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

0:00 You're expanding and contracting your field of view. You're inspiring new ideas. Things that seem implausible actually come from your gut, right? There's another kind of firing of neurons kind of in your intestinal tract. That is kind of how artists use it. It actually links to their brain in a certain. Way. And that is your intuition, right? And so. If you've ever rearranged your kitchen or tried to make a morning routine less chaotic, you're designing an experience without even knowing it. But what happens when you start doing it on purpose?

0:33 Today I'm joined by Wayne Lee, Professor of Design and Engineering and the author of Design, Empathy and Contextual Awareness, to explore how design thinking makes you more curious, more empathetic, and better at navigating real life. From conversations to career choices to everyday problem solving, Welcome to the show Mind Blend. I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of incredible people, each an expert in their very own way. Together, we'll uncover insights and share ideas so you can be inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey in life.

1:13 Ready to get curious and discover what's possible? Let's blend.

1:20 Hi, Wayne. Hi. How's it going? Good, welcome to my bun. Yeah, thanks. I'm happy to be here. I'm really interested in your story. How did what happened that led you to what you're doing today? Yeah, it's been a long, long. I won't. I don't want to go too far back, right? But it's been a long career and a wonderful kind of journey around art and design. I think it's always started as you know, my, my parents, right? My, my mom is a classically trained brush painter. They're both of my parents are 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 science. And so, you know, whether it be kind of an analytical mind from more my dad or a more free flowing intuitive mind for my mom kind of having and then pursuing both in school, right? I, I wound up graduating with both mechanical engineering and Fine Arts degrees. So that kind of dual degree nature led to car design at Fordham Volkswagen, it led to a product design at, at IDEO. And then and then Graduate School at at Stanford University where I learned a lot of, I mean a lot of what I learned in human centered design or user centered design back then was kind of from IDEO and from that from the Stanford program where we established design thinking.

2:36 So that and then, yeah, then that led into furniture and housewares design at Pottery Barn, along with lecturing at Stanford University. And now I'm here at Georgia Tech. So Georgia Tech found me as adjunct at Stanford be a position to extend that philosophy out to the East Coast. So that was a with you know, with my graduate advisor's blessing. It was, it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of think about, and this is always tricky with with technology you're working at, you know, we're at a tech school, Stanford's R1 research university.

3:06 How do you humanize technology? How do you understand, you know, we talked about user experience, either software or computer interfaces. My research area was human machine interface. So you think about the first kind of like automobile. It's a physical widget with a digital screen with a stir radio NAV screen, whatever it is. And that's a lot of my research is how do you humanize the experience such that what it's safe to drive but also too enjoyable and pleasurable to drive. You're thinking about what are those things that do define the driving and writing experience and then how do you use both hardware and software in order to make sure and execute on them?

3:46 So that's that's kind of the Long story short about blending art and science to make technology human. Yeah, that resonated with me so much because you have interfaces as you can tell that it's only it's not even really designed, but it's put together by just the people on the engineering side. You can hardly communicate with it. So before we dive into design and design thinking, you mentioned design thinking earlier. Let's clarify that for our listeners who are not familiar with design thinking.

4:16 Yeah, absolutely. So if you can think about design just like you stood like in physics, right? If physics goes through school of thought, right. So you know Einstein created say like classical physics, laws of motion and then you move into non linear physics or or you know non classical physics and then you go into quantum physics. So different schools of thought. So you might have think of art and design starting with say modernism in the Bauhaus and then you have post modernism and those types of things.

4:45 So design is the same way, right? Design had the same thing where more modernist approach was just form and function foreign. Falls, yeah. And then that's more of the Bauhaus. And now you move into where the this more what I would consider a more a newer philosophy, a more, you know, a more a kid philosophy, which is the human centered design. So what human centered design is or and then also known to other people and practitioners as design thinking, right? So looks at putting the human first when you design product, services, performances, whatever it is, whatever you make, right.

5:22 I used product as a very as a very loose definition. It does not need to be a widget, doesn't have to be a physical thing. It's any product of your imagination. So if that's software, hardware, interpretive dance, a public policy, doesn't matter. That's a product, right? It's a product imagination. So the design thinking looks at putting the human central to that philosophy, but also in balance with the technology used to create, to create and bring it to market, right? And the business forces the infrastructure around distributing and selling.

5:57 If you think of it like if you look up design thinking triple Venn diagram, they'll put the human technology and business in these three separate things where I'm thinking or innovation is the central of all those things. Those overlap have to be able to balance those 3 concepts in order to make successful products for people, right? So the human represents usability, desirability, right? The social sciences this that the Fine Arts society, you know those things. The technology represents the computer science, material science, engineering, and then the business represents you know, your accounting, your org theory, behavioral psychology, things like that.

6:33 Desirability, usability on the human feasibility for the engineering and viability for the for the business. So it's a philosophy that's more encompassing than just form follows function. Yeah. So just right before I started this episode, I was talking to my family about like two different brands of devices of the same thing, basically digital writing pad. Let's say if we're applying this philosophy in creating this digital writing pad, how would that look like? Like what are the what would be the three things that are in the Venn diagram?

7:08 Yeah, let's go through that. That's a fun one. I mean, because for the longest time, right, I've always sketched in analog notebooks ever since I first started art school, right? And probably prior to that in high school, I kept like a little, you know, day planner log or whatever. And it wasn't until maybe I would say 20/20/2020 that I or 2022 maybe or somewhere around there that I switched to a digital drawing instrument, right? So one all right, let's look at the let's let's take the human. What we would probably do from a human centric design is 1 Observe people utilizing writing instruments, right?

7:42 Interview them, observe them like so talk to artists, talk to poets, talk to a screenplay writer, talk to an engineer that and then how do they utilize what they use to take notes in? An artist might use it to draw sketches, but a computer scientist might use it to plan out an algorithm, right. And so they, and So what is it that they are writing down? How are they utilizing writing instrument? How much do they care about a pen and paper analog feeling for an artist that actually is quite important, like the friction of the ballpoint or the felt tip.

8:14 You actually learn there's a lot of information signalling that comes through the texture tooth, the paper along with the nib or the felt tip of the pen and the strokes you can create at the angle of attack. Control. It's like calligraphy too. Yeah, it's like calligraphy, like it's the angle, right? It's so of the nib. And so, and again, different people will use drawing instruments differently. So again, if you talk to a poet, they may not. Well, I never actually use the pencil on the side and and shade 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 poem. And I might use a certain shorthand, right, that that tells me this is a writing sequence, B writing sequence. And I might annotate it in a way that's unique. So what you're trying to do from a human centric way is to understand how people utilize things in their own way that defines their culture. So a poet would have a subculture of poet writing. An artist would have a subculture of draw of artist being a visual artist. So understanding that level of sophistication about different people who use drawing or writing instruments differently is be the human centric part right?

9:25 Now let's move into the technology part. So if you have to make a product and it's a digital writing instrument, right, because it's a digital pad, not an analog one, then we'd have to look at the technology of it and say, OK, if I were to design, I need the right technology for that right person. If I need to be able to take a pen nib and put it on it's side, well then the digitizing layer of the iPad or the there's more than one technology, right? An iPad like this one, right? You know, it's an iPad with this, right?

9:56 So that's capacitive layer, multi touch screen, right? If you use an E Ink pad, like a remarkable tablet, that's an E Ink display and it's not the capacitive layer, use a resistive layer on top, right? If you were to use a different technology, something like a Wacom tablet, right, they use they, they, they use a different type of kind of pen tip that's measures resistance. So now the question there is which of those technologies will give the artist the sides, the shading idea where they hold the pencil like this, right?

10:30 The sideways kind of between their two, their third and their second and third versus a, a poet who'd hold it like a normal pencil, right and tack using the pen, the tip of the pen. So which technology prescribe or allows that type of motion or that type of activity to happen? The best now, now so that we, the technology side, choosing the right technology, the appropriate technology for the human activity. Then now the business person looks at viability. If you only sell like are there enough artists on the planet that could that could justify the more expensive technology if it was a more expensive technology because you have to now look at the angle at which the pen can touch the surface.

11:10 You. Know if it only touches between the vertical and 12° off vertical, then then maybe the technology is much easier to execute. But if you need to attack the pen, so the pen is 5° from the flat of. The surface all of the. Technology is really expensive. So so if if it was, let's just say 5 the the then now the viability, the business person is like, well, can I sell enough to art artists? Are they willing to pay enough for that technology or do I have to sell to poets, artists, writers and engineers all together?

11:42 And if I do so, the volume selling price of the unit comes down because you're making more of them. But at the same time, are you? Then, you know, that's that balance. If you now make more of them, they have to be more universal. If they have to be more universal, then that means that perhaps that humanity that you are speaking to serve it isn't quite served well. And that goes back to your point, something that is just engineered to function. It served the most people may not actually provide the experience that people create.

12:12 That's where that viability, that's where that business has to come in to say how large is this market? Where are they willing to pay and do you have that balance there? Because the more of obviously the it's a price volume curve, the more you make cheaper something gets per unit. So you have to size the market relative to the value you're driving. So those things, it's so much more than foreign follows function. Yeah, right. And that's why we're past the post that modernism. We're past we're in post modernism.

12:40 And I love the approach because everyone is really thinking of not just their own area. Because for the people who are only concerned about producing the thing, like producing, like the engineering, the production part, they don't care as much. But that's like, that's exactly what you meant by putting that human in the center. Yeah. And I really like that holistic thinking. And I feel like it can be applied to daily life. You don't have to be producing something. Karen I mean, I couldn't 100 I mean 100%.

13:13 I couldn't agree more. What I like about design thinking and about, you know, what I wrote in my book is that it's holistic, right, Irrespective of what your what your major is or what job function you have inside a certain company, right Ideal would always say when I worked there that they like to breed T shaped people. T shaped. Which means that you may be good at one thing, you'll get a degree in something, right? You're going to be an expert in something. But are you broad enough or inspired by multiple disciplines in order to understand and be inspired by everyone else?

13:43 If if for a like you mentioned, for a company, yes, you might have an accounting department, an engineering department, you know, a design department. It's how much the designers can also understand engineering and business. It's how much the engineers can respect design and not override the designers wish to serve the human right because you know, because they're you're at different stages of the development process. The engineers closer to manufacturing and engineering right there may not be as close to marketing and design because of when they touch the product.

14:15 Because remember, several hands touch a product before it gets released. So having a company that is full of T shaped people who can understand where this other perspective is coming from. It's more collaborative, it's more inclusive, it's more multidisciplinary, it's more empathetic. And what happens then is if you put the human, the customer, at the focus of your company, teach your workers how to get along with each other so that they're not silos in a company, there are actually more multidisciplinary, nimble teams that work.

14:46 Then you wind up making a better experience for customers. And ultimately you become more financially successful because customers demand your product rather than the product that's not made for them. So there's two things. One, it can improve business a great deal. Two, in as an individual instead of a collection of it can improve your processes really well. Or what I talk about is that, and this is kind of the research holistically, when you think of creating something for someone, I don't care if you're making eggs for your roommate in the morning.

15:16 Right now you're an avian culinary designer, right? You're a now if you go to the court on blue or you go to school studying for four years on how to make omelets, then now you're a capital Bachelors of science ACD major, right? But everyone is a designer in that sense, right? A little D designer, just like everyone who makes eggs is an avian culinary designer, right? So you know, everyone is a little E engineer, right? So in that sense, holistically, if you're a designer and everyone is because everyone has to create something for someone eventually, your mental state when you are empathetic, when you care about people, that is 1 mindset when you're creative and you need to now make things like imagine a better future for someone and then instantiate it, like make it for people right through a prototype, mock up, sketch, drawing, model, whatever, that's creative.

16:12 And then when you have those things in your possession and you bring them back out to the field, you bring them back to people who go, which one of these do you like? Which one of these writing instruments do you like? Which one of these omelets do you like? And they go, I like that omelet. Now you're a testing with people and understanding their preferences. That is a critical mindset. That's what engineers do is they value different qualities and they put numbers and ascribe numbers to them. So go to marketing agents, right?

16:38 That's exactly what they do. So there's a role for everyone at this table though, but how holistically you can think of doing things will determine your ultimate success in the market. Yeah, the testing the water well in design thinking there's this like prototyping mindset. That's right, which which is testing like I know not like if we think about making the omelettes, we probably don't start out thinking we're going to make it 10 times just to see how well it's perceived. So can let's dive into this prototyping mindset because it's like really important to get get some get something out there, get some feedback from whoever is receiving that and then improving it.

17:21 Let's. Talk about that. No, listen, So I mean, yeah, prototyping is a whole another level, right? I mean, in my book, I talk about that. There's these kind of five design behaviors, right? You have design empathy or empathy, contextual awareness. We have creativity craft, creative craft, right? So that's kind of the ability to create and instantiate ideas, iteration and testing, rapid iteration and then entrepreneurial sustainability. So if we start talking about creativity and craft, which is where you're talking about prototyping, Yeah.

17:48 Let's use the omelet example, Right. So yeah, you live with a flatmate in London and you exchange. So one, you're right. Like you can't make 10 omelettes together, right? That might be a little bit wasteful, but you know, you're gonna live with your flatmate for at least a year of the lease. You know, you exchange breakfast cooking duties every other Saturday. OK, So what would be the first level of prototyping? What would be the first level of engagement with someone? If you've just met that flat Nate, and you're sharing the lease or sharing the rent, you might say, OK, well, I'm making breakfast for you this Saturday.

18:21 You're going to make breakfast for you next Saturday. What things do you like? So that's just the first interview, right? And it may be something simple where you're like, I'm going grocery shopping for breakfast, right? Name five ingredients that you would normally eat. And so strawberries and I like ham and I like, you know, I like Peppers and bacon and eggs. You're like, OK, so that may be that first engagement, which is the lowest level, right? There's no commitment. There's nothing that you've spent nothing, right?

18:49 You've done some amount of engagement. And it might be something where that first Saturday you'd come back from the Friday nights or Friday's worth of shopping and bring it in. OK, I'm making, I'm going to make eggs for you tomorrow here. The ingredients. I, I, I bought, I've got ham, I've got onions, I've got green Peppers, mushrooms and cheese. And which, which ones do you think would work an omelet? And they would say, OK, well, I like these three things. And so, so that Sunday you do have a first prototype, which is this, they've already decided what ingredients they like, but maybe you cooked it wrong or maybe you put way too many onions in it right on that Sunday they're like, oh, that was an OK omelet.

19:26 And so at that point you've got what so the the first engagement is just talking and then maybe presenting some very quick options. And that what we call low fidelity prototype little fidelity was you made an omelette for the first time, the middle fidelity right now they told you, hey, that was an OK omelette, but there are way too many onions in that. And so now you were finding it again. And now you're like, well, the next Sunday you put fewer onions, but this time you add extra pepper and paprika just for fun.

19:59 Right, like you find out more and more through that person. Now you're if refining and evolving that. So every Sunday that omelette gets better and better and better. But so by the end of the month there you've make an omelet that they that is to them perfection. Then you become a really great roommate because you're always making their favorite omelette every Sunday, right. So in that sense, it's a it is both a way to build community, it's a way to build relationships, and at the same time, it's also a way to understand preferences as they evolve.

20:28 Because maybe by the 4th Sunday also, it's like, man, I've had the same omelette, though it is amazing. I'm now like, what would happen to I trust you now as a cook? What do you think I would want? Now I know you like savory rather than sweet omelets, right? And you so, but what would happen if I paired bacon, which I know you like because it's kind of a savory thing with apples and cinnamon and made this save a more of a sweet savory crepe that's also an omelette. 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 you've expanded their horizons. So I think in that sense, you're looking at design thinking as a way not only to make successful products, but it made to make successful relationships. Yeah. So in the process of someone practicing this, they are sharpening their own toolkit when it comes to like empathy. It's kind of like the backbone of this, but you become a better and more relevant problem solver I think. Yeah, I mean, I think part of why I teach on this campus or why I teach in general actually is just that idea, I think at least in the States, right, the the art, the theater, radio, television, film.

21:41 I went to a performing Arts and Sciences high school, but a lot of that is being cut, right. And so that A and STEAM is, is, is underserved in a lot of different ways. And we teach critical thinking amazingly well, right? Engineering teaches analytical thinking quite well. It's where you have to start thinking more intuitively, more improvisationally and more futuristically that creative thinking is not taught as well. Some say that like, and again, I don't, and I wouldn't agree with this, but some say, oh, well then you can't teach creativity.

22:10 I'm like, actually, yeah, you can't. It has been proven you can't teach creativity. And so the the the question is, do you teach it well enough that actually makes people think of ideas outside of the norm? This is why you know why humans can't be replaced by AI? Because context creativity can't be programmed in. You have to you have an inspiration and be able to permute it. Not by the most common answer, right? There was actually something in the news article recently about how large language models may have a limit because at the end of the day, to write poetry isn't just about choosing, choosing what's the most common rhyming answer.

22:48 It is what will drive emotion contextually choosing maybe happenstance words that rhyme. So in that sense, context will always be key. And so creativity, understanding of context, those things need to be taught better. Those things need to be enforced stronger in our our higher education. And so you're right, empathy is the backbone. But so but and by being more empathetic, you're able to understand cultures that are not your own. Take perspectives that again, are maybe different or seem foreign to you, but you'll be able to appreciate it in a way that allows you to drive a product or service, whatever for someone in order to give them a better life, a better experience, or to help imagine a better life Co designed with them rather than just dictating it to them.

23:41 And so that is something that's really valuable. And then that creativity aspect. Exactly, you can hone that as well. So my whole philosophy on that kind of is yes, if you practice empathy, creativity and criticality, those 3 mindsets in that book, in the book, you will eventually become better at whatever you do, no matter what discipline you choose to be. Like I said, we're all Little D designers. Yeah, yeah. And. Not everyone is a culinary Michelin chef, but what makes you that is whether or not you went to a chef school and then dedicated your trade, plied your craft to the point in which someone else deems your cooking of a certain quality.

24:25 So everyone has the capability and should practice those mindsets, and if they practice it well enough through that iteration, then they'll become good at whatever they do. Yeah. Yeah, I have always thought I'm not creative, but it's really just because I'm like in the box. I don't, well, I, my background is project management, so I create the box. But because I'm aware of that, yeah, I now I try not to stay within the box. And like in doing so, you're pushing limits. You're like, you're just opening up new neuro pathways.

24:59 And I do think like sometimes just daydreaming or just like randomly thinking of things, you get random ideas that is actually applicable. It is, yeah. Your subconscious does that. Actually, that was something I wrote about is that, Karen, you are creative. The fact that you're able to see there was a box, that you prescribe the box, and now that you decide, you know what? I don't need to be in this box, right? That is, that is showing that your creative muscle is there, right? 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 called conceptual blockbusting, which is the word that's where the term thinking inside the box comes from, right? He actually has he has an exercise that that is a nine dot exercise. If people can look up on the Internet, I'm sure. But but that's where that phrase came from, thinking outside the box, right? And so, but the fact that, you know, there's a box there, it shows that you're creative. The people who don't know there's a bot who, who implicitly draw inside the box because they think there's a box there and they don't realize there's a box there.

25:58 That's the one that where you need a break, right? The fact that you're like, you know what? I arbitrarily made these constraints. I put these crisps and people do this all the time in creative works. Like I was, I don't know, when I, my first art, my well, 2nd art class in at the University of Texas, my teacher was like, Oh, I see you constrained yourself. I didn't put those limits on you. You did. And I and I said yes, I need to because if I don't, I wouldn't know where to begin. OK, So many people because when like they call it the power of the white.

26:30 If I give you a blank canvas, sometimes you're the fact that you have so many possibilities intimidates you. It scares. You. So people can't just start thinking outside the box right away because there's so many possibilities. So it is human to say, OK, well, let me let me take a smaller subset of what the answers could be, right? So let me at least draw a single line or a single circle. Now that the the power of the white is broken. I have a circle on this page. Now I know the circle is a snowman, an ice cream cone, the head of a clown, whatever, an orange, whatever.

27:08 I can still be creative inside the box. Yeah. So that's a normal human condition because it reduces the insecurity of not knowing the answer. People constrain themselves normally because they need to come up with the answer. Now the cool part of the creative part is when they go, I arbitrarily put that circle down there so that I can come up with the answers. If you read Release the fetters, see where you go, constrain yourself again, release it again, constrain it again, release again. That is what creativity is that that creativity is about episodically both inspiring and then thematically grouping and then inspiring and thematically grouping.

27:49 The neurositis is kind of, well, at least some of the papers on creativity is being studied by a great number of people. But I, I feel like I might be missing some then that that's a signal to your brain to go, OK, that was a box. I'm going to, I'm now, I'm going to, I'm going to take those ideas I'm going to put over here, put on the side, and then now I'm going to imagine there's one offshoot there that seemed random at the time. What was random about that? And that's that daydreaming part you said is when you Daydream or when you slow down.

28:17 And part of this is the creativity network in the brain isn't the same as the critical network in the brain. Like they're in two sides of the brain. So if yeah, this goes back to kind of Scott Taylor's research at Babson and his collaborators. When you are critical like you, you poo poo ideas. You cannot come up with new ideas because you're too busy criticizing. If someone seems like something's like, wow, this came from nowhere. Like I slept on it and this random idea popped out, rather 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 was it about that idea that made me think of that? And that's usually when the creativity, that's when that they always go, oh, that's that spark of inspiration. It's not on a lightning strike event. And then what happens now is that random idea has some type of association with your original group of criteria or your original subset, but it's that free association that allows you to become to associate another group of sets of ideas. And that's what we, you know that that is creativity.

29:20 You're finding super sets from a subset. Criticality is finding a single answer from a group of ants in narrowing your approach or you being like they call it divergent convergent thinking, Are you converging and coming with many more ideas or are you narrowing the possibilities? So that's really where the creativity comes from. Yeah. And that's what you said earlier, the criticality is important too, because I'm sure we have different types of listeners. Some are more the free, free thinking, some are more the critical ones.

29:53 So like design thinking is a really, really deep concept. Like it's not hard to understand, but there is a lot to it. And just with our time today, we're definitely not going to cover all of it. Like if anyone is interested by Wayne Spock, I'll put the information in the show notes. So for someone who wants to do something like after hearing today's episode, they're intrigued. Like how can we what can they start doing so they can at least start practice design thinking? I love that, that you know, and yeah, and, and just yeah, for that same thing here for that short plug, right?

30:28 If you're sure what I'm talking about, right, My books called Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, and you can find it on Amazon. You can find it at the Lawrence King website that that it's publicly available. Now. Some of the things that I think about again is cultivating this holistic mind, right? If if you're one thing I always say are as far as advice for young students or anybody who fats is themselves who wants to become more of a creative professional, right? Professional who comes up with more ideas as more to become more successful in their endeavors.

31:05 Whatever it is one live richly. Find ways in which you can engage with people that aren't necessarily like you. This could be something as simple as walking across the street to a different area of the neighborhood or metropolitan city you're in right? I know you know you know, London has different neighborhoods and groups. New York has different neighborhoods and areas and just eating at a restaurant that was slightly different than yours and engaging, not just eating, but engaging with people.

31:35 I think that one is living richly. It doesn't require a lot of money. It just requires a curious mind and and so that will help develop your empathy skills. The creative skills is what I say is see the meta, see the context. You, you see something in just in your daily walks of life. Be curious, be a question, how did this come to be? Why did it come to be? What were the forces behind it? And just asking why this might have happened if someone might have missed, If you see someone and you're writing the the tube and someone missed their station, right?

32:12 It might just something like, Oh my gosh, they missed their station. And obviously you feel sorry for them. You'd help them get off at the next stop. But at the same time you'd ask, why did I think that happened? What was it that caused that? And it may have, you know, it may have been and that this just something small like that. See the context. Why are you, if you're at a university, a lot of my students on my my obviously I teach at a university or a technical institute. I asked my students, why are you here?

32:38 Why are you taking this class? What you know, it's you're here. Yes, you may hear it be this class, this day to pass this test, but why do you even want to pass the test? What's the point of it? And then by allowing them to kind of expand and go well, I see a broader future for myself. If I get good grades, I see a good job. If I see a good job, I see a better career. If I see a better career, I see a happiness of doing what I would like to do. It's like, see the context, see the meta. Right, that was me.

33:07 That was me when I was in university. Like that, but that's got to be, it's surprisingly sometimes people live their life with blinders. Like I, you know, they're so narrow focused, they never see the meta. And when they don't, then they lose that creativity, they lose that great daydreaming. They lose that ability to kind of meander, right? Sometimes life doesn't always present itself exactly the way you plan. And so it's theme, the meta allows you to pivot. It allows you not to just focus on one thing, but to focus on many interests.

33:39 And it's surprising how life rewards you when you have multiple interests. You can pivot to a new career. You can pivot to a new discipline. You can change majors. That's never too late to design A life that's meaningful to you because you have so many ways in which it can be fulfilling. Yeah. So that's seeing that, that's kind of seeing the meta. The last one I would say is if you're thinking about developing your critical mind, right, is really thinking about when you engage with things, products, services, people, there's nothing wrong with asking and going what really drives this forward, right?

34:10 You know, what do I really love about this product or what do I love about this food? And just to say like being able to discern the quality, like I love this masala chicken. Why the Curry is just amazing. And you can narrow it down to something like that. Then you're definitely an engineer, but a little E engineer, right? You're a Cullen. So in that sense, you're seeing the how the qualities of life or the qualities of certain things contribute to your appreciation of them. 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. Wow, you were describing my life story, or at least like aspect of it. And I think, like, the common thread is the curious and connecting with dots, like, try to understand a layer deeper into things instead of just like, OK, I ate this Curry, it was good. That was it. So yeah, our life will be all like, a lot more meaningful. And if we have more empathy, we create a smoother world. I think, like, less friction. But one example that I always want to use like as a joke is if you're sending me a Google map, like telling me where to go, don't send me a screenshot.

35:29 So it's something like that. So for the last part, let's play a rapid fire round. So. Go for it, yeah. What's something you've designed recently that made your life easier? Big or small? Wow. That made my life easier. Within the last couple of years, I got this digital tablet to start drawing in and I've been recently recreating some of the UI and some of the software. So it allows some of the drawing software, the note taking software I use the, the, the tools are fine, right? That's fine. It's what I've been doing is hand I've been using my graphic design skills to create new types of templates just for my workflow.

36:16 So whether it be expenses, things to do, prioritizing clients, prioritizing classes, I've created templates over the years because I always tend to write things the same way in the same area of the page. And So what I've been able to do is to say, OK, I'm going to just use Indesign used to, you know, grab that software and create templates, which I now use as under layers. And when I draw or take notes, it becomes much more fluid for me to work. So it's been very helpful for me to kind of hone my tools over time.

36:47 Wow, you are. You are a product designer after all. Yeah, I am a product designer. I've designed everything from automobiles to sunglasses for celebrities. So it just depends. Wow, amazing. Next one. What's What's a design flaw in everyday life that secretly drives you crazy? Like who thought this was a good idea? Oh my gosh. Oh man, that's real. Listen, I don't like to cast aspersions on designers, right? You don't have to name names it. Yeah, listen, I think, listen, it's interesting. Like there's some things that, I mean, they don't drive me crazy, but they do irk me, right?

37:24 So some things about like media, media consumption and how we utilize it and social media as well, how we utilize it, right. On the one hand, I realize it is a business, right? You if you watch broadcast television right now, maybe in London is different because you have more of a nationalized television service than we do. Yeah. It's by the way that ads have both, you know, the push and pull between how you insert ads into watching videos versus broadcast. Like in broadcast, something we know you're gonna watch 12 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 you can get it off the antenna. But once you digitally start streaming it, now there's a is this if you pay this much, you don't get any ads because you're paying more. But if you get less than there's the ad supported. And so this whole idea of it's not very clear to customers what they're getting and why they want it, how they want to use ads. So like some of that stuff that can be annoying, like, oh, watch this ad before you see this 32nd YouTube video.

38:21 Yeah, right. So that that stuff can be annoying. But I, you know, I know why it's there, but it is that's, that's always an interesting one. And then the other one I would say is within social media, the the kind of arbitration of truth, right? Because of the this kind of fragmentation of the medial ecosphere, everyone can move into their own little bubble, their own. Little Yeah. And so part of that is there is no, you know, and I think this is this is currently under talks of regulation, but what is what is the ramifications of spreading disinformation online?

38:56 If we are if we appeal to the humanity of the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression, are there any repercussions if you willingly choose to lie or to to put something that posts something that is untrue? The when media was in the more traditional media systems of say broadcast television or even cable television, there are editors, there are arbiters to Fact Check your work, right. So there is none of that online in social media. So how, how do we look at that responsibility as ourselves, as technology, especially because I teach at Technology Institute and between the AI and social media and all the different things that we create to make communication faster and easier, which is great.

39:40 We also have to slow down and think about what is the, what is that arbitration? What is that arbiter of truth such that we don't reward people to disseminate lies on life? Yes, wow, that's way deeper than just a simple like I hate this. OK, let's talk about the flip side. It is one of the things that irks me though. It definitely irks me everyday, yeah. What's one thing in your home that you think is perfectly designed? Oh my gosh, that's a trick. Well, I mean, I have. There's the first one, which is I love my family.

40:15 I think that's a wonderful. OK. Right, because I, I chose my wife, we got married, we had kids. I think there's and every day is a wonderful day to empathize with them, see what see both their successes and their happiness and their travails and sadness and to find ways every day to kind of design their experiences in a way, right. Like if my child wants to, to, to paint, how would I create that painting? Like, yes, you buy the brushes and the paint, but then how do you, how do you then design that experience?

40:50 How do you then go, how do you go? OK, and let's say she gets frustrated because she mixed 2 paints together and made purple and she didn't mean to, right? And then she's she's 4, by the way, Sophia's four so and Asher's six. But but even looking at it and then saying, well, teaching her kind of that idea. So so you made a color you didn't intend, you know, and you're upset about it. How do we how do we make it better? How do we improve upon it? How do you take that lemon and make lemonade? And then how do you show her that creativity to paint again or work with it?

41:23 Right? It work. Just can you make that work and make that a, they call them happy surprises, right? Whatever things that they're, they're happy surprises. So those are, those are designs in a way, you're designing that learning experience for her. And in that sense, I love it. It couldn't be any more perfect than it is now. If you're talking about a physical object in my, you know, then then that would be the dining table I designed. So obviously I designed my own furniture. I worked for Pottery Barn for five years.

41:55 I decorated and designed my own house, right. So, so in that sense, you know, I took a fixer upper and then wound up renovating it, obviously with contractors as well. I mean, it's not a single person job, but if it was something huge like the kitchen or the bathroom that required electricians and plumbers, I'm not a licensed plumber. I'm not a licensed electrician. But all the other rooms pretty much I designed myself. So the dining room table I designed, I worked with a shop, a furniture fabricator and repurposed a bowling alley.

42:24 So there's a bowling alley going out of business and we repurposed the bowling lane. So the bowling lane is 3 inch Maple. Like that's really thick wood. It's solid. So it's not a light table. That's an heirloom product. It will probably stay with the house forever. So it is a three inch Maple repurposed bowling alley late with A4 with the steel kind of in a modernist. I mean, it's a relative, but warm. It's a rustic kind of my my style. When I decorate along with my wife, we both love modern, but I tend to look at an industrial chic.

43:01 It's kind of where I look at. So if if modernism breed and A and a farmhouse and A and an industrial warehouse had a baby, then that's what the usual industrial look is in my interior. Repurposed bowling alley with with kind of more of a steel leg H frame to hold the wood is kind of what that is. So that'd be the most proud design I have as far as inside the home. And you know it's going to be sturdy. Think of all the bowling balls to get thrown to it. I know, I know. And it's because it is solid 3 inch thick Maplewood.

43:36 It's not light. Right into. The house Mike use it as a Fort, as a tent. They use it as a dancing like a dancing stage so they can dance on top of it, right. Like that's just yeah. And because there's no the the wonderful thing about the fabricator and their, their, their, their abilities is the the entire Maple is suspended. So there's no there's like normally you have a kitchen table, you know, have that little arms or. Supports. Stress underneath the kitchen table. You bang your knee into that and always hurts.

44:05 Well, there's none of that. It's just a plank of Maple so they can go underneath it and then they can play inside as a 10. Not something I expected because when I designed the table, I didn't have kids. But now that it is like they can bump their head up, right up to the ceiling and not hurt themselves at all because it's completely smooth underneath. And so they play under that all the time, right? Which is just again something you a happy surprise in the design of life. Wow, that's just like another design perk.

44:32 Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today like this, encouraging people to just be curious and connect dots, be empathetic. It's it's been like one of the main drivers of me starting the podcast. So I'm very happy to be talking to you today. Likewise, it was a wonderful conversation, Karen. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening to this episode of Mind One. Maybe enjoy the conversation, Don't forget to follow and share it with anyone who needs to hear it. And let's keep the conversation going.

45:06 Connect with me on LinkedIn or leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious, keep exploring, and let's continue to clean our minds and discover what's possible.