#373 - ‘Slowing Down to Speed Up’, with Carla Johnson - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cormac Phalen (00:09):
even though I born in the Midwest, but not raised
in the Midwest, I've somehow havemastered the Midwest goodbye, which
means that, you know, we will be

Carla Johnson (00:19):
oh,

for at least

I'm from Nebraska.

So there

You need, you need to say no more.

Evan Troxel (00:23):
is.
I don't even, I've never evenheard of this before, but I

No.
Okay.
This we should talk abouton the podcast though.

well,

should actually.

are you talking about?

Oh, are we?
Okay.

You have no idea what the Midwest goodbye is.

I, I've never heard of that.
I mean, obviously I can kind ofget what you're going for here
because I, I, I know you Cormac so.

yeah, the welp when you slap your knees and you're
just like, well, that means aboutanother half an hour worth of

Minimum.
Yeah.
That's till half an houruntil the next goodbye.
Yeah.

Until the next goodbye.

Yeah.
A a, a Midwest goodbye is when it takesabout hour and a half, two hours from
the time you say, well, it's about timewe get going until one actually either
walks, I wouldn't even say walks outof the house, because then you have
to walk down the sidewalk to the car.
Get out of the driveway or lane.

stand at the car for a while,

Yep.
In, in the street.

continual con Oh yeah, but I forgot, you know, hold

Yep.

me tell you something else, you know, and
then that tell you something else

So it's, it's just like this podcast is what you're saying.
Like we've been having the uh uh,

We've

many episodes.

years.

what I was thinking.
That's what I

The ending is kind of like the end of a, of a comment, you
know, it just slowly drifts away.

Yeah.
All right.
Well.

the last, the last episode that we ever do, which,
who knows whenever that will be.
will be, when the door actually shuts,car turns on and is down the road.

Then probably the year before that you start, you call
the episode the Midwest goodbye,

Yeah.
Yeah.

and then you have another cartoon.

use as an analogy here is like when I go skiing or something and
you say, last run, and it's not thelast run because you never ever say last
run because that's how you get hurt.
If you

Exactly.

run, you're going home in a cast.

Yes, exactly.
That's so true.

I, I, I don't know if like say when you're leaving a
Thanksgiving dinner or whatever dinnerit happens to be in the Midwest that you
end up in a cast, or at least I might

What

it wrong,

I see.
I see you're takingthese things and you're,

the

you're put, you're putting them together.

I

I was gonna say,

I have, however, mastered the Irish goodbye as well,

I was gonna say, I think they're opposites.
Like the Irish Goodbye and theMidwest goodbye are polar opposites

Where, I'll get a text and say, Cormac, where are you?
Oh, I'm already home.
Like, you didn't even say goodbye.
I'm like, Uhhuh.
Exactly.

Did they just not notice?
I don't, I don't know.
I understand how that works.
You just walked out.
Mid-sentence.
You're gone.

and it's, it, it, there's no offense intended.
It's just, I don't want to have thisprotracted long, two hour goodbye.
I just want to

So they thought you were going to the bathroom.

No,

when to get another beer or something.

Okay.
And just never come back.

will be, there will be somebody who will see
you as you are nodding to himas you're backing out the door.
You know, it's just like, and thenyou back out the door you're gone.
And

I,

you

I'm learning so much.

Hey, where's Cormac?
And you're just like, oh, hewent home about an hour ago.

He had a thing he had to do.

exactly.

that's always mine.
Like, I got a thing I gotta do.

Boston, Evan, I

What is,

you an Irish goodbye.

right, what is this called that we're doing right now?
Where it's the protracted, hello.
It's like we haven't even

Oh, yes.
Retracted.
Hello.

a guest here, so I, I, Carla Johnson, welcome to the podcast.
Great to have you.
That,

What,

Thank you.
May, maybe I'm just one.

right there.

It's

one of those, you, you two had something going in.
I accidentally got on the, the wrongchannel and just showed up in the

who?

middle of your bucket.

in our meeting car?

and so and so they're, they're standing
there with their cup of coffee.
He's like, I was just trying to walk by,

Yeah,

trying

got trapped.

I got sucked in.

you got stuck.
You got stuck.
Well, Carla, welcome officially.
Thank

you.
Thank you.
It's fun to be, it'salready fun to be here.

fun, right?
Like we're gonna have a good conversation.
And Carla, can you just give us Cormac andI like what's the, what's the intro that
you give to people on, on what you do?
It's, I, I'm re We've chattedbefore, I'm reading through your

Yeah.

but I still feel like there's so many things, like how

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you do?

I talk about how I help people break through their legacy,
status quo ways of thinking by learningnew ways to be curious and innovative
thinkers and creative problem solvers.

Nice.
And you have a bit of anexperience in a EC, right?
You're kind, you,

I do.

marketing departments in.
architecture

have, yeah, and, and I was telling somebody the other day
who's known, who have known me for.
I don't know, eight or10 years as a speaker.
Then I started out in collegeas an electrical engineering
major, and then went what?
Like never saw that coming.

Right.

So I did, I started out in electrical engineering, but
went from left brain to right brain.
And I, I have a master's in history,but my master's degree was on historic
preservation, historic architecture.
Because during that time I started towork for mostly architecture firms, but
some AE firms doing business development.

Okay.

Yeah, so HDR is the big firm that some people may know.
The other were regional or local firms.
Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

well thank you for that quick intro and I, I think one of
the things that I'm, I and I werechatting a little bit before this and
we thought a good place to kick thisoff would be to talk about curiosity.
You,

Yeah.

I think a lot of people.
Maybe think of themselves as curious,but something I saw in your TED
Talk that you did was like, we'dlose this curiosity early on.
We're actually taught very early on,like to stop asking questions, and

Mm-hmm.

there's a line that you delivered in that TED Talk that I've
brought up on this podcast before,which is you said like, now all of a
sudden we're coloring inside the lines.
Right?

Yeah.

I've literally talked about that exact thing being told
to me as a first year architecturestudent by my studio professor.
He said, the worst thing that couldhave ever happened to you is that you
were taught to color inside the lines.
And it was like a brain bustingmoment when when that happened.
It's like, oh, okay,tell me more like that.

(06:52):
That actually really made senseto me as somebody who was.
Kind of natural proclivity towardsart and music and things like that on.
And then it's like, okay, now yougo through school and you check the
boxes and you do all of these things.
I think is kind of the point behind whatyou're, we're talking about your, your
TED Talk, but curiosity is something thatpeople can definitely lose over time.

Hmm.
Yeah, and it's, I mean, I really becamepassionate about this when we had kids
and I watched the kids go into, notnecessarily preschool, because I think
curiosity and discovery and imaginationis still really encouraged in preschool.
But even by kindergarten I see a littlebit of, especially our kids, they're
big they're inquisitive still as adults.

(07:36):
I mean, they're in college now.
They were always getting in troublefor asking too many questions
and I'm like, yeah, the appledoesn't fall far from the tree.
'cause that was always me growing up.
I.
And I mean, on one hand we can't havean adult world that's that's designed
around kindergarten thinking as inquestion, every single thing because
we would never get things done.

(07:56):
But I think the pendulum has swungso, gets swung so hard the other
way as we go through school andcollege and then into our careers
that people are, mostly teachers.
How do I get the most into my students forwhat I wanna teach them in the shortest
amount of time and most efficient way.
And there isn't that kind of time.

(08:17):
And sometimes even on the teachers'part, not all teachers are like this.
There, there isn't that inquisitiveness.
And, and I think curiosity on theirpart and to really push the kids
to, to ask them, what do you think?
And I think what I've seen sinceI was in school, I think that's
a big reason why we don't have anext generation of, of thinkers who

(08:39):
are very strong critical thinkers

Mm

because there's been, they've been given a lot of
tools so they don't have to think

mm.

in the ways that I used to.
But I think that as kids go along,it is, it's like we, we need them to
understand these things and check theseboxes, and all of this is inefficient.
And if this is what you wannado in life, here's the path
that you take to get there.
And I was just never a person like that.
I mean, I, I went into electricalengineering because I was good at math

(09:09):
and science, and I had thought aboutgoing to the art institute in Chicago.
And my, my dad asked a, a criticalquestion as a person from a very
small rural town in Nebraska atthe time, like, what do you do
with a graphic design degree?
And I'm like, to be honest, I don't know.
You know, maybe that's not agood path to pursue, you know?

(09:30):
And now looking back at it, somehowit would've worked out just fine.
So I, I went into a field ofstudy that I felt was more
reliable, but it just wasn't me.
And so when I then went fromengineering into history, because.
I became super curious throughhistory and that just happened to
also help me in, in marketing becauseI've always been a good writer.

(09:51):
And, and that's how I got my firstjob in architecture is because I was
curious and I could write well, and Ihad enough engineering to understand
what they were doing as, as architects.
And I think for a lot of people asthey grow up, they're not encouraged
to continue to even have linesaround where they're curious.

(10:12):
I, I think the all or nothing mentalityabout curiosity is what teaches us
not to be curious as we grow up.

I something interesting that you just said about reliability
and then in your Ted talk you talkabout certainty and I, I'm now starting
to teach and I've seen that, I wasteaching a, a more advanced studio and
they're like, well, at this stage, youshould know this, this, this, and this.

(10:43):
And I'm like, well, where istheir questioning of, why, why,
where is their questioning of, doI really have to do it this way?
They're, they, and I'm not, I'm kindof generalizing here, but you know,
they, they've started to get into thiskind of like rhythm of this is what
you're going to do in the profession,so this is what you need to know.
And so there's these blinders onthat say, okay, is this buildable?

(11:06):
Is this achievable?
Is this something that I can do?
And the thing that I was noticing isthat this natural curiosity to just
stop and say, why, why am I doing this?
Why do I have to do it this way?
can I do it this way?
And, and just, this, this natural, just.
know, like that, that kid, kidin the, in kindergarten saying,

(11:29):
well, why do I need to learn this,

Yeah, the trade off is time, the time it takes to answer all
those queries and work through thoughtsand ideas versus efficiency, right?
And,

Yeah.

these things are constantly kind of budding

Mm-hmm.

other.
I.

but the, the thing that I, and, and you and I have this
conversation all the time, Evan, andso Carla, let me, pull you into this
conversation is like, we talk aboutthe status of, architecture and the
built environment and what you see,
And you see things becoming, a little bitmore vanilla, a little bit more generic.
And it feels like the questioning,the curiosity, the i, it's funny.

(12:07):
It's like you, you say, we can'talways continue to keep asking why.
And I was sitting there scribbling.
So I have, I usually have sittingon my desk somewhere, a question
mark, and everybody asks me,what does the question mark mean?
And the question mark for mealways is question everything.

Mm-hmm.

It's just like a reminder that you have on
your desk all the time, right?

Yeah.
And it, it is, it is purely, it's just,it's just something that's sitting
there in my, it's, it is question why.
And now I have a variety of differentthings, the practical side of
questioning why, and the, morecurious, side of questioning why,
but it, it really is something that Ipersonally, sort of don't ever wanna
stop doing is questioning why now.
That's probably why I wasn't a good

Hmm.

in the army even, you know, but,

Yeah.

But.
In, in, in your TED Talk, what we,you know, and I will say that we'll
probably talk a little bit about yourTED Talk because it was, very inspiring.
It was, it was one of these thingsthat I was just like, yes, yes, yes.
Because there were so many things aboutthis atrophy of curiosity that seems to
be stifling creativity, innovation, all ofthese other things that, I'm just curious

(13:17):
from, the more and more people that youget involved with and talk to and all of
that other stuff, like, what are, whatis everybody's take on this, you know?

You know, and, and, and it is kind of interesting
and for, for anybody watchingor or listening who hasn't seen
the TED Talk, the gist is about.
About a hundred years ago, well, 1860,when the Industrial Revolution began.
You know, it was, it was an amazingexplosion of, of what could be in
business and, and realizing the truehuman potential, we thought at the time,

(13:47):
and there were all of these wonderfulthings that came, but the trade-off was
our human potential because all of asudden we valued systemization and, and
processes and, and formalized thinking.
And like you were saying Cormac, insteadof asking why and what if, and, you know,
what could be kind of questions, it wasjust purely rote, you know, coloring

(14:09):
inside the lines and following thesame, same so a lot of times physical
movement over and over and over again.
So it took us out of that mindset of,of asking and, and observing really,
and being curious about what could be.
And then it was, you know, as, as wewent on, what happened is that colleges
and universities began cranking outstudents who could think in this way.

(14:31):
Because they were the oneswho would get the jobs.
So then we had to keepmoving upstream, so to speak.
And then you had, you know, highschool students, you had middle school
students, you had elementary studentsthat all of a sudden, you know, they
had to be prepared to go to middleschool, to a high school, to a college,
to a work world that was like this.
And the industrialization, what we didn'trealize really systematized everything

(14:52):
in education down, you know, I mean,now, today, a lot of times in preschool,

Oh

know, you're, you're, if you don't get into the
right preschool in some places, youdon't get into the right Ivy League
college kind of thing, you know?

Yeah.

And so we have this impression that with ai it's just
going to make this exponentially worse.
And all of the humanity will besucked out of anything that we
have left and, and the curiosity.
But I truly believe that AI is asuper power and the key to how we
reinvigorate our, our curiosity,because in so many instances.

(15:27):
Y you know, we just assume that a newtechnology, it's called Lumen Law, that
a new technology be, will be used inthe same way a former technology is.

Mm-hmm.

And so for a lot of people, they think, oh, AI is about efficiency.
I mean, how many people use itfor search now instead of Google?
And you, even if you go to Googleand put it in a search engine,
you get an AI answer first.
So we think about it as,

you don't

yeah.

of ads.
Right.

Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.

there is efficiency built into it.
Right.
And that

Mm-hmm.

reason why a lot of people use it.
But what's also interesting is how it thenit prompts you to follow up and then it

Exactly.

more and it's like go deeper down the rabbit hole.
It's

And, and it can,

use the product, but

yeah.

your own benefit, more or

Exactly.
Yeah.
And, and, and exactly.
And, and you think back, like whenwe have some new technologies, it
doesn't take away the humanity.
Like, calculators didn't make us quitdoing math, you know, that I, I know there
were teachers who said, oh, you have tolearn to do this in your head 'cause you
won't have a calculator everywhere you go.
Well, actually we do now.
But, you know, it just, it justraised us to another level where
we can do a lot more complexthinking when it comes to math.

(16:30):
And I believe it's the same way with ai.
AI can take us to a whole new level of,of, of curiosity and, and inquisitiveness
that we don't give a credit for, forexactly what you just said, Evan.
We can ask it something and it doesn'tjust come back with the answer.
It expands on that answer and, andconnects the dots so exponentially in a
way that us as individuals, as humans.

(16:54):
We don't have that number ofexperiences to connect the dots with.
Even if the, you know, three ofus together, or 10 of us, or 50
or a hundred or whatever, it canconnect so many dots and bring us
things that we never thought of.
And I find I am havingconversations with AI and chat
GPT about things I never imagined.
And it's pushing me

Yeah.

to the point where, oh, okay, I gotta take a break.
I gotta really think about this,you know, for a little bit.
And I, and I think that's a reallybeautiful position for us to be in.

You know, that's.
I've been trying to come to terms with,with AI of like, you know, what's next
because especially in the a EC world,everybody is looking at, oh my gosh,
ai, it's gonna come in to replace us.
And we always have thisconversation that, Evan had kind of.
Brought up, and I know it's not hisquote, but I always attribute it to him.

(17:44):
It's AI isn't, going toreplace the architect.
It's going to replace thearchitect who doesn't embrace ai.
And it's really, and so everybody youknow, is starting to like, oh my gosh, AI
is gonna, you know, replace us and stuff.
And they're not seeing the potentialsof that, that creative, spark that, you
know, being able to continue to keepstretching what you're thinking of.

(18:04):
And it's just like, okay, it's gettingwhat I'm talking about, but no, let
me, think a little bit more, letme, like, think about a different
prompt to kind of go in a differentdirection and things like that.
And they're not usingit as the creative tool.
They're thinking it, it as a replacementtool or, or something like that,
rather than, kind of understanding.
And, and, and as I started to watch,other, shorts and, and the, the you

(18:26):
know, the TED Talk and things like that,just, it was thinking, okay, this is
actually a better way to think about ai.
As An assistant to creativity.
Not a, it takes over, okay.
here's my thinking, draw me a lineand then it draws me a line, and then
it wants to go ahead and take over.
It's like, oh, well, I guessI'm replaced because it drew a
line, you know, kind of thing.

(18:47):
It's, so, I, I think, I don't know.
I, it, i, it, it was good to kind of likelisten to other people's perspectives
about how ai is coming, because, you know,like everybody in the profession right
now has got the blinders on thinking it's,the replacement tool for, for us and not
the, assistant as it, as it rightly shouldbe, which is just, you know, Hey, you

(19:11):
know, you thought about it this way, buthere's another way you can think about it.
Oh, you're right.
I could think of it that way.
they just, they're not seeingit, or I wasn't even seeing it.

I think, I think what I'm kind of nervous about watching
the current behavior around theuse of these tools is, is just.
You know, there's a lot of people passingoff the output as their own because it
sounds, it can sound so much like them.
And, and I guess, and that'snot even what I'm worried about.
I mean, what I'm actuallyconcerned about is that people

(19:42):
just stop with what it gives you.
Right.
And,

Yeah.

and Cormac you said a key word, which was stretch.
And I think what tools potentiallyhave the ability to do in cases
like this is you can, you can askat things that you actually don't
want to ask at another person.
And I think, you know, when it comes topsychology, when it comes to therapies,
especially for men who don't want toshare their feelings and don't want

(20:09):
to talk to people, and don't want togo to the doctor and don't want, I'm
just talking about myself here, right?
So I don't want to go to the dentist,I don't wanna do any of these things.
And it's like.
Here's somebody that like,the, the, the stakes are pretty
low here with judgment, right?

Yeah.

and, and it's gonna give you kind of honest feedback
that's unbiased, hopefully.
Right?
That's the, i, that's the hope, I guess.
And, and, but, so I think there'ssome interesting potential there.
when it comes to creative things, Ithink it's great to, for it to, to
make arguments for and against thingsand for you to understand a broader

(20:46):
landscape that isn't so entrenched inconfirmation bias that you bring to the
table, whether you know it or not, right?
And so I think there's a lot of potentialin, in, and I'm, Carla I'm really curious
to what you think about this, becauseknow you, you're already like pro, like
this is actually gonna be beneficial.

(21:08):
And I'm just curious kind of howdeep that goes for you because Yeah,
like there's great output, but youcan't stop there, I guess is kind

Hmm.

prompt now back to you and, and curious what,
what you have to say about that.

Well, I, I think you hit a couple of things that are
really, really important in how wecan use AI in a really positive way.
And you use the example of, youknow, men asking mental health
questions or, you know, it couldbe questions about relationships
or whatever, whatever questionsthat are typically socially taboo.
You have a safe partner who will neverjudge you that you can have a conversation

(21:44):
with that you know, you, you don't runinto on the street or in the hallway or
see on a zoom call and you kinda like,don't make eye contact 'cause you remember
the vulnerable conversation that you had.
And I think that's a really importantthing that we don't consider with AI
is that it is that 100% confidential.
Conversation partner to have some ofthese conversations with whether it,

(22:07):
you know, be about something aboutthat we care about our own mental
situation or, or relationships.
And, and I think about it in thecontext of ideas and, and curiosity.
I mean, I think about the numberof people who I say, you know, why
didn't you share that idea and theiranswers, I didn't wanna look dumb,

Yeah.

you know, so, so now we can go down the rabbit hole with an idea or a
what if or how might we kind of scenarioand play it out, 6, 8, 10, you know,
questions down and see where it will go.
And again, not have that judgment.
And so we feel more confidentthan we, we feel more confident
to bring it up in a meeting or to,to volunteer that kind of idea.

(22:45):
And we can play it outa little bit further.
And I think that's, that'sreally important for us.

You just, you just prompted a, a, a memory from, I
shouldn't, I shouldn't use that word.
Cormac and I had a conversation withWilliam Dodge on a recent podcast, and
he talked about kind of naive naivete,being naive as kind of a superpower in

Uh

Right.
in and, and being totally forthrightand saying like, I, know, I
don't know the answer to that.
I'm gonna try to figure it out.
But also because you don't come from abackground in a certain thing, it, it
kind of, you don't have those biases andyou don't have the constraints that a
lot of other people are playing within.
Right.
It's like, it's like thatfive-year-old mentality.

mm-hmm.

they don't know what they don't know.
And, and because of that, they canunlock certain things because they're
not coming in with, with the rules,quote unquote already applied to them.
Right.
And, and I think that, that this kindof role playing aspect, you get, you
get to be as dumb as you actually are

Yeah.

very safe

Positively.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

things you don't know about.

Mm-hmm.

that that's a really interesting way to kind of think
about it, but also giving yourselfpermission to be like that.
I.
While you're learning and beingcurious is, is absolute it.
Like it has to be a safespace for curiosity to really
go where it can possibly go.
I, I remember a, an article or aconversation with Bjork Ingles, right?

(24:12):
And he talked about the, theCopenhagen Ski Hill that's

Yeah,

a, a recycling plant.
And it's like, well, it'sa totally absurd idea.
But in any normal architecture office,absurd ideas are literally like
wadded up and thrown in the trash can.
You're not allowed to even have absurd,I, there's no time for absurd ideas.
But at the same time, you look at itand you're like, well, it's an obvious
logical idea when it's all done.

(24:36):
But it

exactly.

out as an absurd idea to get to that point.
And how did that happen?
Because there's a safeplace to have absurd ideas.
You know, at least this is my,my construct, my perception.
Maybe it's a little bit of a story thatI've told myself about their, their
situation and their studio, but I feellike, I mean, that makes sense when I say
it out loud and at the same time I realizelike, that's a commodity or it's a, just

(25:01):
not a luxury that a lot of firms employ ina very creative field like architecture.
There's still these reallyhard constraints and it
seems like ever more so.
constraints are just weighing us downand it's harder and harder to be curious.
And I think it is interesting thatyou point out that this tool actually
is a potential way out of, of that.

And I, that dynamic that you talk about, Evan, in innovation,
we call that the, the naive expert,

Hmm

like the naive person who doesn't know the industry
or, or the client or whatever whocomes in and asks questions that.
All of a sudden are, are brilliant becausethe people who are the traditional experts
have discounted it or never considered itbecause, you know, this is the way things
are done and this is how we think andthis is how we, this is how we do things.
And, and I think another way that AI isso helpful in us, in our thinking is,

(25:53):
let's, let's say we do have a well shapedformulated idea that we feel comfortable
is, is pushing boundaries just enough.
And, and it, we're happy with it.
Let's put that idea into AIand ask a couple of questions.
What one is, what are biases that I don'teven see that are affecting this outcome?

(26:15):
And two, what's theopposite dynamic of this?
Like, what happens if we goin the opposite direction?
And I think both of those really giveus insights in ways that we don't
normally think or ask ourselves.
Because even if we're in a firm and we saylike, what, what are the things that I'm
missing that are really important here?
We still have a very closed environmentof experiences and unknown biases.

(26:37):
I mean, lots of times when we're tryingto identify our biases, we can't because
they're so formulated in, in how we think,we don't even realize that we have 'em.
And AI can be a more objective partnerfor us to identify those and we go,
ah, I can't believe I didn't see that.
And it can change the whole dynamicof how we look at, at the design

(26:57):
or how we solve the problem or,or the opportunity is there.
And I think one of the things thatreally helps with with AI and how it
can connect dots for us is that whenwe do have an idea and we really wanna
push where our thinking is going orwhere our client's thinking is going
is that it can connect the dots forus to how this may have been done in

(27:18):
different scenarios or different ways.
And so when we present the idea, itdoesn't sound quite so crazy as in.
If we just started out with, okay, we havethis, we have this recycling building and
we wanna put a, like a ski run on top,it's like, well, that's absolutely crazy.
But I would imagine if you went backthrough the design conversation,
somehow they brought together allof these different things that

(27:41):
they, they've observed and itmade perfect sense at the time.
And I think whenever we can connect thedots like that with big ideas and, and
new ways of thinking, it makes it feelnot quite so weird and out there, and more
likely that at least discussions will behad where before it would be shut down.

Yeah.
Thanks for making that distinction.
It, it wasn't an absurd ideajust to be absurd, right.

Yeah, absolutely.

was like the perfect combination.
I, I'm, again, kind of makingmy own story about this, right?
But it's like, it was taking thethings that made sense and putting
'em together and coming up withsomething new, which is what design is,

exactly.

literally what what it is, is coming up with new things with.
Seemingly unconnected ideasin creating something new.
One.
One thing that I've noticed with AIthough, and I, I mean this is maybe
a bit of a bone to pick with it, isI think a lot of times it's overly
like, pleased about all of your ideas

(28:40):
is

It's a little bit like your mother, right?

explore that more.
And it's like, I may maybe alittle more honest version.
I actually think that there wassome, somebody, somebody brought
that up with one of the open AIpeople and they're like, yeah.
It's, it's a little over the top with,with like being overly congratulatory
about all of your ideas, no matterhow good or bad they, they are,

It, it, it's kind of the as we.
about like the participation trophygeneration and things like that.
It's just like every idea is a great idea.

right?

like, you know what?
Sometimes maybe not,

It's not like architecture school,

we need, we

terrible.

a, a true Gen X you know, AI

Yes.

that's just like, really, dude,

Looks

Well, and

Start over.

like, just yesterday I was, I was working through an idea on
chat, GPT and I in my, I always put inthis scenario and then I say, give me 20
options for what, whatever my question is.
And, and it was like14 of them were decent.
And I said, okay, you know, Iwant six more to replace this.
And I gave it some newcriteria, new criteria, and
every single time it got worse.
And I finally said, you arereally, really bad at this.

(29:47):
Like, you did good over here,but you just keep getting worse.
And, you know, and for me, I wouldn'tsay that to a person in real life.
I might say it in my head, like, you'rereally bad at coming up with the ideas.
We're thinking this through.
And, and so I, for me, it's alsoa way to express that frustration.
And like part of my curiosity withAI is how far can I push it to think?

(30:12):
And I know it learns from what Ithink and, and we go back and forth.
But I do know this that sometimes if itheads down just a little bit on a vector
that's, you know, slightly to the leftor right of what I want, then it doesn't
take long and it's completely off course.
And and for me it makes me goback and, and wonder like, where
did my thinking veer it that way?

Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, when it comes to like curiosityand innovation and your, the, the people
that you are working with, I mean.
Can you give us kind of a,a, a deeper dive into that?
I mean, maybe that's an AI term too.
I keep seeing deep dives.
We delve, we, we used to delve.
Now we deep dive.
But, but, but this, what, what are

I.

with people there?
Because I mean, this, you, youtalked about in the TED Talk, you
talk about losing these skills.
We talk about constraints of timeand efficiency and deadlines.
I mean, this is an, an industrythat is built on deadlines

Mm-hmm.

the time, like every project is billed by the hour and
the less hours you spend the better.
So the

Sure.

better.
Right.
Like that makes sense.

You, you know.
Yeah.
Logically it makes sense, right?
But one of the first things that Iteach people to do with curiosity is
let's sit with the problem longer,because back to that exact thing you
just said, the like, the faster we cando this and the more efficient and the
fewer hours, the better for the firm.
Except if we don't stop and thinkabout the challenge that we have,

(31:42):
then it becomes the question of arewe actually solving the right problem?
And I, I actually learned this from agraphic designer when I worked at HDR.
We were working on some displayboards for projects for a conference.
And I, we were going back and forthand I said, the designer on the
team that you have working on thisis spending so much time up front.

(32:03):
And I just feel that it, that needsto be shortened so we can spend
more time on getting it done, right.
And he said, no, you, you have it.
Do you have the ratio completely wrong?

Hmm.

And he ended up having her do it in like, design it with
this much design time and that muchexecution and flipped the other way.
And when we sat with it more upfrontand really talked it through, the
end product was so much better.
And actually it took less time.
You know?
And, and I think that's one thing we don'tconsider, we, we want to rush to solve

(32:36):
the problem or, you know, get it doneor get it out the door and all of these
things without really realizing if we sitwith it first and, and just, you know,
go back to that game of 20 questions.
Like just, just ask thequestions, don't answer it.
I think that can give us a lotof opportunities and insights
that we don't normally see.
And that's, that's usually where I startpeople on reinvigorating their curiosity

(32:58):
to start with is just to ask questions.

Hmm.

so let me ask you this.
So.
one of the things that, to kindaEvan's point about, trying to get it
done, quicker, making decisions fasterand things like that are some of the
software tools and things like that weuse, we use Revit, it, Revit, forces
us to make decisions quicker, right?
Whether it's the rightdecision, wrong decision.
It's a decision you've made that decision,you committed to paper and let you know,

(33:25):
let's move on to the next thing, or let'sdevelop that into, a constructible thing.
And yeah, I always look at it thisway as that, we talk about Revit
in, terms of like, well, if we putmore time up front to develop it and
design it and to think about it andthings like that, then honestly the.

(33:46):
take us less time to do constructiondocuments because we've thought through
all of the scenarios and we don'tthink that way anymore in architecture.
We think, billable hours, let'scrank it out and things like that.
So when you're having these conversationswith your, with people, are, do you
talk about how you, that you seethe need to kind of basically re

(34:12):
rethink the process to kind of likeregain the process of curiosity that
then will help with productivity?

Yes, be, because I think that's, that's a balance also.
So if people look at AI as hugelyefficient and can take over a lot
of things that humans are doing,it isn't that we won't need humans.
It's that you, you know how like allthe, the minutiae, the work that you
dos your energy and you know, you,you're exhausted and you, you never
have time to do that higher level work.

(34:41):
Like I think that's the beauty of whereAI comes in, is that it takes a lot
of this rote, repetitive foundational.
Work off of our plate.
That ideally gives us space todo some of this other thinking.
So it can take what we would normallybe doing as as billable hours type of
thinking, and we can put it into AI toolsand have AI tools do it for us, leaves

(35:05):
us some of this space where we can thinkand then also use AI to challenge and
expand some of these things that we think.
So I talk about a curiosity compassand the questions that we ask.
Just like any traditional compass, wecan go in any direction that we want
and, and there isn't a direction that'sright or wrong, but we have to understand

(35:28):
what direction we want to go in.
So I think of it in terms of if, if you'relooking at a, at a compass into the west,
our tactical questions and then oppositeit on the east are exploratory questions.
You know, those are, those are opposites.
If you look on the south position,those are more logistical.
Questions, and then in thenorth position is, is strategic.

(35:52):
So a majority of all of thequestions, regardless of what
position you are in a firm, aretactical and logistical questions.
They're, they're very muchfocused about how do we get
the work done and out the door.

Yeah.

So maybe, you know, like if we're in, in design, we may
ask, you know, questions that areslightly more exploratory, but we
still swing back pretty hard to thelogistics, how do we get this done?
We might be a little more strategic,but again, tactical, how do
we, how do we make this happen?
It always snaps us back into thatlogistical, tactical kind of thinking.

(36:27):
But the big opportunity for curiosityis in that upper right hand corner, you
know, the, I guess you'd call it the,the Northeast quadrant questions that
are both strategic and exploratory.
And these are harder questions forus because one, we're not used to
asking these kind of questions.
We're used to asking questionsthat drive us toward concrete

(36:49):
answers about getting things done.
And that's the big part of, of curiosityis we don't like, you don't ask those
questions because it's all aboutthat, you know, blue ocean or blue
water, or, you know, groundbreakingor, you know, whatever the cliche is.
It's that, it's that new ground.
And when I show people this compass, orif you're listening, you can draw it out.

(37:12):
I say start to keep a tally.
Yeah, there you go.
You have an artist with this, you know,and I say like, literally keep a tally.
You carry that little cardaround like you just drew Cormac

Mm-hmm.

put a tick mark as you ask questions.
What quadrant did it go in?

hmm.

And I will bet big money that 99% of those questions will
never fall in that northeast quadrant

Hmm.

because one, one, we feel more safe and secure in the
logistical tactical questions becausethey have black and white answers.

Yeah,

You know, the, the others we may venture into.

That's gotta, that's, that's a hard question to answer.
It's,

Exactly.

even wanna take the time to think about what if, or
do we just want to get to work?
Right.
Like

E.
E, exactly.

yeah.

But, but the question can be what if this
isn't the right work to do at all?

right

Yeah.
Cormac, Mick's got thepregnant pause here.

I can tell.
I can tell he's got the pregnant.

in the what if.
It's just like, you know, I mean
that's the desire to always be able tohave, you know, I, I, I'm coming at it,
thinking of like, okay, you know, as aproject manager who works on all these
projects and is really supposed to kindof like, push people through, alright,
make a, make your decisions faster.
You know, let, let,

Mm-hmm.

let's get to the productivity side of things so that
we can, and all the while when youdo that, I, I feel this isn't the
right thing that we should be doing.
These are the wrong

Yeah.

we should be asking.
We should be askingthese what if questions?
And then people say, well, Coron,we don't have enough time to
do, you know, ask these what ifquestions, we need to do this.
And it's always, why,

Yeah.

why don't we have time to do this?
I mean, why aren't we not, why are wenot making time for these questions?

thing that came up when, when Carla was talking about,
what about this idea of kind ofthis incubation stage to me, right?
Is it like simmering in it and, and,and it being okay to take the time to
simmer in it and it, and the, i, the,the cliche is, go slow to go fast.
Right?
It's

Mm-hmm.

go slow, figure things out, work things out.
Take the time to craft the thing so thatwhen it's time to go, you can execute
because you know exactly what to do.
Right.
Like that, an interesting, like that'sa, that's kind of an ideal way to.
To, to do a project and, and atthe same time, like it just always

(39:42):
feels like go, go, go, go, go, go.
The software is built for that.
The time tracking is built for that, theproject management is built for that.
Like there are just so many thingsthat have kind of shoehorned
us into this way of working.
And I, and I, I want to go back to you,you mentioned like the project manager
example, I naturally think of the designerexample, which is we do a lot of options.

(40:06):
We do a lot of different ideas andwe throw 95% of them away, right?
Because you have to do thingswrong, to do things right.
You, you learn through that wholeprocess and I think a lot of times people
forget We learn through that process and

Mm-hmm.

because we just want to get to the answers.
just want to solve the problem.
Have all the right answersand produce the product in the
shortest amount of time possible.
And it's, it's interesting because justthis week a talk came out between the
lead at Stripe, the CEO of Stripe, andJohnny Ive, who used to be the lead

(40:45):
creative officer at, at Apple, and he hasa company now called Love From, and he
talked specifically about slowing downthe process to get to a better answer.
And is that quantifiable?
maybe not.
Right?
I mean, it's it's very touchy feely.
It's not maybe metrics driven, butit's like, how does he do that?

(41:07):
Well, they.
They take turns going to each other'shouses on their design team, and they
cook breakfast for each other, right?
And they get to know each otherand they talk about things
that are not about the project.
And, and I think that that issuch an interesting, refreshing,
take on the current state of ourindustry and many other industries,

(41:28):
which is all pushing towards kindof honing the perfect machine.

Mm-hmm.

is really kind of getting back to more tactile and more sensitivity
around craft and what that actually meansand what it takes because the value.
Yeah.
and this is what, again, architectsaren't really great at, at communicating.
This is like, if you can get itto be a twofer or a three for,

(41:54):
or a four for, it's like, well,where do those ideas come from?
They're, they're not just repeatingthe same output every time after time.
It's, it's a fresh take, new perspectives.
And I think that, you know, a lot of timesall of these things are kind of at odds
with each other, but it is, it is great tohear that perspective come back again and
say like, well, we're slowing down so that

The, yeah, the, there's actually a lot of neuroscience
behind what you just explained.
So if you think about when we'rein the office and it deadline
driven, like, come on, come on.
Like, it all has to be doneefficient, you know, faster, more.

Right?

Yeah.
E Exactly.
And then, and then we,we know that dynamic.
We go on vacation one, we get a goodnight's sleep, maybe a few margaritas,
what are, you know, on the beach.
And then all of a sudden, like allof these ideas come rush forth.
And we're thinking, wherewere these a week ago when
I, when I needed all of them.
And, and the neuroscience behind it isthat, and we're at work and we're, we're

(42:50):
constantly in that deadline driven hasto be done yesterday kind of thing.
It it takes us back to like theearly days of, of homo sapiens in the
saber tooth, tiger is, is chasing us.
It's that, it's that adrenaline.
We're in that high beta survival fightor flight kind of mode, except now the
saber tooth tiger is our client deadline

Mm-hmm.

or our, our imposed deadline, whatever it is.
But we're in that highbeta fight or flight.
And then we, we step out ofthe environment, we go out in
nature, we, our mind relaxes.
We get some time to sleep.
And it drops our brainwaves literallyfrom high beta down into theta,
which is where the most creativeand most amazing work comes from.

(43:35):
And that that's exactly, if weslow down, we will go faster.
So we think about, you know, wespent 60 hours last week trying to
get this amazing thing done thatweek because that met the deadline.
But here in just like 16 hours by going onvacation and relaxing and taking away all
these parameters, it came more naturally.

(43:57):
And I think that's a big part of theslowdown to speed up type of thinking

But you have to be intentional about it, and

You do?

change, and you'll slowly boil the frog back to status,
which is, oh crap, like I'm justputting out fires all the time.
And it's

Yeah.

do you regain that perspective or keep that
perspective throughout the

Mm-hmm.

And I, I'm, I'm just curious from your standpoint when you're, when
you're coaching people and working onstrategy around this, like how do you get
more creative and how do you slow down?
How do you, so, so I'mcurious what you tell people.
Do you tell people schedulewalks into your schedule?
Like, don't allow people tobook time in your calendar?
Like, what do you do?
Because I think a lot of, you know, alot of times you're gonna hear from some

(44:41):
other department that says, oh, what,what do you mean you're not available?
And, and all of

Yeah, I don't care.
You're gonna take a walk.
We gotta have this meeting.
Like the, the client wantsit or the big boss wants it.
Actually, I go back to somethingeven more elementary than that.
I tell people to takethree breaths and just
hold it and then slowly exhalethrough their mouth because that,

out of the podcast, Carla.
We're not gonna even shortenthat section right there.
'cause the magic

can I say it a little bit faster?
Like can I say it a little bit faster?

yeah.

Because that moves us from that fight or flight?
Down into that relaxation.
And, and it's a, it, it startswith a matter of three breaths.
And, and I learned it as a parent withthree kids under the age of four, you
know, with a business that I ownedand, and all that goes on when, when
you have life at, at that time, it is,it is just by, you know what, if you

(45:34):
take two or three or four seconds tobreathe in, do double on the outtake

Hmm.

and it automatically resets your body's chemical system.
And that's something you can doin a matter of five to 10 seconds.
You don't have to say, okay,we're going for a 15 minute walk.
You know, it can be somebody comesto the door of your office and
says, you know, we need you rightnow, or We need you on the call.
You can take those breaths in and out.

(46:00):
So like, that's where I start atthe very most fundamental basis.
And people say, well, yeah, butI need something more active.
And I say, no, you don't.
Like, that's the last thing you need

you don't.

is something more active.
You need something thattakes you out of the active.

It, it's totally interesting that you say that.
So on a, on a slightly different tact,you know, been dealing with a lot of
people who are so bogged down in theminutia the projects and, they, you
see their moods change, you know,you know, little bit of depression,

Yeah.

know, kind of in, in today for some reason I was, I was,
was being the Buddha on Zoom witheverybody, and I was telling him like,
you know, we have to, I was like, Iknow you guys hear me say this often,
but like, let's, let's do this.
Like, let's take a moment, let's takea step back, take that deep breath

(46:52):
and just realize what we're doing.
Like, you know, let's gain,let's regain some perspective.
Because at the end of the day, sogo pictures like we get to create.
In, I know that you're sittingthere and you're, got your blinders
on and you're looking at that

You're stressed and you're,

you lose sight over the big picture

Hmm.

but take a step back.
Just take that deep breath andthink to yourself, I get to create.
And then, you know, okay, yeah,you're gonna probably, get
right back at that detail or, orwhatever it is that you're doing.
then you see what that one littlething, how that one little thing
kind of like works to the big thingand, and to understand how your

(47:38):
part, your role plays in all of that.
And then it gives them, it, to me itgives them more of an understanding of
ownership of what they're doing, so thatthen, they feel a part of something and
can kind of regain the perspective of.
What it is that they're doing andwhy sometimes the minutia is, is
equally as important as, kind of ahead in the clouds kind of thing.

(48:01):
And then, the, the blinders andthen back and forth and, you know,
just kind of keep zooming in andout and realize what you're, what
your ultimate, what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely.
And, and I'll, I'll give youa, a quick concrete, tangible
example of how this can work.
There was a, I didn'twork with this company.
I was interviewing their, their CMO andthey they had started an innovation week.
They brought in a new chief technologyofficer and he said, I wanna shut the
company down for one week, twice a year.

(48:33):
He said, well, let our clientsknow, you know, if it, obviously
if there's a emergency, we'llbe there and, and available.
But he said, I want the entirecompany to be involved in innovation.
And interestingly, the, the chiefmarketing officer was pushing
back against it, saying like, no,like we have to, we have to do the
things, we have to get the sales.
And the technology officer said, thisis more important than you realize.

(48:53):
Like to have everybody involved ininnovation and realize everybody
contributes and everybody sees whatit looks like across the organization.
And so there was a woman from thefinance team who who worked on a team
and, and they, they had some productroadmaps and then they said, if there's
another issue that you see that youwanna work on or something you hear
from a customer form your own teams,people can sign up to be on whatever

(49:17):
team they wanna be on, contributein whatever way makes you happy.
Like, some people say, I don't knowanything about what's going on, but
I'm really good at doing PowerPoint.
Or I'm, you know, really good at puttinga story structure and arc, you know,
arc together, you know, whatever.
It worked.
So there was a woman in, in finance whoworked on a team with some folks in it.
And then at the end of the week,she had such an amazing experience
that the next Monday she went backand said, okay, how can I apply this

(49:40):
same kind of thinking to what I doagain, too much work to get done.
So she started to look aroundand she realized that every
month she spent 40 hours.
On a manual process.
So one week out of the month shespent putting together this report.
And so she went back to what sheremembered the IT people were doing.

(50:01):
She taught herself a programming language.
She wrote the program, automated.
That report that now takes her 12minutes from 40 hours to 12 minutes.
And a lot of people say, well,is that really innovation?
And when you look at it, essentiallyshe's getting 15 months worth
of work done now in 12 months.

Yeah,

think that's incredibly innovative.
And you think about that sense ofagency that she has now and, and
back to technology takes away themundane, soul sucking kind of things.
Now she's able to have more mentalenergy every single day when she
comes to work to do higher levelthinking and, and I think that's
incredible for people to understand.

This is a great use case for ai, right?
Is writing

Absolutely.

absolutely incredible and getting better and better all the
time and, and to democratize a toollike coding that anybody can, can
do what you just talked about doingthat is an absolute game changer

Mm-hmm.

things that take many, many hours.
I, I heard a recent example aboutsomething that, like that at a, at a
Parks National Parks project, and itwas like this thing that took 60 hours.
A month for a team of peopleto do down to six minutes.
And it's like,

Yeah,

incredible.
That is innovation and,

that is innovation.

people the ability to use tools and to experiment and to iterate
and to figure that kind of thing out,I think is, I think a lot of companies
are missing out on the opportunitiesto find innovation in weird places

Completely agree.

because, you know, if you're, you're an architecture, it's
like, well, the, the designers or thearchitects need to, that's where the
innovation needs to happen becausethat's gonna have the most impact.
And no, it could be anywherein the company from anybody
cares where the ideas come from.
Right.
It, it should absolutely benefit,it would benefit the business to
come from just about anywhere.

Yeah, and, and innovation.
90% of innovation happens outsideof traditional innovation groups.
You know, whether that's a design groupor the engineering group or whatever.
And you think about that, that90% is essentially how the
rest of the business is done.

Hmm.

And, you know, the design is created, the contract signed, whatever
it is, it's that other 90% of the businessthat, that creates a lot of friction
between the work and the execution.
So if we can bring AI in to stripa lot of that away, to make it more
efficient, more predictable, that's huge.
That's hugely innovative.

(52:30):
You know, if, if we're curious enoughto ask the questions instead of just to
say, well, this is the way we, we do it,and you know, come on, come on, come on.
Let's do more of it.
To stop and have that card with thequestion mark in front of us, like
Cormac has, and say, you know, why?
Why are we doing this?
Why are we doing it?
And why are we doing it this way?
And what if we.
You know, go down a rabbithole with questions.

(52:51):
You know, a lot of times we we'rein meetings and we say like, okay,
let's, let's pull it back in.
We're going down the rabbit hole.
We shouldn't be doing this.
But what if you took 15 minutes andreally did go as far down the rabbit
hole as possible and explored things?
And, and I think that's abeautiful thing about curiosity.
We can use it, we can practice it,we can experiment with it, but it's
still okay to put parameters around it.

(53:12):
It doesn't have to be a can of worms.

Yeah.
I, I like that attitude and Ifeel like that is the kind of
thing that can really benefit,benefit firms and, and architects.
I, it doesn't even matterthe size of the business.
Right.
But you, you have to stretch andwork on those muscles if you want
them to actually do something.

Mm-hmm.

like fitness, right?
It's like if, if you don't wanna feelterrible hiking up the mountain, like

Yeah.

practice hiking up the mountain Right.
To, to

Or the one time you do it a year, you're just
gonna be really sore afterwards.

Yeah.
And, and I mean, this is not differentthan that, like creativity, innovation.
I used the example earlier about 95%of the design, you know, getting thrown
away because, because those were the baddesigns and, and we went with a good one.
Like this is the same as that.
Like you have to be willing to gothrough and iterate and try and fail and

(54:06):
learn and discover new things by goingthrough that process for that one thing
to hit, for those two things to hit.
And, and, but the paybackis, is pretty awesome.

You think about it in batting average, like what's
an amazing batting average 300.

300.
Yeah,

Yeah.
So, so, and that's an amazing one,

it,

So if you think about that with ideas, what if you just had
a 300 batting average with your ideas?
And we started to see itin, in that kind of context.
It, you know, helps bringa little dose of reality.

Yeah.
It

Yeah.

good perspective to it.
Yeah.

that you failed s 700% of your

You swung and missed.

sorry.

swung

yeah,

missed and you tried, but you tried,

exactly.
But, but you learned something from that.

right,

swing got that much better.
Next, next better.
I mean, there's,

right.

I, you know, I, I read that we don't get to really,
truly creative ideas until we'vegone through the first 200 ideas,

Mm.

and I'm not, you know, I tell people that statistic,
and I'm not saying, you know, foreverything that you need done, you
know, you have to go through 200 ideas.
But it's the idea that don'tstop at eight or 10 ideas.
Don't look for the one right idea.
Because what our brain does is, iswe go to the familiar, the safe,
the things that have worked before,well, we need to push beyond those.

(55:24):
Maybe go for 30 or 40 ideas

right.

then you'll have some different and richer and, and
more unique, more unique ideas.
But I think it's, it's the curiosity that,that takes you down that path instead
of just staying with what's familiar.

Yeah.
McCormac, you sharing that you are,you were played the Buddha like
first of all, amazing visual, right.
But, but really I mean, I reallyappreciate that you said that and that
you did that because I feel like that'skind of what this conversation was.
And I'm hoping that our audience feelslike that from hearing this it, you

(56:02):
need these reminders to happen everyonce in a while because we are all
frogs getting boiled slowly and then allof a sudden we realize like, oh crap.
Like how did we get here?

The water's hot.

our professions like that.
Our firms are like that.
And I, I, it's important to get thatbigger perspective that you talked about.
Hey, like breathe right, like that,that is just such a key thing to say.
Everybody breathe.

Mm-hmm.

What if we just stop, get outta your head for
a second and just breathe.
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.
Now let's, now let's assess and, andreassess and constantly reassess and
constantly ask why I think that, that,you know, all of these things that have
been floating around this conversation,great reminders for, for us and for the
audience to, it's like, oh, let's, let'sbe a little bit introspective here.

(56:51):
Let's reflect on, on what's actuallygoing on and not just keep doing it
because we forget to ask why we forget.
I think that that's a, that'sa, my big takeaway from this
conversation is, is that we allcan and should do that more often.

When I think to, to your point Evan, when you're talking
about this is a muscle that we canstrengthen, the more we use it, the
more malleable and elastic it gets.
So if we think that it takes a lotof time to stop and ask the questions
and take a breath and, and reassessand reevaluate, the more we do it, the
faster we can go through that process.
Also,

Yeah.

Hmm.

now our brain learns, it gets trained that, okay, we aren't
just going to to, to jump to thesafest, quickest, most familiar thing.
We collective brains and thinking westop, we take a breath, we visually look
around because where our vision goes,our mind goes, you know, so, so we, so

(57:47):
we literally physically look broader.
Our minds open and think broader, and wecan train ourselves to think in that way.
Just like we can train ourselvesto, you know, to run faster, to jump
higher what whatever it might be.
And so then it's not as inefficientas our belief that it is right now.

yeah.

And we need to ask the question, well, what are
the ramifications if we don't?
Right.

Yeah.
Well I talk about what if your safest vetis actually your riskiest move in this,

Yeah.

you know,

Can, can I, can I share an example of something
that I, I feel like I'm learninga lot because I'm failing a lot.

he's, he's, he's getting the

please tell me it's skateboarding.
Please tell me it's skateboarding.

getting, getting used to

Oh,

he's, he's now understanding what a Midwest goodbye is.

Yeah,

okay.

Sorry.
Yeah.
I thought we were done.
I thought we were done.
Yeah.
You know, I'm

We started our, we started goodbye.

I'm pointing my guitars here.
I've been playing guitar a long time,and I've taken it pretty seriously
in the last, let's just call ita year to get actually better.
And I am seriously takingmy lumps right now.
And I think it's justlike a, an experiment.
And I don't know if you guys haveexamples of this but, but I feel
like, you know, Cormac and I havetalked about this with teenage kids.

(59:05):
It's like teenage kids.
Have a hard time puttingthemselves out there because they
literally do not want to fail.
They don't want to fail in our eyes.
They don't want to fail in somebody else.
They don't even want to fail in theirown eyes and keep it a secret, right?
They, they're absolutely terrifiedof failing I'm literally failing
learning, learning how to playat a higher level of guitar.

(59:29):
it's been important for me to reflectas I go through this process to say
like, this is how it actually works.
This is how you get better at doingsomething, is you just keep showing
up you make time to do that thing.
I think that like we have to put ourselvesin those situations over and over again.

(59:51):
We have to get out of ourcomfort zone and we have to go

Yeah.

word.
We have to stretch ourselves so thatwe can actually find the capacity for.
New things, new ideas and all, and,and that just doesn't happen when
you're always the expert, when you'realways have all the answers and
you don't have that naive expertiseor even just that naivete, right.
When it comes to something.
And just be willing to say like, I'ma total novice, total beginner here.

(01:00:17):
And showing up.
Like, I show up at my friend's houseand he's teaching me stuff, and I
literally torture him with how Iplay guitar in those situations.
And he literally puts upwith me because he cares.
And I
Find, like, that to me is, isjust a, a, it's an amazing thing
to go through and it's hard.
I'll just

Carla Johnson (01:00:35):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:00:36):
throw that out there.

I, I read this amazing book last year by a writer named Michael
Easter, and I think he writes for Men'sHealth or Men's Journal among like outside
magazine and, and some other things.
But the book is called The Comfort Crisis.
And he lives in Henderson, Nevada,which I think is right out like
on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
And he said in one part of the book,he said, I live my life at 73 degrees.

(01:01:02):
The

Perfect.

house is set at 73.
I go get my car at 73 degrees.
I drive to a gym, it's 73 degrees.
I pay money to exercise on equipmentthat mimics the great outdoors.
So it's not too uncomfortable.
You, you know, and so we, it's,it's all about, we say we wanna put
ourselves out there and push ourselves,but we only wanna do it comfortably.

Mm.

And the, the gist of the story is he goes
with a couple of other guys.
Up in super, super remote Alaskafor a month, caribou hunting.
And as he's up there, it's all ofthese reflections back about wow.
He, he didn't realize just howcomfortable he spent his life until,

(01:01:49):
I mean, he didn't shower for a month.

Mm-hmm.

was no, like, you, you drank what you filtered and that's
what you drank, or you ate what youkilled, you know, ki kind of thing.
And, and a little bit of the mourningthat he experienced when he went from
back that back into the 73 degreelife he had, and he realized how
critical it was to shake that up.

(01:02:13):
And like he'd spent so much of his lifetrying to control the circumstances,
and now he realized the damage thatall of that comfort had caused him.
And so that's the, you know,the gist of the comfort crisis.

That's super cool.
I, a lot of people need to read that.

It's, and he's an amazing, an amazing writer too.

are very comfortable.

Yeah, I

Cormac Phalen (01:02:35):
Hmm.

royal we, all of us.

Maybe you could play the guitar for us, Evan, a little bit,
and take us out of our comfort zone.

A little tune, outgoing tune here for the end of the podcast.

Exactly.
Yeah.
Maybe you can write a jingle.

I think we gotta get you back on here for that book
club that we're gonna be doing now.
And first book assignmentis the comfort crisis.

Yeah, there you go.
Yeah,

like it.
And I really like that for my teenager.

yeah, exactly.

Oh man.
If he's not comfortable, it is

Everybody.
If he's uncomfortable,nobody's comfortable, right?
Yeah.

we're One last thought.
Sorry.
I'm gonna continue thisthis Midwest goodbye here.

Cormac and I know exactly what one last thought means.

yeah.

we at, are we at the

I.

Are we standing out in the street

No, we're, I think we're still in the doorway of the house.

still in

We haven't, we haven't even been made it outta the house yet.
Yet.

but,

Have another cup of coffee.

last week I was in a bunch of final reviews, for, a variety of
different studios, variety of differentlevels of students and stuff, and.
it came time for the break, and wewere, all of the, these are, academics,
practitioners and everybody else, andwe're sitting around the table and,

(01:03:51):
we're talking about, just kind of talkingafter action review of, of some of the
things that we saw, but then also kindof things that we see in practice.
And you, you bring up this point of whenyou were talking about the teenagers
and not wanting to put themselves outthere because they don't, I, I don't

(01:04:11):
know where we said it wasn't okay to failand learn from the curiosity of failure,

but we did say it like it's, it's, it's literally a thing.

it, oh, it is, it is 100% a thing.
It's like, you know, whywould you do it that way?
You should do it this way.

Mm-hmm.

and, and you, you start to, and so.
level of confidence in,feeling comfortable with
failing to learn from failing.
I watched a clip today and it justhappened to be Tom Hanks talking about
that he's learned more from at a role,failing at, think, this, these experiments
that he tries when he's, playing acertain character or something, that

(01:04:55):
he's learned more from that and hasallowed himself that opportunity to fail.
I don't think we take enough time.
And this was, kind of like thesummation of the conversation that
we're having at the table is thatwe don't take enough time to tell
everybody it is okay to fail, because

Yeah.

does is, you know, kind of the root of where
innovation lies, you know?
Right.
It's, it's the, it's thebirthplace of curiosity.
It's like, oh, well that didn't work.
Let me try it again.

Mm-hmm.

know?

Yeah.
I, you, you know, and that's a, it's agreat philosophy and, and I don't know if
it came from, I mean, from the idea of.
Parents who wanted to makelife easier for their kids.
So they're like, you know, thehelicopter parents, the snowplow
parents or, or whatever it is that the,

Shortcuts.

message is, let me make this, let me clear the difficulty so
you can do it the right way or, or what,you know, I'm not a psychologist to know
what that is, but I, I remember when myhusband and I first got married, we've
been married for 30 years and we cameskiing and I had gone skiing once before.
He grew up in Idaho.
And so he grew up skiing.
And I said one time like, oh, I just, I,I'm so happy 'cause I didn't fall down

(01:06:03):
this morning, you know, like at lunch.
And he said, well, here's the thing.
If, if you don't fall down,you don't know where your, the
edge of your abilities are.
And I think that's the sameway with, with with failure.
If, if everything we do.
Always works out all right.
We don't, we don't know that gap betweenwhere we are and where we could be.
I, I have a good friend, she wrote abook called Ask Like an Auctioneer,

(01:06:25):
and it's a fa, it's fascinating becauseshe Silicon Valley tech kind of person
went to Missouri to auctioneeringschool, her and a group of, you know,
belt buckle wearing cowboy cat sportingguys in this auctioneering class.
And she said what she learned fromthe, you know, what they taught
her and from all of the cowboysshe was in there with, is that

(01:06:48):
typically we stop when we get a yes.
Right?
It was like, yeah, you know, highfive me, I got the yes but auctioneers
keep going until they get a no.
And that's, that's your gap of, ofpossibility between the yes that we
stop at and the no we should go for.
And that's been a fascinatingthing to think, and I, and I,

(01:07:10):
when we think about curiosity and.
Possibilities.
If what we're trying always works outor if the ideas we put forth always
get the okay, then we're not, we're notreaching what could be, and I, I mean,
we can put it into tangible language.
I mean, that means revenue.
If we're not pushing what'spossible, it means we're also

(01:07:33):
not looking at potential revenue.

think it also means innovation.
And so I want to ante up on whatyou just said and, and make us
again kind of reflect, becauseI've seen this happen many times
working in an architecture firm.
Maybe we're, I'm, I'm moving usout onto the sidewalk now, guys

Oh,

in our Midwest goodbye.
But I, I feel like been so manytimes where I've seen my team tell
me what the client won't go for.

Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

their behalf.

decide on their behalf, we make the decision for them so that
we don't have to hear no from them

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

and waste, or waste their time or however you wanna frame it.
Right.
But we do that, we compromiseall the time on their behalf.

That is so true,

happens over and over and over again.
But I think this is, this playsinto that idea of fear of failure.
Like we don't wanna throw somethingout there that they could squash.
We don't wanna, this happens a lot.
And I'm curious from your point of view,I mean this, this happens, what I'm
saying is this happens internally as wellas like, doing something in the world.

(01:08:42):
Great.
And,

Uhhuh.

going back to this idea of like, where's a safe
place to have absurd ideas?
Absurd for now, obvious later,It's, it's really interesting to
watch this play out time and timeagain in very creative industries.

You know, when you, when you and I had a call a
couple of weeks ago, Evan, you weretalking a little bit about this
dynamic with the project you had.
Years ago, I think it was with a bank

Mm.

where it was like,

The

here's typically what they want.
And, and you were able to, toframe it in a different way.
And so coming back to your questionabout what do I do when I work with
companies about how do I get to startto think them, to think different,
like besides the breadth and justcoming down, I give them a range where
they, they have to say, this is boringand this is so freakishly out there.

(01:09:36):
You know, like Steven Tyler from Aerosmithsays like, let your freak flag fly.
Like, what does that look like for them?
And, and then let's talk aboutwhat the spectrum is in between.
Because the more we're exposed tosomething, the more familiar it comes.
So it becomes, so if we're uncomfortableabout trying these new ideas, if we're.

(01:09:57):
If it's so unfamiliar to us and ourclients, maybe it doesn't start with
us pushing, pushing, pushing them.
Maybe it's about having conversationsabout this is what's going on in
the world and this is what it lookslike and here's the outcome of it.
And in a way, by stretching themso far in that way, and then coming

(01:10:17):
back to something that doesn'tfeel quite so weird, we've actually
helped them relax because well,at least we're not like that.

Yeah,

know?
At least, at least wehaven't gone that far.
You know?
It's

price anchoring.
Well, it's $3,000.
Okay, well 2000.
It's $2,000.
That doesn't sound so bad.

Yeah, exactly.
You know,

be $3,000.
Right.
But it's weird.

it's,

too.
Like the weirdness is agreat example of that.

yeah.
Be because one, unless we havethat, that benchmark or that, that
comparison to look at like what trulyis weird and what truly is out there.
I mean, you can do that with, withlots of architecture around the world.
Like now that was weird.
Now this thing, you know, at least theydidn't make our building a picnic basket.

(01:11:05):
You know, at least itdoesn't look like that.
You know, that those kind of things.
You know, so, so then you bring it backin and maybe it's not the whole project,
but maybe it's one little detail ofit and it makes us more comfortable to
push it when we can show what really outthere is and, and what it looks like.
But, but again, it's the more familiar.

(01:11:25):
The more you're exposed to something,the more familiar it becomes and the more
familiar it is, the less risky it feels.
And I think that's not only forus, but it's how we approach
those conversations with clients.
And it may feel like, I don't wannawaste their time, I don't wanna this
and that, but I know, I know for likemarketing agencies and number one reason
they get fired by a client is becausethey quit coming to them with new ideas.

(01:11:49):
Now, they may have said no to everysingle idea, but it's the fact that they
know they're always thinking about theirbusiness and thinking about what could
be and thinking about possibilities.

we had an internal rule for our team that was, you
know, architects always have to showmultiple options for everything.
You can't just show up with,with the solution, right?
And so our rule was every option thatwe showed in that range of like, okay,
what we called safe, which was probablythe one they were gonna pick, we
would always go crazier from there up.

(01:12:21):
Right?
And, and by crazier I just meanlike, more architectural, more
capital A architecture, right?
And something that we would really loveto see them say yes to also, right?
Like no throwaway ideas.
You never put a throwawayidea in front of a client.
'cause they'll pick thatone, I guarantee you, right?

Now we gotta make it work.
Yeah.

So always

basket.

always put stuff in front of them.
you want to do.
You get to do it in the veryconceptual stage, and then you get
to talk about those ideas, and youget better about presenting those
ideas as you present those ideasmore and more often to clients.
then you're going to end up with betterprojects over time by doing that and,

(01:13:07):
and not, not putting in any duds.
Don't put any duds into the world.
The world does not need bad design.
Right?
It doesn't

Agreed.

bad design.
There's plenty of it out there already.

Yeah.

My go-to example is always, you know, this Evan, to
be the fly on the wall to listento Sein the idea for the St.
Louis Arch.

Yeah.

What?
Yeah.

No one's ever seen anything like that before

Right.

can do, can we, can any of us think of a world without it now?

Yeah.

But you just think about it and you just like, how?
he convince them that this wasit, that this was the idea?
There were so many architects, includinghis own father, who were pitching
ideas for what this monument couldbe, and he's like, Hey, I got an idea.

(01:14:07):
This big massive metal arch thatno one has ever built before.
And it's and they'rejust like, eh, why not?

And we'll put an elevator inside.

That goes sideways,

Yeah.
Yeah.
It's claustrophobic.
Yeah.

You know,

Yeah.

is just, and it's just like, you know, okay, put out
there the question that wasn't asked.
You know, how many times have weregretted not asking that question?
Whatever that question is,

Yeah.

you know?
So, I.

And I don't, I don't know, is is there anything that talks about
his design process or how he came upwith it and how he got 'em to say Yes?
I haven't seen anything, to be honest.
I haven't looked for it.

there are you know, I've bore everybody with
the whole documentaries, but we'llput 'em in the show notes for

All right.

at.

Yeah,

but it's just, this conversation about, and he's
convinced, what was interestingis like he's an architect.
He's convinced a lot ofdifferent people to do things
that you've never seen before.
And they're like, all right, arrow,let's, let's, let's, let's take that shot.
You know, so

But it wasn't the first time he tried it, it was right.
He, it's like this is a muscle.
He had been flexing fora long time, and then,

Exactly.

it reminds me of like the, the Sydney Opera House.
It's like, it's, it's

yeah,

this icon.
Like when they, when they,when he won that competition,
it was like a concept, right?
It was literally.
They didn't even know howthey were gonna build it.
But look at what it's done for Sydney.
Like it is the icon of Australia.
And I

Yeah.

Yeah.

that the St.
Louis arch is very much, you know,it is called the gateway, arch for
a reason, the gateway to the west.
Right.
And it's, it's it interesting thatthese wild ideas have, become so iconic
and just delivered value way beyondthe property lines of the site of that

Mm-hmm.

project.
And that to me is, I mean, that isthe value in this kind of thinking
that, that we're talking about today.
every project gets to be like that, butyou'll never get to do projects like that
if you never talk about those things.
And if you never flex thosemuscles, and if you never stretch
to get to the point where, oh, ofcourse we can do that even if you

Yeah, it's, it's a little bit like, like the
Seinfeld effect, I mean, theabsurdity of a show about nothing.

Right.

it's, it's so absurd

Yeah.

kinda like, it, it's so absurd.
Like this big arch, you know?
And it, there was an artist who had a.
In the Royal Gorge here inColorado was like cheese that
hung across the Royal Gorge.
It's like, who would go see that?
But it was so absurd.
That's what brought people to see it.

attraction.

see it.

Right.
Interesting.
Well, right, well, are we, are we

Are we on the sidewalk now?

goodbye?

Yeah, I think, yeah.

Yeah.
All

think, yeah.
A couple of us are in the car now,

to close the

just engines on

obviously we could still keep, we could still

hope.
I hope it's electric.
So I haven't been burninggas this whole time.

Well, Carla Johnson, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
Everybody go to Carla's website.
It's carla johnson.co.
That

CO, there's no m.
Mm-hmm.

the end of that is gonna be in the links in the
show notes for this episode.
I.
We'll let you get to her site, seewhat she does, and if you liked what
you heard here, definitely check outher TED Talk and get on her newsletter
and, and do things like that.
Thank you

Yeah.

out with us and, and having this conversation.
It's been, I've learned a lot.
It's been great.

It was delightful.
Thanks so much for inviting me.
I loved it.

Thanks.

All Episodes

#373 - ‘Slowing Down to Speed Up’, with Carla Johnson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#373 - ‘Slowing Down to Speed Up’, with Carla Johnson