Hi, welcome to the heart of innovation Podcast. I'm Bill Duane former Google engineering executive and Superintendent of wellbeing and courage consultant and speaker on innovation strategy. We're going to be diving deep into the internal innovation that unlocks external innovation and the surprisingly practical ways we can become better innovators. We'll be in conversation with innovators from many different backgrounds and contexts including business, science, social change and technology and not only benefit from their expertise, but also their personal stories of their innovation journey. Today, we talk with my old friend and colleague Dr. Frederick Burt who is on a mission to empower everyone to fulfill their visions for the future. From shaping Google's fabled creative culture as Chief Innovation evangelist to nurturing the minds of students at Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Frederick has a track record of helping others realize their creative superpower to imagine and invent a better tomorrow. Join us now as we have a conversational celebration around his new book. What's next is now how to live future ready. And we talked about shyness and Audacity, knowing and not knowing curiosity and risk. So welcome, Frederick to the heart of innovation podcast, just an absolute pleasure to have you on.

Thanks so much for having me, Bill. I was waiting a long time to, to dive in. Yeah,

so part of the reason we both had such anticipation about this conversation is that we have been colleagues and then friends for a very long time. When is it? Do you think we first met?

So I remember that you offered a class that I think was hosted in, in building 46, if you can still remember us on main campus. And I remember that, you know, I was, I was curious about the title of the class, because it was something about mindfulness meditation, and I think it even had the word innovation in it. I can't recall like exactly what the title was. But I was super curious to learn more about that. And then, you know, I read your name, Bill Duane, which I didn't know at that time, right. So I didn't know like, you know, who, who you were. So I showed up in that class, as usual, I was sitting in, in the back of the room. And then you started off with a mindfulness meditation exercise. And, you know, I was like, talking to myself, like, what am I doing here? Right, I was, I was not expecting that, to, to, to happen as an experience, right, right from the beginning. But then you told the story about who you are, and like, what you value and what you actually want to accomplish in this organization, in this culture. And I was purely fascinated, so I, you know, left the class. And I think I came came up to you and said, like, Hey, Bill, we need to talk, we need to do something together. And we didn't know exactly what that was, at that time. But I think moving on, we had a couple of great opportunities to really work together and, and, and be inspired by each other to, to, you know, bring the worlds of mindfulness and meditation closer to the world of innovation, and vice versa. And I think, you know, nowadays, we both play in these fields. And I'm still, I'm still fascinated, you know, from our last conversation when you came up here, to my place, and we had almost a whole night together talking about, you know, everything from innovation, creativity to the universe to, you know, 10 day, silent meditation retreats to how we left, you know, Google, and so forth. And I'm super happy to dive in today.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's, that's my recollection as well. So that was probably what like 2000 2008 2009 It was before I went from engineering over to people ops, right, so would have been around then

it must be probably closer to 2010 or 11. Because that's where I moved from Dublin to to, to the headquarters. So Right. I think you, you you just made that move from engineering into into people operations. And I think you were still at the beginning of creating, you know, your, your world and kind of like, you know, what you want to accomplish and I was purely fascinated by your vision and what you actually want to want to want to do.

Right, and then, you know, one of the things that I loved about meeting you was So, up until that point, I hadn't really thought about innovation as a discipline, not not not deeply, which is interesting, because I was involved in it so much. I think it's very common for engineers and technical people to focus on the execution of solving the problem. And maybe a little less about the methodology that's used to solve the problem, which is part of what you know, immediately was so entrancing about what you're saying, you know, I mean, at this point, I believe it was actually during that point, when we met, I had a sticker on my laptop that said, Fu, we have charts and graphs to back us up. So this is a very, this is a very linear, reductionist way of solving problems where step one to solving the problem is figuring it out. And so when I met you and learned about your point of view in your programs, as I transitioned from engineering into, into People Ops, you know, what you offer is quite radical. For engineers, right? Because instead of racing as fast as you can towards figuring it out, it's this idea of staying in this liminal space of not knowing is, is really, really deep. And I think part of the part of what I really enjoyed about your your work is you're going into a culture of engineering, and, and espousing essentially an adjacent culture. That, you know, you know, definitely when things are farther down, you do want to nail it down and productionize it and metrics and all of that. But there's this very specialness about the nature of a beginning of finding out where it's actually counterproductive to land to quickly, unknowing. And then I think part of the work that I've always loved about your work is how do you actually create ways of doing and being that reinforce that and help us? You know, sort of data nerds resist the temptation to be pulled into figuring it out too early?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Good, good old times. But let's about the good old of the good new times. So yes,

yes. So one of the things that's most notable about your your new book, which we'll have linked prominently, is is how different you and I we thought we were alluding to it just now is sort of how differently we look at the world. And our approaches. So when you tell that story about us having very different methodologies, when I look at the present day, both the content of your amazing new book and the work that I'm doing, we've actually ended up becoming quite close to each other in the domain. So for instance, I've switched much more into this exploratory place of problem solving. And of course, you turned out really deeply turning into the mindfulness and, and really using some of these ideas of the Spirit as a place of, of idea generation. So that's, that's a dynamic to me. That's endlessly fascinating. One of the things in your book that really blew me away was it seems like you weren't always confident and open you do tell a number of stories about being anxious or being preferring to be closer to home? What are the experiences that really helped you have more of a overt optimism, maybe a less guardedness in the world?

Yes, yes. So let's go back in time, yes. And, you know, picture this, you know, young kid who is incredibly shy, unsure about, you know, himself living in a in a small town called Ravensburg in Germany, which is a, you know, a small town with lots of historical buildings and towers, and, you know, just an incredible history as well. And, you know, growing up there, you know, literally nothing changes ever, right? There's still like these towers and historical buildings, you know, they probably painted differently, but they're still around. So, you know, I grew up in in a way that just created a lot of comfort for me, right? You know, knowing where to go and having a loving family and caring family and so forth. And, you know, you also have to picture like, you know, me in school, you know, whenever the teacher called my name, you know, I usually was sitting in, like in your class in the, in the back of the room, because I immediately turned red Right, I started sweating and, you know, my heartbeat went up and so forth. So I was this, you know, if you put on a label like an introvert, right, not really sure about himself, as I said, but I was deeply curious, right? I was curious about, you know, whatever's happening in the world. At the same time, I was very uncomfortable to talk to strangers or unfamiliar people. That was way out of my comfort zone. But um, you know, now I am actually, you know, preaching, I would say unreserved openness, right? So I turned into someone who really tries to embrace unreserved openness, right to, you know, really be open to new experiences into everything else. And I love change, I have to say, right, I started to like how things you know, transform how they morph, how they change, and so forth. So I really had a transformation in my growing up, I would say, and that really kicked off when I had to leave my comfort zone in my hometown, to, you know, go study, which was not far away was an hour away, but it was across a lake Lake constant that actually connects Austria with Switzerland. And so for me, that first move was really transformational, because it felt uncomfortable. But at the same time, I was learning a tremendous amount of things, I was connecting with new people, you know, I moved to the front of the room, in in, in the classroom, you know, I raised my hand more often, I stopped turning red whenever it you know, the professor or teacher would call me out and so forth. Because I was really, you know, betting on doubling down on my curiosity. And what I, whatever I found, is something new, I was really seeing that as something valuable. So I just followed my curiosity. And that took me to, you know, Shanghai, Cape Town, born his iris, you know, California and New York, you know, places around the world. But it was not about moving from place to place, it was more about opening my mind and my heart to the possibilities that are out in the world. And, you know, that's something where now can stand in front of people, many people without turning red and confidently help others to also opening up themselves because I think an open mind and unreserved openness is something where you can find tremendous opportunities all around you and in the world.

Wow, there's so much there. And before I dive in with some follow up questions, I really want to point to a core area of your deep expertise as I perceive it is, when you speak to people about this, you, in addition to providing a lot of good data, about why this sort of curiosity, and innovation is good, like you also vibe this like you vibe, trust me, it's safe. Trust me, you'll have to extend yourself a little bit. As a matter of fact, in your book, a phrase that really, really jumped out at me is, a lot of times the things that make us grow the most are unique and unsettling. Right? However, a lot of times when we encounter the unique and unsettling the lived embodied experience of that is uncomfortable. So there's a natural sense to turn away. And when you were just telling that story, you know, I think a lot of us have these neurobiological processes that say, say that basically say turn away from the unknown because it's more predictable and safe to stay where you are. However, one is, I think, in terms of evolutionary biology, as an example, looking at it through that lens, like, that's a false safety. Because although you may choose stasis, if your environment changes, staying with that stasis becomes a liability. One that's quite insidious, because it's a comfortable liability where slowly you almost don't don't realize you're in danger. The other thing I wanted to point out and get your take on is, you know, in electrical engineering, there's this concept of activation energy. It takes more energy to power up a circuit, or a power factor if you're talking about motors, than it is to keep it going. So in the story you told you know, there was some resistance to change, the turning red the desire to say close to home And it sounds like for you, and this is true for me also is the activation energy is curiosity, right? curiosity about what might be true, if you know a phrase that I picked up from you is how might we or you know, these questions of really looking into the unknown? And seeing what are the positives? And then the other thing is like, how can we I think the curiosity is a great activation energy. And there's also this idea of how do we make it safe? Right to help overcome that, you know, used a great word of shyness, I think there's different kinds of shyness there. There's interpersonal shyness, but also, I think there's contextual shyness, where you just sort of feel a little reticent to step out of out of what's, what's new. So I'm curious to hear about how that lands about this idea of activation energy and and then how can people cultivate either the sense of safety which you cover in one chapter of your book? And then also this idea of cultivating curiosity?

Yes, yes. I love that concept of activation energy. And, as you could hear from my story, that activation energy was tremendously high. Right? It took a lot of effort, a lot of overcoming, you know, fear and anxiety, and, you know, resistance, because your brain tells yourself, you know, a stay where you are, right? Don't Don't go somewhere new. Because, you know, then I have to actually, you know, use energy to think and to explore and to, to navigate that uncertainty. So that activation energy was incredibly high. But as you were mentioning, as soon as you take the first step, and make that first leap, for me, it was across a little lake right, Lake Constance, which is not, it's a fairy rate of about, like, 25 minutes, right. But crossing that lake and living in a different place, you know, with new people and in a new environment, and so forth. Really, what would I say, in hindsight, is made me addictive, right, addictive to the new. Because, you know, I walked around, like, with wide, open eyes, and, you know, my heart was open to, and whoever I met, whatever I discovered, was something exciting, because it helped me to learn something. And that is still true today, right? I literally live my days where I am trying to seek out the new and seek out something different every day. Because, again, like, being in a in, like falling into routines, or doing things over and over again, just that creates now anxiety and and puts me into a space where I think I, I want to change something. And we both know, and we both learned that, you know, change is just the law of nature, right? Everything changes all the time. And so how do you embrace change? How do you make use of change? How do you create change and ignite change? And using that activation energy? That now is very low for me, right? i It's basically zero, where I, I, you know, I'm seeking out activity, the new whereas, I would probably like to add something to that concept where I say, like now the stagnation energy, or where, you know, something is not moving, or is moving always in the same way. That now, you know, is something I want to change. And I use a lot of energy to actually do that.

Right. There's so much there. So, before we started recording, we noted that both of us are in pretty unique spaces that represent I think, safety of one kind or another, right? If you really want to encourage ourselves as individuals or other people. It's how can we create causes and conditions that allow us to view the unsettling as exciting versus scary. So I'll go on a quick side note, one of the things in Search Inside Yourself that they point out is that the experience of excitement and fear physically are quite similar. As a matter of fact, you can make a state that their statement that They're the same. The difference between excitement and fear is how you feel about it is how one interprets the unknown, right? It's that sense of, oh my god, anything's possible to oh my god, anything's possible. Like they're there. It's but neurophysiological II, it's really the same. So I wanted to point out that people won't be able to see us as we're speaking. But you are in right now a beautiful, serene, exciting, interesting geodesic dome that I believe you built with your own hands. Exactly, yeah. Right within it within a space and you know, I've had the good fortune to visit you into your home in a home that's really purpose built to, you know, a phrase that was used in engineering was you tilt the physics of the situation towards curiosity. And I was noting that I'm currently in New Jersey with my mom for two weeks helping her out with some things, and I'm in my childhood bedroom. But my childhood bedroom when I left for college, my dad repurposed it into his office and folks that know me know that it's been a while since my father passed away. And we talked a little bit about the Spaces, we're calling from that. And your upbringing, Frederick of your parents really creating a room of, of safety for you. So it seems to me that, that the creation of safety is like safety plus activation energy is what allows us to get over the hump of complacency or resistance towards the fear and maybe is that kind of thing that then helps us shift from that idea of being fearful about a given set of stimuli to being excited? Absolutely, yes.

And yeah, you know, coming back to that, that room, you are now in, you know, my parents still have that room set up for me as well. And you know, as soon as I left, my hometown, they, they said to me, like, Frederick, you can always come back, that room will be here for you, right? Which helped me to really venture into into the new into the unknown, right, because I always had in the back of my mind that there is a place and there are people I can, I can rely on I can come back to, I never did, but it was always there, which I think is fascinating. And so physical environments, right can really create you know, and, and a sense of safety, they can create a sense of curiosity, they can help you to feel inspired, and so forth. And one of the works we both did, was actually creating spaces that really were conducive to these to these emotions that we want to feel right, excitement, you know, safety and so forth. So if you take a meditation space, right, which is usually very clean, very, very simple. It has, you know, a couple of cushions that you can sit on. But usually, it's, it's a little darker, you know, it's, it's quiet, it has a couple of artifacts that usually are related or helpful to meditating. And the contrary, you would say, like, oh, you know, spaces that you want to have related to creativity and innovation and idea generation, so forth are, you know, lots of items, you know, books or, you know, prototypes, or artifacts or materials should be, like, supported by music or sound, should be very light filled, and so forth. Right. But what we found is that, you know, that's a physical environment, that's the external world, what matters most I think is how the internal world is actually functioning right. And you can find inspiration. You can be creative in various environments, you can be very creative in a meditation space, right? At the same time, you can, you know, find peace and quietness in a, in a in a hustling and bustling space, right, which is very loud and, and so forth. So I think focusing on what happens internally and what happens within yourself and how you can under And that more how you can create awareness around this, I think it's a, it's something I've learned over the years. And, and it's, it's, it's very interesting because, you know, starting off with building the garage, you know, at Google and and, you know, being in creative spaces around the world, what I found is that lots of people copied that which, you know, I was I was flattered by right. But at the same time, when I found that most of these spaces were actually empty, I found that the inner space and the inner attitude didn't change, which is more important, I think, then, you know, decorating a room with, you know, artifacts or creating loud music in a in an environment. Right.

And for folks that may not have heard of the garage, the garage is a space that Frederick created at Google, that was essentially a playground of the body mind. In the sense of, as you mentioned, it was a bright open, it is a bright, open space, with everything from 3d printers, to toys to musical instruments. And it's, it's, it's a place that's pretty hard to perch, and everything is movable, all the chairs, all the desks, it's completely reconfigurable. So this space was known as the garage. And to your point is, you know, how can you create causes and conditions that encourage a certain internal mindset? And a sorry, this internal mindset? And you know, that, you know, the internal mindset is, is, I think, massively important. And one of the things that I find interesting, I'm curious, what your experience has been, is to, you know, the physical space is so important in terms of encouraging mind states and encouraging different mind states. I think it's possible, but really challenging to do that over zoom in a hybrid work environment, what have you found about the challenges of inviting different internal states, whereas before, it would have been a go to have, oh, the team will just all physically get together in in one space?

Yeah, that's an that's an interesting question. You know, as we all learned, how, you know, working and communicating, and teaching, and learning over, you know, or with technology actually works. due to external conditions, I think what we didn't learn that much is that it's, it can be actually quite the same, right? You can practice listening, you know, in a, you know, in an environment with lots of people. And you can practice listening, when you're on a on a Google Hangout, or a Zoom meeting, right? And I think, focusing more on, you know, what do you want to actually accomplish? And? And how do you want to show up? Instead of saying, like, oh, that's only possible, you know, when, when I'm in person with someone? Or it's only possible when we on Zoom? I think that's the wrong question. I think we should ask ourselves, like, what are you actually want to accomplish? Right? And if you want to listen more, right, and if you want to show empathy, ask questions. Or if you want to, you know, spread a message, or even meditate, right, you can do that in person, but you can also do that, you know, over over zoom, and I had my first you know, 10 day silent meditation retreat in Joshua Tree, desert. And the teachers were, there were two teachers there physically, but they were not saying anything for, you know, for the 10 days, it was basically a recording that was playing. And, you know, you could ask yourself, like, you know, what's, what's the difference, but there, there was, no, there was no big difference, because how you perceive these things just matters. From your side, so how, you know, perceive a recording and act accordingly or how you perceive like someone else saying it. In real life, I think it's just a matter of how you want to how you want to perceive it.

I think that's that's super interesting and correct. And I think it's actually a skill we have to learn maybe to be a little less reliant on the on the external props, like one of the skill sets is then how do we how do we do that? Having said that, I do We encourage lots of clients to take the money they're saving on office space and to make sure that two maybe even three times a year, the entire team is getting together in a place where we can also have those those external prompts.

Can I challenge you on that? So what is what would be the what will be the benefit of, you know, an in person gathering in a wonderful environment, compared to, you know, bringing people together, online.

So, I think the idea of having splayed having places that are assigned and signifier that this is a place for a different kind of thinking. One of my teachers shins and Jung notes that, you know, a lot of times sacred places have sacred architectures. Now, whether or not they're intrinsically more sacred or not. And what's interesting is even as a, you know, a secular mindfulness teacher, he frequently will teach at a at a beautiful Catholic retreat center in Palos Verdes, California. So it's really funny to be doing secular mindfulness, you know, and there's a crucifix and you know, all the all the Catholic or religious adornments around it, but he loves it. He said, Yeah, this is, these are all signs and signifiers, that this is a place with a slightly different set of values for a different purpose. So I think just the way the human nervous system reacts, that it's good to have these, these sacred places as ways of then triggering that internal state. Also, I think that a lot of human communication involves micro expressions and nuances that, you know, I think, I think, zoom, and you and I have talked about how much we spend, how much time and attention we spend on our setup, to be able to maximize that as people who are trying to create deep connections over this. And then also, I think there's a little bit of wildfire space of, you know, so for instance, I gave a talk to some of Google clouds, senior European customers, and there was just a guy in the hallway, and we just started chatting, and it turns out, we had 10 friends in common, and our work really overlaps. So I think those sorts of things are a little harder to happen. So again, my my point of view is that there is there is unique value in getting together in person, and that it's useful to do that maybe every six, eight months or so. Yeah,

I love that. Yeah. And, you know, I'm a big, big fan of physical environments that you know, support a specific you know, attitude, or a specific feeling that you want to have, right. So, you know, what I've learned, right, when the pandemic started is that, you know, my kids, my kids can't learn effectively on a computer in their bedrooms, right? It's just not something they, they wanted to do or wanted to engage in. And it's the same for us, right? Like, we'd need, sometimes a change of physical spaces to, you know, do focused work or, you know, learn something new and so forth. So what I've done is, you know, just built them a little shed outside in the forest, where they can walk to, you know, 30 seconds. And so that, we call it the a school, because it's an A frame building. And so every morning, you know, they could get up, they could get dressed, they could, you know, pack their school lunch, but they didn't go to school, but they went to like, you know, this little shed in the forest. And then, you know, were engaged in learning over over zoom and Google Google meets right, which was the way they actually connected with their teacher with their schoolmates with their friends and so forth. And that totally worked. You know, they, they really, you know, my middle one, Joshua, he learned how to, you know, read and write just purely over over zoom, but being in a space that he considered, like a homeschool environment. Right? And so, I think there is a, an interesting combination of of that, that, that really, we can design intentionally, right where you feel like okay, you know, you can learn something new sitting in a classroom with other peers, but you can also learn something new, just purely over technology. And, you know, spaces, external spaces really have a place in that but also exploring the internal space in how you how you feel in these different environments. And what happens to your emotions is something we need to pay attention to as well.

So tying all those threads together, what advice would you have for somebody who is looking to optimize for innovation in an organization in in a hybrid environment? Like what the what the what, what kind of things do you think are best served by the, you know, and can be done in the in the remote hybrid environment? And just yet, what advice would you have for for people?

That's a big question. Yes. You know, one, one advice I would have is experiment, right? I think what I've seen, really working for us as a family and as, probably as a family, like, you know, is that notion of let's try and see what works and what doesn't, right, because experimentation always leads to learning. And so if an organization really wants to focus on, you know, innovation and creating an environment where innovation happens, the only way to do that is to experiment, right? Try different things, like, you know, try to follow the idea that you just shared, like, go on, you know, personal retreats with your team, you know, every three to four months, you know, and see, you know, what, what you can learn from that? How does that affect your team dynamics? How does that help to find inspiration, connecting people, connecting ideas, and so forth, experiment with different ways of running your team meetings on Zoom, right? allowing others to take over the meeting agenda have a type of unconference or flexible agenda that you can try out. So all of those things, you know, are little experiments that help you to find ways that might lead to new ideas, right, that might lead to some doing some things differently. And I think that's the signal you want to send as a leader into your organization is that, hey, we're trying something new, we're experimenting, right? And experimentation is not just helpful in the approach on how you want to build a culture of innovation. But experimentation is also the approach then how you solve problems and how you make progress towards something that you want to want to make a reality as an organization. So sorry, go ahead. And that's that's just obviously one, one of the things but I think experimentation is such an such an overlooked power that everybody has. And again, like you need your activation energy, probably right to run your first experiment. And, you know, show up show up as a leader, for example, in a meeting and say, like, Hey, today, I don't have an agenda. And at the same time, I'm going to share something personal, right? From a story about a risk I took or like, you know, where it was vulnerable in, in, in a situation and so forth. So you already kind of like show that experimentation is valued, and you practice it. And you being a role model for experimentation. I think as soon as you can do that, you move a little closer to building an environment where innovation can happen. And there's obviously many, many more things you can do. Right? We spoke a little bit about safety. So there's this concept around psychological safety, where you trying to really have people feel safe to take a risk and to try something new. Which is not easy, right? But as soon as you built slowly this environment of psychological safety, you can see that people are starting to take more risks and trying something new. And one of the mechanisms I used in an organization was to really reward people for taking risk. I learned that from from nature, being on an intrapreneur ship, sailing to the end of the world with 30 students from Stanford and 30 students from Chile. I was teaching entrepreneurship on a ship called the intrapreneurship. So there was a It's a little of a of a wordplay there. But it was fascinating because we, you know, one day we stood on the, on the top of the, of the helm. And we looked out, and we saw penguins. And if you look at colony of pellet penguins, you see that there's always one courageous penguin that jumps into the water first. And that courageous Penguin, you know, has a 50% chance to find food or become food, the rest of the colony, you know, stands back and watch this carefully, you know, if that little little person comes back up again. And so what I've learned is that there needs to be a courageous Penguin, in every team in every organization to really jump into the water first and give it a try. So what I introduced in this organization was the penguin award, rewarding the people that always jumped first from the ice shelf. Because that's a very important signal, as when no one jumps, you know what happens, the whole colony basically disappears. And we see in organizations, if everybody stands back and says, like, I don't want to be the person who jumps because I'm not gonna get rewarded for that, you see that the whole organization will eventually disappear. So we need to reward and recognize those people who try something new, find a new customer, try a new technology, find a new process, whatever it is, to really help to, to take risks and innovate.

I love that example. One because it's adorable, too, if you can, you know, anything to do with penguins or otters, I'm always a big fan of. Secondly, as you you know, it infers a really important point, which is the example you used from nature was an existential threat, right? We're literally the penguin that goes first stanza, a decent risk of of being devoured by an Orca, or something along those lines. In the modern workplace, most of them, perhaps maybe not at SeaWorld, the the chances of being devoured by an orca are very minimal. Yet we respond to a lot of our circumstances, as though it was an actual physical threat. So neurobiologically, when you get a bad performance review, or something doesn't work out the way you want it to your body mind automatically responds to it as though it was a physical, existential threat. And particularly if the nature of the threat is not physical that way, a lot of times the systems that kick in, are antithetical to the systems that support creative, empathic thinking. So I love that idea of, you know, within organizations, how can we create, again, the physics of the situation that, that make it safe that actually in a real gentle way, remind us like, you know, you're in and this is something that comes up multiple times in what's next is now is, like, even if things don't go your way, you're safe, if you have that internal sense of safety, and I think a lot of leadership and innovation is reminding people and and in a very real way that it is safe. And even if things don't go the way that we would have them, that there's still a sense of safety there.

Absolutely, yes. And we we search for that safety all the time, right? We are looking, if we look into the future, we're looking for that certainty. That's obviously not there, because the future is uncertain, by definition. But we're looking to people who can talk about the future. We're looking to trends, we're looking for signals, we're looking for all these indicators that help us to create a sense of safety. And I think that's wrong, because we are we are creating a set of a false sense of safety by by doing that, and engaging in that. I think we shouldn't ask ourselves, you know what the future will bring? Because that's a passive stance you take in relationship to the future. I think more importantly, we should ask ourselves, what future do I want to create? And that's the active stance that you can have. And as soon as you wish, you use shift that question from what will the future bring towards? What future do I want to create? You are now showing agency you're showing so that you have control over what happens next. And so that's an important shift I think everybody needs to make. It's not an easy one, again, like because our brain loves certainty, right? We love to know what's gonna happen next. But nobody can provide you that unless you actually decide and choose what's going to happen next. So again, like what I'm trying to do is really empower individuals to not only anticipate, but actively participate in crafting their futures. And that's a shift I think, is necessary today. As you know, we talked to many people, you talk to many people, you talk to many, you know, leaders in the world. And what we see is that everybody loves to talk about the past, right? That's an easy thing to do. Right? We love to talk about, you know, where we spend our our vacation time, we love to talk about, you know, the past projects we did, we love to talk about the past jobs we had. We love to talk about things that happened in the past, and so forth. And, you know, that's a, that's a thing that our mind just really loves to do, because it gives us a sense of safety. But I think we need to shift it, we need to shift to talking more about the future. And there's this concept about trying to empathize with your future self, trying to really understand how you want to be in the future. And you see from that question, that it's not about what you want to be in the future, like, you know, a job title or famous or, you know, rich or whatever it is. But it's about how you want to be in the future. And as soon as you can empathize a little bit more about your future vision and your future self. And trying to connect your behaviors today, and what you put in place today, I think you have a higher chance of actually achieving that. And so really, at the at the core of the message I want to spread is that is that the idea of preparing for the future isn't about predicting what's to come. But about equipping yourself with the mainstage, to navigate and shape, what lies ahead. And that is, I think, a shift that needs to happen sooner than later, as we literally are seeing changes that are happening that are bigger than ever, that are happening faster than ever, and so forth. But if you equip yourself with that mindset and practices necessary to be proactive, you know, rather than reactive, to innovate, rather than stagnate, and to create opportunities out of uncertainties, I think you have a wonderful chance to really make that future happen that you always desire to make happen.

There's, there's, there's so much there. It's tough to figure out what to what to what to drill down into. What's coming to mind is, you know, in the in a few minutes ago, we're really talking about mistaken ways that our body mind tries to be safe, which may be one level is to respond to things as though they're physical threats by saying let's make the heart rate pump, let's make let's make him flush. Let's make someone's digestion stop. Let's make someone's heart race and the chemicals that make you want to fight that sort of one level of a, you know, an honorable, but not good fitting way to deal with the situation because most of our work is not if you have the privilege where physical survival is not your daily tasks. So that's one level. Now on top of that, you're almost talking at a at a higher level of systems, where I think as individuals and organizations, there's a tendency to say let's solve this problem, even if it's in a cognitive way, in the same way that used to work, because that feels reassuring. This is what worked in the past and therefore and again that there's an activation energy to actually let go of the past and then step into the unknown because the unknown versus the known, but you know, if I'm hearing your Right, it's actually staying in stasis is dangerous. And one of the good things about, you know, the the way the world is now, in particular with the coming of AI, is that I think this will be less and less of an option. I think the timeframes in which sticking with the status quo ceases to become functional, will become more and more obvious more quickly. And, you know, and and one of the things you really mentioned about, about safety is, you know, the empathy for your future self and empathy for other selves. I mean, I'm feeling a little bit more sassy about using the word out loud these days, but it's essentially of how do we operationalize love as individuals as groups of people working on things, right, because that's I, you know, when I first started meditating, I was like, Oh, my God, I hate myself, like so harsh with myself. I think the only way to turn towards some of the big truths, given that they're uncomfortable, is with compassion. Like literally, I mean, to look at the way that I in my life respond to things as though they're a bear attack and be like, yeah, yeah, that's very human. That's very, and in certain situations, so useful. How honorable is it to honor the way we used to do things the way of our grandparents the but at the same time, have the courage to let go of them?

Yeah, that notion. Yeah. Just Yes. Just a word of support. I love that notion of being more loving, right? Because that's exactly. Answering that question. For some people around how do you want to be in the future? And if you can answer that for yourself, saying, I want to be more loving. Ask yourself, what can you do today, right now in this moment, to move towards that vision of becoming a more loving human being. And there's easy things you can do, right? Reach out to a friend, you know, you haven't talked to, you know, think about what you can be grateful for, you know, today, yesterday, and in the past week, there's other things that you can do right now to move towards that vision of becoming more loving human being. And, you know, we can we can replace the word loving with, you know, other things like being more kind, right, being more forgiving. And so far, and I think as soon as we see that, we see that, you know, it might might sound a little a little, you know, intriguing, but like, then there is not the saying of the future is now but the future is how. And that's, I think, an important shift to make towards how do we want to be again in the future. And if you can figure that out for yourself and reflect on that, then I think you're moving towards a future that really is something that you start to create a clearer picture around, that you start to imagine that use that starts to become an exciting future you want to move towards than it starts to become something that you can't wait that it's going to happen, right, and you think you move away from that fear of the future and anxiety about the future because it's uncertain towards, hey, if I'm gonna be a more loving person in the future, I can't wait to make that future happen. And I think that's the promise I want to give to people is that this is something everyone can do. This is not something you have to study for, or something you have to have money for, or something you have to have the best relationships for. This is something everyone on this planet can actually make happen.

And I think what you point to that sense of meeting everything in life, whether it be good news or bad news, with a sense of excitement, and even gratitude, you know, in your book, you mentioned a sense of excitement and curiosity when a sheriff's deputy knocked on your door and said, We need to evacuate your home in 10 minutes. There's a fire coming. Like one of the things I and and the more I know you the more I deeply respect you for being for someone like me that can be negative and fearful and cynical the idea of you need to evacuate like you genuinely met that with curiosity. I mean, obviously some very practical concern about the safety of your family and some stuff like that. But I, you know, for the folks that are listening that might not know you as well, like, I really want to underscore that you say that with utter integrity, that that is possible.

Absolutely, yeah. So first, if I may share in advice is like, stop watching the news. It's, it's most of the time not really helpful. If you're curious about something, you know, there's other ways of finding, finding out. The second thing is, it just surprised me, after that evacuation order came in, you know, the police officer knocked at our doors. And we literally, as a family of five had to, you know, pack our stuff in 10 minutes and leave our home. Not knowing if we ever will return. Right, that was, you know, met with, again, like Curiosity, openness, and a sense of optimism, right? Because that's the only thing you can take with you. I read about a couple of stories where actually people responded differently, or I would say, reacted not responded. Some people were actually fighting these officers for sharing that message, right? Because they blamed the officer for you know, the fire, which is like a totally for me, not understandable reaction that you can have, some people were not leaving at all right, they just, you know, said like, Oh, we're gonna stay here, right. And we're not following any, any orders or any rules, and we're just gonna risk the fireman's lives, right, because they have to rescue these people who were not following these orders. So there's just a various reactions that people are having towards, if someone tells you, you know, that something tragic is happening, right. And it's for me, it's so interesting that you can disconnect sometimes from the person who brings you the news for, like an an actually blaming that person that they are responsible for the for the news as well. And so for me, it was it was not, in my mind, even that, you know, that this officer is actually responsible for the wildfires, right, he wants to protect us, and he wants to help us. So obviously, yeah, let's, let's let's evacuate, and at the same time, respond to that situation with, you know, optimism, openness, and a sense of curiosity, because that's the way that helps you to, to, I think, to just signal to not just your yourself, but to others that, you know, this is this is the only way you can respond and create an opportunity down the line where whatever is going to happen, you know, you still have to continue making a living, and you have to still continue to live your life and so forth. So, yeah, thanks for bringing back that, that memory and that story, and I still feel, you know, everybody out there can, can really think for a couple of seconds, you know, when that stimulus happens, right? When news are going to be shared with you, or some some tragedy happens in your life or some illness or some loss in your family, whatever it is that, you know, just pause for a couple of, of seconds and and choose your respond. Because sometimes, that really makes the biggest difference.

Amazing. And there's there's two promises implicit in that, in what everything you just unpacked. One is that your internal state can be more independent of your external circumstances than it seems. Right? So you just you just mentioned even when things are very intense that it is possible, to meet that with a sense of openness and curiosity, which is sort of intrinsically easier to get through. So in the moment, the mindset, a future ready mindset, if I can steal your phrase, is allows you and then that the second part, which I think also speaks to, you know, how innovation shows up in organizations is, so not only is it is it helpful for feeling better, because your internal state is not directly yoked to external circumstances. But then it's also it's the smart play, right, that when we have a very narrow sense of what's possible, quite literally, the options for moving Forward, are, are very, very narrow. If we can cultivate this mindset where we can think beyond the fear, then there's literally more ways of traversing the problem space open up. So something I really try and underscore, and this is the research that I've been doing around the Buddhism and AI stuff is that this is the smart play, particularly when things are emergent, that literally, this sense of kindness and openness. Is it's functional. As a matter of fact, I think we can make very strong databased arguments that this is the smart play. And I think when we talk about overcoating, over, you know, the activation energy, like when I work with organizations, I'm always thinking, what are the inhibitors towards either this kindness, or understanding what your values are? Or even what your short term needs are. So, you know, you and I both came to meditation, I did not start meditation so that I could see the oneness and the universality of love, although that's where I ended up many years later, right. I was like, I just don't want to feel shitty all the time. And so I think it's really possible. And I think it's advisable for people that are trying to create innovation within situations or organizations to be very thoughtful about how am I overcome the activation energy by being of service? Even if it's something that's this serves a short term need, that then sets the stage for this opening up of of possibility?

Absolutely, yeah. So so how did you respond? If I may ask you, November 22. As you can probably recall, that was when AI really took off where open AI, you know, launched GPT. And, you know, gave people access to generative AI, basically, how was your initial reaction or response? When you know, such a shift happened, you know, and it could be the same for like, march 2020, you know, when the pandemic started, or, you know, you pick a date, or an instance in, in the world that happened, and just checking in on yourself, like, what was the first reaction and responds to these big shifts.

So it's interesting that you bring up one new one situation fraught with a positive possibility, although some negatives, which is AI, and something that I'm intrinsically thinking is cool, versus the pandemic, which is sort of the opposite of that. That's a bit of a forcing function to say in which way they're similar. And what popped to mind immediately about my reaction to those situations was all right, there was a sense of the sense of the possible is far greater than I thought it might be. And one of the ways that humans respond to that is, is with a sense of all which is an interesting balance of fear and excitement, but particularly one where the context of what's going on is so much larger than the perceiver. You know, and we were talking about sacred architecture and spiritual architecture. You know, one common theme across all different faith traditions is the seek to recontextualize the individual human, and to realize that you are, in fact part of a much, much greater whole. So I would say my reaction to both of those was a very primal sense of awe. And I think that sense of awe is really a razor's edge where the kinds of things that you're espousing in what's next is now can I help you have some agency and tipping over into the, this is going to be a wild ride? Even and, you know, it's interesting, I've been hanging out with a lot of Tibetans and practicing and the Tibetan versions of Buddhism, and, you know, their, their teachings around the Bardo is even the process of death is exactly that. Is that is that it is an adventure and a wild ride in which some, you have some agency in it.

Yes. Thanks for sharing your response. Because, you know, if you would ask, you know, other people and, you know, listeners, you can you can check on yourself. How do you respond to change overall, right, because the change itself is not positive or negative in the first place. It's what you make out of it, right? Eventually, that matters. And there's this beautiful, old story. You probably know, from the Chinese farmer that lives in a village. I try to recite it briefly. So, you know, they lived an old farmer in a small village in China, who had worked his crops for many years. And one day, his horse ran away. And upon hearing the news, his neighbors and the whole community came over to visit him. And what they said to him, was such bad luck. The farmer responded, we'll see. And the next morning, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. Then again, the community and the neighbors came over to see the farmer and they said, how wonderful for farmer replied, we'll see. And the following day, his son tried to ride one of the horses and was thrown off, broke his leg. Again, the neighbors came over to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. And the former said, we'll see. And the day after the military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army, because the war chest started. And seeing that the sons leg was broken, they passed by. And so the neighbors again came over, congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. The farmer replied, we'll see. And so I think it's a beautiful story where, you know, seeing situations just as they appear, right, and approaching them with a sense of openness, but also, you know, in that, in that response, we'll see. turning them into, you know, opportunities or challenges is something that, you know, you can you can choose, but also, it's not set by the, by the, by the instance, of the of the situation happening, right. So when AI came around November 22, right, that's not something good or something bad. It's what you make out of it. Right. And I think keeping an open mind and responding will, with we'll see, and let's try it out, you know, is probably the perfect approach to to the future. Because that really puts you into a spot where you respond to change in a way that that you approach change with what you can control. And at the same time showing agency in how you want to use these things in the future, and how you, for example, want to use AI as well.

I can't imagine a better way to sum up everything we've talked about. So I'll just leave it with saying, Frederick, thank you so much. One thing in particular I want to offer gratitude for is our relationship and what I've learned from you, when we started, we were quite different people using quite different methods to navigate the complexity and ambiguity of the world, one of the great pleasures of our friendship, what started off as being colleagues and then became friendship is that we've both actually moved towards each other as domains and found them to be very complementary, which I think has has served both of our lives well, as well as the groups of people and situations that we seek to, to help. And then also, it's just, it's, it's just been so nice to become a closer friend of yours. Because of it, we certainly have more ability to be vulnerable with each other and all the things that that sense of safety brings. So I wanted to finish by just expressing gratitude for you and the fact that we've had a chance to be colleagues and friends for so many years.

Wonderful. And that's that's what I what I love about you, Bill, is that, you know, you you share that gratitude, while knowing the research that you know, it makes makes me happy, right when you share these things, but also it makes you happy too, which is something we sometimes oversee. And so I'll do the same that I've learned from you. I'll share the sense of gratitude that I have for you and what are you teaching now? Just to me, but to the world, I think it's super powerful and super important, especially now with the rise of AI and how you bridge that with mindfulness, how your work on innovation, with, you know, this podcast on the heart of innovation really touches on the emotions, the feelings, the body and mind relationship that, you know, we want to explore when it comes to innovation. And I think that's something I'm deeply grateful for. And I think everybody can be grateful for when listening to you and your teachings. So keep doing it. And in the spirit of a future ready mind state, I just, you know, deeply grateful that you show all these dimensions that I am passionate about, starting from radical optimism to unreserved openness to deep empathy and a sense of experimentation and a deep curiosity as well. So, keep, keep practicing those, I think those are going to be very helpful for you and for everyone to really build a future that we all desire. Yeah,

thank you. And if other people enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, and want to go deeper and look into this, I can't recommend your new book, is it? Is it out yet? Or I was able to get a pre release about a pre release copy? Is it available right now?

On June 18. And June 18. Title is what's next is now how to live future ready.

Exactly. And so it is available for pre order amongst a couple of things. And so, as I mentioned, you were kind enough to provide a galley copy. And then also I did, I did preorder it and can't recommend it enough. It's sort of everything we talked about at multiple levels deeper, as well as stories. It was so great to see, you know, Newton Chang and Sarah Devereaux, and Adam Leonard and all my some other people that are that are dear friends that we both have in the past. If you'd like this, you'll you'll you'll love the book. Fantastic. Thank you, Frederick. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you when we're both in the same physical space either in a geodesic dome or in San Francisco.

Wonderful. Thank

you, Bill. Take care.