The Mindset that Makes You Better at Everything - with Wayne Li

0:00 You're expanding and contracting your field of view.

0:02 You're inspiring new ideas. Things that seem implausible

0:06 actually come from your gut, right?

0:09 There's another kind of firing of neurons kind of in your

0:11 intestinal tract. That is kind of how artists use

0:14 it. It actually links to their brain

0:16 in a certain. Way.

0:17 And that is your intuition, right?

0:19 And so. If you've ever rearranged your

0:23 kitchen or tried to make a morning routine less chaotic,

0:26 you're designing an experience without even knowing it.

0:29 But what happens when you start doing it on purpose?

0:33 Today I'm joined by Wayne Lee, Professor of Design and

0:36 Engineering and the author of Design, Empathy and Contextual

0:40 Awareness, to explore how design thinking makes you more curious,

0:45 more empathetic, and better at navigating real life.

0:49 From conversations to career choices to everyday problem

0:52 solving, Welcome to the show Mind Blend.

0:58 I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of

1:02 incredible people, each an expert in their very own way.

1:06 Together, we'll uncover insights and share ideas so you can be

1:10 inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey

1:13 in life. Ready to get curious and

1:15 discover what's possible? Let's blend.

1:20 Hi, Wayne. Hi.

1:21 How's it going? Good, welcome to my bun.

1:23 Yeah, thanks. I'm happy to be here.

1:26 I'm really interested in your story.

1:28 How did what happened that led you to what you're doing today?

1:33 Yeah, it's been a long, long. I won't.

1:37 I don't want to go too far back, right?

1:38 But it's been a long career and a wonderful kind of journey

1:42 around art and design. I think it's always started as

1:46 you know, my, my parents, right? My, my mom is a classically

1:49 trained brush painter. They're both of my parents are

1:53 from Taiwan and my dad is a PhD polymer chemist.

1:56 So, so part of it has always been this love of art and

1:59 science. And so, you know, whether it be

2:02 kind of an analytical mind from more my dad or a more free

2:05 flowing intuitive mind for my mom kind of having and then

2:08 pursuing both in school, right? I, I wound up graduating with

2:10 both mechanical engineering and Fine Arts degrees.

2:13 So that kind of dual degree nature led to car design at

2:17 Fordham Volkswagen, it led to a product design at, at IDEO.

2:21 And then and then Graduate School at at Stanford University

2:24 where I learned a lot of, I mean a lot of what I learned in human

2:27 centered design or user centered design back then was kind of

2:31 from IDEO and from that from the Stanford program where we

2:34 established design thinking. So that and then, yeah, then

2:38 that led into furniture and housewares design at Pottery

2:41 Barn, along with lecturing at Stanford University.

2:44 And now I'm here at Georgia Tech.

2:46 So Georgia Tech found me as adjunct at Stanford be a

2:49 position to extend that philosophy out to the East

2:52 Coast. So that was a with you know,

2:55 with my graduate advisor's blessing.

2:56 It was, it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of think

3:00 about, and this is always tricky with with technology you're

3:03 working at, you know, we're at a tech school, Stanford's R1

3:05 research university. How do you humanize technology?

3:08 How do you understand, you know, we talked about user experience,

3:12 either software or computer interfaces.

3:15 My research area was human machine interface.

3:17 So you think about the first kind of like automobile.

3:20 It's a physical widget with a digital screen with a stir radio

3:24 NAV screen, whatever it is. And that's a lot of my research

3:27 is how do you humanize the experience such that what it's

3:31 safe to drive but also too enjoyable and pleasurable to

3:34 drive. You're thinking about what are

3:36 those things that do define the driving and writing experience

3:41 and then how do you use both hardware and software in order

3:45 to make sure and execute on them?

3:46 So that's that's kind of the Long story short about blending

3:50 art and science to make technology human.

3:52 Yeah, that resonated with me so much because you have interfaces

3:56 as you can tell that it's only it's not even really designed,

3:59 but it's put together by just the people on the engineering

4:03 side. You can hardly communicate with

4:06 it. So before we dive into design

4:09 and design thinking, you mentioned design thinking

4:11 earlier. Let's clarify that for our

4:13 listeners who are not familiar with design thinking.

4:16 Yeah, absolutely. So if you can think about design

4:19 just like you stood like in physics, right?

4:21 If physics goes through school of thought, right.

4:23 So you know Einstein created say like classical physics, laws of

4:26 motion and then you move into non linear physics or or you

4:30 know non classical physics and then you go into quantum

4:34 physics. So different schools of thought.

4:37 So you might have think of art and design starting with say

4:41 modernism in the Bauhaus and then you have post modernism and

4:44 those types of things. So design is the same way,

4:46 right? Design had the same thing where

4:50 more modernist approach was just form and function foreign.

4:52 Falls, yeah. And then that's more of the

4:54 Bauhaus. And now you move into where the

4:56 this more what I would consider a more a newer philosophy, a

5:00 more, you know, a more a kid philosophy, which is the human

5:04 centered design. So what human centered design is

5:08 or and then also known to other people and practitioners as

5:11 design thinking, right? So looks at putting the human

5:16 first when you design product, services, performances, whatever

5:20 it is, whatever you make, right. I used product as a very as a

5:24 very loose definition. It does not need to be a widget,

5:27 doesn't have to be a physical thing.

5:28 It's any product of your imagination.

5:30 So if that's software, hardware, interpretive dance, a public

5:34 policy, doesn't matter. That's a product, right?

5:36 It's a product imagination. So the design thinking looks at

5:40 putting the human central to that philosophy, but also in

5:45 balance with the technology used to create, to create and bring

5:49 it to market, right? And the business forces the

5:54 infrastructure around distributing and selling.

5:57 If you think of it like if you look up design thinking triple

5:59 Venn diagram, they'll put the human technology and business in

6:04 these three separate things where I'm thinking or innovation

6:08 is the central of all those things.

6:10 Those overlap have to be able to balance those 3 concepts in

6:13 order to make successful products for people, right?

6:16 So the human represents usability, desirability, right?

6:19 The social sciences this that the Fine Arts society, you know

6:22 those things. The technology represents the

6:25 computer science, material science, engineering, and then

6:28 the business represents you know, your accounting, your org

6:30 theory, behavioral psychology, things like that.

6:33 Desirability, usability on the human feasibility for the

6:37 engineering and viability for the for the business.

6:40 So it's a philosophy that's more encompassing than just form

6:45 follows function. Yeah.

6:46 So just right before I started this episode, I was talking to

6:50 my family about like two different brands of devices of

6:53 the same thing, basically digital writing pad.

6:57 Let's say if we're applying this philosophy in creating this

7:01 digital writing pad, how would that look like?

7:05 Like what are the what would be the three things that are in the

7:07 Venn diagram? Yeah, let's go through that.

7:10 That's a fun one. I mean, because for the longest

7:12 time, right, I've always sketched in analog notebooks

7:15 ever since I first started art school, right?

7:17 And probably prior to that in high school, I kept like a

7:21 little, you know, day planner log or whatever.

7:23 And it wasn't until maybe I would say 20/20/2020 that I or

7:27 2022 maybe or somewhere around there that I switched to a

7:31 digital drawing instrument, right?

7:32 So one all right, let's look at the let's let's take the human.

7:36 What we would probably do from a human centric design is 1

7:39 Observe people utilizing writing instruments, right?

7:42 Interview them, observe them like so talk to artists, talk to

7:45 poets, talk to a screenplay writer, talk to an engineer that

7:49 and then how do they utilize what they use to take notes in?

7:54 An artist might use it to draw sketches, but a computer

7:58 scientist might use it to plan out an algorithm, right.

8:02 And so they, and So what is it that they are writing down?

8:04 How are they utilizing writing instrument?

8:06 How much do they care about a pen and paper analog feeling for

8:09 an artist that actually is quite important, like the friction of

8:13 the ballpoint or the felt tip. You actually learn there's a lot

8:16 of information signalling that comes through the texture tooth,

8:19 the paper along with the nib or the felt tip of the pen and the

8:24 strokes you can create at the angle of attack.

8:26 Control. It's like calligraphy too.

8:28 Yeah, it's like calligraphy, like it's the angle, right?

8:30 It's so of the nib. And so, and again, different

8:33 people will use drawing instruments differently.

8:35 So again, if you talk to a poet, they may not.

8:37 Well, I never actually use the pencil on the side and and shade

8:41 on the side of the pen, but I might use it.

8:43 I might use a pen to indicate stanzas or codas in a poem, in a

8:49 poem. And I might use a certain

8:50 shorthand, right, that that tells me this is a writing

8:54 sequence, B writing sequence. And I might annotate it in a way

8:57 that's unique. So what you're trying to do from

8:59 a human centric way is to understand how people utilize

9:03 things in their own way that defines their culture.

9:07 So a poet would have a subculture of poet writing.

9:10 An artist would have a subculture of draw of artist

9:14 being a visual artist. So understanding that level of

9:18 sophistication about different people who use drawing or

9:21 writing instruments differently is be the human centric part

9:25 right? Now let's move into the

9:26 technology part. So if you have to make a product

9:29 and it's a digital writing instrument, right, because it's

9:32 a digital pad, not an analog one, then we'd have to look at

9:36 the technology of it and say, OK, if I were to design, I need

9:39 the right technology for that right person.

9:42 If I need to be able to take a pen nib and put it on it's side,

9:48 well then the digitizing layer of the iPad or the there's more

9:51 than one technology, right? An iPad like this one, right?

9:54 You know, it's an iPad with this, right?

9:56 So that's capacitive layer, multi touch screen, right?

10:00 If you use an E Ink pad, like a remarkable tablet, that's an E

10:04 Ink display and it's not the capacitive layer, use a

10:08 resistive layer on top, right? If you were to use a different

10:12 technology, something like a Wacom tablet, right, they use

10:16 they, they, they use a different type of kind of pen tip that's

10:21 measures resistance. So now the question there is

10:23 which of those technologies will give the artist the sides, the

10:27 shading idea where they hold the pencil like this, right?

10:30 The sideways kind of between their two, their third and their

10:34 second and third versus a, a poet who'd hold it like a normal

10:38 pencil, right and tack using the pen, the tip of the pen.

10:41 So which technology prescribe or allows that type of motion or

10:47 that type of activity to happen? The best now, now so that we,

10:50 the technology side, choosing the right technology, the

10:53 appropriate technology for the human activity.

10:56 Then now the business person looks at viability.

10:59 If you only sell like are there enough artists on the planet

11:02 that could that could justify the more expensive technology if

11:04 it was a more expensive technology because you have to

11:07 now look at the angle at which the pen can touch the surface.

11:10 You. Know if it only touches between

11:13 the vertical and 12° off vertical, then then maybe the

11:16 technology is much easier to execute.

11:18 But if you need to attack the pen, so the pen is 5° from the

11:20 flat of. The surface all of the.

11:23 Technology is really expensive. So so if if it was, let's just

11:27 say 5 the the then now the viability, the business person

11:31 is like, well, can I sell enough to art artists?

11:34 Are they willing to pay enough for that technology or do I have

11:38 to sell to poets, artists, writers and engineers all

11:41 together? And if I do so, the volume

11:44 selling price of the unit comes down because you're making more

11:46 of them. But at the same time, are you?

11:48 Then, you know, that's that balance.

11:50 If you now make more of them, they have to be more universal.

11:53 If they have to be more universal, then that means that

11:55 perhaps that humanity that you are speaking to serve it isn't

12:00 quite served well. And that goes back to your

12:02 point, something that is just engineered to function.

12:06 It served the most people may not actually provide the

12:10 experience that people create. That's where that viability,

12:14 that's where that business has to come in to say how large is

12:17 this market? Where are they willing to pay

12:20 and do you have that balance there?

12:22 Because the more of obviously the it's a price volume curve,

12:24 the more you make cheaper something gets per unit.

12:27 So you have to size the market relative to the value you're

12:31 driving. So those things, it's so much

12:33 more than foreign follows function.

12:35 Yeah, right. And that's why we're past the

12:37 post that modernism. We're past we're in post

12:39 modernism. And I love the approach because

12:44 everyone is really thinking of not just their own area.

12:48 Because for the people who are only concerned about producing

12:53 the thing, like producing, like the engineering, the production

12:55 part, they don't care as much. But that's like, that's exactly

13:00 what you meant by putting that human in the center.

13:02 Yeah. And I really like that holistic

13:05 thinking. And I feel like it can be

13:07 applied to daily life. You don't have to be producing

13:10 something. Karen I mean, I couldn't 100 I

13:12 mean 100%. I couldn't agree more.

13:14 What I like about design thinking and about, you know,

13:16 what I wrote in my book is that it's holistic, right,

13:20 Irrespective of what your what your major is or what job

13:23 function you have inside a certain company, right Ideal

13:26 would always say when I worked there that they like to breed T

13:29 shaped people. T shaped.

13:31 Which means that you may be good at one thing, you'll get a

13:33 degree in something, right? You're going to be an expert in

13:35 something. But are you broad enough or

13:38 inspired by multiple disciplines in order to understand and be

13:41 inspired by everyone else? If if for a like you mentioned,

13:45 for a company, yes, you might have an accounting department,

13:48 an engineering department, you know, a design department.

13:50 It's how much the designers can also understand engineering and

13:54 business. It's how much the engineers can

13:55 respect design and not override the designers wish to serve the

14:01 human right because you know, because they're you're at

14:04 different stages of the development process.

14:07 The engineers closer to manufacturing and engineering

14:10 right there may not be as close to marketing and design because

14:13 of when they touch the product. Because remember, several hands

14:16 touch a product before it gets released.

14:18 So having a company that is full of T shaped people who can

14:21 understand where this other perspective is coming from.

14:24 It's more collaborative, it's more inclusive, it's more

14:27 multidisciplinary, it's more empathetic.

14:30 And what happens then is if you put the human, the customer, at

14:34 the focus of your company, teach your workers how to get along

14:39 with each other so that they're not silos in a company, there

14:42 are actually more multidisciplinary, nimble teams

14:45 that work. Then you wind up making a better

14:48 experience for customers. And ultimately you become more

14:50 financially successful because customers demand your product

14:53 rather than the product that's not made for them.

14:55 So there's two things. One, it can improve business a

14:58 great deal. Two, in as an individual instead

15:02 of a collection of it can improve your processes really

15:05 well. Or what I talk about is that,

15:08 and this is kind of the research holistically, when you think of

15:12 creating something for someone, I don't care if you're making

15:15 eggs for your roommate in the morning.

15:16 Right now you're an avian culinary designer, right?

15:19 You're a now if you go to the court on blue or you go to

15:22 school studying for four years on how to make omelets, then now

15:26 you're a capital Bachelors of science ACD major, right?

15:29 But everyone is a designer in that sense, right?

15:33 A little D designer, just like everyone who makes eggs is an

15:37 avian culinary designer, right? So you know, everyone is a

15:40 little E engineer, right? So in that sense, holistically,

15:46 if you're a designer and everyone is because everyone has

15:49 to create something for someone eventually, your mental state

15:54 when you are empathetic, when you care about people, that is 1

15:57 mindset when you're creative and you need to now make things like

16:01 imagine a better future for someone and then instantiate it,

16:05 like make it for people right through a prototype, mock up,

16:09 sketch, drawing, model, whatever, that's creative.

16:12 And then when you have those things in your possession and

16:16 you bring them back out to the field, you bring them back to

16:18 people who go, which one of these do you like?

16:20 Which one of these writing instruments do you like?

16:22 Which one of these omelets do you like?

16:24 And they go, I like that omelet. Now you're a testing with people

16:28 and understanding their preferences.

16:30 That is a critical mindset. That's what engineers do is they

16:33 value different qualities and they put numbers and ascribe

16:36 numbers to them. So go to marketing agents,

16:38 right? That's exactly what they do.

16:39 So there's a role for everyone at this table though, but how

16:44 holistically you can think of doing things will determine your

16:49 ultimate success in the market. Yeah, the testing the water well

16:54 in design thinking there's this like prototyping mindset.

16:57 That's right, which which is testing like I know not like if

17:00 we think about making the omelettes, we probably don't

17:03 start out thinking we're going to make it 10 times just to see

17:07 how well it's perceived. So can let's dive into this

17:11 prototyping mindset because it's like really important to get get

17:14 some get something out there, get some feedback from whoever

17:19 is receiving that and then improving it.

17:21 Let's. Talk about that.

17:22 No, listen, So I mean, yeah, prototyping is a whole another

17:25 level, right? I mean, in my book, I talk about

17:27 that. There's these kind of five

17:28 design behaviors, right? You have design empathy or

17:31 empathy, contextual awareness. We have creativity craft,

17:36 creative craft, right? So that's kind of the ability to

17:38 create and instantiate ideas, iteration and testing, rapid

17:42 iteration and then entrepreneurial sustainability.

17:44 So if we start talking about creativity and craft, which is

17:47 where you're talking about prototyping, Yeah.

17:48 Let's use the omelet example, Right.

17:50 So yeah, you live with a flatmate in London and you

17:54 exchange. So one, you're right.

17:57 Like you can't make 10 omelettes together, right?

18:00 That might be a little bit wasteful, but you know, you're

18:03 gonna live with your flatmate for at least a year of the

18:05 lease. You know, you exchange breakfast

18:07 cooking duties every other Saturday.

18:09 OK, So what would be the first level of prototyping?

18:12 What would be the first level of engagement with someone?

18:15 If you've just met that flat Nate, and you're sharing the

18:17 lease or sharing the rent, you might say, OK, well, I'm making

18:20 breakfast for you this Saturday. You're going to make breakfast

18:22 for you next Saturday. What things do you like?

18:25 So that's just the first interview, right?

18:27 And it may be something simple where you're like, I'm going

18:29 grocery shopping for breakfast, right?

18:33 Name five ingredients that you would normally eat.

18:35 And so strawberries and I like ham and I like, you know, I like

18:39 Peppers and bacon and eggs. You're like, OK, so that may be

18:43 that first engagement, which is the lowest level, right?

18:46 There's no commitment. There's nothing that you've

18:48 spent nothing, right? You've done some amount of

18:51 engagement. And it might be something where

18:53 that first Saturday you'd come back from the Friday nights or

18:55 Friday's worth of shopping and bring it in.

18:57 OK, I'm making, I'm going to make eggs for you tomorrow here.

19:00 The ingredients. I, I, I bought, I've got ham,

19:03 I've got onions, I've got green Peppers, mushrooms and cheese.

19:05 And which, which ones do you think would work an omelet?

19:09 And they would say, OK, well, I like these three things.

19:12 And so, so that Sunday you do have a first prototype, which is

19:15 this, they've already decided what ingredients they like, but

19:19 maybe you cooked it wrong or maybe you put way too many

19:21 onions in it right on that Sunday they're like, oh, that

19:25 was an OK omelet. And so at that point you've got

19:30 what so the the first engagement is just talking and then maybe

19:35 presenting some very quick options.

19:37 And that what we call low fidelity prototype little

19:40 fidelity was you made an omelette for the first time, the

19:43 middle fidelity right now they told you, hey, that was an OK

19:47 omelette, but there are way too many onions in that.

19:50 And so now you were finding it again.

19:52 And now you're like, well, the next Sunday you put fewer

19:55 onions, but this time you add extra pepper and paprika just

19:59 for fun. Right, like you find out more

20:01 and more through that person. Now you're if refining and

20:04 evolving that. So every Sunday that omelette

20:07 gets better and better and better.

20:08 But so by the end of the month there you've make an omelet that

20:10 they that is to them perfection. Then you become a really great

20:13 roommate because you're always making their favorite omelette

20:16 every Sunday, right. So in that sense, it's a it is

20:19 both a way to build community, it's a way to build

20:21 relationships, and at the same time, it's also a way to

20:25 understand preferences as they evolve.

20:28 Because maybe by the 4th Sunday also, it's like, man, I've had

20:32 the same omelette, though it is amazing.

20:34 I'm now like, what would happen to I trust you now as a cook?

20:38 What do you think I would want? Now I know you like savory

20:42 rather than sweet omelets, right?

20:44 And you so, but what would happen if I paired bacon, which

20:48 I know you like because it's kind of a savory thing with

20:51 apples and cinnamon and made this save a more of a sweet

20:54 savory crepe that's also an omelette.

20:57 But it's not, it's not, it's not.

20:58 So let me make you that. And now all of a sudden they're

21:01 you've expanded their horizons. So I think in that sense, you're

21:06 looking at design thinking as a way not only to make successful

21:09 products, but it made to make successful relationships.

21:12 Yeah. So in the process of someone

21:15 practicing this, they are sharpening their own toolkit

21:19 when it comes to like empathy. It's kind of like the backbone

21:22 of this, but you become a better and more relevant problem solver

21:28 I think. Yeah, I mean, I think part of

21:29 why I teach on this campus or why I teach in general actually

21:33 is just that idea, I think at least in the States, right, the

21:38 the art, the theater, radio, television, film.

21:41 I went to a performing Arts and Sciences high school, but a lot

21:45 of that is being cut, right. And so that A and STEAM is, is,

21:50 is underserved in a lot of different ways.

21:52 And we teach critical thinking amazingly well, right?

21:55 Engineering teaches analytical thinking quite well.

21:57 It's where you have to start thinking more intuitively, more

22:00 improvisationally and more futuristically that creative

22:04 thinking is not taught as well. Some say that like, and again, I

22:07 don't, and I wouldn't agree with this, but some say, oh, well

22:09 then you can't teach creativity. I'm like, actually, yeah, you

22:11 can't. It has been proven you can't

22:13 teach creativity. And so the the the question is,

22:16 do you teach it well enough that actually makes people think of

22:20 ideas outside of the norm? This is why you know why humans

22:23 can't be replaced by AI? Because context creativity can't

22:28 be programmed in. You have to you have an

22:31 inspiration and be able to permute it.

22:34 Not by the most common answer, right?

22:37 There was actually something in the news article recently about

22:39 how large language models may have a limit because at the end

22:42 of the day, to write poetry isn't just about choosing,

22:44 choosing what's the most common rhyming answer.

22:48 It is what will drive emotion contextually choosing maybe

22:52 happenstance words that rhyme. So in that sense, context will

22:57 always be key. And so creativity, understanding

23:01 of context, those things need to be taught better.

23:05 Those things need to be enforced stronger in our our higher

23:09 education. And so you're right, empathy is

23:11 the backbone. But so but and by being more

23:14 empathetic, you're able to understand cultures that are not

23:17 your own. Take perspectives that again,

23:22 are maybe different or seem foreign to you, but you'll be

23:26 able to appreciate it in a way that allows you to drive a

23:30 product or service, whatever for someone in order to give them a

23:35 better life, a better experience, or to help imagine a

23:37 better life Co designed with them rather than just dictating

23:41 it to them. And so that is something that's

23:43 really valuable. And then that creativity aspect.

23:46 Exactly, you can hone that as well.

23:49 So my whole philosophy on that kind of is yes, if you practice

23:55 empathy, creativity and criticality, those 3 mindsets in

23:58 that book, in the book, you will eventually become better at

24:01 whatever you do, no matter what discipline you choose to be.

24:06 Like I said, we're all Little D designers.

24:08 Yeah, yeah. And.

24:09 Not everyone is a culinary Michelin chef, but what makes

24:12 you that is whether or not you went to a chef school and then

24:15 dedicated your trade, plied your craft to the point in which

24:20 someone else deems your cooking of a certain quality.

24:25 So everyone has the capability and should practice those

24:29 mindsets, and if they practice it well enough through that

24:33 iteration, then they'll become good at whatever they do.

24:35 Yeah. Yeah, I have always thought I'm

24:37 not creative, but it's really just because I'm like in the

24:40 box. I don't, well, I, my background

24:43 is project management, so I create the box.

24:46 But because I'm aware of that, yeah, I now I try not to stay

24:51 within the box. And like in doing so, you're

24:54 pushing limits. You're like, you're just opening

24:57 up new neuro pathways. And I do think like sometimes

25:01 just daydreaming or just like randomly thinking of things, you

25:05 get random ideas that is actually applicable.

25:08 It is, yeah. Your subconscious does that.

25:10 Actually, that was something I wrote about is that, Karen, you

25:13 are creative. The fact that you're able to see

25:15 there was a box, that you prescribe the box, and now that

25:18 you decide, you know what? I don't need to be in this box,

25:21 right? That is, that is showing that

25:23 your creative muscle is there, right?

25:25 It's when people don't realize they're in a box at all, right?

25:28 They're cognitive by like James Adams wrote a wonderful book

25:31 called conceptual blockbusting, which is the word that's where

25:33 the term thinking inside the box comes from, right?

25:35 He actually has he has an exercise that that is a nine dot

25:40 exercise. If people can look up on the

25:41 Internet, I'm sure. But but that's where that phrase

25:43 came from, thinking outside the box, right?

25:45 And so, but the fact that, you know, there's a box there, it

25:49 shows that you're creative. The people who don't know

25:52 there's a bot who, who implicitly draw inside the box

25:55 because they think there's a box there and they don't realize

25:57 there's a box there. That's the one that where you

25:59 need a break, right? The fact that you're like, you

26:02 know what? I arbitrarily made these

26:04 constraints. I put these crisps and people do

26:06 this all the time in creative works.

26:07 Like I was, I don't know, when I, my first art, my well, 2nd

26:12 art class in at the University of Texas, my teacher was like,

26:16 Oh, I see you constrained yourself.

26:18 I didn't put those limits on you.

26:20 You did. And I and I said yes, I need to

26:23 because if I don't, I wouldn't know where to begin.

26:24 OK, So many people because when like they call it the power of

26:30 the white. If I give you a blank canvas,

26:33 sometimes you're the fact that you have so many possibilities

26:39 intimidates you. It scares.

26:41 You. So people can't just start

26:44 thinking outside the box right away because there's so many

26:46 possibilities. So it is human to say, OK, well,

26:49 let me let me take a smaller subset of what the answers could

26:53 be, right? So let me at least draw a single

26:56 line or a single circle. Now that the the power of the

26:59 white is broken. I have a circle on this page.

27:02 Now I know the circle is a snowman, an ice cream cone, the

27:05 head of a clown, whatever, an orange, whatever.

27:08 I can still be creative inside the box.

27:10 Yeah. So that's a normal human

27:13 condition because it reduces the insecurity of not knowing the

27:16 answer. People constrain themselves

27:19 normally because they need to come up with the answer.

27:22 Now the cool part of the creative part is when they go, I

27:25 arbitrarily put that circle down there so that I can come up with

27:29 the answers. If you read Release the fetters,

27:32 see where you go, constrain yourself again, release it

27:35 again, constrain it again, release again.

27:37 That is what creativity is that that creativity is about

27:41 episodically both inspiring and then thematically grouping and

27:47 then inspiring and thematically grouping.

27:49 The neurositis is kind of, well, at least some of the papers on

27:52 creativity is being studied by a great number of people.

27:55 But I, I feel like I might be missing some then that that's a

27:59 signal to your brain to go, OK, that was a box.

28:02 I'm going to, I'm now, I'm going to, I'm going to take those

28:03 ideas I'm going to put over here, put on the side, and then

28:06 now I'm going to imagine there's one offshoot there that seemed

28:09 random at the time. What was random about that?

28:12 And that's that daydreaming part you said is when you Daydream or

28:15 when you slow down. And part of this is the

28:19 creativity network in the brain isn't the same as the critical

28:23 network in the brain. Like they're in two sides of the

28:26 brain. So if yeah, this goes back to

28:29 kind of Scott Taylor's research at Babson and his collaborators.

28:33 When you are critical like you, you poo poo ideas.

28:36 You cannot come up with new ideas because you're too busy

28:38 criticizing. If someone seems like

28:40 something's like, wow, this came from nowhere.

28:42 Like I slept on it and this random idea popped out, rather

28:45 than saying that was a random idea, let's not use it, right?

28:48 That's criticizing it. If you're creative, you go, what

28:52 was it about that idea that made me think of that?

28:55 And that's usually when the creativity, that's when that

28:56 they always go, oh, that's that spark of inspiration.

28:58 It's not on a lightning strike event.

29:00 And then what happens now is that random idea has some type

29:04 of association with your original group of criteria or

29:09 your original subset, but it's that free association that

29:13 allows you to become to associate another group of sets

29:17 of ideas. And that's what we, you know

29:19 that that is creativity. You're finding super sets from a

29:22 subset. Criticality is finding a single

29:25 answer from a group of ants in narrowing your approach or you

29:29 being like they call it divergent convergent thinking,

29:32 Are you converging and coming with many more ideas or are you

29:35 narrowing the possibilities? So that's really where the

29:38 creativity comes from. Yeah.

29:40 And that's what you said earlier, the criticality is

29:42 important too, because I'm sure we have different types of

29:46 listeners. Some are more the free, free

29:50 thinking, some are more the critical ones.

29:53 So like design thinking is a really, really deep concept.

29:57 Like it's not hard to understand, but there is a lot

29:59 to it. And just with our time today,

30:02 we're definitely not going to cover all of it.

30:05 Like if anyone is interested by Wayne Spock, I'll put the

30:10 information in the show notes. So for someone who wants to do

30:13 something like after hearing today's episode, they're

30:15 intrigued. Like how can we what can they

30:19 start doing so they can at least start practice design thinking?

30:23 I love that, that you know, and yeah, and, and just yeah, for

30:26 that same thing here for that short plug, right?

30:28 If you're sure what I'm talking about, right, My books called

30:31 Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, and you can find it

30:33 on Amazon. You can find it at the Lawrence

30:36 King website that that it's publicly available.

30:40 Now. Some of the things that I think

30:42 about again is cultivating this holistic mind, right?

30:46 If if you're one thing I always say are as far as advice for

30:51 young students or anybody who fats is themselves who wants to

30:55 become more of a creative professional, right?

30:58 Professional who comes up with more ideas as more to become

31:02 more successful in their endeavors.

31:05 Whatever it is one live richly. Find ways in which you can

31:11 engage with people that aren't necessarily like you.

31:15 This could be something as simple as walking across the

31:17 street to a different area of the neighborhood or metropolitan

31:20 city you're in right? I know you know you know, London

31:25 has different neighborhoods and groups.

31:27 New York has different neighborhoods and areas and just

31:29 eating at a restaurant that was slightly different than yours

31:32 and engaging, not just eating, but engaging with people.

31:35 I think that one is living richly.

31:37 It doesn't require a lot of money.

31:39 It just requires a curious mind and and so that will help

31:42 develop your empathy skills. The creative skills is what I

31:47 say is see the meta, see the context.

31:51 You, you see something in just in your daily walks of life.

31:56 Be curious, be a question, how did this come to be?

31:59 Why did it come to be? What were the forces behind it?

32:03 And just asking why this might have happened if someone might

32:06 have missed, If you see someone and you're writing the the tube

32:09 and someone missed their station, right?

32:12 It might just something like, Oh my gosh, they missed their

32:14 station. And obviously you feel sorry for

32:16 them. You'd help them get off at the

32:17 next stop. But at the same time you'd ask,

32:19 why did I think that happened? What was it that caused that?

32:23 And it may have, you know, it may have been and that this just

32:26 something small like that. See the context.

32:28 Why are you, if you're at a university, a lot of my students

32:31 on my my obviously I teach at a university or a technical

32:35 institute. I asked my students, why are you

32:37 here? Why are you taking this class?

32:40 What you know, it's you're here. Yes, you may hear it be this

32:44 class, this day to pass this test, but why do you even want

32:47 to pass the test? What's the point of it?

32:50 And then by allowing them to kind of expand and go well, I

32:53 see a broader future for myself. If I get good grades, I see a

32:56 good job. If I see a good job, I see a

32:58 better career. If I see a better career, I see

33:01 a happiness of doing what I would like to do.

33:03 It's like, see the context, see the meta.

33:06 Right, that was me. That was me when I was in

33:08 university. Like that, but that's got to be,

33:12 it's surprisingly sometimes people live their life with

33:15 blinders. Like I, you know, they're so

33:17 narrow focused, they never see the meta.

33:18 And when they don't, then they lose that creativity, they lose

33:21 that great daydreaming. They lose that ability to kind

33:24 of meander, right? Sometimes life doesn't always

33:28 present itself exactly the way you plan.

33:31 And so it's theme, the meta allows you to pivot.

33:33 It allows you not to just focus on one thing, but to focus on

33:38 many interests. And it's surprising how life

33:40 rewards you when you have multiple interests.

33:43 You can pivot to a new career. You can pivot to a new

33:45 discipline. You can change majors.

33:47 That's never too late to design A life that's meaningful to you

33:51 because you have so many ways in which it can be fulfilling.

33:53 Yeah. So that's seeing that, that's

33:55 kind of seeing the meta. The last one I would say is if

33:58 you're thinking about developing your critical mind, right, is

34:01 really thinking about when you engage with things, products,

34:04 services, people, there's nothing wrong with asking and

34:08 going what really drives this forward, right?

34:10 You know, what do I really love about this product or what do I

34:13 love about this food? And just to say like being able

34:16 to discern the quality, like I love this masala chicken.

34:21 Why the Curry is just amazing. And you can narrow it down to

34:25 something like that. Then you're definitely an

34:28 engineer, but a little E engineer, right?

34:31 You're a Cullen. So in that sense, you're seeing

34:34 the how the qualities of life or the qualities of certain things

34:38 contribute to your appreciation of them.

34:41 Like that is a being an engineer and a designer in a lot of ways.

34:44 So that's the kind of advice I would give.

34:48 Wow, you were describing my life story, or at least like aspect

34:54 of it. And I think, like, the common

34:57 thread is the curious and connecting with dots, like, try

35:01 to understand a layer deeper into things instead of just

35:05 like, OK, I ate this Curry, it was good.

35:08 That was it. So yeah, our life will be all

35:11 like, a lot more meaningful. And if we have more empathy, we

35:15 create a smoother world. I think, like, less friction.

35:18 But one example that I always want to use like as a joke is if

35:22 you're sending me a Google map, like telling me where to go,

35:26 don't send me a screenshot. So it's something like that.

35:33 So for the last part, let's play a rapid fire round.

35:38 So. Go for it, yeah.

35:40 What's something you've designed recently that made your life

35:43 easier? Big or small?

35:47 Wow. That made my life easier.

35:50 Within the last couple of years, I got this digital tablet to

35:53 start drawing in and I've been recently recreating some of the

35:58 UI and some of the software. So it allows some of the drawing

36:05 software, the note taking software I use the, the, the

36:08 tools are fine, right? That's fine.

36:09 It's what I've been doing is hand I've been using my graphic

36:12 design skills to create new types of templates just for my

36:16 workflow. So whether it be expenses,

36:19 things to do, prioritizing clients, prioritizing classes,

36:22 I've created templates over the years because I always tend to

36:25 write things the same way in the same area of the page.

36:30 And So what I've been able to do is to say, OK, I'm going to just

36:32 use Indesign used to, you know, grab that software and create

36:35 templates, which I now use as under layers.

36:38 And when I draw or take notes, it becomes much more fluid for

36:42 me to work. So it's been very helpful for me

36:44 to kind of hone my tools over time.

36:47 Wow, you are. You are a product designer after

36:50 all. Yeah, I am a product designer.

36:53 I've designed everything from automobiles to sunglasses for

36:57 celebrities. So it just depends.

36:59 Wow, amazing. Next one.

37:01 What's What's a design flaw in everyday life that secretly

37:04 drives you crazy? Like who thought this was a good

37:08 idea? Oh my gosh.

37:11 Oh man, that's real. Listen, I don't like to cast

37:13 aspersions on designers, right? You don't have to name names it.

37:17 Yeah, listen, I think, listen, it's interesting.

37:19 Like there's some things that, I mean, they don't drive me crazy,

37:22 but they do irk me, right? So some things about like media,

37:27 media consumption and how we utilize it and social media as

37:30 well, how we utilize it, right. On the one hand, I realize it is

37:33 a business, right? You if you watch broadcast

37:35 television right now, maybe in London is different because you

37:39 have more of a nationalized television service than we do.

37:41 Yeah. It's by the way that ads have

37:45 both, you know, the push and pull between how you insert ads

37:49 into watching videos versus broadcast.

37:52 Like in broadcast, something we know you're gonna watch 12

37:54 minutes of TV and then you get like 3 minutes of ads.

37:57 So it's very consistent. And yes, it's Free TV because

38:00 you can get it off the antenna. But once you digitally start

38:03 streaming it, now there's a is this if you pay this much, you

38:06 don't get any ads because you're paying more.

38:08 But if you get less than there's the ad supported.

38:10 And so this whole idea of it's not very clear to customers what

38:13 they're getting and why they want it, how they want to use

38:15 ads. So like some of that stuff that

38:17 can be annoying, like, oh, watch this ad before you see this 32nd

38:21 YouTube video. Yeah, right.

38:22 So that that stuff can be annoying.

38:24 But I, you know, I know why it's there, but it is that's, that's

38:28 always an interesting one. And then the other one I would

38:31 say is within social media, the the kind of arbitration of

38:34 truth, right? Because of the this kind of

38:38 fragmentation of the medial ecosphere, everyone can move

38:41 into their own little bubble, their own.

38:43 Little Yeah. And so part of that is there is

38:46 no, you know, and I think this is this is currently under talks

38:50 of regulation, but what is what is the ramifications of

38:54 spreading disinformation online? If we are if we appeal to the

38:59 humanity of the freedom of thought and the freedom of

39:01 expression, are there any repercussions if you willingly

39:04 choose to lie or to to put something that posts something

39:08 that is untrue? The when media was in the more

39:12 traditional media systems of say broadcast television or even

39:15 cable television, there are editors, there are arbiters to

39:20 Fact Check your work, right. So there is none of that online

39:24 in social media. So how, how do we look at that

39:28 responsibility as ourselves, as technology, especially because I

39:31 teach at Technology Institute and between the AI and social

39:34 media and all the different things that we create to make

39:36 communication faster and easier, which is great.

39:40 We also have to slow down and think about what is the, what is

39:44 that arbitration? What is that arbiter of truth

39:47 such that we don't reward people to disseminate lies on life?

39:53 Yes, wow, that's way deeper than just a simple like I hate this.

39:59 OK, let's talk about the flip side.

40:00 It is one of the things that irks me though.

40:01 It definitely irks me everyday, yeah.

40:03 What's one thing in your home that you think is perfectly

40:07 designed? Oh my gosh, that's a trick.

40:10 Well, I mean, I have. There's the first one, which is

40:14 I love my family. I think that's a wonderful.

40:16 OK. Right, because I, I chose my

40:19 wife, we got married, we had kids.

40:21 I think there's and every day is a wonderful day to empathize

40:27 with them, see what see both their successes and their

40:30 happiness and their travails and sadness and to find ways every

40:34 day to kind of design their experiences in a way, right.

40:38 Like if my child wants to, to, to paint, how would I create

40:44 that painting? Like, yes, you buy the brushes

40:46 and the paint, but then how do you, how do you then design that

40:50 experience? How do you then go, how do you

40:52 go? OK, and let's say she gets

40:54 frustrated because she mixed 2 paints together and made purple

40:57 and she didn't mean to, right? And then she's she's 4, by the

41:00 way, Sophia's four so and Asher's six.

41:03 But but even looking at it and then saying, well, teaching her

41:09 kind of that idea. So so you made a color you

41:12 didn't intend, you know, and you're upset about it.

41:14 How do we how do we make it better?

41:16 How do we improve upon it? How do you take that lemon and

41:18 make lemonade? And then how do you show her

41:20 that creativity to paint again or work with it?

41:23 Right? It work.

41:25 Just can you make that work and make that a, they call them

41:29 happy surprises, right? Whatever things that they're,

41:31 they're happy surprises. So those are, those are designs

41:35 in a way, you're designing that learning experience for her.

41:38 And in that sense, I love it. It couldn't be any more perfect

41:41 than it is now. If you're talking about a

41:43 physical object in my, you know, then then that would be the

41:47 dining table I designed. So obviously I designed my own

41:51 furniture. I worked for Pottery Barn for

41:54 five years. I decorated and designed my own

41:56 house, right. So, so in that sense, you know,

41:59 I took a fixer upper and then wound up renovating it,

42:02 obviously with contractors as well.

42:03 I mean, it's not a single person job, but if it was something

42:06 huge like the kitchen or the bathroom that required

42:08 electricians and plumbers, I'm not a licensed plumber.

42:11 I'm not a licensed electrician. But all the other rooms pretty

42:14 much I designed myself. So the dining room table I

42:18 designed, I worked with a shop, a furniture fabricator and

42:23 repurposed a bowling alley. So there's a bowling alley going

42:26 out of business and we repurposed the bowling lane.

42:31 So the bowling lane is 3 inch Maple.

42:32 Like that's really thick wood. It's solid.

42:36 So it's not a light table. That's an heirloom product.

42:38 It will probably stay with the house forever.

42:42 So it is a three inch Maple repurposed bowling alley late

42:48 with A4 with the steel kind of in a modernist.

42:51 I mean, it's a relative, but warm.

42:53 It's a rustic kind of my my style.

42:56 When I decorate along with my wife, we both love modern, but I

42:59 tend to look at an industrial chic.

43:01 It's kind of where I look at. So if if modernism breed and A

43:06 and a farmhouse and A and an industrial warehouse had a baby,

43:09 then that's what the usual industrial look is in my

43:12 interior. Repurposed bowling alley with

43:14 with kind of more of a steel leg H frame to hold the wood is kind

43:21 of what that is. So that'd be the most proud

43:23 design I have as far as inside the home.

43:26 And you know it's going to be sturdy.

43:29 Think of all the bowling balls to get thrown to it.

43:31 I know, I know. And it's because it is solid 3

43:34 inch thick Maplewood. It's not light.

43:38 Right into. The house Mike use it as a Fort,

43:42 as a tent. They use it as a dancing like a

43:45 dancing stage so they can dance on top of it, right.

43:48 Like that's just yeah. And because there's no the the

43:51 wonderful thing about the fabricator and their, their,

43:54 their, their abilities is the the entire Maple is suspended.

43:58 So there's no there's like normally you have a kitchen

44:00 table, you know, have that little arms or.

44:01 Supports. Stress underneath the kitchen

44:03 table. You bang your knee into that and

44:05 always hurts. Well, there's none of that.

44:07 It's just a plank of Maple so they can go underneath it and

44:10 then they can play inside as a 10.

44:13 Not something I expected because when I designed the table, I

44:15 didn't have kids. But now that it is like they can

44:17 bump their head up, right up to the ceiling and not hurt

44:20 themselves at all because it's completely smooth underneath.

44:22 And so they play under that all the time, right?

44:25 Which is just again something you a happy surprise in the

44:29 design of life. Wow, that's just like another

44:31 design perk. Yes, absolutely.

44:34 Well, thank you so much for talking to me today like this,

44:38 encouraging people to just be curious and connect dots, be

44:42 empathetic. It's it's been like one of the

44:45 main drivers of me starting the podcast.

44:47 So I'm very happy to be talking to you today.

44:50 Likewise, it was a wonderful conversation, Karen.

44:52 Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening to this

44:57 episode of Mind One. Maybe enjoy the conversation,

45:00 Don't forget to follow and share it with anyone who needs to hear

45:03 it. And let's keep the conversation

45:05 going. Connect with me on LinkedIn or

45:08 leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious,

45:11 keep exploring, and let's continue to clean our minds and

45:14 discover what's possible.