got to learn and figure out and, and work on yourself and try and get to know. And maybe that's a lot of what you're doing with people, teaching them to learn about what they don't know. They don't know or what they don't see in the picture of the art.

That's exactly. I give them a three part., it's just a three-part model, should we say, whenever they have a new situation. And I want to get back to your journey and goal, because I think that's an interesting point too. But I give them this three-question template, anything new, any new situation, crime scene, friend, potential partner, whatever. What do I know? What don't I know? And if I had the opportunity to get more information, what do I need to know? Ah, what do I need to know? What do I need to know?

I like that. What do I know? What don't I know? And you say, how do I know what I don't know? Identify what's missing. What is missing about this? And then if I had the opportunity to get more information, what do I need to know? But to go back to what you said about the journey, I'm with you about 95% of the way. I'm going to say that when I'm showing people about looking

at works of art, it's not only enhance their life and make things better, which it does secondarily. I want to help them with their work. So they can be goal oriented. And this expansive way of looking takes them from this, I'm showing you myopia, to broadening their vision. So it helps them with their goals, but they're seeing more along the way. Because imagine if you said, you know what, I had this really terrible problem at work. I couldn't solve it. But then I went and I took this art course for three hours. I went, I walked around the museum with this busy woman. We looked at works of art. I came back, I was able to solve the problem. But now I'm going to see things in a broader way. It's win-win. You can solve your problems. You can still have your goals because for most people,

they don't want it. They're not going to get rid of their goals, but give them a broader way, not only to approach the problems and the goals, but a better way of seeing along the way. Yeah, that's, it's really important. I love this stuff because like I said, I've for a long time, sometimes I just go, maybe I'm just insane. And that's just really the whole problem. And why do I believe all this crap? And why do I collect all this data? Because it makes things more interesting for you, too. Imagine if you didn't collect all the data.

What would you think about? It does. I have people in religions that don't appreciate certain art. They won't. The Statue of David, because it's nude, it's like evil. So they won't look at it or appreciate appreciate it go to an art facility for it and other things like there's a lot of great rated r movies that maybe there's some sex and gratuitous violence in it maybe but there's still a lot of really beautiful art in movies and so i'll tell people i'll be like i'll be like

you're missing so much of life. Like, life is this beautiful kaleidoscope of just so many different things, and there's a great catalog of so many different things, and people are just like, oh, I don't know. I'm just going through life. You know what? Looking at art gives them a foothold because art is everywhere. It's on the street.

It's public art. It's graffiti. It's a billboard. It gives them a foothold to say, hey, did you see that? Did you notice that? Which is what I'm usually saying all the time. Exactly. But you know what you said?

And not to sound too corny in an overarching kind of way, we only go around once. Let's make it as interesting, as intense as we can. Because who wants to live a life of plain vanilla way look around look at these people look at the color of their scarves did you see his beard was pink like it just it just bold underscores and italicizes otherwise boring font i like the analogy that it it makes boring font look good it does does. Just make it bolder. Just say something. And I was on the bus with my son one day. My poor son grew up with this.

We've been talking about this and looking at art slides because the kids have no filter. He'd be like, that's a boring slide, Mom. Don't show it. And one day we were on the bus and we were looking out the bus here in New York City and I saw all these people gathered on the corner. And my program is called The Art of Perception. That's what I teach. And so I look out the window and I say to him, Ian, what do you think all those people are doing on the corner?

Why are they all looking up? And he turns to me with all the attitude of a 10 year old. And he says, can we just not art of perception today? Can we do this? And I'm like, buddy, I was just asking, why do you think those people are on the corner? He's like, no, don't trick me. You're not doing this with me today. But you know what? It's given him, I think, whether he'll ever admit it or not, a great lens and filter to see his world. To constantly be asking questions about what is that? Do you think as a parent, this should be something important you should teach your child?

Absolutely. Because to me, it would make all the difference in their life. Absolutely. And as a parent, it's not just about seeing, it's what do you hear? What's that tension in the air? How do you keep yourself safe? And it's that sixth sense. First time my kid took the subway, I was, of course, like in New Orleans teaching.

And he wanted to take the subway. He was 11 years old and I'm breathing until he calls me. And he calls me and I said, how was your first subway ride? He said, something weird happened. And I'm thinking, oh my God, what happened? He said, you know what? I got on and the conductor announced that the train was going express instead of local. And I thought, oh my God, my kid's going to end up at the end of Brooklyn. I said, what did you do? And he said, duh, I got off and I waited for the next train. It's about your situational awareness,

understanding what you're going to do. How do you observe? And I said to him, buddy, if your earbuds had been in, or you had been playing some game and you didn't hear the conductor, you'd end up at the end of the line somewhere where you didn't know you were. It's about engaging in the world around you. And that's what this teaches people to do. And it's situational awareness is what I learned from people talk about that in the, in the policing field, situational awareness, walking into things. And I think I talked about it in my book, being able to look at things and out of the box thinking. That's really what a lot of this is, being able to see outside of the paradigm, outside

of the box and being able to understand everything. Because imagine a lot of crime scenes when you come upon them, there might be a bullet over there that you need to identify that, oh, there's the bullet of whatever. Or maybe there's a gun somewhere on the scene that you need to recover. There's probably all sorts of different evidence-based, all the different things they do with evidence. But as a CEO and an innovator and looking at systems and models and business models, there were a lot of times where I built a model, a systems model for processing business, whether it's some sort of thing where, you know model, a systems model for processing business, whether it's some

sort of thing where, you know, customer order to customer fulfillment, some sort of process you have in your systems and you would design them. And then maybe a year or two later, some sort of change would happen or model of business would happen. And then all of a sudden stuff doesn't work anymore. Then you're like, wait, this worked for years. Now it doesn't work anymore. And it's one of the challenges you have as a entrepreneur because the markets change or stuff changes. But, yeah, a lot of this can really be used in business and just in life, just in general life. So you can teach it to your kids. So parents can maybe teach it to their kids and let them master it or at an early age.

And you know what? There's one other thing to add about this parenting, using this and adapting it for parents. Don't just see what your kids, don't just tell your kids, what are they doing? What are they not doing? What are they not telling you? It is as important when my son used to come home, I'd say, all right, tell me one thing that caught your eye today that you wouldn't necessarily tell me when I said, how was your day? And when we talk about what we don't see, it's called the pertinent negative. I don't tell kids that, but what is not happening? What are your kids not saying? What are you not seeing? The pertinent negative is talking about what we don't see. And it is a really critical and important skill for parents and for kids. What didn't happen to you? Not just what did happen.

What didn't happen? What did you see? Wow. Now I'm going to be up at night. I don't want to give you more than you have. That's true. I'm up at night thinking, what didn't I do today? And then I'm usually emailing myself what I didn't do. You're like, you didn't take out the garbage. I send myself notes all the time in the middle of the night because I tell myself it's the only way I can get back to sleep is if I get rid of what's plaguing my brain and send myself notes. Yeah, I learned that a long time ago, too. if I get rid of what's plaguing my brain and send myself notes. Yeah.

I learned that a long time ago too. Write stuff down or send yourself notes because otherwise you spend all night. Tossing it over saying, how am I going to remember this in the morning? Yeah. That's what I realized. My mind was going, hey, you're going to forget this crap, but we're going to haunt you with it. That's really important. That's really important.

This has been really insightful, mainly because you validated that I'm not insane or I'm just half insane maybe. I don't know. Happy to do that. There you go. Anything we haven't touched on about the book that we should tease out? No. I'm really excited about the book. Writing a book is like having a baby.

You get nauseous. You get fat. You think about it. You can't get enough air into your lungs. Then you go into hard labor, and the thing is born. I'm at the stage now. It has 10 fingers. It has 10 toes,

but you hope that when you put a book out there, that it's going to do some good in the world. That like a kid, you put a kid in the world, you hope that it's going to make the world a better place. That's what I hope about this book. And what you said is true. I think it's applicable for everybody from CEOs to parents, to investigators, to doctors, to anybody who has a problem.

And it's really been an honor for me to work with all these people, and I'm glad I've been able to put it on paper to help people try to solve their problems. I hope that makes sense. That's awesome. Give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs and get to know you better. Excellent. On Twitter and Instagram, I am at AmyHermanAOP, and that's for art of perception. And then on my website, I'm at artfulperception.com and all my books are available at artfulbooks.com.

There you go. There you go. So thanks for coming on the show. We certainly appreciate it and spending some time with us. This has been really insightful. Thanks for having me. It was great talking to you. And yes, I can say absolutely, you're not insane. Close, but you're not insane. Close. I don't know. you're not insane close but you're not insane close i don't know there's some other things that might make me insane i don't know but thank you for coming on thanks for tuning in order up the book you can get out and pre-order december 14th 2021 it's going to come out you can pre-order it and be the first one to say hey i read it and got it uh fixed how to perfect the fine art of problem solving i'm going to read her other book that she has, Visual Intelligence, as well.

That sounds like something I want to dig into. Go ahead and order the book wherever fine books are sold. Be sure to see the video version of this. Go to youtube.com forward slash chrisfoss. Hit the bell notification button. Go to goodreads.com forward slash chrisfoss. See everything we're reading and reviewing over there. Go to all of our groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram.

Subscribe to the new newsletter over on LinkedIn. And that's about it. Be good to each other and we'll see you guys next time. So we're excited to announce my new book is coming out. It's called Beacons of Leadership, Inspiring Lessons of Success in Business and Innovation. It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021. And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read and Innovation. It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021. And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read this book. It's filled with a multitude of my insightful stories, lessons, my life, and experiences in leadership and character. I give you some of the secrets from my CEO Entrepreneur Toolbox that I use to scale my business success, innovate, and build a multitude of companies. I've been a CEO for, what is it,

like 33, 35 years now. We talk about leadership, the importance of leadership, how to become a great leader, and how anyone can become a great leader as well. So you can pre-order the book right now wherever fine books are sold. But the best thing to do on getting a pre-order deal is to go to beaconsofleadership.com. That's beaconsofleadership.com. On there, you can find several packages you can take advantage of in ordering the book. And for the same price of what you can get it from someplace else like Amazon, you can get all sorts of extra goodies that we've taken and given away. Different collectors, limited edition, custom made numbered book plates that are going to

be autographed by me. There's all sorts of other goodies that you can get when you buy the book from beaconsofleadership.com. So be sure to go there, check it out, or order the book wherever fine books are sold.