June 10, 2024 • 33 mins
JD Meier, high performance and innovation coach, discusses his focus on using AI to advance high performance and change how the world innovates. He emphasizes the power of one person businesses to impact and influence a billion minds. Meier shares his two-track transformation model for innovation, which involves sustaining innovation in the current business while also working on disruptive innovation for the future. He also highlights the importance of productivity and offers strategies such as setting three wins each day and reflecting on weekly achievements.
Takeaways
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AI can be used to advance high performance and enhance senses
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One person businesses have the power to impact and influence a billion minds
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The two-track transformation model involves sustaining innovation in the current business while working on disruptive innovation for the future
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Productivity strategies include setting three wins each day and reflecting on weekly achievements
Sound Bites
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"I'm all about trying to use AI to advance high performance"
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"I call it billion dollar solopreneur, not because you're going to make a billion dollars, but it's about impacting and influencing a billion minds"
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"You have your current business, which is your current business model... and then you have your future business model"
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
05:07 The Billion Dollar Solopreneur
08:58 The Two-Track Transformation Approach
15:03 Improving Productivity with Three Wins and Reflection
31:07 Conclusion
Biography
JD Meier is a High Performance & Innovation Coach who has 25 years of experience changing the world at Microsoft. JD was the former head coach for Satya Nadella's innovation team at Microsoft and is also the author of the bestselling book Getting Results the Agile Way. His WHY is to advance human potential and to help people realise their potential in work and life while his specialty is to provide proven practices combined with information models to advance a space. People at Microsoft know JD for innovation, productivity, and changing the world because he always took on big challenges and moved the ball forward.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Meyer is a high performance and innovationcoach who has 25 years of experience
changing the world at Microsoft.
JD was the former head coach at SatyaNadella's innovation team at Microsoft and
is also the author of the bestsellingbook, Getting Results the Agile Way.
His why is to advance human potential andto help people realize their potential in
(00:28):
work and life, while his specialty is toprovide program practices combined with
information models to advance the space.
People at Microsoft know JD forinnovation, productivity, and changing the
world because he always took on bigchallenges and moved the ball forward.
JD, welcome to the Super CreativityPodcast.
(00:48):
Wow, that was a great intro.
Thank you.
So share with us what's going on in yourworld just now.
What currently has your focus?
Okay.
So that's a great question.
AI is definitely top of mind andspecifically, I'm, I'm all about trying to
use it to advance high performance.
I think there's a lot of tricks and hacksthat people haven't thought about yet
(01:10):
specifically about enhancing your senses.
And, the other big thing is really, I'mtrying to change how the world innovates.
I know that might sound audacious, butwhen I wake up in the morning, I actually
ask myself how to want to change the worldtoday.
It actually guides a lot of what I do.
And with innovation, I think there's anincredible, easy way to change how we
(01:32):
innovate at the individual level, the teamlevel and the org level.
So that's got my focus.
The other big thing I would say is, I callit billion dollar solopreneur.
I call it billion dollar solopreneur, notbecause you're going to make a billion
dollars.
You might, but it's about impacting andinfluencing a billion minds.
I think that we're in a perfect time andage where the one person business.
(01:55):
can actually share and scale theirexpertise with the world.
And so I've been diving into that, lookingat it from two perspectives on the, let's
say the left -hand side.
The left -hand side is the tech arena.
So what can we do with AI, of course?
What can we do with social media?
And what can we do with SEO?
I know a lot of people think, SEO is dead,but not really.
SEO, what I found, especially as aninnovator, is the best way to figure out
(02:18):
the language of your customers and youraudience.
There's pains, needs, and outcomes, evenif you don't do SEO.
But so that's on the tech side.
There's this other side though, this otherside of scaling to the world.
There's tools that we have.
So for example, there's a massivetransformative purpose.
So for example, Nike, you know, just doit.
Everybody fights their demons every day,but you get on board with Nike's bigger
(02:42):
mission.
Microsoft empower every person in businessto achieve more.
Again, you know, it's, it's bigger thanyou.
When you have something bigger than you,it's easier to get on board.
But there's also these ideas of like,
simple, sticky slogans, the things thatstick in your mind.
And if you can create those idea virusesas the one person and then share and scale
(03:02):
with the technology, you're on fuego.
So I think now is one of the greatesttimes ever to be able to change the world
as one person.
And even though I say one person, itdoesn't mean you're just one person.
You have your friends, your partners, yournetwork, your family, you have your
everybody, but it means that you don'thave to go and be part of a giant business
to go change the world.
(03:22):
I think that's the key.
Yeah, we had a guest on the show a littlewhile ago, Elaine Pofeld, who wrote the
million dollar one person business.
And I interviewed her, actually, and Ispoke to her recently, we were doing an
event for the New York Public Librarytogether.
And she said, if she was to changeanything about the book, she said, maybe
the one million is too small, because youhave people, especially with technology
(03:43):
now, that are doing and you see, you lookat a number of companies now, I think of
especially in the AI space who have veryfew actual employees.
but they are billing multi -billion dollarbusinesses.
So maybe the one person billion dollarbusiness is closer than we think just now
as well.
Yeah.
(04:04):
So you're obviously passionate aboutproductivity, you're passionate about
innovation as well.
I thought where we'd go first is, becausewe've had a number of guests on the show
recently who have talked about thechallenge in being able to do the main...
of what that business is about, whetherit's a legal business or it's a technology
(04:25):
business or whatever the business is.
And then at the same time, innovating intheir industry, innovating in their
businesses as well.
How do you, you know, those are two wildhorses.
How do you deal with those horses?
Okay, so great question.
It starts, believe it or not, it actuallystarts with your mental model.
(04:46):
I asked an anthropologist long ago, Isaid, what are the best business leaders
do that other business leaders don't?
And the surprise was she said, they sharetheir mental model.
I was like, for real?
Like, is that really it?
And it actually was, because when youdon't share your model as a leader, and
you have tens of thousands of peoplereporting to you,
(05:06):
People guess and they make things up andthey try to figure out how to do
innovation.
So they end up either doing innovationdespite the organization rarely with the
organization, because they don't know whatit's supposed to be.
So with that in mind, I kept going backthrough all my experiences, like where did
people get stuck?
Like why did I call it the innovator getsfired?
I call it innovation gets a fired side-liner pushed out.
(05:27):
And it's because they don't have a spacein their mind where innovation goes.
So recently I shared the model, but I callit two track transformation.
And the idea is to have a simpler, bettermetaphor for to do innovation in parallel.
But here's how it works.
You have your current business, which isyour current business model.
It's your current customers.
(05:48):
It's your current talent.
It's your current products and offers, andit's your current KPIs.
You know that track, but I'm, I'm lettingleaders know like, look, that is your
sustaining innovation track.
That is your 10 % growth.
Yes.
Take care of it.
Good.
However, in parallel.
This is where we need to work future back.
This is how we avoid getting disrupted.
(06:08):
This is how we disrupt ourselves.
This is your future business model.
This is that second track.
This is your disruptive innovation,possibly 70 % growth cumulative over time.
This is your different set of talent,because it's a different type of talent to
actually focus on these kinds of things.
But the reality is, is you're steppinginto the future.
(06:29):
And this is where it's
A lot of people get lost because they stepin the future.
They have no empathy for it.
It's like a stranger.
You're stepping into the future and you'rebreaking it down into small business
experiments to check value today.
You validate value today.
So what you're really doing is you're notsuddenly wildly changing your business.
What you're doing is you're setting upthese two tracks and running them well.
(06:52):
Because if you don't do it like this, whathappens is you use your current KPIs
against the second track and you breakeverything.
You don't make space for innovation.
But with this, this two track mindset,with this two track mental model, you have
space for both and you can do both well,especially when you recognize that, that
first track that's yeah, we're doinginnovation.
Yes.
(07:12):
You're doing sustaining innovation, 10 %growth.
Great.
Do you want a piece of that 70 % growth?
And do you want to have a chance to beable to survive in the future?
And do you want to make sure that you'renot the one disrupted or that you disrupt
yourself?
Yes.
Okay.
So that model, it's easy for me towhiteboard it.
It lands well with people.
People follow it very easily and it.
Usually it can easily get people out ofthe muck and the mess that they've been in
(07:35):
going by all these other different, youknow, models of innovation and trying to
do even something as simple as like aninnovation portfolio.
As soon as you have those two tracks inyour mind, now you know which KPI is to
focus on.
Now you know why they're different.
It's intentional.
And that basically makes space for thereal, cause usually when people are
thinking about innovation, they'rethinking about the disruptive stuff.
(07:56):
they're already doing sustaining, theydon't realize that they're innovating in
their processes and their products.
They're doing that 10 % optimization, butthe disruptive innovation is really where
the big action is, especially in today'sworld where change is so fast.
And the other thing I told people do whenyou're working backwards from that future
to make it real, make your mock pressreleases, make your one page write -ups of
(08:20):
those future scenarios that you want tobring to reality.
That
lets everybody feel the future.
When you can feel the future and start tocreate empathy, now you get more
stakeholders and sponsorship in the game.
And then that's a good thing.
But if we don't, if we do not make spacefor this in the minds of the leaders, then
there will be a lot of sabotage.
(08:41):
Maybe not even on purpose, but it happens.
But when you are very deliberate aboutcarving out that space, you could protect
and support it.
Otherwise the current business.
is going to eat it up, is going to fightfor the resources, is going to fight for
the money, and it's going to defeat itwith the current KPIs.
Does that make sense?
building almost like your competitor, yourcategory killer, alongside you're building
(09:05):
the existing business as well.
I love the idea of creating those mock -upkind of press releases.
I've heard authors do that before wherethey've actually written up the reviews of
their book before they've written the bookto give them a sense, what value do I want
to have this book?
What kind of impact do I want this book tocreate?
So you're doing that.
So that's really kind of talking about, Iguess, imagination.
(09:26):
and having a depth of imagination.
I'm a big critic at the moment for, I seeloads of great stuff on Netflix and Apple
and all these great TV shows just now.
But it feels at the moment when we talkabout the future, a lot of the future that
we see on TV and in movies is like a post-apocalyptic future.
(09:48):
TV shows like Fallout, which are great,which are really fun and everything.
But it doesn't feel like we have so muchof that painting that picture of...
a more optimistic future, what that couldbe and how technology can actually help us
get there.
Yeah.
Yep.
I agree.
And I think we have a deficit when itcomes to the visionary leaders that can
share that vision.
That was actually the instigator of thebillion dollar solarpreneur.
(10:11):
I realized that people weren't able toshare the big visions.
I'm like, you know, where's the Disney's?
Where's the Andrew Carnegie's?
Where's the captains of the industry?
And I was lucky to be surrounded by a lotof great people that were very good at
articulating a future state.
Like you could step into the future andthey could connect the dots and they could
light up these beautiful scenes of thefuture.
And it got people excited and inspired.
(10:32):
And what I realized was, a lot of peopledon't think about the future as this space
of creativity and opportunity.
They just project more of the past.
So their past drives their present.
And their present is driving the future,but all driven from the past.
When you step out of that and you stepinto the future for real, but to do this,
(10:55):
there's also, I found that there's anothergap.
So.
There's a skill strategic foresight.
It's actually more popular in Europe thanit is in the U S that kind of surprised
me.
But with strategic foresight, you'relearning about trends, you're building
vocabulary around the trends.
So you have all of these little buildingblocks.
So, I have a couple of frameworks that Iuse, but you know, one of my patterns is I
(11:17):
call it the CEO pattern, customers,employees, and operations.
You know, how do you transform thecustomers, the employees, the operations
makes the people to realize where to focustheir effort.
But then the other thing I do.
Is then I would pull in, well, how doesmixed reality or augmented reality change
the scenario?
How does AI change our customerexperience?
How does, and when you step into it thatway, now you're using these building
(11:40):
blocks for innovation to create thesescenes of the future.
You become the choreographer, you becomethe director of the future.
And if you decide deliberately that you'regoing to work backwards from, you're not
going to accept bad scenarios in thefuture.
You're going to create great scenarios inthe future.
you're not going to try to predict thefuture.
You're actually going to create and shapeit.
When you come from that place, you have alot of, it gives you a lot of empowerment.
(12:02):
And especially if you stay on top of thetrends, enough to know which ones to pay
attention to enough to know which ones toignore.
And when I do that, I like to take a, a 10year view.
So if I look 10 years back, 10 years backwas utility computing, your cloud
companies, your Amazon, your Microsoft,your Google's 10 years forward.
(12:24):
And the big mega pattern is ESG,environment, social and governance, or I
think of it as good for people.
I call it good for people, good for theplanet.
You know, think about it like that.
Every business then has to reimagineitself, has to figure out how to be good
for people, good for the planet.
That means that you can actually go backto the basics of your business.
(12:44):
And I like to use a business strategypyramid.
You can think of it like this at the topis your bold ambition.
In the middle is your business model.
And in the bottom.
is your operating model.
The problem is too many people think, I'mtransforming.
And they're focused on cloudifying ortransforming or digitizing the operating
model.
And what they're ignoring is that ambitionpart to start with the ambition.
(13:08):
So if you were backwards from boldambitions, it changes the strategies you
choose.
It changes the opportunities that youcreate.
So you're right.
There's a lot of a lack of imagination forthe future because it's focused on just
doing more of the past.
And it tends to be pretty pessimistic.
We had on Professor Sir David Ormond onthe show and we'll put a link here as well
(13:31):
to that.
And we were talking about, so he is theformer, basically he was the person that
advised the prime ministers in the UK onthe various security services.
So in the UK we have MI5, MI6, GCHQ, inthe US you have CIA, NSA, similar kind of
roles.
And he was talking, what you justmentioned about the strategic foresight in
his book, he calls it strategic notice.
(13:53):
Hmm.
you know, part of the role that you'retrying to do as an intelligence analyst is
the kind of work he would probably talkabout is taking that 10 year view that you
spoke about.
And he said, that does require bothcritical thinking and creative thinking,
like the imagination and like, well, whatis the probabilities?
And now we get into the mathematics of it.
(14:14):
What do we believe is the probability?
And when we look at risk, obviously justtoday, today, we see...
certain risks that we're seeing like nowit's on CNN, it's on Fox and those
channels, but the environmental, the E ofthe ESG piece, feels a little bit further
away.
So we kind of push it out a little bitfurther and we don't kind of bring it in a
little bit.
(14:34):
So you've spoken about vision, we'vespoken about the big picture stuff and
promoting that vision and helping peopleunderstand that mental models with the
Charlie Munger, like the kind of mentalmodels.
What about when it comes to the rubberhits the road, the productivity?
You've worked with these leaders atMicrosoft and you've really helped these
leaders on their productivity, both as aleader individually and as a team.
(14:58):
Where do we get to on that?
What are some of the key things that younotice on those people and the teams that
are really great at productivity?
Yep, so it's definitely a mind shiftbecause usually what happens is people
start to care about it when they're inpain.
They get a bad review in terms of theirhealth score, their org score, their
whatever score.
Then now they start to care about it.
(15:20):
And because I moved in so many differentorgs in Microsoft, I had to learn how to
change the culture fast.
And I learned that I could change itthrough questions because smart people
like to answer questions.
And so one of the questions I would ask, Iwould...
You know, so we'd say, yeah, thatproductivity stuff.
Why should we do this?
I said, well, you spent a lot of time lastmonth, right?
You did, you spent a lot of energy.
(15:41):
You probably did more than 40 hour workweeks, right?
Everybody on the team did a lot of work,right?
What were the three wins?
I asked them for the three wins.
And usually first I see a deer inheadlights.
Then I see them start to rattle off likemeetings they went to and activities and
all this stuff, but it doesn't accrue toanything.
And I go, you know, we can completelychange the game.
(16:01):
by telling three stories of victories.
We should be able to tell three stories ofvictories a day, three stories of
victories for the week, three stories ofvictory for the month, three stories of
victory for the quarter, three stories ofvictory for the year.
And when I put it out like that, theysaid, well, we're doing OKRs.
I'm like, OK, show me your OKRs.
And usually, it's something abstract anddisconnected that they don't really have
(16:24):
empathy for.
And I go, look, if you're trying to tellyour manager that that was your impact,
Would that feel like a wow moment?
Is that a press release?
Where are the wows?
And so I actually combine some of thepractices I have in Azure results, where
some of the practices that people do looklike the OKRs, but thinking of three wins,
it's the simplest, easiest way to start todrive better outcomes because you're
(16:47):
working backwards now.
Otherwise you fall into the trap of, and Ifell into this trap too, where you hope
that your process takes care of you.
You hope that by doing the right thingseach day, it'll lead to these awesome
things.
But if you never put a line in the sand,if you'd never sketched out that model of
the future, if you never thought aboutwhat that future scene of victory looked
like, you're not going to look your waythere.
(17:08):
Kind of like, you know, you're not goingto wander your way up the mountain, right?
You're not going to wake up one day andI'm on the top of Mount Everest like a
zigzag.
So the idea here is that you're workingbackwards.
At the same time, I'm a big fan that youdo need to work your way forwards.
And so the way I do it is I have thebackbone of my book, I call it...
Monday Vision, Daily Wins, FridayReflection.
(17:31):
So on Monday, you step into your Fridayand you look back on your week.
What do you want those three victories tobe?
So that's your Monday Vision.
Now imagine that you're looking forward togoing through your week because you have
three victories to pull you through.
And it sounds simple, but now what you'vedone by identifying these three victories
is you've prioritized.
(17:51):
You've chosen what you're going to do,what you're not going to focus on.
You've also created a way.
to channel your energy.
So now you're going to find yourmotivation.
It's meaningful.
You can connect it to your values.
Don't call back a customer when a ravingfan.
Don't go do a project, lead an epicadventure.
Don't go do a task.
Turn your chores into chances to practiceand master what your strengths and your
(18:16):
special abilities are all about.
So that's really the key.
That's the Monday Vision on the DailyWinds through Winds for Today.
So when you wake up, you're going to havea day.
You're going to spend a bunch of time.
What are the three wins for today?
You can do your, have your existing to -dolist.
It might be a laundry list, actually a lotof stuff, but just put the three wins at
the top that you hope that you canachieve.
So you can direct your energy andattention and you'll get better at it.
(18:38):
You will get better at that.
And then Friday reflection.
This is where personal development meetsyour productivity.
This is where self awareness comes tolife.
You actually reflect on what were my threewins for this week?
You know, what are three things goingwell, three things to improve.
And it's that improvement piece that meansthat you're going to get, but this is your
(18:58):
chance to be honest with you and go, didyou bite off more than you could actually
chew?
Did you get randomized?
Like if you completed things that hadnothing to do with your goals, did you get
randomized or are you not good at learningin your system?
Are you not good at understanding andpredicting what's going to be expected of
you in the week?
So you get better at that.
And the surprise, this is, this to me isthe biggest surprise is that, by
(19:21):
practicing Friday reflection.
You know, I started by putting anappointment on my calendar for 20 minutes
on Friday.
I made space for it.
I got so good at my basic productivity,like extreme, that I started to take on
much bigger goals.
And, one of the things that I started todo was I just started to add checkpoint
(19:41):
questions about ways that I want toimprove myself at the identity level.
And I had read the book leadershipchallenge and in it.
One of the questions is around, you know,seeing around corners.
How will DC around the corners?
So I had this one little question in myFriday reflection.
So each week I was just asking myself,yeah, how am I getting surprised?
Am I seeing around the corners?
(20:02):
Am I predicting what's going to happen?
That alone improved me to the point whereI actually think if I trace it back, that
led to me becoming an innovator that ledto me becoming a futurist.
That was the basic skills that helped mebecome the head coach for Satya's
innovation team.
So it surprised me in a lot of ways.
But those are the basics.
If you can do a day well, you can do aweek well.
(20:25):
If you could do a week well, it compounds.
But you want to be working backwards fromyour big dreams, your ambitions, your
future scenarios, your future state, andusing that to drive why do you do what you
do today?
and then the.
so please carry on.
I was going to say this.
There's one more frame that really helpedme a lot, like the light bulb went off.
(20:46):
It was super productivity, as when you'reworking on the right things at the right
time, the right way.
When you unpack that and you start to divein, am I using my strengths?
Am I driving from vision?
Am I spending more time in my values so Ican renew my energy?
(21:06):
You're on fire.
thinking as you were talking about thisand kind of bringing some of these ideas
together, there was Marshall Goldsmith,the leadership coach for a lot of various
executives.
He has someone who calls him every day, Ithink at the same time, to basically ask
him a series of questions.
That's their only job.
(21:27):
And it's an accountability, it's a way ofkeeping him on track in terms of what he's
doing.
Now, that's wonderful, but not everyonecan...
You can afford to have someone that that'stheir job.
So I was thinking obviously now with AI,not everyone can afford windy roads from
billions on their team that's asking thosequestions and making them think slightly
(21:50):
differently about things, but everyone canpretty much afford an AI to be asking
questions, asking better questions everytime and asking questions that kind of
nudge us out of our usual way of doingthings.
Big time.
And so first and foremost, I would saystructure your week.
(22:11):
So for example, I have three recurringappointments on my calendar that ask me
the question.
So like my Monday vision, when it pops up,it asks me, what are your three wins for
this week?
And then each day it pops up, what areyour three wins for today?
And then Friday reflection, it pops up.
So I made the space and the time for it.
And then to use AI to take you to the nextlevel.
(22:33):
You can actually pair up with AI.
I think if it is pairing, you know,pairing up, you can pair up with AI to
figure out a good personal, actually agreat, a great personal development plan
for the month.
I think that when you do it at the monthlevel, you get a different balcony view.
And in that balcony view, you can askhigher order questions.
(22:54):
Cause if you get too mired in the day today, I think, and if you ask yourself too
many questions in the day to day,
It's kind of hard to see the forest forthe trees, but I think when you do it at
these timeframes, like, okay, what's the,what's the mindset of motivational
questions for today that keep me growingand showing up strong.
Like for example, one that I neverexpected to have is how do I want to
(23:17):
change the world today?
But there's a little story there.
Like, I kept for some reason it's likedeep in me.
I think it's because one of my earlymanagers at Microsoft, every time he came
by the office or in the break room.
He would say, did you change the worldtoday?
Like every day.
And I'd be like, yeah, we changed it, buteverybody wants us to change it back.
And so, you know, it's, it's strong in me.
(23:38):
And one of my early books, you know, wentto like 800 ,000 people in six months.
So when, when would you do that?
You get used to changing the world.
And so one day I found myself asking thequestion, how do you want to change the
world?
And I thought, you know, everybody'sstressed.
They're worried about the future.
They're worried about today.
They're,
overwhelmed, they're overloaded andthey're in fear mode.
(24:00):
I was like, that sucks.
It's like, what's the best thing I cangive people that would help them to start
their day.
So I ended up creating a, so that night Iwas like, okay, how do I change the world
today?
I want to change how the world wakes up.
So that night I put together like 40slides.
I created a framework on the fly.
I created 40 slides.
I called it wake up great.
I haven't written.
I don't think I've even written about ityet, but it's a, it's wake up great.
(24:23):
And it's, I've been teaching it todifferent companies, but it's a G is
gratitude.
If you feel grateful, you can't feel fear.
So when you actually do gratitude, right,and you're in that grateful mode, you can
feel fear.
So I thought, wow, what a great way forpeople to start, you know, gratitude.
R is reflection.
Reflect on your future self.
People go, okay, reflection, but theydon't know what to reflect on.
(24:45):
Reflect on your future self.
Last week or even yesterday or even today,are you being that person that you want to
be for the future?
So R is reflection.
E is of course, exercise, but people, Idon't have time and I don't know what to
do.
And so I put together a small set ofthings that people really can do, like
Bruce Lee's three minute workout.
When he broke his back, he had to figureout how do I work out my full body?
(25:07):
Well, he's got a three minute workout.
So when you learn these kinds of things,you, you open up these possibilities.
So then there's a affirmation, but mostpeople do affirmations wrong.
What do they do?
They have a bunch of affirmation.
I am smart.
I am happy.
I'm great.
I'm strong.
Choose one.
You choose one.
You picture it in your mind so yoursubconscious can see it.
So you know what you actually mean andyou're congruent.
(25:29):
Otherwise, if you say like an apple, redapple, green apple, Steve jobs, you know
what?
So you picture it, but you have to feelit.
So my affirmation, for example, for today,I am strong.
When I say that, what do I look like whenI'm strong?
What do I feel like when I'm strong laterin the day, when I don't feel strong, I
remember in the morning.
So you say it, you feel it because you'rerewiring your nervous system.
(25:50):
You're changing your nervous system.
That's where this gets real.
So G -R -E -A and then T.
It was funny when I was making theframework that night, I was like, what's
T?
Three wins, you know, from my book.
It was like, it was perfect.
I was like, picture three scenes in yourday, morning, noon and night, your three
victory scenes.
So you can have a compelling day thatyou've just envisioned on the fly in the
morning, in your strength place, in aplace of gratitude and greatness where you
(26:14):
can be as strong as you could possibly be.
And so, you know, that was like, you know,quick little framework, but it helps, it
changes lives.
how the world works, I often think aboutwhen I go into the shower in the morning,
I call the shower my ideas machine.
Because different people have their ideasat different days and at times of day.
For me in the morning, I actually ended uphaving longer showers because all these
(26:37):
ideas start coming to me.
Obviously, you've been ingesting themovernight.
You've been kind of thinking through themovernight.
For yourself, where do you go, where donew ideas generally come from for you?
Where do you go to just...
Maybe take a step back from your day today to kind of reflect, to really think at
that kind of higher level.
Yep.
So where do the ideas come from?
(26:58):
God, they come from so many places, but ofcourse, like you, the shower.
So this morning I had a thought aboutthought maps or thought structures or
thought scaffolding.
I thought about a lot of times people giveyou a thought to think, but they don't
break it down.
And I had a parallel thought around, andprogram management work, breakdown
structures.
I thought about what if we actually sharedthese thought challenge and responses for
(27:21):
specific challenges that we have.
because people do have these thoughtpatterns.
There's success patterns and there's anti-patterns.
But too often, I think we hit the tip ofthe iceberg, but we don't drill in.
And I bet that if we start to shareexamples of thought maps, like what should
be my thought structure when I feel likenervous or anxious about presenting?
What does that look like?
Break it down, but like little example ofthought structures.
(27:43):
So showers is a place, of course, beforebed is of course another perfect time.
So I keep my handy little sticky pad, myyellow sticky pad and pen.
It's been my greatest advantage.
And I also use a practice I call ImagineIf.
Imagine If is how I channel myimagination, but in any situation that I'm
in, I imagine how it could be better.
And so it gives me a lot of flexibilityaround choreographing the future of like a
(28:08):
restaurant or even in the movie theater,you know, traffic, you know, how would I
redesign this?
So playing with Imagine If and justplaying out future possible scenarios
completely changes the game.
A quick example is...
You go to the grocery store and this isbefore we have all the things that we have
now.
But I remember I was supposed to design,you know, the future of, grocery stores
(28:29):
for big company.
And I thought, man, when I drove upparking sucked.
What if I could just drive to the curb andthe groceries come to me?
And then another scenario was like, wow, Ican't find anything in the store.
What if I could hold up my phone and likeeither play, find the vegetable or I could
find the gluten free, whatever, you know,whatever I need to go look for.
And, you know, as I'm going to fill thesescenarios, I was like, well, what if.
(28:49):
groceries came to me.
This was before they did.
What if the groceries came to me?
And to scare the leaders into the future,I gave them a competitive idea.
I said, look, your house is the futurestore.
If you don't fill the shelves, then Amazonwill.
And so it's those little ideas, but theycome from everywhere.
But what made that even possible was Iread a book called Thinker Toys.
(29:14):
And in it, Thomas Edison shared his ideaquotas.
And so that was
That first week, I took my little yellowsticky pad and I wrote one idea per note.
By the end of the week, I had 10 notes.
And I thought, wow, my God.
But it wasn't that.
It was that as soon as I put the ideasdown, and these were good ideas, these are
10 good ideas, when I put it down, my headwas empty from those.
(29:36):
I didn't realize how much those werebouncing around.
Once my head was empty from those, ideaswouldn't stop coming.
So the next week, I filled two of thenotepads.
By the third week, it was getting silly.
It was just absolutely ridiculous.
So I think a lot of people don't realizeif you keep your ideas floating around in
your head, see what happens when you putthem somewhere.
Have an idea catcher, a thought catcher,an idea portfolio, an idea catalog, put
(29:58):
them somewhere.
And then you'll be amazed at how muchspace and room you have for ideas to come
your way.
And practice that imagine if habit.
It's a habit you can practice and sharewith your friends.
And while we're talking about capturingideas, is there a tool that you use or an
app, some way that you find it very easy,because you're getting all these ideas all
the time, how do you ensure that you cancapture them so you can then go through
(30:19):
them at a later date?
Yeah, I know it sounds old school, but Iuse Evernote and I have more than 30 ,000
notes and the it I've been on a quest forprobably, I guess, a couple of decades.
I've been actually on a quest to find theworld's best insight and action.
So I have principles, patterns, insightsfor mind, body, emotions, career, finance,
relationships, fun.
(30:39):
And so I have not just a big, deep libraryof profound knowledge, but then I have my
catalog of my ideas where I have, I do twothings.
Actually, I have a.
a notebook for my best ideas where Icapture those in different domains.
And then I have a daily insights whereit's just, it's, it's a running note.
I put today's date and any like littleidea that pops up, I put it in my journal.
(31:02):
So basically the daily journaling combinedwith my catalog, my portfolio of my best
ideas.
Yeah, I love I've been like you, I'm along time Evernote user.
My only complaint, if anyone from Evernoteis listening just now, please speed up the
mobile app, because it's by the time youhave the app from the idea to capturing
it, those six seconds or 10 seconds ittakes to open the app and put it in can be
(31:24):
really frustrating.
Very, very simple thing there.
What about if you were to recommend onebook?
to our listeners.
You mentioned one that's Thinker Toys,which I'm going to definitely check out
that one.
If you would recommend one other book toour listeners, not one of your own, but
kind of links to your own, what would thatbook be?
It would be Unlimited Power by TonyRobbins.
That's my secret of how I read faster.
But Unlimited Power is probably thedeepest book that I've ever read that goes
(31:47):
into the inner engineering.
And what I've learned in life is that allthings are created twice, first in the
mind, then in the world.
I think of it as inner world, outerresults.
But that book is probably the deepest thatI know for modeling, learning, sharing,
and scaling expertise of other experts.
It's a way to distill it because it's theinner engineering.
You watch somebody shoot pool, you watchwhat they did with the cue.
(32:09):
You don't go through the thought processof wait, their neurology.
What was their breathing?
Where was their focus?
Did they look at the, you know, the hole?
Did they look past it?
Did they focus on the cue ball?
So that is probably the greatest book forprofound performance, I would say.
a huge, like you, massive, I think I'veread that, I don't know how many times
I've read that book.
(32:29):
I read it when I was probably 13 yearsold, changed my life.
I think it was, there was a line in thatyou mentioned in questions.
I think you said, Tony said somethingalong like the quality of life is the
quality of the questions that you ask.
And it's just that constant, wonderfulbook, absolute classic.
Let's, as we finish up now, what is thebest way for people to connect with you
JD, to learn more about your books, yourwriting, your other things you've got
(32:52):
going on just now?
Where should they go?
Probably the best starting point isJDMeier .com.
So JDMeier .com.
Yeah, that's the best bait.
Well, JD, thank you so much for being aguest on the show today.
After listening to you, I'm gonna go andpick up my old battered copy of Unlimited
Power and reread it again as well.
(33:13):
Thank you so much for being a guest on theSuper Creativity Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Awesome times.
Take care.
Meyer is a high performance and innovationcoach who has 25 years of experience
changing the world at Microsoft.
JD was the former head coach at SatyaNadella's innovation team at Microsoft and
is also the author of the bestsellingbook, Getting Results the Agile Way.
His why is to advance human potential andto help people realize their potential in
(00:28):
work and life, while his specialty is toprovide program practices combined with
information models to advance the space.
People at Microsoft know JD forinnovation, productivity, and changing the
world because he always took on bigchallenges and moved the ball forward.
JD, welcome to the Super CreativityPodcast.
(00:48):
Wow, that was a great intro.
Thank you.
So share with us what's going on in yourworld just now.
What currently has your focus?
Okay.
So that's a great question.
AI is definitely top of mind andspecifically, I'm, I'm all about trying to
use it to advance high performance.
I think there's a lot of tricks and hacksthat people haven't thought about yet
(01:10):
specifically about enhancing your senses.
And, the other big thing is really, I'mtrying to change how the world innovates.
I know that might sound audacious, butwhen I wake up in the morning, I actually
ask myself how to want to change the worldtoday.
It actually guides a lot of what I do.
And with innovation, I think there's anincredible, easy way to change how we
(01:32):
innovate at the individual level, the teamlevel and the org level.
So that's got my focus.
The other big thing I would say is, I callit billion dollar solopreneur.
I call it billion dollar solopreneur, notbecause you're going to make a billion
dollars.
You might, but it's about impacting andinfluencing a billion minds.
I think that we're in a perfect time andage where the one person business.
(01:55):
can actually share and scale theirexpertise with the world.
And so I've been diving into that, lookingat it from two perspectives on the, let's
say the left -hand side.
The left -hand side is the tech arena.
So what can we do with AI, of course?
What can we do with social media?
And what can we do with SEO?
I know a lot of people think, SEO is dead,but not really.
SEO, what I found, especially as aninnovator, is the best way to figure out
(02:18):
the language of your customers and youraudience.
There's pains, needs, and outcomes, evenif you don't do SEO.
But so that's on the tech side.
There's this other side though, this otherside of scaling to the world.
There's tools that we have.
So for example, there's a massivetransformative purpose.
So for example, Nike, you know, just doit.
Everybody fights their demons every day,but you get on board with Nike's bigger
(02:42):
mission.
Microsoft empower every person in businessto achieve more.
Again, you know, it's, it's bigger thanyou.
When you have something bigger than you,it's easier to get on board.
But there's also these ideas of like,
simple, sticky slogans, the things thatstick in your mind.
And if you can create those idea virusesas the one person and then share and scale
(03:02):
with the technology, you're on fuego.
So I think now is one of the greatesttimes ever to be able to change the world
as one person.
And even though I say one person, itdoesn't mean you're just one person.
You have your friends, your partners, yournetwork, your family, you have your
everybody, but it means that you don'thave to go and be part of a giant business
to go change the world.
(03:22):
I think that's the key.
Yeah, we had a guest on the show a littlewhile ago, Elaine Pofeld, who wrote the
million dollar one person business.
And I interviewed her, actually, and Ispoke to her recently, we were doing an
event for the New York Public Librarytogether.
And she said, if she was to changeanything about the book, she said, maybe
the one million is too small, because youhave people, especially with technology
(03:43):
now, that are doing and you see, you lookat a number of companies now, I think of
especially in the AI space who have veryfew actual employees.
but they are billing multi -billion dollarbusinesses.
So maybe the one person billion dollarbusiness is closer than we think just now
as well.
Yeah.
(04:04):
So you're obviously passionate aboutproductivity, you're passionate about
innovation as well.
I thought where we'd go first is, becausewe've had a number of guests on the show
recently who have talked about thechallenge in being able to do the main...
of what that business is about, whetherit's a legal business or it's a technology
(04:25):
business or whatever the business is.
And then at the same time, innovating intheir industry, innovating in their
businesses as well.
How do you, you know, those are two wildhorses.
How do you deal with those horses?
Okay, so great question.
It starts, believe it or not, it actuallystarts with your mental model.
(04:46):
I asked an anthropologist long ago, Isaid, what are the best business leaders
do that other business leaders don't?
And the surprise was she said, they sharetheir mental model.
I was like, for real?
Like, is that really it?
And it actually was, because when youdon't share your model as a leader, and
you have tens of thousands of peoplereporting to you,
(05:06):
People guess and they make things up andthey try to figure out how to do
innovation.
So they end up either doing innovationdespite the organization rarely with the
organization, because they don't know whatit's supposed to be.
So with that in mind, I kept going backthrough all my experiences, like where did
people get stuck?
Like why did I call it the innovator getsfired?
I call it innovation gets a fired side-liner pushed out.
(05:27):
And it's because they don't have a spacein their mind where innovation goes.
So recently I shared the model, but I callit two track transformation.
And the idea is to have a simpler, bettermetaphor for to do innovation in parallel.
But here's how it works.
You have your current business, which isyour current business model.
It's your current customers.
(05:48):
It's your current talent.
It's your current products and offers, andit's your current KPIs.
You know that track, but I'm, I'm lettingleaders know like, look, that is your
sustaining innovation track.
That is your 10 % growth.
Yes.
Take care of it.
Good.
However, in parallel.
This is where we need to work future back.
This is how we avoid getting disrupted.
(06:08):
This is how we disrupt ourselves.
This is your future business model.
This is that second track.
This is your disruptive innovation,possibly 70 % growth cumulative over time.
This is your different set of talent,because it's a different type of talent to
actually focus on these kinds of things.
But the reality is, is you're steppinginto the future.
(06:29):
And this is where it's
A lot of people get lost because they stepin the future.
They have no empathy for it.
It's like a stranger.
You're stepping into the future and you'rebreaking it down into small business
experiments to check value today.
You validate value today.
So what you're really doing is you're notsuddenly wildly changing your business.
What you're doing is you're setting upthese two tracks and running them well.
(06:52):
Because if you don't do it like this, whathappens is you use your current KPIs
against the second track and you breakeverything.
You don't make space for innovation.
But with this, this two track mindset,with this two track mental model, you have
space for both and you can do both well,especially when you recognize that, that
first track that's yeah, we're doinginnovation.
Yes.
(07:12):
You're doing sustaining innovation, 10 %growth.
Great.
Do you want a piece of that 70 % growth?
And do you want to have a chance to beable to survive in the future?
And do you want to make sure that you'renot the one disrupted or that you disrupt
yourself?
Yes.
Okay.
So that model, it's easy for me towhiteboard it.
It lands well with people.
People follow it very easily and it.
Usually it can easily get people out ofthe muck and the mess that they've been in
(07:35):
going by all these other different, youknow, models of innovation and trying to
do even something as simple as like aninnovation portfolio.
As soon as you have those two tracks inyour mind, now you know which KPI is to
focus on.
Now you know why they're different.
It's intentional.
And that basically makes space for thereal, cause usually when people are
thinking about innovation, they'rethinking about the disruptive stuff.
(07:56):
they're already doing sustaining, theydon't realize that they're innovating in
their processes and their products.
They're doing that 10 % optimization, butthe disruptive innovation is really where
the big action is, especially in today'sworld where change is so fast.
And the other thing I told people do whenyou're working backwards from that future
to make it real, make your mock pressreleases, make your one page write -ups of
(08:20):
those future scenarios that you want tobring to reality.
That
lets everybody feel the future.
When you can feel the future and start tocreate empathy, now you get more
stakeholders and sponsorship in the game.
And then that's a good thing.
But if we don't, if we do not make spacefor this in the minds of the leaders, then
there will be a lot of sabotage.
(08:41):
Maybe not even on purpose, but it happens.
But when you are very deliberate aboutcarving out that space, you could protect
and support it.
Otherwise the current business.
is going to eat it up, is going to fightfor the resources, is going to fight for
the money, and it's going to defeat itwith the current KPIs.
Does that make sense?
building almost like your competitor, yourcategory killer, alongside you're building
(09:05):
the existing business as well.
I love the idea of creating those mock -upkind of press releases.
I've heard authors do that before wherethey've actually written up the reviews of
their book before they've written the bookto give them a sense, what value do I want
to have this book?
What kind of impact do I want this book tocreate?
So you're doing that.
So that's really kind of talking about, Iguess, imagination.
(09:26):
and having a depth of imagination.
I'm a big critic at the moment for, I seeloads of great stuff on Netflix and Apple
and all these great TV shows just now.
But it feels at the moment when we talkabout the future, a lot of the future that
we see on TV and in movies is like a post-apocalyptic future.
(09:48):
TV shows like Fallout, which are great,which are really fun and everything.
But it doesn't feel like we have so muchof that painting that picture of...
a more optimistic future, what that couldbe and how technology can actually help us
get there.
Yeah.
Yep.
I agree.
And I think we have a deficit when itcomes to the visionary leaders that can
share that vision.
That was actually the instigator of thebillion dollar solarpreneur.
(10:11):
I realized that people weren't able toshare the big visions.
I'm like, you know, where's the Disney's?
Where's the Andrew Carnegie's?
Where's the captains of the industry?
And I was lucky to be surrounded by a lotof great people that were very good at
articulating a future state.
Like you could step into the future andthey could connect the dots and they could
light up these beautiful scenes of thefuture.
And it got people excited and inspired.
(10:32):
And what I realized was, a lot of peopledon't think about the future as this space
of creativity and opportunity.
They just project more of the past.
So their past drives their present.
And their present is driving the future,but all driven from the past.
When you step out of that and you stepinto the future for real, but to do this,
(10:55):
there's also, I found that there's anothergap.
So.
There's a skill strategic foresight.
It's actually more popular in Europe thanit is in the U S that kind of surprised
me.
But with strategic foresight, you'relearning about trends, you're building
vocabulary around the trends.
So you have all of these little buildingblocks.
So, I have a couple of frameworks that Iuse, but you know, one of my patterns is I
(11:17):
call it the CEO pattern, customers,employees, and operations.
You know, how do you transform thecustomers, the employees, the operations
makes the people to realize where to focustheir effort.
But then the other thing I do.
Is then I would pull in, well, how doesmixed reality or augmented reality change
the scenario?
How does AI change our customerexperience?
How does, and when you step into it thatway, now you're using these building
(11:40):
blocks for innovation to create thesescenes of the future.
You become the choreographer, you becomethe director of the future.
And if you decide deliberately that you'regoing to work backwards from, you're not
going to accept bad scenarios in thefuture.
You're going to create great scenarios inthe future.
you're not going to try to predict thefuture.
You're actually going to create and shapeit.
When you come from that place, you have alot of, it gives you a lot of empowerment.
(12:02):
And especially if you stay on top of thetrends, enough to know which ones to pay
attention to enough to know which ones toignore.
And when I do that, I like to take a, a 10year view.
So if I look 10 years back, 10 years backwas utility computing, your cloud
companies, your Amazon, your Microsoft,your Google's 10 years forward.
(12:24):
And the big mega pattern is ESG,environment, social and governance, or I
think of it as good for people.
I call it good for people, good for theplanet.
You know, think about it like that.
Every business then has to reimagineitself, has to figure out how to be good
for people, good for the planet.
That means that you can actually go backto the basics of your business.
(12:44):
And I like to use a business strategypyramid.
You can think of it like this at the topis your bold ambition.
In the middle is your business model.
And in the bottom.
is your operating model.
The problem is too many people think, I'mtransforming.
And they're focused on cloudifying ortransforming or digitizing the operating
model.
And what they're ignoring is that ambitionpart to start with the ambition.
(13:08):
So if you were backwards from boldambitions, it changes the strategies you
choose.
It changes the opportunities that youcreate.
So you're right.
There's a lot of a lack of imagination forthe future because it's focused on just
doing more of the past.
And it tends to be pretty pessimistic.
We had on Professor Sir David Ormond onthe show and we'll put a link here as well
(13:31):
to that.
And we were talking about, so he is theformer, basically he was the person that
advised the prime ministers in the UK onthe various security services.
So in the UK we have MI5, MI6, GCHQ, inthe US you have CIA, NSA, similar kind of
roles.
And he was talking, what you justmentioned about the strategic foresight in
his book, he calls it strategic notice.
(13:53):
Hmm.
you know, part of the role that you'retrying to do as an intelligence analyst is
the kind of work he would probably talkabout is taking that 10 year view that you
spoke about.
And he said, that does require bothcritical thinking and creative thinking,
like the imagination and like, well, whatis the probabilities?
And now we get into the mathematics of it.
(14:14):
What do we believe is the probability?
And when we look at risk, obviously justtoday, today, we see...
certain risks that we're seeing like nowit's on CNN, it's on Fox and those
channels, but the environmental, the E ofthe ESG piece, feels a little bit further
away.
So we kind of push it out a little bitfurther and we don't kind of bring it in a
little bit.
(14:34):
So you've spoken about vision, we'vespoken about the big picture stuff and
promoting that vision and helping peopleunderstand that mental models with the
Charlie Munger, like the kind of mentalmodels.
What about when it comes to the rubberhits the road, the productivity?
You've worked with these leaders atMicrosoft and you've really helped these
leaders on their productivity, both as aleader individually and as a team.
(14:58):
Where do we get to on that?
What are some of the key things that younotice on those people and the teams that
are really great at productivity?
Yep, so it's definitely a mind shiftbecause usually what happens is people
start to care about it when they're inpain.
They get a bad review in terms of theirhealth score, their org score, their
whatever score.
Then now they start to care about it.
(15:20):
And because I moved in so many differentorgs in Microsoft, I had to learn how to
change the culture fast.
And I learned that I could change itthrough questions because smart people
like to answer questions.
And so one of the questions I would ask, Iwould...
You know, so we'd say, yeah, thatproductivity stuff.
Why should we do this?
I said, well, you spent a lot of time lastmonth, right?
You did, you spent a lot of energy.
(15:41):
You probably did more than 40 hour workweeks, right?
Everybody on the team did a lot of work,right?
What were the three wins?
I asked them for the three wins.
And usually first I see a deer inheadlights.
Then I see them start to rattle off likemeetings they went to and activities and
all this stuff, but it doesn't accrue toanything.
And I go, you know, we can completelychange the game.
(16:01):
by telling three stories of victories.
We should be able to tell three stories ofvictories a day, three stories of
victories for the week, three stories ofvictory for the month, three stories of
victory for the quarter, three stories ofvictory for the year.
And when I put it out like that, theysaid, well, we're doing OKRs.
I'm like, OK, show me your OKRs.
And usually, it's something abstract anddisconnected that they don't really have
(16:24):
empathy for.
And I go, look, if you're trying to tellyour manager that that was your impact,
Would that feel like a wow moment?
Is that a press release?
Where are the wows?
And so I actually combine some of thepractices I have in Azure results, where
some of the practices that people do looklike the OKRs, but thinking of three wins,
it's the simplest, easiest way to start todrive better outcomes because you're
(16:47):
working backwards now.
Otherwise you fall into the trap of, and Ifell into this trap too, where you hope
that your process takes care of you.
You hope that by doing the right thingseach day, it'll lead to these awesome
things.
But if you never put a line in the sand,if you'd never sketched out that model of
the future, if you never thought aboutwhat that future scene of victory looked
like, you're not going to look your waythere.
(17:08):
Kind of like, you know, you're not goingto wander your way up the mountain, right?
You're not going to wake up one day andI'm on the top of Mount Everest like a
zigzag.
So the idea here is that you're workingbackwards.
At the same time, I'm a big fan that youdo need to work your way forwards.
And so the way I do it is I have thebackbone of my book, I call it...
Monday Vision, Daily Wins, FridayReflection.
(17:31):
So on Monday, you step into your Fridayand you look back on your week.
What do you want those three victories tobe?
So that's your Monday Vision.
Now imagine that you're looking forward togoing through your week because you have
three victories to pull you through.
And it sounds simple, but now what you'vedone by identifying these three victories
is you've prioritized.
(17:51):
You've chosen what you're going to do,what you're not going to focus on.
You've also created a way.
to channel your energy.
So now you're going to find yourmotivation.
It's meaningful.
You can connect it to your values.
Don't call back a customer when a ravingfan.
Don't go do a project, lead an epicadventure.
Don't go do a task.
Turn your chores into chances to practiceand master what your strengths and your
(18:16):
special abilities are all about.
So that's really the key.
That's the Monday Vision on the DailyWinds through Winds for Today.
So when you wake up, you're going to havea day.
You're going to spend a bunch of time.
What are the three wins for today?
You can do your, have your existing to -dolist.
It might be a laundry list, actually a lotof stuff, but just put the three wins at
the top that you hope that you canachieve.
So you can direct your energy andattention and you'll get better at it.
(18:38):
You will get better at that.
And then Friday reflection.
This is where personal development meetsyour productivity.
This is where self awareness comes tolife.
You actually reflect on what were my threewins for this week?
You know, what are three things goingwell, three things to improve.
And it's that improvement piece that meansthat you're going to get, but this is your
(18:58):
chance to be honest with you and go, didyou bite off more than you could actually
chew?
Did you get randomized?
Like if you completed things that hadnothing to do with your goals, did you get
randomized or are you not good at learningin your system?
Are you not good at understanding andpredicting what's going to be expected of
you in the week?
So you get better at that.
And the surprise, this is, this to me isthe biggest surprise is that, by
(19:21):
practicing Friday reflection.
You know, I started by putting anappointment on my calendar for 20 minutes
on Friday.
I made space for it.
I got so good at my basic productivity,like extreme, that I started to take on
much bigger goals.
And, one of the things that I started todo was I just started to add checkpoint
(19:41):
questions about ways that I want toimprove myself at the identity level.
And I had read the book leadershipchallenge and in it.
One of the questions is around, you know,seeing around corners.
How will DC around the corners?
So I had this one little question in myFriday reflection.
So each week I was just asking myself,yeah, how am I getting surprised?
Am I seeing around the corners?
(20:02):
Am I predicting what's going to happen?
That alone improved me to the point whereI actually think if I trace it back, that
led to me becoming an innovator that ledto me becoming a futurist.
That was the basic skills that helped mebecome the head coach for Satya's
innovation team.
So it surprised me in a lot of ways.
But those are the basics.
If you can do a day well, you can do aweek well.
(20:25):
If you could do a week well, it compounds.
But you want to be working backwards fromyour big dreams, your ambitions, your
future scenarios, your future state, andusing that to drive why do you do what you
do today?
and then the.
so please carry on.
I was going to say this.
There's one more frame that really helpedme a lot, like the light bulb went off.
(20:46):
It was super productivity, as when you'reworking on the right things at the right
time, the right way.
When you unpack that and you start to divein, am I using my strengths?
Am I driving from vision?
Am I spending more time in my values so Ican renew my energy?
(21:06):
You're on fire.
thinking as you were talking about thisand kind of bringing some of these ideas
together, there was Marshall Goldsmith,the leadership coach for a lot of various
executives.
He has someone who calls him every day, Ithink at the same time, to basically ask
him a series of questions.
That's their only job.
(21:27):
And it's an accountability, it's a way ofkeeping him on track in terms of what he's
doing.
Now, that's wonderful, but not everyonecan...
You can afford to have someone that that'stheir job.
So I was thinking obviously now with AI,not everyone can afford windy roads from
billions on their team that's asking thosequestions and making them think slightly
(21:50):
differently about things, but everyone canpretty much afford an AI to be asking
questions, asking better questions everytime and asking questions that kind of
nudge us out of our usual way of doingthings.
Big time.
And so first and foremost, I would saystructure your week.
(22:11):
So for example, I have three recurringappointments on my calendar that ask me
the question.
So like my Monday vision, when it pops up,it asks me, what are your three wins for
this week?
And then each day it pops up, what areyour three wins for today?
And then Friday reflection, it pops up.
So I made the space and the time for it.
And then to use AI to take you to the nextlevel.
(22:33):
You can actually pair up with AI.
I think if it is pairing, you know,pairing up, you can pair up with AI to
figure out a good personal, actually agreat, a great personal development plan
for the month.
I think that when you do it at the monthlevel, you get a different balcony view.
And in that balcony view, you can askhigher order questions.
(22:54):
Cause if you get too mired in the day today, I think, and if you ask yourself too
many questions in the day to day,
It's kind of hard to see the forest forthe trees, but I think when you do it at
these timeframes, like, okay, what's the,what's the mindset of motivational
questions for today that keep me growingand showing up strong.
Like for example, one that I neverexpected to have is how do I want to
(23:17):
change the world today?
But there's a little story there.
Like, I kept for some reason it's likedeep in me.
I think it's because one of my earlymanagers at Microsoft, every time he came
by the office or in the break room.
He would say, did you change the worldtoday?
Like every day.
And I'd be like, yeah, we changed it, buteverybody wants us to change it back.
And so, you know, it's, it's strong in me.
(23:38):
And one of my early books, you know, wentto like 800 ,000 people in six months.
So when, when would you do that?
You get used to changing the world.
And so one day I found myself asking thequestion, how do you want to change the
world?
And I thought, you know, everybody'sstressed.
They're worried about the future.
They're worried about today.
They're,
overwhelmed, they're overloaded andthey're in fear mode.
(24:00):
I was like, that sucks.
It's like, what's the best thing I cangive people that would help them to start
their day.
So I ended up creating a, so that night Iwas like, okay, how do I change the world
today?
I want to change how the world wakes up.
So that night I put together like 40slides.
I created a framework on the fly.
I created 40 slides.
I called it wake up great.
I haven't written.
I don't think I've even written about ityet, but it's a, it's wake up great.
(24:23):
And it's, I've been teaching it todifferent companies, but it's a G is
gratitude.
If you feel grateful, you can't feel fear.
So when you actually do gratitude, right,and you're in that grateful mode, you can
feel fear.
So I thought, wow, what a great way forpeople to start, you know, gratitude.
R is reflection.
Reflect on your future self.
People go, okay, reflection, but theydon't know what to reflect on.
(24:45):
Reflect on your future self.
Last week or even yesterday or even today,are you being that person that you want to
be for the future?
So R is reflection.
E is of course, exercise, but people, Idon't have time and I don't know what to
do.
And so I put together a small set ofthings that people really can do, like
Bruce Lee's three minute workout.
When he broke his back, he had to figureout how do I work out my full body?
(25:07):
Well, he's got a three minute workout.
So when you learn these kinds of things,you, you open up these possibilities.
So then there's a affirmation, but mostpeople do affirmations wrong.
What do they do?
They have a bunch of affirmation.
I am smart.
I am happy.
I'm great.
I'm strong.
Choose one.
You choose one.
You picture it in your mind so yoursubconscious can see it.
So you know what you actually mean andyou're congruent.
(25:29):
Otherwise, if you say like an apple, redapple, green apple, Steve jobs, you know
what?
So you picture it, but you have to feelit.
So my affirmation, for example, for today,I am strong.
When I say that, what do I look like whenI'm strong?
What do I feel like when I'm strong laterin the day, when I don't feel strong, I
remember in the morning.
So you say it, you feel it because you'rerewiring your nervous system.
(25:50):
You're changing your nervous system.
That's where this gets real.
So G -R -E -A and then T.
It was funny when I was making theframework that night, I was like, what's
T?
Three wins, you know, from my book.
It was like, it was perfect.
I was like, picture three scenes in yourday, morning, noon and night, your three
victory scenes.
So you can have a compelling day thatyou've just envisioned on the fly in the
morning, in your strength place, in aplace of gratitude and greatness where you
(26:14):
can be as strong as you could possibly be.
And so, you know, that was like, you know,quick little framework, but it helps, it
changes lives.
how the world works, I often think aboutwhen I go into the shower in the morning,
I call the shower my ideas machine.
Because different people have their ideasat different days and at times of day.
For me in the morning, I actually ended uphaving longer showers because all these
(26:37):
ideas start coming to me.
Obviously, you've been ingesting themovernight.
You've been kind of thinking through themovernight.
For yourself, where do you go, where donew ideas generally come from for you?
Where do you go to just...
Maybe take a step back from your day today to kind of reflect, to really think at
that kind of higher level.
Yep.
So where do the ideas come from?
(26:58):
God, they come from so many places, but ofcourse, like you, the shower.
So this morning I had a thought aboutthought maps or thought structures or
thought scaffolding.
I thought about a lot of times people giveyou a thought to think, but they don't
break it down.
And I had a parallel thought around, andprogram management work, breakdown
structures.
I thought about what if we actually sharedthese thought challenge and responses for
(27:21):
specific challenges that we have.
because people do have these thoughtpatterns.
There's success patterns and there's anti-patterns.
But too often, I think we hit the tip ofthe iceberg, but we don't drill in.
And I bet that if we start to shareexamples of thought maps, like what should
be my thought structure when I feel likenervous or anxious about presenting?
What does that look like?
Break it down, but like little example ofthought structures.
(27:43):
So showers is a place, of course, beforebed is of course another perfect time.
So I keep my handy little sticky pad, myyellow sticky pad and pen.
It's been my greatest advantage.
And I also use a practice I call ImagineIf.
Imagine If is how I channel myimagination, but in any situation that I'm
in, I imagine how it could be better.
And so it gives me a lot of flexibilityaround choreographing the future of like a
(28:08):
restaurant or even in the movie theater,you know, traffic, you know, how would I
redesign this?
So playing with Imagine If and justplaying out future possible scenarios
completely changes the game.
A quick example is...
You go to the grocery store and this isbefore we have all the things that we have
now.
But I remember I was supposed to design,you know, the future of, grocery stores
(28:29):
for big company.
And I thought, man, when I drove upparking sucked.
What if I could just drive to the curb andthe groceries come to me?
And then another scenario was like, wow, Ican't find anything in the store.
What if I could hold up my phone and likeeither play, find the vegetable or I could
find the gluten free, whatever, you know,whatever I need to go look for.
And, you know, as I'm going to fill thesescenarios, I was like, well, what if.
(28:49):
groceries came to me.
This was before they did.
What if the groceries came to me?
And to scare the leaders into the future,I gave them a competitive idea.
I said, look, your house is the futurestore.
If you don't fill the shelves, then Amazonwill.
And so it's those little ideas, but theycome from everywhere.
But what made that even possible was Iread a book called Thinker Toys.
(29:14):
And in it, Thomas Edison shared his ideaquotas.
And so that was
That first week, I took my little yellowsticky pad and I wrote one idea per note.
By the end of the week, I had 10 notes.
And I thought, wow, my God.
But it wasn't that.
It was that as soon as I put the ideasdown, and these were good ideas, these are
10 good ideas, when I put it down, my headwas empty from those.
(29:36):
I didn't realize how much those werebouncing around.
Once my head was empty from those, ideaswouldn't stop coming.
So the next week, I filled two of thenotepads.
By the third week, it was getting silly.
It was just absolutely ridiculous.
So I think a lot of people don't realizeif you keep your ideas floating around in
your head, see what happens when you putthem somewhere.
Have an idea catcher, a thought catcher,an idea portfolio, an idea catalog, put
(29:58):
them somewhere.
And then you'll be amazed at how muchspace and room you have for ideas to come
your way.
And practice that imagine if habit.
It's a habit you can practice and sharewith your friends.
And while we're talking about capturingideas, is there a tool that you use or an
app, some way that you find it very easy,because you're getting all these ideas all
the time, how do you ensure that you cancapture them so you can then go through
(30:19):
them at a later date?
Yeah, I know it sounds old school, but Iuse Evernote and I have more than 30 ,000
notes and the it I've been on a quest forprobably, I guess, a couple of decades.
I've been actually on a quest to find theworld's best insight and action.
So I have principles, patterns, insightsfor mind, body, emotions, career, finance,
relationships, fun.
(30:39):
And so I have not just a big, deep libraryof profound knowledge, but then I have my
catalog of my ideas where I have, I do twothings.
Actually, I have a.
a notebook for my best ideas where Icapture those in different domains.
And then I have a daily insights whereit's just, it's, it's a running note.
I put today's date and any like littleidea that pops up, I put it in my journal.
(31:02):
So basically the daily journaling combinedwith my catalog, my portfolio of my best
ideas.
Yeah, I love I've been like you, I'm along time Evernote user.
My only complaint, if anyone from Evernoteis listening just now, please speed up the
mobile app, because it's by the time youhave the app from the idea to capturing
it, those six seconds or 10 seconds ittakes to open the app and put it in can be
(31:24):
really frustrating.
Very, very simple thing there.
What about if you were to recommend onebook?
to our listeners.
You mentioned one that's Thinker Toys,which I'm going to definitely check out
that one.
If you would recommend one other book toour listeners, not one of your own, but
kind of links to your own, what would thatbook be?
It would be Unlimited Power by TonyRobbins.
That's my secret of how I read faster.
But Unlimited Power is probably thedeepest book that I've ever read that goes
(31:47):
into the inner engineering.
And what I've learned in life is that allthings are created twice, first in the
mind, then in the world.
I think of it as inner world, outerresults.
But that book is probably the deepest thatI know for modeling, learning, sharing,
and scaling expertise of other experts.
It's a way to distill it because it's theinner engineering.
You watch somebody shoot pool, you watchwhat they did with the cue.
(32:09):
You don't go through the thought processof wait, their neurology.
What was their breathing?
Where was their focus?
Did they look at the, you know, the hole?
Did they look past it?
Did they focus on the cue ball?
So that is probably the greatest book forprofound performance, I would say.
a huge, like you, massive, I think I'veread that, I don't know how many times
I've read that book.
(32:29):
I read it when I was probably 13 yearsold, changed my life.
I think it was, there was a line in thatyou mentioned in questions.
I think you said, Tony said somethingalong like the quality of life is the
quality of the questions that you ask.
And it's just that constant, wonderfulbook, absolute classic.
Let's, as we finish up now, what is thebest way for people to connect with you
JD, to learn more about your books, yourwriting, your other things you've got
(32:52):
going on just now?
Where should they go?
Probably the best starting point isJDMeier .com.
So JDMeier .com.
Yeah, that's the best bait.
Well, JD, thank you so much for being aguest on the show today.
After listening to you, I'm gonna go andpick up my old battered copy of Unlimited
Power and reread it again as well.
(33:13):
Thank you so much for being a guest on theSuper Creativity Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Awesome times.
Take care.
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