February 4, 2025 • 40 mins
“The Elements Kit is about 'Who am I?' and 'What next?'. What choices can I make for a really fulfilled and aligned life? Bringing all those components into balance.” - Lisa Johnson
Lisa Johnson, an experienced designer with expertise spanning interior design to service design, joins us to share her journey and her innovative creation, The Elements Kit. With a foundation in systems thinking and human-centred design, Lisa has built a toolkit that aligns personal talents, values, and ambitions, offering a unique path to creative self-actualisation.
Lisa discusses the origins of The Elements Kit, which started as a thesis project and evolved into a powerful tool for individuals and teams. She explains the concept of archetypes and how they reflect human behaviour in distinct ways. She explores topics such as psychological safety, the gap in traditional psychometric tests, and how teams can use The Elements Kit to uncover untapped potential.
Hear about Lisa’s offer to work with teams and organisations, providing a holistic approach to enhancing alignment, productivity, and individual fulfilment using The Elements Kit.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- The origins of the Elements Kit as a thesis project.
- Why traditional psychometric tools miss the mark on human complexity.
- The six key elements: expression, connection, leadership, knowledge, navigation, and belief.
- Archetypes and how they provide a holistic view of human behaviour.
- How psychological safety enables creativity and team collaboration.
- Balancing light and shadow sides of archetypes for personal growth.
- Insights into team dynamics and the importance of valuing individuality.
- The role of self-reflection in navigating life and career.
- Applications of the Elements Kit across different age groups, from children to seniors.
- How the kit enables organisations to align team values with company culture.
Key links
About our guest
As an experienced design consultant and mentor, Lisa has a deep understanding of the delivery of creative projects from research and discovery through to design, production and implementation, and decades of experience mentoring others in human-centred design.
With broad agency and client-side experience across UX, CX, EX and Service Design, Lisa is skilled at collaborating, co-ordinating and leading diverse stakeholder and consultant teams. Lisa has a particular strength in strategic visual thinking and narrative.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Hudson (00:06):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another exciting
episode of the company roadpodcast, where we give you the
Intrapreneurs, current andfuture leaders, everything you
need to thrive at work and getchange going within your
organizations.
And today I'm really thrilled tohave a special guest with us,
Lisa Johnson, Lisa, welcome tothe show.
Lisa Johnson (00:21):
Hello.
Chris Hudson (00:23):
Hello.
You've done a lot of things.
So you've been a seasoned expertin landscape architecture,
experience design, humancentered design, lots of
different things.
We're going to talk about thatin a moment.
You've got an incredible journeythat really bridges the physical
and digital realms ofcreativity.
We'll also get into in a momentand from your foundational
experiences in the printindustry to impactful work with
Fjords and Accenture, Lisa hascontinually pushed the
(00:46):
boundaries of what's possible inexperience design.
And in this episode, we're goingto go into Lisa's journey.
We're going to look at theorigins of her innovative
elements kit, which is veryexciting.
It's pretty new.
But a lot of people are using italready, which is a
revolutionary approach that itkind of began as a thesis
project and has sincetransformed into a powerful tool
for creative alignment and selfactualization for those people
(01:08):
that are using it.
It's a toolkit that's reallyresonating with the industry.
So there's lots to explore.
So we're going to look at theimportance of psychological
safety a little bit in terms ofcreating a context within your
teams where creativity thrivesand what tools like Elements Kit
or otherwise can do to helpuncover certain desires, maybe
(01:28):
repressed desires.
What are the core things that weas people need within our teams
and that sort of thing.
So it's going to be a bit of ajourney of self discovery, I
want to say.
Okay.
A bit like choosing whichinstrument you want to play, if
that's the right analogy, I'mnot sure, I was lucky enough to
get a VIP pass and check out theelements kit just before the
show.
So it's all feeling pretty freshand maybe we start with you Lisa
(01:51):
and your journey and you cantell us a bit about how this all
came about and its evolutionfrom the previous work and how
it came about from the thesisthat I just described.
Lisa Johnson (01:58):
Yes.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
And what a journey it's been.
I often refer to myself just asa designer, but that means so
many things because I've covereda full spectrum starting in that
spatial realm and then workingright through to experience
design and service design.
So I'm really a natural bornsystems thinker, super
interested in the way thatsystems fit together and serve
(02:20):
humans.
So the elements kit itself beganwith a question around something
I was really deeply curiousabout, which is why people that
I was observing in theirtwenties were able to align.
best of themselves, like interms of their skills and their
talents and their passions intoa singular focus that put them
(02:41):
in good stead in a very linear,almost straight line trajectory.
While I watched other peoplelike myself spending a lot of
time dabbling and bouncingaround cross discipline,
exploring different things,which is very much the nature of
the seeker, which we'll talkabout later.
I was super curious about whysome people are able to find
that balance.
(03:02):
And why others take many, manyyears.
So it was really just a questionand a hypothesis around early
bloomers versus late bloomers.
And if there was any sort ofmethod or reason why this
occurred.
And then later, when I wasevolving into sort of more than
10 years of really focusedpractice around, experience
design, sort of moving throughUX and UI and CX and EX,
(03:25):
employee experience, rightthrough to service design.
I was really interested in anobservation that I was making,
especially in big organizations,about the underutilization of
human talent and skill.
So really those two things thatreally fueled the desire to
develop the elements kit.
underutilization and how we canactually just maximize people's
(03:47):
potential, not just for theirperformance, which obviously
organizations are reallyinterested in, but also for
their fulfillment and to getthem to that space of beautiful
balance.
Chris Hudson (03:56):
Yeah, it is realization and that moment
doesn't always occur to us, asyou were saying.
you could be an early bloomer,but you might not realize that
you're blooming.
You might just be doing what youthink is instinctively right.
And late bloomers, it feels likethey're a bit more deliberate
about their decisions becausethey're so fed up with
everything else.
That's how I feel mainly.
But yeah, it does feel veryinstinctive.
(04:17):
And I think.
having just looked at Elementskit, it does feel like it's
looking to pull apart what liesdeep within, right?
how did you go about capturingthat in some way or
understanding that?
Lisa Johnson (04:27):
Yeah, it's an interesting one because Over
the, over many years of needingto participate in different
psychometric tests, like MyersBriggs and CliftonStrengths and
all these tests that many of usin big organizations are
familiar with, I really startedto see gaps in the way that
those tests were profilinghumans.
(04:48):
And then of course, at the sametime, as a human centered
designer, which is all about theholistic view of the human and
how humans think, act, and feel.
I could see that there were waysto be exploring human behavior
to really catch some of thedeficit of what wasn't being
explored.
So for example, there's sixelements within the Elements
(05:09):
Kit, expression, connection,leadership, knowledge.
Navigation and Belief.
Belief is a super interestingone because it talks very much
about your personal values oryour cultural values.
Things that a lot of thosepsychometric tests don't lean
into.
In their ambition to be able toclassify people, in the case of
Myers Briggs, it's one of 16different types and we all know
(05:31):
ENFJs and INTPs.
So, that's interesting as anobservation in itself over the
years.
More than 10 years I've beenasking people if they know their
Myers Briggs type.
So I can't let you escape this.
Do you know your Myers Briggstype?
Chris Hudson (05:44):
Oh, yeah, I think I do, but I don't know, some
letters, I, yeah, INFT, INFJ,something like that.
Lisa Johnson (05:51):
This is a standard response because most people,
they think they have an idea,but they're not quite sure.
many people change Myers Briggstype.
And the reason they do isbecause life changes and humans
are not necessarily an exactscience.
So there were many areas of thatpsychometric testing where I
could see it fell short of whatas a human centered design
(06:14):
practitioner we were reallyinterested in uncovering or
understanding about humanbehavior.
So the elements kit was goingsome way to answer some of that
uncharted territory and to beginto look at people.
as distinct and entirely unique,rather than one of 16 types.
And then of course, the biggerambition of it was to not only
(06:35):
discover who you are uniquely,but to be able to use different
human centered design tools towork out what to do with that
information.
Because it's all very well thatyou're an ENFJ or an INTP, but
then it's all about, what do Ido with that information?
even if I can remember my type,what next?
So the elements could use asmuch about who am I.
As it is about what next andwhat choices can I make for a
(06:58):
really fulfilled and alignedlife bringing all those
complaints into balance.
Chris Hudson (07:01):
Yeah, brilliant.
there is a lot in that.
I think there's a lot to sayabout not just showing the
answer, but showing the truth.
Then what you can do with itbecause there are so many things
in the world of work that arelike that, you're past the piece
of work and you're expected tothen, it's your job to basically
figure out what, what it isyou're going to do with that.
But I think some framing in andsome bridging.
(07:22):
Really between that artifact andthen the future application of
that to your own context isincredibly important.
Otherwise it's not easily donefor one but it's not feeling
like it's something that wouldbe generally agreed as the way
forward.
You'd have to then take thatstep on work, work it out with
the team or you'd have to decidewhether it was a priority or
not.
and this way it just makes itsimple because it's taking it
(07:45):
not just the first step, but thenext three or four maybe as
well.
Lisa Johnson (07:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Hudson (07:49):
Yeah.
There's something around,obviously you go about doing
this for yourself.
I love the kind of distance thatyou can create from yourself and
the way that you would usuallythink about yourself in the way
that the kit is perceived.
But a lot of people listening tothe show may not have really
seen what, they won't have seenit necessarily.
Maybe you could just describesome of the different elements
(08:11):
and Brings to life that sort ofthing, because I think that's
really where the magic lies in away from just having seen it.
It feels like it takes you into,takes your brain into a
different way to think aboutyourself.
but how would you describe that?
Lisa Johnson (08:23):
Yeah, I think firstly, fundamentally, we
talked a little bit about humancentered design, but we haven't
talked much about archetypes andarchetypes are, they're the
components of the kit.
So the kit in physical form is acard deck of hexagon cards that
all fit together like hand time.
as you work with the kit and anarchetype in simple terms is a
(08:45):
pictorial metaphor thatdescribes human behavior in a
single word, super powerful.
And we use archetypes in ourlanguage every day.
And interestingly, we usearchetypes like captain, mentor,
angel, bully, these are allterms that we are using because
it's a very efficient way ofunderstanding human behavior.
Where it gets a little dangerousis when we begin to stereotype
(09:07):
people.
So we define an entireindividual as one stereotype and
sometimes detrimentally so wecan give a person as a bully.
But the important thing to knowabout the elements kit across
that full spectrum of those sixelements, make choices so that
you end up with a creative DNAprofile, which is called your
discovery chart.
(09:28):
And that has 24 components toit.
And those components sit withinthe six different elements,
which is how you, you experiencelife essentially, holistically.
And so there's an opportunity tounderstand that you have 24
primary archetypes that are allat play in your existence.
You're not just one stereotype,you're a beautiful sort of
(09:51):
component system of all of thesedifferent parts that sit within
those six pillars.
And that's hugely important andinteresting because of the
pinnacle of how you aremathematically entirely unique.
So when you do the discoverychart, no one will ever do the
chart.
It's mathematically impossibleto do a chart that's identical
(10:11):
to anyone else's.
So that chart and theinformation on it is literally
as unique as your fingerprint.
And then you have all of thesecomponents that are so
interesting to unpack andexplore with other tools in the
kit that allows you to look atthe relationships So, you're
never just one thing, you'remyriad things and there's a
continual dance, that'shappening all the time.
(10:34):
And this is why we can havedichotomies in our personality
as well, where we've got twocompeting archetypes, where we
may be a hermit, for example,good example of an archetype.
and yet at the same time, there,there are also aspects of our
personality where we may beentertainer or comedian.
And it's really, I think this iswhat's beautiful, as I said
before about Myers Briggs.
Sometimes, you're oscillatingbetween introversion and
(10:56):
extroversion.
This happens really commonly.
People will do the test and thenthree years later, they will
have moved from an INFJ, forexample, to an ENFJ.
And that's, that just shows usthat the context, the experience
that people is having at thattime, the level of psychological
safety, which I know we're goingto talk about further, they may
be experiencing in their currentrole.
(11:18):
it may have flexed somewhat overthose years.
So we're constantly in thisstate of flux.
It's this constant dance betweenthese components of self, which
make us hugely rich andbeautiful and complex as
individual human beings.
Chris Hudson (11:33):
Yeah.
the complexity I think is theharder part to solve for in a
way, and it feels like you'vedefinitely addressed that
because you can bring in thecombination of archetypes to
represent you and yourself andthe prominence of any of those
archetypes in any givensituation can be something that
you can begin to understand,which I think is really cool.
so for the people that don'tlike, if you haven't seen Alan's
(11:55):
kit, then you're trying tovisualize this a little bit.
It's probably a little bit likea pack of top trumps in a way,
and you're picking out thearchetypes that are most
relevant to you, that kind ofspeak to you and what you value
and how you feel.
so it's a bit of self analysisaround that.
And then you might then, andthen effectively you're labeling
it and then you can see how theypresent and we're describing how
(12:19):
to present, when you build upthe entire picture across the
six elements.
Is that a good enough summary?
Yeah, I
Lisa Johnson (12:26):
think so.
And you know, it's designed asthis sort of dynamic and visual
tool.
so that this all makes sensewhen you're laying it out.
But it is quite like a game.
and when you are developingimpression of self, because you
are doing it incrementally, It'schallenging to game it for that
reason, because of the way thatyou build this slowly and then
(12:46):
finally at the end you have thisalmost like an omniscient view
of the way this chart has landedand who you are and this unique
creative DNA you have, but alsoit's very retrospective in the
sense that, like psychometrictests, They will actually ask
questions of your pastexperience.
And so you lean into that aswell in order to determine, am I
(13:08):
more this or am I more thatbased on when I think about
these experiences from childhooduntil now, for example, or when
I think about these experiencesin my adult life and different
sort of career or vocation.
So, it's very self reflectiveand self determining, and of
course, when you do this with agroup or with a partner, there's
all of that, sharing ofimpression of self that can
(13:28):
happen.
It can be super enlightening ina team when other people bring
to the fore something which isvery natural about your
personality that you don'tnecessarily honor or champion.
I think that's an importantpoint to make as well.
This is all about justchampioning that the colorful
and kind of bright side of whoyou are creatively or into those
six elements.
Chris Hudson (13:48):
Yeah, so it's around superpowers as opposed to
any flaws for it.
Lisa Johnson (13:53):
And that, that's the thing, you know, a lot of
this work and including, theftslike Myers Briggs, obviously
that harps back to a lot of themore contemporary work that Carl
Jung was doing as apsychoanalyst at the turn of the
century.
So he popularized archetypes andbrought that into.
common everyday language and hestarted in 1920 with 12
(14:13):
archetypes because he too wasdetermined to define all humans
according initially to these 12archetypes.
What was interesting is thatonce he started digging deeper
and deeper and deeper as heobserved patterns of human
behavior in his practice, herealized this was infinite and
endless.
Archetypes are you know, theyreally are infinite and
(14:34):
archetypes have been writtenabout since Plato's time.
Essentially he was trying tomake this a language that people
could explore and use andunderstand.
And he was very aware that everyarchetype has a light side and
it has a shadow side.
So when you get into the sixtools and the elements bit, the
first is the one I've described,which is a discovery chart.
(14:57):
But when you get into the latertools, you begin to work with
the idea of what happens when aparticular archetype in its
light form, such as an orator,what happens when that is
actually influenced by shadowforces and shadow forces being
fear and fear inducing oranxiety inducing.
So a common, let me give you anexample of a common shadow
(15:18):
archetype.
A great one is saboteur.
Saboteur is almost a characterin and of its own right.
And people might describe it asa gremlin or a troublemaker.
The way that saboteur actuallyshows up and the way that it
feels in, in, in your mind andin your body is sabotaging.
It's where a fear orientedthought might take place at the
thought of you trying to achievea goal, for example.
(15:40):
So the way that you can workwith the light side of any
archetype is to have a look atwhat happens to it when it's put
under pressure and that shadowinfluence is happening.
The idea is to champion humansto such a degree, whether
they're in teams or whetherthey're doing this for personal
development.
It's to champion humans to sucha degree that they can remain
(16:00):
really steady and balanced inthat highly productive and
fruitful state of what it is tobe in that color spectrum of
archetypes.
Chris Hudson (16:08):
Yeah, well, I mean that's the next level is in
terms of self understanding, itfeels like there's a lot that
you can understand aboutyourself.
Even just the architect names.
I was just looking at themagain.
So I've read out a few, soHermit, Follower, Hustler,
Dreamer, Gorge, Futurist.
it's taking the world of workbut it's taking the conversation
into the realms of fiction andfantasy and it all of a sudden
(16:32):
sounds a lot more exciting justdescribing you or me as green,
red, yellow, blue, or a load ofletters as you describe it.
So, so I like that.
It conjures up a preconceptionand it allows you to work with
that preconception of thatdefinite definition and that
archetype.
For that to make it usefulreally.
So I think it's very excitingand you've run this a lot of
(16:54):
people.
Tell us a bit about how it'sbeen running either with
individuals or within teams,how's it running?
Lisa Johnson (17:00):
Yeah.
So to take it back a stepfurther, you talked about the
thesis and the idea of wherethose ideas seeded.
That was way back in 2008.
So for a long time I wasstudying archetypes.
I was writing, I was justexploring a lot of theories.
it wasn't until 2020 when thefirst rough prototype of the
elements kit landed, and thatwas a week before COVID hit here
(17:23):
in Melbourne, which is supersignificant when we all went
into the first severe lockdown.
So it's really interestingtiming because I had this
opportunity to go and begintesting, physically, and then I
had to quickly translate thatinto a digital kit.
as we went through the ups anddowns of all of that lockdown
sort of period.
And so I was working one on onewith individuals and just
(17:45):
testing with hundreds of peoplefrom 2020 until now, mainly
working one on one.
And then obviously when thingsreturned to some sense of
normalcy, just getting out andabout, allowing people to
explore the discovery chart andtesting it with people who are
from age 10 to 83, which ishugely interesting as an
experiment in and of itself.
This idea of what it is to be onthe cusp and right at the
(18:07):
beginning with childlike wonderversus someone who looks
retrospectively and completestheir discovery chart, based on
their reflection of self acrossa whole lifetime.
So all of that was happening oneon one.
And then this year has been thebig year in terms of extending
that out to leaders and teams,which is obviously much more
(18:28):
complex.
So all of that groundwork andjust working individually really
paved the way of how to makethis a super robust product to
be using in more complexenvironments with more complex
problems and many more movingparts.
And essentially, we've movedthis year as well into producing
an amazing suite of customizablereports.
(18:50):
So it's now not just about doingthis as a process and enjoying
it at the time and theconversation that naturally
happens between people, which isvery insightful and enlightening
in and of itself.
But now it's really moving itinto that next realm of how do
we take this data and make senseof it and who you use for ways.
So we're producing reports thatare highly customizable in terms
(19:10):
of what a team or leader mightwant to learn about the dynamic
of the team, the relationshipsand how everybody fits together
and can work more productivelyand more or happily and really
engage.
The best of their skills andtalents, as I said.
Chris Hudson (19:27):
Yeah.
Nice.
I love the backstory, the factthat you tested it with young 10
year olds and 83 year olds, andthat, that would be a whole
topic of conversation, butalmost the slice of life or the
slice of corporate life thatyou're now going into now where
you're working within teams andwithin groups, what are some of
the observations, is it givingyou a read on the industry in
some sort of way?
(19:48):
I'm curious to ask thatquestion.
Lisa Johnson (19:50):
Oh, yes.
it's so interesting because Ithink what I would have thought
I would answer is now quitedifferent having experienced
this really what I've learned,which makes a lot of sense
because the whole premise of theelements kit is that every
individual is unique.
And naturally what that means isthat every team is unique.
So as much as I would love to beable to classify and having
(20:10):
moved through and worked in somany different types of
experience design teams, perhapsit would be a more convenient
truth for us to think that a CXteam looks and feels like this
or a UX team.
And I think there's definitecommonality.
Because again, the remit and theexpectation of the work that
you're there to produce as ateam is similar, but every
(20:31):
single team is so different.
if you did an elements kitworkshop with five different CX
teams, without a doubt, theambitions would be slightly
different.
The values of the actualcompany, which would be
influencing the culture in whichthose people sit, not to mention
the leader being a completelyunique, creative, individual and
every single person within thatteam.
(20:53):
And then you get into thedynamics and the spaces between
all of those individuals and thepolitical aspects and influences
of that business and thestructure.
So I don't think there is such athing as one common team or one
common methodology.
And I think what mirrors thatnicely is the idea that having
(21:13):
built so many different humancentered design playbooks over
the years.
Particularly as a servicedesigner, every time you would
build a playbook, it would needto be different.
So it would borrow some commonlanguage.
And similarly, every time Iwould build a service design
blueprint, it was just adifferent artifact than the
previous one.
Because not only was the briefand the remit different and the
(21:36):
expectation, but that artifactwas being influenced and shaped
by people who had differentprerogatives, different ideas,
different ambitions.
And then the nature of whateverthe content needed to be within
that blueprint made it acompletely unique artifact.
So yeah, I think there's acommon thread here, which is who
(21:57):
are we as unique individuals?
Who are we as leaders and whoare we as unique teams?
Chris Hudson (22:02):
Which is an interesting question.
I've got this feeling lookingback at my career is that your
place within the timeline ofwork or in the timeline of your
career is only, it's only therefor that moment, right?
So it's only going to be thesame for maybe a week or maybe a
year.
If everything kind of staysroughly the same and you're
working in the same team, some,somebody is going to change at
(22:22):
some point.
So I'm wondering.
for intrapreneurs as well, youknow, what, what feels like it's
sort of safe enough and fixed tobe able to plan around and what
feels like it would be changingaround you and how could they
navigate that best do you think?
Lisa Johnson (22:35):
Yes, well, if you look at a discovery chart,
essentially within the sixelements.
There are four archetypal cardsthat you choose and you number
those in, in order.
And that order is essentiallyabout the resonance or the
dominance of that archetype inyour life.
So, a good example might bearchitect, where you feel
(22:56):
through and through.
Even if your vocation or yourcareer is not an architect, you
might feel most resonant withthat idea of how you think and
behave and feel and navigate inthe world.
And so essentially you end upwith dominant archetypes on your
chart, particularly in positionsone and two.
And those are usually apredominant aspect of your
(23:19):
character or personality thathas expressed since a very early
age.
That's usually the case.
Sometimes there are anomaliesbecause sometimes in the case
of, say, a later bloomer, avocation might come to the fore
that for whatever reason, theopportunity just hasn't been
there to explore.
So it'll become very dominantand it'll become a pivot in life
that sets you off from being,say, a lawyer to being a social
(23:41):
activist or however you defineyourself.
Or you might move from amusician to being a managing
director in a corporation.
So the point is that there arepatterns of things that feel
much steadier for a number ofreasons.
And then there are other lowerdown the ranks of the archetypes
(24:02):
you choose on your chart.
These ones tend to ebb and flow.
They tend to flux.
They tend to sort of move in andout of your story.
So I think the short answer tothe question is, It's usually a
safe bet to lean into thosethings that have been
predominant in your life.
And to know that they'resurefire bets of the
fundamentals, they're like theroot stabilizers, I suppose, of
(24:23):
who you are.
And then other things tend toshift around that over time.
And as things change as yourcircumstance changes or your
career changes or whatnot.
So I think it's all about reallyleaning into the things that you
have the most evidence for, Isuppose.
Or conversely, if there is justsuch a strong compulsion of
uncharted territory or untappedpotential and, you know, this
(24:46):
can happen if you've had atraumatic experience when you're
a lot younger, let's say you'reactually an incredible performer
on stage as a kid, but you, andyou've got a very natural sort
of predisposition to want toperform and entertain or make
people laugh or sing.
If you have a traumaticexperience at that time, you can
just shut up, shut up.
This happens a lot with childrenwhere for a very, very long
(25:07):
period, This is not untappedpotential because it's been
there, it's been recognisedbefore, but it's just needed to
lay dormant for whatever reason.
This can then be something thatyou re tap into and bring to
life again, given the rightcircumstances, to really wake it
up.
So it's not just about saying,well, I've always been this
thing, therefore I will justcontinue to be it.
(25:29):
It can sometimes be aboutunearthing things that just
haven't had a chance to beexplored.
And this is what I often sayabout Myers Briggs,
CliftonStrengths, it's only everrecalling who you've been in
order to determine who you, howyou will likely behave and who
you'll be in future.
I love the way the elements kitgoes a little deeper and says,
okay, well, this might be yourprimary stance on who you are
(25:51):
based on evidence and how itshows up now.
But what about all that whatabout all that online treasure?
so it's very much aboutcompulsion and passion.
If there's a real passion toexplore something that might not
show up in a psychometric testfor you.
But again, navigating by feelingand resonance can be a way to
bring yourself home to that andmove into that as a primary in
(26:14):
future, which may not be aprimary now.
Chris Hudson (26:16):
Yeah, super interesting.
I guess it comes back to thequestion around when in your
life you would be best placed tounderstand yourself to that
degree or does it not matter?
Do you just keep revisiting it?
What have you got a feelingthere on the perfect age?
Lisa Johnson (26:30):
I think you're never too young to begin.
As I said, I've tested this with10 year olds.
I tested it also with differentyoung people, emerging people
who are 17 year olds who aretrying to make their decision
around their final year ofschool subjects, which can be
really interesting when youcompare to a lot of tests that
are out there that are beingused in secondary schools.
(26:50):
I think there's huge potentialfor this because often you'll
hear very disgruntled parentstalking about how those tests
are really failing young people.
Because they're just not lookingat young people's potential or
just their holistic DNA withenough clarity and not giving
them agency to be able to selfreflect either, which is super
interesting.
(27:10):
I think the idea of when is it?
I think you could literallyquite safely use this with kids
that are 10 or 11, again,depending on how it's
facilitated right through tosecondary school, university and
onwards.
I have a friend who is anoccupational therapist.
And when she was testing the kitwith me way back in 2020,
(27:33):
actually, right, right at thebeginning, she said, gosh, this
would be so interesting to usethis tool with Alzheimer's
patients.
Who she was working with at thetime.
And she said, even if this gavethem a chance, a sense of agency
to self reflect, even for alucid hour, they build this
chart physically.
And then there is somethingthere, which is evidence that
(27:55):
they can share with family, evenif they've forgotten the next
hour and this idea of just beingable to revisit.
I think it's applicable topeople of all ages and the
context in which you would useit is quite different depending
on what stage of life you're at.
Chris Hudson (28:08):
Yeah, that's useful.
What's interesting to me is thatI've gone into a lot of
companies, joining a lot ofcompanies over my career so far,
and you always feel like you'rebecoming part of something else
because that, that as aconstruct is established in some
ways.
So an organization if you joinedGoogle, that'd be a Google way.
If you went to work at Bunnings,they'd be doing that in a
certain way.
(28:29):
And you feel like you're givingyourself to that.
Yeah.
That as an essence and as a kindof a whole it's like a, it's a
universe that you're walkinginto and there's a whole being
that you're becoming part ofthat and that culture.
So what's interesting about thisconversation is that it gives
people a chance to reallyreflect on themselves and the
self reflection I think placeswell, it gives you more accuracy
(28:53):
by which you can determine whatyour next step might be, where
you think you are relative towhere you want to be.
is the context for where you'reworking right for you?
Is it wrong?
is there something that couldchange?
And then if you're using it withother team members.
Members as well, then you'relooking for other ways to find
connection points andopportunities from there as
(29:15):
well.
So as a navigation tool forone's own career, it just feels
like it's very, very insightfulfrom that point of view.
And it's not like you're justturning up to work and expecting
the world of work to kind ofimprint itself on you.
You're actually able tounderstand yourself and express
yourself outwards to the companythat you're working.
Four was probably more, a moreconvincing argument than maybe
(29:37):
before.
What do you think?
Lisa Johnson (29:39):
Oh yes, I agree.
And I feel that I often talkabout how when we apply for a
job, we're actually applying toinsert ourselves into a job
description and that may or maynot be wholly compatible.
We would hope that it would beif you're passionate and
interested enough to want tojoin a company within that sort
of almost uniform state.
(30:00):
Which, as we know, is bound toperformance metrics and KPIs and
OKRs, according to whateveryou've signed up for in that job
description.
But again, we talked about thatfull color spectrum of who an
individual is such aninteresting way to even recruit
people.
There's potential there for theElements Kit, because it's who
am I uniquely which isimmediately visible.
(30:20):
As a self reflection on my ownterms, showing my desires, my
interests, and my passions, aswell as what skills and talents
I can bring to the table.
That is a way more holisticconversation in and of itself,
and a really championingconversation, getting back to
that word, compared to howeffectively can I meet the needs
of this job description.
(30:41):
And it's interesting that youtalked before about the idea of
what it is to insert oneselfinto a culture or perhaps more
positively to join a culture andimmerse oneself in that culture.
And we've been asked before toproduce reports that show a team
alignment, for example, with theoverall, values of a company,
which is super interesting.
(31:02):
So how aligned is this team andthe individuals in it to the
overall culture?
Fascinating question.
but one would hope as well thatit's not necessarily a demand of
the culture in an organizationjust to force people into
compliance that you know, if aculture is an organism and it's
growing and evolving over time,you would hope that the flavor
(31:23):
of the people that come in canhelp to shape that.
And that gets back to your otherpoint about fully utilizing not
just what people can do and aregood at doing or fast at doing
and have superpowers in, butalso what they value, what they
cherish, what lights their fireand excites them, which gets
back to that fulfillment point.
So when people can be fully seenand heard and embraced for who
(31:46):
they are.
There is a beautiful, potentopportunity for how every single
unique individual can influenceand help that culture to
flourish, rather than it being acontrolled act of almost, not
reprimand, but just Alignmentthat's how companies can grow
over time, which is a great waythat new younger talent can be
brought into an organizationwith all of that youth and
(32:09):
vitality to help shape a brandand bring it forward in terms of
its cultural evolution.
Chris Hudson (32:14):
I like that.
There'd be a North Star thateveryone individually would be
aiming for and it would allladder up to a combination of
things that would help thecompany or the organization as
well.
That's amazing.
You're a bit idealistic almost,but it feels like it could be
possible, right?
Could be made possible.
Lisa Johnson (32:29):
Yeah.
I think as well, I oftendescribe the Elements Kit as a
conversation tool, likeobviously it has all these
outputs, these tangible results.
With common language that makesit really relatable.
Chris Hudson (32:40):
I was going to maybe bridge into the next
question, which is probably morearound how you feel within an
organization if you're anemployee and almost the safety
and extending out frompsychological safety and what
can really enable people withinteams to achieve more.
And I think a lot of what we'vebeen discussing is definitely
there.
So understanding where you arewhere you would value certain
(33:04):
things what you'd be aiming forit plays a role in what you
would aim for obviously, butyou're thinking about safety at
the beginning, is this the rightenvironment for me?
And what are you seeing in termsof psychological safety and what
can contribute to thatmeaningfully, do you believe?
Lisa Johnson (33:19):
Ah, psychological safety is such a, I have a
friend who's doing a PhD onthis, again, it's a really
fascinating and complex domain,but I think in simplest terms
for me, and looking at this fromthe lens of the element skip.
It is about people feeling thatthey can be valued for who they
are.
And that wholeness of who theyare is not necessarily a
(33:42):
prescribed job description,something that's applied to them
or that they're conforming to.
It's who they are on their termsbased on their very unique
history, based on their culture,based on any other factors
about, how they express as ahuman in the world.
So for me at the core of thatpsychological safety, again,
it's about being seen and beingheard and ultimately being
(34:03):
valued.
I think that's what createstrust and value within any
company and it's often I thinkit's just taking the time and
it's the power of conversationsand the way that people can
connect through conversation toreally explore that or something
like that the elements kitbecomes a tangible output as I
say
Chris Hudson (34:22):
yeah, so to anyone who's not feeling totally safe
or comfortable in their workenvironment.
what would you recommend as afirst step?
Because we've talked about selfevaluation a little bit, but
would you start with that orwould you go about it
differently?
any advice?
Lisa Johnson (34:36):
Yeah.
Well, I think to have anempowered conversation, I think
the word that comes to mind is asociety of embodying as your own
self knowing human first, it'sactually about really
understanding who you are.
Yeah.
And that's, again, getting backto why I designed the kit.
That's very much about, thefirst question is, who am I to
myself?
What is my impression of self?
(34:58):
Because until you know that,it's really challenging to have
an expectation that othersshould know you, or should
understand how you feel, orshould understand what you dream
of, what your desires are, orhow you want to fully utilize.
So, it's that idea of selfactualization, which Jung spent
a lifetime writing about.
bringing into balance all ofthese coordinates and components
(35:21):
of self.
I think it's know thyself firstand foremost.
So in a way that, that really isthe foundation point for
psychological safety.
It's knowing and feelingcomfortable.
And when I use that wordembodiment, I think embodiment
is that, you know who you are,know what you stand for, and you
know what your desires, yourdreams are in order that you can
(35:43):
healthily project that,communicate that.
And then hopefully be in anenvironment where that's heard
and seen by others.
But the first step to selfactualization is the self, I
think, in self actualization.
Chris Hudson (35:57):
Yeah, for sure.
I think that's a more usefulstep than maybe you know, a lot
of people, and I've beenincluded in this, where you're
in your career you're in a jobor actually just at any
university.
It's kind of the possibilitiesare there and you're excited
about possibilities, but thecommitment to one of those
possibilities feels like it'sreally hard to navigate.
So almost understanding yourselfwill give you that compass and
(36:20):
it'll help you land on the thingthat might just be the first
step to understanding thatbetter, or it might just be in
line with what you know is like,It's what you do and what you
believe in already.
So, I feel like that's a goodnavigation tool for careers.
if careers exist anymore, Idon't know.
Lisa Johnson (36:36):
And that's the thing.
speaking of how much industryevolves, like I remember there
was a time when experiencedesign, all this UX and UI and
EX, the whole X factor justdidn't exist at all.
That's just something that we'veall evolved and shaped ourselves
into.
But I love this idea of knowthyself first, because then it's
(36:56):
an opportunity for you to be,rather than, as I say, fitting
yourself into a box, or into atype, you're then figuring out,
if I was to shape and evolve,how might I create a world for
myself to step into?
And it's funny, actually,because I remember, right,
journaling a lot about this withthe Elements Kit.
In a way, I was very aware ofthe fact that I was creating my
(37:18):
own world to step into.
The kit itself just has its own.
And in fact, the elements kithas its own discovery chart.
So we've cast that chart, thatimpression.
So it has its own personality.
It's ever evolving.
Every conversation about it,every workshop we do.
it's ever evolving too andtrying to get to know itself and
(37:38):
then shaping its world and itsexperience based on that.
So I think it's just, it's abeautiful way to start.
It's just, who am I first?
Who am I first?
And then how can I coordinateand how can I shapeshift this
world?
Shapeshift my career that maynot be that you have one career
and then some hobbies outside.
It may be that you're lookingfor something that just
(38:00):
integrates the best of yourselfin one center or there are many,
many different ways that youcould do it, but the idea of
just evolving your reality basedon who you are central to that,
I think is a really beautifulway to navigate life.
Chris Hudson (38:14):
Yeah, these are some big questions, huge
questions, right?
And it feels like it makes itpractical and impossible to do
that.
Who am I is.
Wow.
That feels like it would keepyou away for several nights or
years, but I'm wondering aswell, whether there's almost too
much introspection.
Is there too much of that?
Beyond a point?
Do you feel like it's good toget the answer and almost the
(38:37):
catharsis is there and it'shappening and it all comes out
and you can then move on.
Do you feel like this is anongoing exercise?
What's too much or too little orjust about right, you think, in
the self analysis kind of space?
Yes.
Lisa Johnson (38:51):
I think it's a great question because, and I
can answer that by saying itdepends if you have a
philosopher archetype, I have aphilosopher archetype so and a
seeker, so I'll always bequestioning, introspection for
me will never stop because Italked about the primaries
before, they're primaries forme.
that may not interest otherpeople at all depending on what
their DNA looks like.
so yeah, it utterly depends onwho you are.
(39:13):
whether this is important, moreimportant, less important.
but almost anything about anyquestion about human behavior,
you can almost be answeredarchetypally.
Sure.
And it will show up somewhere onyour chart.
If you're a thinker, it'll bethere on your chart.
If you're introspective, it'llbe there.
it turns out a lot of ourapproach to life turns up there.
Chris Hudson (39:32):
Perfect.
maybe you should have told meyou were a seeker at the start
of the interview.
I could have got you to ask thequestions instead
Lisa Johnson (39:37):
of me.
Exactly.
Chris Hudson (39:39):
but yeah, it's really interesting.
there's a lot in this chataround, how to understand
yourself and obviously how topromote your own, Self
fulfilling behaviors, where youcan aim your career, how you can
understand other people better,obviously EQ and empathy and
emotional intelligence.
I mean, all of these things arequite topical or have been for
the last, last few years anyway.
So it feels like it's helpfulfrom that point of view, and
(40:02):
it's successful.
So Lisa, I just want to saymassive, thank you for coming
onto the show and explaining andsharing your wisdom and your
stories and perspectives on thisfascinating topic.
I think it's been reallyinteresting.
Thank you.
Lisa Johnson (40:14):
Absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much.
And if
Chris Hudson (40:16):
people want to get in touch, how would they find
you?
Where would they find you?
Is that a question or anythinglike that?
Lisa Johnson (40:22):
Yeah, they can go straight to our website and find
all the contact details there.
And it's just theelementskit.com.au
Chris Hudson (40:29):
brilliant.
All right, we'll wrap there.
Thanks so much, Lisa.
Lisa Johnson (40:31):
Thank you so
much.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another exciting
episode of the company roadpodcast, where we give you the
Intrapreneurs, current andfuture leaders, everything you
need to thrive at work and getchange going within your
organizations.
And today I'm really thrilled tohave a special guest with us,
Lisa Johnson, Lisa, welcome tothe show.
Lisa Johnson (00:21):
Hello.
Chris Hudson (00:23):
Hello.
You've done a lot of things.
So you've been a seasoned expertin landscape architecture,
experience design, humancentered design, lots of
different things.
We're going to talk about thatin a moment.
You've got an incredible journeythat really bridges the physical
and digital realms ofcreativity.
We'll also get into in a momentand from your foundational
experiences in the printindustry to impactful work with
Fjords and Accenture, Lisa hascontinually pushed the
(00:46):
boundaries of what's possible inexperience design.
And in this episode, we're goingto go into Lisa's journey.
We're going to look at theorigins of her innovative
elements kit, which is veryexciting.
It's pretty new.
But a lot of people are using italready, which is a
revolutionary approach that itkind of began as a thesis
project and has sincetransformed into a powerful tool
for creative alignment and selfactualization for those people
(01:08):
that are using it.
It's a toolkit that's reallyresonating with the industry.
So there's lots to explore.
So we're going to look at theimportance of psychological
safety a little bit in terms ofcreating a context within your
teams where creativity thrivesand what tools like Elements Kit
or otherwise can do to helpuncover certain desires, maybe
(01:28):
repressed desires.
What are the core things that weas people need within our teams
and that sort of thing.
So it's going to be a bit of ajourney of self discovery, I
want to say.
Okay.
A bit like choosing whichinstrument you want to play, if
that's the right analogy, I'mnot sure, I was lucky enough to
get a VIP pass and check out theelements kit just before the
show.
So it's all feeling pretty freshand maybe we start with you Lisa
(01:51):
and your journey and you cantell us a bit about how this all
came about and its evolutionfrom the previous work and how
it came about from the thesisthat I just described.
Lisa Johnson (01:58):
Yes.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
And what a journey it's been.
I often refer to myself just asa designer, but that means so
many things because I've covereda full spectrum starting in that
spatial realm and then workingright through to experience
design and service design.
So I'm really a natural bornsystems thinker, super
interested in the way thatsystems fit together and serve
(02:20):
humans.
So the elements kit itself beganwith a question around something
I was really deeply curiousabout, which is why people that
I was observing in theirtwenties were able to align.
best of themselves, like interms of their skills and their
talents and their passions intoa singular focus that put them
(02:41):
in good stead in a very linear,almost straight line trajectory.
While I watched other peoplelike myself spending a lot of
time dabbling and bouncingaround cross discipline,
exploring different things,which is very much the nature of
the seeker, which we'll talkabout later.
I was super curious about whysome people are able to find
that balance.
(03:02):
And why others take many, manyyears.
So it was really just a questionand a hypothesis around early
bloomers versus late bloomers.
And if there was any sort ofmethod or reason why this
occurred.
And then later, when I wasevolving into sort of more than
10 years of really focusedpractice around, experience
design, sort of moving throughUX and UI and CX and EX,
(03:25):
employee experience, rightthrough to service design.
I was really interested in anobservation that I was making,
especially in big organizations,about the underutilization of
human talent and skill.
So really those two things thatreally fueled the desire to
develop the elements kit.
underutilization and how we canactually just maximize people's
(03:47):
potential, not just for theirperformance, which obviously
organizations are reallyinterested in, but also for
their fulfillment and to getthem to that space of beautiful
balance.
Chris Hudson (03:56):
Yeah, it is realization and that moment
doesn't always occur to us, asyou were saying.
you could be an early bloomer,but you might not realize that
you're blooming.
You might just be doing what youthink is instinctively right.
And late bloomers, it feels likethey're a bit more deliberate
about their decisions becausethey're so fed up with
everything else.
That's how I feel mainly.
But yeah, it does feel veryinstinctive.
(04:17):
And I think.
having just looked at Elementskit, it does feel like it's
looking to pull apart what liesdeep within, right?
how did you go about capturingthat in some way or
understanding that?
Lisa Johnson (04:27):
Yeah, it's an interesting one because Over
the, over many years of needingto participate in different
psychometric tests, like MyersBriggs and CliftonStrengths and
all these tests that many of usin big organizations are
familiar with, I really startedto see gaps in the way that
those tests were profilinghumans.
(04:48):
And then of course, at the sametime, as a human centered
designer, which is all about theholistic view of the human and
how humans think, act, and feel.
I could see that there were waysto be exploring human behavior
to really catch some of thedeficit of what wasn't being
explored.
So for example, there's sixelements within the Elements
(05:09):
Kit, expression, connection,leadership, knowledge.
Navigation and Belief.
Belief is a super interestingone because it talks very much
about your personal values oryour cultural values.
Things that a lot of thosepsychometric tests don't lean
into.
In their ambition to be able toclassify people, in the case of
Myers Briggs, it's one of 16different types and we all know
(05:31):
ENFJs and INTPs.
So, that's interesting as anobservation in itself over the
years.
More than 10 years I've beenasking people if they know their
Myers Briggs type.
So I can't let you escape this.
Do you know your Myers Briggstype?
Chris Hudson (05:44):
Oh, yeah, I think I do, but I don't know, some
letters, I, yeah, INFT, INFJ,something like that.
Lisa Johnson (05:51):
This is a standard response because most people,
they think they have an idea,but they're not quite sure.
many people change Myers Briggstype.
And the reason they do isbecause life changes and humans
are not necessarily an exactscience.
So there were many areas of thatpsychometric testing where I
could see it fell short of whatas a human centered design
(06:14):
practitioner we were reallyinterested in uncovering or
understanding about humanbehavior.
So the elements kit was goingsome way to answer some of that
uncharted territory and to beginto look at people.
as distinct and entirely unique,rather than one of 16 types.
And then of course, the biggerambition of it was to not only
(06:35):
discover who you are uniquely,but to be able to use different
human centered design tools towork out what to do with that
information.
Because it's all very well thatyou're an ENFJ or an INTP, but
then it's all about, what do Ido with that information?
even if I can remember my type,what next?
So the elements could use asmuch about who am I.
As it is about what next andwhat choices can I make for a
(06:58):
really fulfilled and alignedlife bringing all those
complaints into balance.
Chris Hudson (07:01):
Yeah, brilliant.
there is a lot in that.
I think there's a lot to sayabout not just showing the
answer, but showing the truth.
Then what you can do with itbecause there are so many things
in the world of work that arelike that, you're past the piece
of work and you're expected tothen, it's your job to basically
figure out what, what it isyou're going to do with that.
But I think some framing in andsome bridging.
(07:22):
Really between that artifact andthen the future application of
that to your own context isincredibly important.
Otherwise it's not easily donefor one but it's not feeling
like it's something that wouldbe generally agreed as the way
forward.
You'd have to then take thatstep on work, work it out with
the team or you'd have to decidewhether it was a priority or
not.
and this way it just makes itsimple because it's taking it
(07:45):
not just the first step, but thenext three or four maybe as
well.
Lisa Johnson (07:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Hudson (07:49):
Yeah.
There's something around,obviously you go about doing
this for yourself.
I love the kind of distance thatyou can create from yourself and
the way that you would usuallythink about yourself in the way
that the kit is perceived.
But a lot of people listening tothe show may not have really
seen what, they won't have seenit necessarily.
Maybe you could just describesome of the different elements
(08:11):
and Brings to life that sort ofthing, because I think that's
really where the magic lies in away from just having seen it.
It feels like it takes you into,takes your brain into a
different way to think aboutyourself.
but how would you describe that?
Lisa Johnson (08:23):
Yeah, I think firstly, fundamentally, we
talked a little bit about humancentered design, but we haven't
talked much about archetypes andarchetypes are, they're the
components of the kit.
So the kit in physical form is acard deck of hexagon cards that
all fit together like hand time.
as you work with the kit and anarchetype in simple terms is a
(08:45):
pictorial metaphor thatdescribes human behavior in a
single word, super powerful.
And we use archetypes in ourlanguage every day.
And interestingly, we usearchetypes like captain, mentor,
angel, bully, these are allterms that we are using because
it's a very efficient way ofunderstanding human behavior.
Where it gets a little dangerousis when we begin to stereotype
(09:07):
people.
So we define an entireindividual as one stereotype and
sometimes detrimentally so wecan give a person as a bully.
But the important thing to knowabout the elements kit across
that full spectrum of those sixelements, make choices so that
you end up with a creative DNAprofile, which is called your
discovery chart.
(09:28):
And that has 24 components toit.
And those components sit withinthe six different elements,
which is how you, you experiencelife essentially, holistically.
And so there's an opportunity tounderstand that you have 24
primary archetypes that are allat play in your existence.
You're not just one stereotype,you're a beautiful sort of
(09:51):
component system of all of thesedifferent parts that sit within
those six pillars.
And that's hugely important andinteresting because of the
pinnacle of how you aremathematically entirely unique.
So when you do the discoverychart, no one will ever do the
chart.
It's mathematically impossibleto do a chart that's identical
(10:11):
to anyone else's.
So that chart and theinformation on it is literally
as unique as your fingerprint.
And then you have all of thesecomponents that are so
interesting to unpack andexplore with other tools in the
kit that allows you to look atthe relationships So, you're
never just one thing, you'remyriad things and there's a
continual dance, that'shappening all the time.
(10:34):
And this is why we can havedichotomies in our personality
as well, where we've got twocompeting archetypes, where we
may be a hermit, for example,good example of an archetype.
and yet at the same time, there,there are also aspects of our
personality where we may beentertainer or comedian.
And it's really, I think this iswhat's beautiful, as I said
before about Myers Briggs.
Sometimes, you're oscillatingbetween introversion and
(10:56):
extroversion.
This happens really commonly.
People will do the test and thenthree years later, they will
have moved from an INFJ, forexample, to an ENFJ.
And that's, that just shows usthat the context, the experience
that people is having at thattime, the level of psychological
safety, which I know we're goingto talk about further, they may
be experiencing in their currentrole.
(11:18):
it may have flexed somewhat overthose years.
So we're constantly in thisstate of flux.
It's this constant dance betweenthese components of self, which
make us hugely rich andbeautiful and complex as
individual human beings.
Chris Hudson (11:33):
Yeah.
the complexity I think is theharder part to solve for in a
way, and it feels like you'vedefinitely addressed that
because you can bring in thecombination of archetypes to
represent you and yourself andthe prominence of any of those
archetypes in any givensituation can be something that
you can begin to understand,which I think is really cool.
so for the people that don'tlike, if you haven't seen Alan's
(11:55):
kit, then you're trying tovisualize this a little bit.
It's probably a little bit likea pack of top trumps in a way,
and you're picking out thearchetypes that are most
relevant to you, that kind ofspeak to you and what you value
and how you feel.
so it's a bit of self analysisaround that.
And then you might then, andthen effectively you're labeling
it and then you can see how theypresent and we're describing how
(12:19):
to present, when you build upthe entire picture across the
six elements.
Is that a good enough summary?
Yeah, I
Lisa Johnson (12:26):
think so.
And you know, it's designed asthis sort of dynamic and visual
tool.
so that this all makes sensewhen you're laying it out.
But it is quite like a game.
and when you are developingimpression of self, because you
are doing it incrementally, It'schallenging to game it for that
reason, because of the way thatyou build this slowly and then
(12:46):
finally at the end you have thisalmost like an omniscient view
of the way this chart has landedand who you are and this unique
creative DNA you have, but alsoit's very retrospective in the
sense that, like psychometrictests, They will actually ask
questions of your pastexperience.
And so you lean into that aswell in order to determine, am I
(13:08):
more this or am I more thatbased on when I think about
these experiences from childhooduntil now, for example, or when
I think about these experiencesin my adult life and different
sort of career or vocation.
So, it's very self reflectiveand self determining, and of
course, when you do this with agroup or with a partner, there's
all of that, sharing ofimpression of self that can
(13:28):
happen.
It can be super enlightening ina team when other people bring
to the fore something which isvery natural about your
personality that you don'tnecessarily honor or champion.
I think that's an importantpoint to make as well.
This is all about justchampioning that the colorful
and kind of bright side of whoyou are creatively or into those
six elements.
Chris Hudson (13:48):
Yeah, so it's around superpowers as opposed to
any flaws for it.
Lisa Johnson (13:53):
And that, that's the thing, you know, a lot of
this work and including, theftslike Myers Briggs, obviously
that harps back to a lot of themore contemporary work that Carl
Jung was doing as apsychoanalyst at the turn of the
century.
So he popularized archetypes andbrought that into.
common everyday language and hestarted in 1920 with 12
(14:13):
archetypes because he too wasdetermined to define all humans
according initially to these 12archetypes.
What was interesting is thatonce he started digging deeper
and deeper and deeper as heobserved patterns of human
behavior in his practice, herealized this was infinite and
endless.
Archetypes are you know, theyreally are infinite and
(14:34):
archetypes have been writtenabout since Plato's time.
Essentially he was trying tomake this a language that people
could explore and use andunderstand.
And he was very aware that everyarchetype has a light side and
it has a shadow side.
So when you get into the sixtools and the elements bit, the
first is the one I've described,which is a discovery chart.
(14:57):
But when you get into the latertools, you begin to work with
the idea of what happens when aparticular archetype in its
light form, such as an orator,what happens when that is
actually influenced by shadowforces and shadow forces being
fear and fear inducing oranxiety inducing.
So a common, let me give you anexample of a common shadow
(15:18):
archetype.
A great one is saboteur.
Saboteur is almost a characterin and of its own right.
And people might describe it asa gremlin or a troublemaker.
The way that saboteur actuallyshows up and the way that it
feels in, in, in your mind andin your body is sabotaging.
It's where a fear orientedthought might take place at the
thought of you trying to achievea goal, for example.
(15:40):
So the way that you can workwith the light side of any
archetype is to have a look atwhat happens to it when it's put
under pressure and that shadowinfluence is happening.
The idea is to champion humansto such a degree, whether
they're in teams or whetherthey're doing this for personal
development.
It's to champion humans to sucha degree that they can remain
(16:00):
really steady and balanced inthat highly productive and
fruitful state of what it is tobe in that color spectrum of
archetypes.
Chris Hudson (16:08):
Yeah, well, I mean that's the next level is in
terms of self understanding, itfeels like there's a lot that
you can understand aboutyourself.
Even just the architect names.
I was just looking at themagain.
So I've read out a few, soHermit, Follower, Hustler,
Dreamer, Gorge, Futurist.
it's taking the world of workbut it's taking the conversation
into the realms of fiction andfantasy and it all of a sudden
(16:32):
sounds a lot more exciting justdescribing you or me as green,
red, yellow, blue, or a load ofletters as you describe it.
So, so I like that.
It conjures up a preconceptionand it allows you to work with
that preconception of thatdefinite definition and that
archetype.
For that to make it usefulreally.
So I think it's very excitingand you've run this a lot of
(16:54):
people.
Tell us a bit about how it'sbeen running either with
individuals or within teams,how's it running?
Lisa Johnson (17:00):
Yeah.
So to take it back a stepfurther, you talked about the
thesis and the idea of wherethose ideas seeded.
That was way back in 2008.
So for a long time I wasstudying archetypes.
I was writing, I was justexploring a lot of theories.
it wasn't until 2020 when thefirst rough prototype of the
elements kit landed, and thatwas a week before COVID hit here
(17:23):
in Melbourne, which is supersignificant when we all went
into the first severe lockdown.
So it's really interestingtiming because I had this
opportunity to go and begintesting, physically, and then I
had to quickly translate thatinto a digital kit.
as we went through the ups anddowns of all of that lockdown
sort of period.
And so I was working one on onewith individuals and just
(17:45):
testing with hundreds of peoplefrom 2020 until now, mainly
working one on one.
And then obviously when thingsreturned to some sense of
normalcy, just getting out andabout, allowing people to
explore the discovery chart andtesting it with people who are
from age 10 to 83, which ishugely interesting as an
experiment in and of itself.
This idea of what it is to be onthe cusp and right at the
(18:07):
beginning with childlike wonderversus someone who looks
retrospectively and completestheir discovery chart, based on
their reflection of self acrossa whole lifetime.
So all of that was happening oneon one.
And then this year has been thebig year in terms of extending
that out to leaders and teams,which is obviously much more
(18:28):
complex.
So all of that groundwork andjust working individually really
paved the way of how to makethis a super robust product to
be using in more complexenvironments with more complex
problems and many more movingparts.
And essentially, we've movedthis year as well into producing
an amazing suite of customizablereports.
(18:50):
So it's now not just about doingthis as a process and enjoying
it at the time and theconversation that naturally
happens between people, which isvery insightful and enlightening
in and of itself.
But now it's really moving itinto that next realm of how do
we take this data and make senseof it and who you use for ways.
So we're producing reports thatare highly customizable in terms
(19:10):
of what a team or leader mightwant to learn about the dynamic
of the team, the relationshipsand how everybody fits together
and can work more productivelyand more or happily and really
engage.
The best of their skills andtalents, as I said.
Chris Hudson (19:27):
Yeah.
Nice.
I love the backstory, the factthat you tested it with young 10
year olds and 83 year olds, andthat, that would be a whole
topic of conversation, butalmost the slice of life or the
slice of corporate life thatyou're now going into now where
you're working within teams andwithin groups, what are some of
the observations, is it givingyou a read on the industry in
some sort of way?
(19:48):
I'm curious to ask thatquestion.
Lisa Johnson (19:50):
Oh, yes.
it's so interesting because Ithink what I would have thought
I would answer is now quitedifferent having experienced
this really what I've learned,which makes a lot of sense
because the whole premise of theelements kit is that every
individual is unique.
And naturally what that means isthat every team is unique.
So as much as I would love to beable to classify and having
(20:10):
moved through and worked in somany different types of
experience design teams, perhapsit would be a more convenient
truth for us to think that a CXteam looks and feels like this
or a UX team.
And I think there's definitecommonality.
Because again, the remit and theexpectation of the work that
you're there to produce as ateam is similar, but every
(20:31):
single team is so different.
if you did an elements kitworkshop with five different CX
teams, without a doubt, theambitions would be slightly
different.
The values of the actualcompany, which would be
influencing the culture in whichthose people sit, not to mention
the leader being a completelyunique, creative, individual and
every single person within thatteam.
(20:53):
And then you get into thedynamics and the spaces between
all of those individuals and thepolitical aspects and influences
of that business and thestructure.
So I don't think there is such athing as one common team or one
common methodology.
And I think what mirrors thatnicely is the idea that having
(21:13):
built so many different humancentered design playbooks over
the years.
Particularly as a servicedesigner, every time you would
build a playbook, it would needto be different.
So it would borrow some commonlanguage.
And similarly, every time Iwould build a service design
blueprint, it was just adifferent artifact than the
previous one.
Because not only was the briefand the remit different and the
(21:36):
expectation, but that artifactwas being influenced and shaped
by people who had differentprerogatives, different ideas,
different ambitions.
And then the nature of whateverthe content needed to be within
that blueprint made it acompletely unique artifact.
So yeah, I think there's acommon thread here, which is who
(21:57):
are we as unique individuals?
Who are we as leaders and whoare we as unique teams?
Chris Hudson (22:02):
Which is an interesting question.
I've got this feeling lookingback at my career is that your
place within the timeline ofwork or in the timeline of your
career is only, it's only therefor that moment, right?
So it's only going to be thesame for maybe a week or maybe a
year.
If everything kind of staysroughly the same and you're
working in the same team, some,somebody is going to change at
(22:22):
some point.
So I'm wondering.
for intrapreneurs as well, youknow, what, what feels like it's
sort of safe enough and fixed tobe able to plan around and what
feels like it would be changingaround you and how could they
navigate that best do you think?
Lisa Johnson (22:35):
Yes, well, if you look at a discovery chart,
essentially within the sixelements.
There are four archetypal cardsthat you choose and you number
those in, in order.
And that order is essentiallyabout the resonance or the
dominance of that archetype inyour life.
So, a good example might bearchitect, where you feel
(22:56):
through and through.
Even if your vocation or yourcareer is not an architect, you
might feel most resonant withthat idea of how you think and
behave and feel and navigate inthe world.
And so essentially you end upwith dominant archetypes on your
chart, particularly in positionsone and two.
And those are usually apredominant aspect of your
(23:19):
character or personality thathas expressed since a very early
age.
That's usually the case.
Sometimes there are anomaliesbecause sometimes in the case
of, say, a later bloomer, avocation might come to the fore
that for whatever reason, theopportunity just hasn't been
there to explore.
So it'll become very dominantand it'll become a pivot in life
that sets you off from being,say, a lawyer to being a social
(23:41):
activist or however you defineyourself.
Or you might move from amusician to being a managing
director in a corporation.
So the point is that there arepatterns of things that feel
much steadier for a number ofreasons.
And then there are other lowerdown the ranks of the archetypes
(24:02):
you choose on your chart.
These ones tend to ebb and flow.
They tend to flux.
They tend to sort of move in andout of your story.
So I think the short answer tothe question is, It's usually a
safe bet to lean into thosethings that have been
predominant in your life.
And to know that they'resurefire bets of the
fundamentals, they're like theroot stabilizers, I suppose, of
(24:23):
who you are.
And then other things tend toshift around that over time.
And as things change as yourcircumstance changes or your
career changes or whatnot.
So I think it's all about reallyleaning into the things that you
have the most evidence for, Isuppose.
Or conversely, if there is justsuch a strong compulsion of
uncharted territory or untappedpotential and, you know, this
(24:46):
can happen if you've had atraumatic experience when you're
a lot younger, let's say you'reactually an incredible performer
on stage as a kid, but you, andyou've got a very natural sort
of predisposition to want toperform and entertain or make
people laugh or sing.
If you have a traumaticexperience at that time, you can
just shut up, shut up.
This happens a lot with childrenwhere for a very, very long
(25:07):
period, This is not untappedpotential because it's been
there, it's been recognisedbefore, but it's just needed to
lay dormant for whatever reason.
This can then be something thatyou re tap into and bring to
life again, given the rightcircumstances, to really wake it
up.
So it's not just about saying,well, I've always been this
thing, therefore I will justcontinue to be it.
(25:29):
It can sometimes be aboutunearthing things that just
haven't had a chance to beexplored.
And this is what I often sayabout Myers Briggs,
CliftonStrengths, it's only everrecalling who you've been in
order to determine who you, howyou will likely behave and who
you'll be in future.
I love the way the elements kitgoes a little deeper and says,
okay, well, this might be yourprimary stance on who you are
(25:51):
based on evidence and how itshows up now.
But what about all that whatabout all that online treasure?
so it's very much aboutcompulsion and passion.
If there's a real passion toexplore something that might not
show up in a psychometric testfor you.
But again, navigating by feelingand resonance can be a way to
bring yourself home to that andmove into that as a primary in
(26:14):
future, which may not be aprimary now.
Chris Hudson (26:16):
Yeah, super interesting.
I guess it comes back to thequestion around when in your
life you would be best placed tounderstand yourself to that
degree or does it not matter?
Do you just keep revisiting it?
What have you got a feelingthere on the perfect age?
Lisa Johnson (26:30):
I think you're never too young to begin.
As I said, I've tested this with10 year olds.
I tested it also with differentyoung people, emerging people
who are 17 year olds who aretrying to make their decision
around their final year ofschool subjects, which can be
really interesting when youcompare to a lot of tests that
are out there that are beingused in secondary schools.
(26:50):
I think there's huge potentialfor this because often you'll
hear very disgruntled parentstalking about how those tests
are really failing young people.
Because they're just not lookingat young people's potential or
just their holistic DNA withenough clarity and not giving
them agency to be able to selfreflect either, which is super
interesting.
(27:10):
I think the idea of when is it?
I think you could literallyquite safely use this with kids
that are 10 or 11, again,depending on how it's
facilitated right through tosecondary school, university and
onwards.
I have a friend who is anoccupational therapist.
And when she was testing the kitwith me way back in 2020,
(27:33):
actually, right, right at thebeginning, she said, gosh, this
would be so interesting to usethis tool with Alzheimer's
patients.
Who she was working with at thetime.
And she said, even if this gavethem a chance, a sense of agency
to self reflect, even for alucid hour, they build this
chart physically.
And then there is somethingthere, which is evidence that
(27:55):
they can share with family, evenif they've forgotten the next
hour and this idea of just beingable to revisit.
I think it's applicable topeople of all ages and the
context in which you would useit is quite different depending
on what stage of life you're at.
Chris Hudson (28:08):
Yeah, that's useful.
What's interesting to me is thatI've gone into a lot of
companies, joining a lot ofcompanies over my career so far,
and you always feel like you'rebecoming part of something else
because that, that as aconstruct is established in some
ways.
So an organization if you joinedGoogle, that'd be a Google way.
If you went to work at Bunnings,they'd be doing that in a
certain way.
(28:29):
And you feel like you're givingyourself to that.
Yeah.
That as an essence and as a kindof a whole it's like a, it's a
universe that you're walkinginto and there's a whole being
that you're becoming part ofthat and that culture.
So what's interesting about thisconversation is that it gives
people a chance to reallyreflect on themselves and the
self reflection I think placeswell, it gives you more accuracy
(28:53):
by which you can determine whatyour next step might be, where
you think you are relative towhere you want to be.
is the context for where you'reworking right for you?
Is it wrong?
is there something that couldchange?
And then if you're using it withother team members.
Members as well, then you'relooking for other ways to find
connection points andopportunities from there as
(29:15):
well.
So as a navigation tool forone's own career, it just feels
like it's very, very insightfulfrom that point of view.
And it's not like you're justturning up to work and expecting
the world of work to kind ofimprint itself on you.
You're actually able tounderstand yourself and express
yourself outwards to the companythat you're working.
Four was probably more, a moreconvincing argument than maybe
(29:37):
before.
What do you think?
Lisa Johnson (29:39):
Oh yes, I agree.
And I feel that I often talkabout how when we apply for a
job, we're actually applying toinsert ourselves into a job
description and that may or maynot be wholly compatible.
We would hope that it would beif you're passionate and
interested enough to want tojoin a company within that sort
of almost uniform state.
(30:00):
Which, as we know, is bound toperformance metrics and KPIs and
OKRs, according to whateveryou've signed up for in that job
description.
But again, we talked about thatfull color spectrum of who an
individual is such aninteresting way to even recruit
people.
There's potential there for theElements Kit, because it's who
am I uniquely which isimmediately visible.
(30:20):
As a self reflection on my ownterms, showing my desires, my
interests, and my passions, aswell as what skills and talents
I can bring to the table.
That is a way more holisticconversation in and of itself,
and a really championingconversation, getting back to
that word, compared to howeffectively can I meet the needs
of this job description.
(30:41):
And it's interesting that youtalked before about the idea of
what it is to insert oneselfinto a culture or perhaps more
positively to join a culture andimmerse oneself in that culture.
And we've been asked before toproduce reports that show a team
alignment, for example, with theoverall, values of a company,
which is super interesting.
(31:02):
So how aligned is this team andthe individuals in it to the
overall culture?
Fascinating question.
but one would hope as well thatit's not necessarily a demand of
the culture in an organizationjust to force people into
compliance that you know, if aculture is an organism and it's
growing and evolving over time,you would hope that the flavor
(31:23):
of the people that come in canhelp to shape that.
And that gets back to your otherpoint about fully utilizing not
just what people can do and aregood at doing or fast at doing
and have superpowers in, butalso what they value, what they
cherish, what lights their fireand excites them, which gets
back to that fulfillment point.
So when people can be fully seenand heard and embraced for who
(31:46):
they are.
There is a beautiful, potentopportunity for how every single
unique individual can influenceand help that culture to
flourish, rather than it being acontrolled act of almost, not
reprimand, but just Alignmentthat's how companies can grow
over time, which is a great waythat new younger talent can be
brought into an organizationwith all of that youth and
(32:09):
vitality to help shape a brandand bring it forward in terms of
its cultural evolution.
Chris Hudson (32:14):
I like that.
There'd be a North Star thateveryone individually would be
aiming for and it would allladder up to a combination of
things that would help thecompany or the organization as
well.
That's amazing.
You're a bit idealistic almost,but it feels like it could be
possible, right?
Could be made possible.
Lisa Johnson (32:29):
Yeah.
I think as well, I oftendescribe the Elements Kit as a
conversation tool, likeobviously it has all these
outputs, these tangible results.
With common language that makesit really relatable.
Chris Hudson (32:40):
I was going to maybe bridge into the next
question, which is probably morearound how you feel within an
organization if you're anemployee and almost the safety
and extending out frompsychological safety and what
can really enable people withinteams to achieve more.
And I think a lot of what we'vebeen discussing is definitely
there.
So understanding where you arewhere you would value certain
(33:04):
things what you'd be aiming forit plays a role in what you
would aim for obviously, butyou're thinking about safety at
the beginning, is this the rightenvironment for me?
And what are you seeing in termsof psychological safety and what
can contribute to thatmeaningfully, do you believe?
Lisa Johnson (33:19):
Ah, psychological safety is such a, I have a
friend who's doing a PhD onthis, again, it's a really
fascinating and complex domain,but I think in simplest terms
for me, and looking at this fromthe lens of the element skip.
It is about people feeling thatthey can be valued for who they
are.
And that wholeness of who theyare is not necessarily a
(33:42):
prescribed job description,something that's applied to them
or that they're conforming to.
It's who they are on their termsbased on their very unique
history, based on their culture,based on any other factors
about, how they express as ahuman in the world.
So for me at the core of thatpsychological safety, again,
it's about being seen and beingheard and ultimately being
(34:03):
valued.
I think that's what createstrust and value within any
company and it's often I thinkit's just taking the time and
it's the power of conversationsand the way that people can
connect through conversation toreally explore that or something
like that the elements kitbecomes a tangible output as I
say
Chris Hudson (34:22):
yeah, so to anyone who's not feeling totally safe
or comfortable in their workenvironment.
what would you recommend as afirst step?
Because we've talked about selfevaluation a little bit, but
would you start with that orwould you go about it
differently?
any advice?
Lisa Johnson (34:36):
Yeah.
Well, I think to have anempowered conversation, I think
the word that comes to mind is asociety of embodying as your own
self knowing human first, it'sactually about really
understanding who you are.
Yeah.
And that's, again, getting backto why I designed the kit.
That's very much about, thefirst question is, who am I to
myself?
What is my impression of self?
(34:58):
Because until you know that,it's really challenging to have
an expectation that othersshould know you, or should
understand how you feel, orshould understand what you dream
of, what your desires are, orhow you want to fully utilize.
So, it's that idea of selfactualization, which Jung spent
a lifetime writing about.
bringing into balance all ofthese coordinates and components
(35:21):
of self.
I think it's know thyself firstand foremost.
So in a way that, that really isthe foundation point for
psychological safety.
It's knowing and feelingcomfortable.
And when I use that wordembodiment, I think embodiment
is that, you know who you are,know what you stand for, and you
know what your desires, yourdreams are in order that you can
(35:43):
healthily project that,communicate that.
And then hopefully be in anenvironment where that's heard
and seen by others.
But the first step to selfactualization is the self, I
think, in self actualization.
Chris Hudson (35:57):
Yeah, for sure.
I think that's a more usefulstep than maybe you know, a lot
of people, and I've beenincluded in this, where you're
in your career you're in a jobor actually just at any
university.
It's kind of the possibilitiesare there and you're excited
about possibilities, but thecommitment to one of those
possibilities feels like it'sreally hard to navigate.
So almost understanding yourselfwill give you that compass and
(36:20):
it'll help you land on the thingthat might just be the first
step to understanding thatbetter, or it might just be in
line with what you know is like,It's what you do and what you
believe in already.
So, I feel like that's a goodnavigation tool for careers.
if careers exist anymore, Idon't know.
Lisa Johnson (36:36):
And that's the thing.
speaking of how much industryevolves, like I remember there
was a time when experiencedesign, all this UX and UI and
EX, the whole X factor justdidn't exist at all.
That's just something that we'veall evolved and shaped ourselves
into.
But I love this idea of knowthyself first, because then it's
(36:56):
an opportunity for you to be,rather than, as I say, fitting
yourself into a box, or into atype, you're then figuring out,
if I was to shape and evolve,how might I create a world for
myself to step into?
And it's funny, actually,because I remember, right,
journaling a lot about this withthe Elements Kit.
In a way, I was very aware ofthe fact that I was creating my
(37:18):
own world to step into.
The kit itself just has its own.
And in fact, the elements kithas its own discovery chart.
So we've cast that chart, thatimpression.
So it has its own personality.
It's ever evolving.
Every conversation about it,every workshop we do.
it's ever evolving too andtrying to get to know itself and
(37:38):
then shaping its world and itsexperience based on that.
So I think it's just, it's abeautiful way to start.
It's just, who am I first?
Who am I first?
And then how can I coordinateand how can I shapeshift this
world?
Shapeshift my career that maynot be that you have one career
and then some hobbies outside.
It may be that you're lookingfor something that just
(38:00):
integrates the best of yourselfin one center or there are many,
many different ways that youcould do it, but the idea of
just evolving your reality basedon who you are central to that,
I think is a really beautifulway to navigate life.
Chris Hudson (38:14):
Yeah, these are some big questions, huge
questions, right?
And it feels like it makes itpractical and impossible to do
that.
Who am I is.
Wow.
That feels like it would keepyou away for several nights or
years, but I'm wondering aswell, whether there's almost too
much introspection.
Is there too much of that?
Beyond a point?
Do you feel like it's good toget the answer and almost the
(38:37):
catharsis is there and it'shappening and it all comes out
and you can then move on.
Do you feel like this is anongoing exercise?
What's too much or too little orjust about right, you think, in
the self analysis kind of space?
Yes.
Lisa Johnson (38:51):
I think it's a great question because, and I
can answer that by saying itdepends if you have a
philosopher archetype, I have aphilosopher archetype so and a
seeker, so I'll always bequestioning, introspection for
me will never stop because Italked about the primaries
before, they're primaries forme.
that may not interest otherpeople at all depending on what
their DNA looks like.
so yeah, it utterly depends onwho you are.
(39:13):
whether this is important, moreimportant, less important.
but almost anything about anyquestion about human behavior,
you can almost be answeredarchetypally.
Sure.
And it will show up somewhere onyour chart.
If you're a thinker, it'll bethere on your chart.
If you're introspective, it'llbe there.
it turns out a lot of ourapproach to life turns up there.
Chris Hudson (39:32):
Perfect.
maybe you should have told meyou were a seeker at the start
of the interview.
I could have got you to ask thequestions instead
Lisa Johnson (39:37):
of me.
Exactly.
Chris Hudson (39:39):
but yeah, it's really interesting.
there's a lot in this chataround, how to understand
yourself and obviously how topromote your own, Self
fulfilling behaviors, where youcan aim your career, how you can
understand other people better,obviously EQ and empathy and
emotional intelligence.
I mean, all of these things arequite topical or have been for
the last, last few years anyway.
So it feels like it's helpfulfrom that point of view, and
(40:02):
it's successful.
So Lisa, I just want to saymassive, thank you for coming
onto the show and explaining andsharing your wisdom and your
stories and perspectives on thisfascinating topic.
I think it's been reallyinteresting.
Thank you.
Lisa Johnson (40:14):
Absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much.
And if
Chris Hudson (40:16):
people want to get in touch, how would they find
you?
Where would they find you?
Is that a question or anythinglike that?
Lisa Johnson (40:22):
Yeah, they can go straight to our website and find
all the contact details there.
And it's just theelementskit.com.au
Chris Hudson (40:29):
brilliant.
All right, we'll wrap there.
Thanks so much, Lisa.
Lisa Johnson (40:31):
Thank you so
much.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.