#19 Design Your Life with Tyler Hilker

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the possibility mindset podcast.
I'm Devin Henderson, your host,and I believe this is something
greater is always possible foryou and for you, my man.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Me.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, you too, you're included in that it's fantastic
.
Absolutely.
Yeah, this is Tyler everybody,and I'm excited to introduce my
friend.
You'll get to hear a lot aboutwhat he does and learn from his
brilliant mind.
Okay, but first and this is afirst in terms of I've never
done this yet on the podcast, Iam promoting a product.
Okay, I'm about to lift it uphere, so get ready, I'm going to
show it, let's see it.

(00:39):
You listeners, you'll have to goto YouTube to see it.
Question for you though you'rean adventurous guy.
I mean you travel a lot.
You take the family, you guysgo to the Pacific Northwest, you
go to Colorado.
I'm guessing you do a lot ofhiking.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
We like hiking.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, and you camp out on the beach and all kinds
of fun stuff.
We like that.
Okay, so question and all that.
I'm leading you down a pathhere in case you can't tell yeah
.
So hike with me.
Do you like to walk barefootever?
Is that part of?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
it, love it Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Really Okay, yeah, okay, and I really didn't know
that about you for sure.
So what to you?
What are the benefits ofwalking barefoot?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I love the, the honestly just the physical
sensation of walking on grass ordirt, the freedom of not having
shoes on.
I used to joke that socks werethe jumpsuits of the prisons of
shoes.
Ah, wow, Wow man, this was along time ago.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I like that though.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I used to go barefoot a lot.
I love sandals.
I wear sandals 80% of the year.
Okay, just because I don't likethe constraints of shoes.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, okay, crazy, this wasn't planned, this
was like his true answer that'strue.
So I just happened to have theperfect guest on for this
product.
So you know the way that I see.
You know we're born barefoot.
I really believe we're meant towalk barefoot.
It really, for me, like thehealth benefits too of what I've
discovered is that itstrengthens your muscles and

(02:00):
your arches around your ankles.
Since I've been walkingbarefoot, you know, I've seen a
difference in my ankles and myknees, like I don't roll my
ankles, I don't have, you know,any knee pain when I'm running.
When someone first told me aboutthat whole born to run idea I
was like, whatever, you can'trun that far, you know, barefoot
.
The problem with it, even ifyou're on board with the whole
walking barefoot thing, is thatyou just can't.
You just don't want to walkbarefoot.

(02:21):
Sometimes when it's really coldor on, you know you don't want
to walk over broken glass.
Unless you're Bruce Willis andyou are diehard, you're not
going to do that.
So so they have something forthat.
I'm not a doctor.
This isn't medical advice.
I'm just telling you about myexperience here.
These introducing the product,some kind of drum roll Tyler.
There it is, boom Zero shoes.

(02:41):
Look at that.
I've been wearing these, thistype of shoe, for two years now,
this specific brand.
Okay, this is what's known as abarefoot style shoe, and I
don't know, if you know what,what the characteristics are of
a barefoot style.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Describe them for me, yeah okay, I will.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, that was a good interviewer question.
You're like, just keep talking.
So it has a wide toe box, whichis right here.
Right, A lot of our shoes nowkind of come to a point If you
think of like a cowboy boot,that's like the extreme of it
cramps your toes.
Our toes are meant to splayright Out.
Over time.
People have a lot of footproblems because our feet come

(03:17):
together.
So now I sound like I'm tryingto sound like a doctor.
I'm not.
I'm just telling you what I'velearned and my experience.
So it has a wide toe box.
Also, um has has a thin sole.
So you can feel that like thesensation.
Maybe you don't know, maybe youdon't feel the grass exactly,
but you can feel the texturethat you're walking on grass or
you can feel the massage of theof the gravel right.

(03:39):
Um also has a flexible sole.
The whole, the entire shoe, isflexible because our feet are
meant to flex right, so toreally work those muscles and
get those stretches that we needto be healthy, uh, in our feet.
I mean you need thatflexibility.
The last thing, and probably thethe biggest characteristic of
it, and where the shoe gets itsnamesake, is the zero drop.
Right, when you think of mostlike running shoes, you get a

(04:02):
taller heel.
You know it's got because wewere just we've become heel
strikers, right.
So when we run, we hit thatheel and our our heels are not
meant to absorb shock, right?
So really, we're supposed to berunning on about the mid part
of our foot.
So this shoe, um, reallyencourages you to do that.
Now you do want to be mindful.
You don't want to get in theseshoes and heel strike like you
used to, uh, cause there's noheel padding, right?

(04:23):
So there is a little bit of adifferent way to learn.
Uh, the great thing is, on thezero website, they have a lot of
advice on how to do all that.
So, so, this is the zero shoe.
I'm pitching it, Um, I am nowan affiliate member with them,
so, um, you can go to the link,uh, down below in the
description and that link, incase you're listening, you're
driving and you want to rememberfor later.

(04:44):
Zero shoescom slash go, slash,Devin.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Zero with an X.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, it is zero with an X, and I appreciate you
pointing that out, tyler,because, uh, zero.
As we learned from MarvelousMark in a previous episode, it's
easier to trademark things whenyou spell them wrong.
I'm assuming that's why theydid this, all right, so so, zero
with an X, zero shoescom, slash, go, slash.
Devin.
Devin is D E V I?
N for those of you who just metme.
Uh.
So, anyway, uh, with that, that, I would love that the zero is

(05:13):
a sponsor of the show.
So go on there, get an awesomepair, um, and we'd appreciate it
.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
So all right here it is zero shoes.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Tyler's going to go buy a pair right now.
Pull up your phone.
No, he's leaving.
Yeah, he's going.
They do have some storefronts,from what I hear, so um check
them out, try them on.
Check them out, try them on.
Uh, the other sponsor we wantto think is, of course, cedra
Shawnee.
Uh, and they did, you know,give us this space and they gave
us breakfast today.
So how are the eggs Benedictwith hash browns?

(05:42):
Delicious, as always, awesome.
Have you eaten here before?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh, yeah, oh, really Okay Good.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
A lot of my guests have it because they're just
from the other part of town orwhatever, so good deal man, this
is our neighborhood.
That's awesome.
This is where you come.
Okay, very cool, um, if you, ifyou are listening, uh, just
want to say, you know, to getthe full experience to see the
zero shoes that we were justholding up, um, go to YouTube at
Devin Henderson speaker forthat full experience.
Remember to subscribe, like theepisode, if indeed you do like

(06:09):
it.
Share it, um, also on Apple orSpotify, you know.
Rate us, comment, let let usknow what you think, especially
after the content you're goingto hear today.
So, with that, tyler, let'sjump in and tell them who you
are.
Okay, I mean, who is thishandsome fella sitting across
the table from me, right?
Um, I, first of all, I, as Ilook at you, I'm I'm a little
jealous of the beard.
Yours is just so full and sofull of color, it's beard season

(06:32):
, you know it is beard season,it's it's no shave November, so
I'm kind of getting crazy withit.
Do you ever ask yourself, atthe end of November, am I going
to shave or am I just going tolet it keep?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
going.
Oh no, I always keep going.
I go into April.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh, do you really?
Wow?
I've seen you with a biggerbeard.
I didn't know there was likethere was a system to it.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Oh yeah, I mean in usually around October I decided
, uh, it's time, and then I letit grow out through the winter
because I love spending timeoutside, and it just makes it
that much more tolerable.
Yeah, yeah, nice man.
And it's a beard in the summer,uh, when I'm on the lawn, when
I'm working outside it, uh, it'sjust not nearly as comfortable,

(07:11):
sure, but in the winter it'sgreat.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
In the winter, it's like you don't need a scarf, you
don't need a buff, you just gota beard.
Man, I love it.
Okay, Awesome, all right.
Well, who is this guy?
Tyler Hilker is the VP ofstrategy at Kremma, uh, where he
leads Kremma's strategypractice to help organizations
understand, shape and executetheir greatest opportunities for
nearly two decades, nearly twodecades, nearly two decades.

(07:35):
Yeah, that's right, uh, but wejust talked about this.
I've been working for about twodecades in my um, you know as
an entrepreneur so crazy.
For nearly two decades, heserved a very wide range of
clients and industries with acollaborative, multidisciplinary
and holistic design approachthat focuses on creating

(07:58):
remarkable impact.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
It's a lot of words in that.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well, that's, yeah, it is a lot of words.
As I was reading them, I wasthinking not just this is
laborsome, but this is rich,collaborative, multidisciplinary
, holistic.
Um, and then remarkable, that'suh, that's great.
So I want to hear more aboutthat, especially the remarkable
side.
You know what?
What makes it remarkable?
What, what?
How do we define remarkable?
So, um, can I read the, thesentence that I took off your
LinkedIn page about that?

(08:23):
Okay, uh, this is one thingTyler Tyler describes himself on
LinkedIn from an early age.
He says I've used technology tocreate experiences.
While my grade school peerswere saving Princess Peach, I
was architecting residentialfloor plans on my parents'
computer for fun, for fun, okay,so let me tell you how fun I am

(08:44):
.
Well, it's funny because itshows me like when I was growing
up it was old school Nintendo,so we were just saving the
princess, we weren't savingPrincess Peach.
Now, is it the same, because Inever went past, like I never
got to super Nintendo.
Is it the same princess?
Was her name always PrincessPeach?
I think so, even originally.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
I'm not a lore master , but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Anyway, I never remember calling her that so
okay.
But that's what we're here totalk about today.
Is Nintendo, no, uh, okay.
So so Tyler.
Tyler was a friend, Tyler and Iused to meet with a couple of
fellas that we know over coffee,and one thing I've just I
always learned something fromTyler.
I don't know if I've ever toldyou this, but you always taught
me something.
A lot of times when I'm talkingto him, I take notes like we

(09:27):
were over breakfast.
You know, I got my phone outabout five or six times.
I'm like that's, that'sbrilliant, that's a great idea.
He's always has ideas, but itnever feels like let me tell you
how to run your life in yourbusiness.
It's like, hey, I'm reflecting,I just want to reflect this
because it might, it mightbenefit you.
So I remember one time youtaught me about the law of
diminishing returns and you drewhe even drew me a graph, Right.

(09:48):
So the designer and him waslike let me show you.
And ever since then I've beenusing the term and it's
sometimes made me stop myworkday early, with intention,
because I think of thatspecifically, you know.
So, yeah, so so let's go backthen.
Let's start here.
Let's take me back to the dayswhere you were architecting
floor plans on your parents'computer instead of saving the
princess peach.
What was going on inside thatmind Is that is that kind of

(10:10):
where it began for you.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, my dad.
I remember my dad sketching outfloor plans on graph paper, and
so we did a lot of that too.
And then my my neighbor.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Was he like an architect or no?
No, no, just fun.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, no, that's that's what he enjoyed doing.
Okay, and I kind of picked upon that and my, my neighbor kids
, kids in my neighborhood, theyhad a tie, I remember when they
got the Atari and playing onthat.
And then when they got theNintendo the first Nintendo I
didn't have any of those and sowe had the graph paper and then
eventually, when we got acomputer, we got a computer

(10:45):
Honestly, I think it was on mygrandparents' computer before we
had our own and again my dadhad a floor plan program and
he'd enjoyed playing around withthat, and so I, that's kind of
what I had to play with.
I didn't have other games.
I mean there's some, some ofthe the Lamer games that you see
out there the computer orwhatever, but it was.
That was the.

(11:05):
I remember spending a lot oftime in floor plan plus.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, it was called floor plan plus.
That's hard to say floor planplus.
Yeah, it wasn't there.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's just weird.
It was a weird name and itwasn't.
It wasn't a fancy applicationit.
I don't.
I have no idea why he chosethat one, but I still think in
the visuals that that programgave me.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
So I'm just curious what did your dad do?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
He worked in the ski industry when I was growing up,
so he worked at a ski shop.
Now he's a cabinet maker, okay,and I mean he's done a
smattering of things.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
So that floor plan plus thing, that literally was
just like a side hobby for fun.
That didn't really relate tohis work.
That's awesome, but look whatit did for you, man.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, he would.
He would build stuff around thehouse Like he built an addition
on the side of a small addition.
He would.
He was he is a hundred percentcrafts craftsman, okay, but he
was not an architect in thecapital A architect, okay.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
But he'll build it, he'll get it done.
He's a master builder.
Yeah, kind of like the Legotype thing we're into Legos.
Oh yeah, was that okay, thatkind of came with the territory
if you were doing floor plans.
Okay, that's awesome, Okay, soso then you know where did it go
from there?
How did it grow into where youare today?
What will that journey looklike, from being a young boy to
the amazing professional you arenow?

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean besides that?
I mean I did a lot of sketchingeven in my early teen years and
then, when it came time tothink about what I was going to
do in college, I liked the ideaof being an architect, but I had
this belief in high school thatI was just bad at math and I'm
not great at math, but I Ibelieved that that would hold me

(12:44):
back from being an architect.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
And did someone tell you you're bad at math?

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Oh yeah, my math teachers did.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
What do they know?

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, they, yeah they .
They didn't have the mostpatience for a kid like me, I'll
be honest.
It wasn't entirely our fault.
But but no, they literally saidyou're not very good at math,
Is?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
that something you tell a kid.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I don't think you're supposed to say that today you
couldn't get away with it, no,but.
I'm, in a sense, I'm I'm gladbecause, as much as I love
aspects of what it would like,what it would be like to be an
architect, I don't know that Iwould have thrived in that line
of work in the end and so.

(13:26):
So I got a degree incommunications.
I went to the University ofColorado, colorado Springs, and
Even there you could start yourarchitecture degree, which one
of my good friends did.
He started there, but then youhad to go to Boulder to finish
it.
Okay and I'm glad that I stayedin the Springs for four years
because I met a lot of goodfriends.
I the the work that I went intostarted there and it was a lot

(13:50):
of fun.
And so I'm not I don't hold itagainst those teachers or I'm
not disappointed that I didn'tgo into architecture, okay, but
what I do now is very similar toarchitecture in that it's
taking in a set of requirements,or Possibilities, if you will.
You're just taking a look atthe landscape and then figuring

(14:11):
out how to make the most of itfor the given audience.
And so I don't do Not anymore,at least I don't do the interior
design aspect, that level ofwhat we do.
I'm not into the details, theexact details that somebody
would experience, but in termsof coordinating efforts across
different Disciplines and tryingto create a certain effect,

(14:31):
yeah.
I do that.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, so you have kind of the gift of like the
birds.
I view in a sense right, andpeople recognize that it's like
let's put Tyler here to kind oflike manage kind of the
cohesiveness of Projects anddisciplines.
Is that yeah, would you say?
It describes you.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, I ask why a lot .
Yeah, why are we doing this?
What's the point?
Why do we bother?
Why not this, why not this?
Why not this?

Speaker 1 (14:54):
You're being genuinely curious right?

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, because I I want to make sure that we're
solving the right problem.
Okay, and in architecture, in?
At one point I'll Stop usingthis analogy, but I think we
should.
Just, you can go witharchitecture.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Everybody gets it you can.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Building a building isn't that hard.
Okay.
Building a high-qualitybuilding is is hard.
That takes skill, planning,resources, experience.
Building a Building that ahigh-quality building that also
serves as intended purpose Isgood, and then identifying what
that purpose is is still yetanother skill, and so putting

(15:36):
all that together, that's whereI I Like that phase where we're
again, we're taking a look atwhat's happening and what are
the different problems that weneed to solve.
And, yeah, how do we makeprogress in doing so?
Because in any project, whenyou begin, there's a whole bunch
of Possibilities.
There are any number of optionsthat you could pick, but not

(15:59):
all of them are equal, and sothe harder work, in my opinion,
is deciding which one is gonnaget you the most Return, the
most impact.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, I, because I feel like what is so easy for so
many businesses, I think maybeand I can speak for myself, I'll
just talk for myself in thepast, like I customize my
keynotes for the audience rightand the work you do, in a sense,
is like Needs to be customizedfor a lack of better words,
because everyone has their ownspecific needs and so to build
that right building you have tounderstand the pain points and

(16:30):
you know what solutions aregonna work toward that
remarkable outcome that you'reseeking.
How do you go from being abusiness that's just kind of
like a cookie cutter, right likewe have these solutions that
work for everyone to?
Hey, you have special needs,yes, different needs.
You're unique.
How, how do you?
That's a lot right.
That's a lot to.

(16:50):
Is it research involvedinterviews?
How do you get, how do you cutto the like increments is how
you cut to the core of me,baxter.
How do you cut to the core ofeach of your clients like this?

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, baxter, we we genuine generally start with,
we're pretty consultativecompany.
I mean, we're a designtechnology consultancy yeah, but
we were consulted before thatbecause we want to make sure
we're Good stewards of theresources these people are
providing us.
And so it.
It starts with research andwe'll talk with a Companies.

(17:23):
Customers will talk with theirsales leads, will talk with
their leadership, with theirsupport representatives, and Try
to create a 360 degree pictureof what's happening in this
given situation.
Yeah, and sometimes that leadsus to ask questions beyond the
record.
The immediate request will sayactually, the issues that you're
trying to solve for in thisproject are actually caused by

(17:46):
so what are the?
Do we go over here and explainthat, explore that, or do we
just concentrate on what we cancontrol here?
Okay, and so it starts withasking a lot of questions and
there are a host of differentframeworks that we would use to
get to the bottom of that.
Yeah and, honestly, it startswith the people, in that we have
people that are Not just afterthe right answer in the right

(18:10):
direction, but they want tobuild it in the right way, and
that takes a Lot of experienceto know all the different
options out there that you coulduse to To build it.
And and one thing, to go backfurther in the process, clients
usually come to us when theoptions that are on the shelf
aren't Doing it.
So it has to be custom, it hasto be built to fit their

(18:31):
organization, because Everything, whatever it is, whatever
technology platform is out there, just isn't doing it for them,
or they don't know which onewould, and so they're trying to
fit find a mix of custom versusoff the shelf.
Is it a certain set ofintegrations that they need to
make to make their business run?
And and you can build yourbusiness around some processes.

(18:55):
A lot of times, companies orteams will design the way they
work around a particular pieceof technology and then they
outgrow that and then theythey're not sure what to do.
They sure do.
They modify it, and so we comein and help them navigate those,
those trade-offs and everythingthat's going on there.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
And is that the right way to do it?
To build a system.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Well, what I mean?

Speaker 1 (19:20):
not on here what you said, that they build their sort
of systems off of theirtechnology, right?
Is that the right way you wouldrecommend to go, or is there a
better way?

Speaker 2 (19:31):
It's.
It's hard to say so.
It depends, and the classicanswers it just depends because
the when you have a company andtrying to it's never black and
white with you.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
No, I know, gray.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
So when you, when you're starting a company,
you're often Looking to maximizethe impact that your business
can have, and that means Pickingtools that people have already
built and they're usuallyaffordable tools and so in order
to use those, you have tocreate some sort of process, and
as you grow, the process andthe tools need to grow with you,

(20:09):
and sometimes that meanschanging your process.
Sometimes it means changing yourtools.
Okay, and there are opportunitycosts between.
They're different opportunitycosts as you as you move forward
.
Yeah, and Some businesses theywork with a certain tool set for
so long that they don't knowhow to work Otherwise.
But there's, but it's stillholding them back.

(20:30):
Some businesses are just finewith that because they figured
out how to work around it or howto grow on that tool set, and
so it.
There's not an easy answer.
The.
The question is how is businessor how is technology helping or
holding back your business?
To what degree is it?
sometimes it's not sometimesit's great, yeah, but sometimes

(20:53):
it genuinely is yeah, I would.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, I think of the Technology.
To take it back to thepossibility mindset, right, you
said that like it's, you getused to a tool and then you know
, environments change, timeschange and something becomes
outdated and people like can'tadjust.
Is there a way and I think thisis applicable to life, you know
To stay more agile, to staymore nimble, right, so that

(21:18):
you're ready for that nextchange?
Well, what is there somethingyou could recommend for me, for
even my life?
How can I be ready for thatnext hit, you know?
Or that just the next change,you know, even if it's a small?

Speaker 2 (21:28):
one.
Oh man, that's.
That's a question on the spot.
It is it, as I put you on thespot big time the when you're,
when you're picking a tool,again, in your particular
situation, you're gonna have topoke around.
There gonna be plenty of toolsfor what you're looking to do,

(21:48):
and so you might find the rightcombination To do them it, but
it might it's gonna take morework for you to combine those
tools and Get them to work inthe way that makes sense for you
and it gets what you want outof it.
As far as larger organizations,or even as if you grow the

(22:09):
podcast and this is what youwant to do full-time, there are
platforms that are madespecifically for that.
Kramer has our own podcastpeople a product.
Check it out.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
What is that again?

Speaker 2 (22:20):
people of product people of product.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah all right, kramer podcast Check it out.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Shameless plug it is.
But and we use a given platformfor that, ok, and for other
podcasters, they they have.
I mean, some of them have builttheir own platform because they
were not.
They're big enough, their needswere different and off the
shelf tools didn't fit the waythat they thought Interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
I can.
I can vouch for this because Ihad to.
I had to pick a platform for mypodcast.
Each one has its own perks,benefits, limitations, yeah.
So it would be nice to havethat consultant like Kremit to
come in and say OK, what exactlyare you trying to accomplish?
Let's let's design onespecifically for you.
That's yours, yeah, right, yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
I mean when Kremit started first doing a podcast,
it was several years ago, but weused a tool called Anchor OK,
and it's now been acquired bySpotify.
But you just talked in yourphone and publish it out to you,
and so there were tradeoffsthere where you couldn't have as
much editing flexibility.
You can do this, this or this,but it was wicked easy to just

(23:24):
send it out there into the, intothe Internet's and, and as
we've matured, our tools havematured and we have to work
around how those tools work,because we want you're always
trying to gauge the input, likehow much effort you're putting
into it versus what you're goingto get out of it.
And we could build our own.
We know how to make software,but is the?

(23:47):
Is the tradeoff worth it?
For us?
At this point it's not, yeah,and so for other, for our
clients, we help them weighthose tradeoffs because it's
easy to have a sense of thepossibilities.
The possibilities for us andour clients are not typically
the problem, because they'relike I said.
There are any number of ways wecan go.
The hard part is deciding whichone is going to get us the most

(24:08):
impact, given the tradeoffsthat we have to make along the
way, which one's going to costmore, which one is going to give
us the most reach, the bestusability, the best tech stack
for a long term?
Because in our world technologyturns over over a certain
period of time and so we saylike two days sometimes.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
So when we're building tech, for these clients
.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
they're spending a lot of money with us and we want
to be good stewards of that.
And if we choose a platformthat is old, it's not very well
supported by the creators ofthat platform If there aren't
many developers for that.
We have to be thinking ahead onour clients behalf and talk
them through that and say we'rechoosing this design approach,
this technology approach,because while it might be a bit

(24:57):
clunky now, in the long termthat learning curve will pay off
because you'll be set in thesefive ways Well, and I can see I
always I told you when we wereeating breakfast.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
I like to find parallels between industries,
and the way that answers thatquestion for me like how do you
stay agile is you can try.
You can try new things, but atsome point you're going to be
surprised.
So it's good to pause and havean awareness of how do I make
adjustments and have the helpyou need, which is what KREMA is
, which is why you have such asuccessful, ongoing long term
relationship with your clients,because it's like good, thanks

(25:25):
for helping us over that hurdle.
Now stick around for the nextone, right?
Because we're going to keepneeding you to help us reinvent
and innovate constantly, right?
So, yeah, that's.
I can see the benefit there Forme.
I have a speaking coach.
Her name's Danielle.
She's awesome, but and I workedwith her for three straight
years and she just did amazingthings for my mind, my keynote,

(25:47):
my business, I mean she was likeshe was like a counselor.
At times it was.
She was like overqualified as aspeaking coach, but she helped
me write a keynote.
But as industries and seasonschange, my keynote has to change
and without her alongside meright now, I feel a little bit
lost.
I know that I need to go backher and say I put in the best I
can.
I say I put in some new contentand that I need your help, sort

(26:10):
of massaging and nurturing, tomake sure this is really
optimized for the audience.
And I feel like she's my crema.
She's coming to me to sayhere's what we can do, and
sometimes she even provides mewith tools that are already out
there that I can use as aspeaker but definitely helps me,
taylor, make that customizedspeech for my needs specifically
, and so I can see why peoplewant to work with you guys.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's awesome.
Jim Collins has this analogy Ithink it's in Good to Create
where he talks about bullets andcannonballs and the analogy,
which I might butcher, soapologies.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Please, please do.
Mr Collins, it's a restaurant,butcher away.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
But he says imagine you're on a ship and you have a
limited amount of gunpowder andyou see an enemy ship coming
towards you.
You have a couple options.
You have some bullets and youhave cannonballs and you can
fire that cannonball and givethem a surprise shot.
The problem is that you don'tknow how your ship is calibrated
.
You're aiming and you're hopingthat it's going to hit that

(27:08):
other ship.
You can also calibrate byfiring bullets to make sure that
your ship is pointed in theright direction.
Then, once it's calibratedappropriately, then you fire the
cannonball and then you haveconfidence.
And so, as we help our clientsmake these trade-offs and as
you're talking about withDanielle, you might fire some

(27:29):
bullets and you might.
For us that looks likeprototypes, where we might build
something in Figma we mightmake in paper.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Where the stakes are lower, because the costs are
lower at this point for a bulletas opposed to the cannonball.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
The point is learning and understanding.
And so and you with Danielle,you're like I got this, I could
do this, I could do this, andyou're trying to calibrate where
you're going to go big, becauseyou can't stay agile forever,
because if you're always stayingagile on the surface, you're
never going to be able to godeep and have any sort of impact

(28:04):
.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
And so that's the hard part.
That is deep.
By the way, I'm serious, that'sgood, that's a good nugget.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's the hard part.
Because you want to remainagile, because you don't know
what's going to come up.
Because if you're only lookinghere, but if you can get a
strong sense of where you wantto go as a speaker or a company
leader for a team, if you canget a sense of the underlying
currents that are happening inyour industry so there are the

(28:30):
waves and then the currents, andif you're paying attention to
the currents, you might get adifferent read on what's
happening than if you're justlooking at the waves.
And so you got to put all thistogether and then say, well,
based on all this, this is thedirection that we want to go.
And if you just stay in onespot because you fear making the
wrong decision, or you want tostay, if you only want to stay

(28:51):
agile, then you're never goingto get anywhere.
And so you have to be willingand able to commit with
confidence to make thatlong-term investment, or else
you're just going to stay put.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Man, I think so many times I'm guilty of not
calibrating, just dive into it.
You've seen bad things happenwhen people in your industry,
with your clients, when peoplejust dive in too fast and then
maybe they come to you to say,hey, we got to back it up here
and change our focus.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I mean, I'll confess I see that for myself because I
mean you can tell I just it usedto be in my LinkedIn or Twitter
bio or something I just I likepossibilities, I that's what we
were doing over breakfast.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, I mean, this is the podcast, right.
Thanks for bringing it back tobrand for me.
I appreciate it.
You know, do it again.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
But there's a dark side of possibilities in that
you can be so focused onyourself that you think every
idea you have is a good one, orevery possibility is equally
valid and part.

(30:00):
I'm not saying you inparticular.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
No, no, no, it made me think of something, but keep
going yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
And so there's.
There has to be a disciplinearound pursuit of possibilities.
If you don't have thatdiscipline, then you're not.
You're not just agile.
It might feel like that.
You might feel like, oh, I'mgonna do this, I'm gonna do this
, I'm gonna do this, but it'smore, it's probably more of a
defense mechanism than anything,because you're not going to
make progress, you're not goingto go.
You're gonna have theopportunity to capture any of

(30:29):
the compounding returns thatcome with choosing a direction
in the long term.
And so, with the possibilities,mindset is necessary.
But the dark side I've found isif I'm only thinking about
possibilities, then I rob myselfand others of the goodness that
comes with sticking withsomething for a long period of
time.
So that requires that much morediligence over time to make

(30:51):
sure that I'm picking thepossibility with the most impact
.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
I love that man and that goes along with what?
Something that I talk about inmy keynote.
I use the soccer jugglingillustration and I say start
ugly, start small, pick up theball.
So, because we're not to besloppy and get out there and
waste resources and money.
But you sometimes just gottajump in.
But if you're gonna jump in,don't have the stakes, be too
high.
Like take calculated risksright and start small.

(31:17):
And for me with the soccerjuggling it started with one,
then four, then 10, and went toa bigger number that I ever
imagined was possible.
But I went in deep because Iknew those small juggles.
I was like I see potential here, you know, and once I saw the
possibilities, I think that'swhat starts it, because if you
don't see the possibility,you're not gonna start anything
right.
But to see it, but to be aware,to be mindful as you go in

(31:40):
before you go big, I love thatidea.
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
There's no shortage of distractions.
But again, like you're saying,and it's easy, it's just easy to
be seduced by it and say I cando this, I can do this.
But, like you said, if there'sa and when I'm talking with
clients or I mean a lot of folkshonestly the possibility that

(32:05):
we have in mind in the long termmight look different when we
get there.
And so the point of thelearning in the middle is not to
be able to do that right away,but to make progress and learn
what it's like for me to getthere.
So you learning, soccerlearning, can you soccer?
Yeah, all right.
You learning to juggle thejourney for you to get there

(32:29):
look different.
You can do the things that youimagine.
You said I want to be able todo that, but you can also do a
whole range of other things.
Sure, and I would wager this istrue for a lot of our clients
that the thing that they had inmind that they set out to build,
they might have built that, butthat's almost a byproduct of
whatever was created along theway they did that, but also

(32:50):
these other things, and had theyjust jumped straight to the
process of building that onething that they had in mind.
They would have missed a wholelot along the way.
Sure, and that's just generallynot a good steward, yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
A good steward of resources, yeah, I saw two
parallels to stand-up comedy inthis.
One is when you said, like youthink oh, every idea is a good
idea.
You know when you're writingstand-up comedy because I was
heavily into it one time youthink every bit, every joke you
write at first like this isgoing to be hilarious.
And then you try it out, youknow, in an open mic or
something, and it just bombs andyou're like, oh, that's not.
Yeah, because you wrote it inthe middle of the night, like at

(33:25):
3 AM, right, yep.
A lot of times these ideas comeand we're just like and then
the other thing for me, like Ithink our like what I was
getting from what you're sayingis plan, it's okay for your
plans to change, for your goalsto change, especially when you
start putting out these feelersthat it's like oh, that's not
even really what I want orthat's not going to be the best
thing for the organization as awhole, you know.
And so for me, at one time Iwas like I wanted to transition

(33:47):
away from keynote speakerspeaking into stand-up comedy
because it sounded more fun andI just wanted something new.
And when I thought about it andI saw the lifestyle of a
comedian you know how much theytravel and how it takes decades
to get really, really funny Iwas like maybe had I started
that when I was 20, you know.
But now that I'm like 40, orit's, it's like it was just the

(34:10):
wrong time in life for me toventure into that.
So I finally realized I'm justgoing to stick with keynote
speaking because it's kind oflike it's my calling ultimately,
I finally realized.
But also it's, I just fell intoit and so I'm just I'm going to
stick with that, you know, andto be a, to be a good family man
, to be a good steward of mytime right now.
So that was one of those whereI'm glad I didn't like go all

(34:32):
deep with that.
I don't know what deep wouldhave looked like for stand-up
comedy maybe just to write a bitlike I am no longer a keynote
speaker, like like, like Ideclare bankruptcy, I am no
longer a speaker, you know.
But I'm glad that I learnedquick enough that this is what
I'm supposed to do, so I'm sureyou help guide your people.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, and even then I would.
I would call that a signal tosay that there's probably
something worth paying attentionto in whatever you were doing
from a keynote speakingperspective, but also, what is
the appeal of comedy?
And so I might take a clientthrough a series of either
workshops or frameworks or evenjust conversations, questions to

(35:11):
say to help diagnose thatsituation.
So what is it about key notesSpeaking?
That's.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
I feel like I'm in a counseling session now which is
great.
It's like yeah, talk me backgoing to be a comedian, because
I'll do it.
Yeah, Just as quickly.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
What is it about?
You know, speaking that isboring you at this point.
Is it great question?
Or what about what is soattractive about that?
And get to the heart of thematter, because usually, you
know, in this case, stand up isa proxy for something else, or
you see it?
You see, stand up as a bundle.
And I'm glad you got to theheart of it, where, yeah, it

(35:50):
looks great from the outside,yeah, but it's a lot of work.
Yes, it's a lot of work thatyou're not used to doing.
It's totally different skillset.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
And not to mention the burden on your family and
right and everything else.
And so you you have to look atthe whole package and then say
but what?
What is the glimmer of goodnessin that?
What do I want to pull from?
What are two things that Icould pull from stand up that
look like they might be fun totry out?

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah and bring that back into you don't have to do
one or the other.
Yes, totally, Totally no youknow how'd you do that.
Yeah, yeah, how did I do it?
Well, I was inspired, as I waskeen of speaking.
I was inspired by Mark Mayfieldinitially, who was my first
guest on this podcast.
He was a humorist, like sofunny keynote speaker and I was
like, whoa, you can really befunny as a keynote speaker.

(36:34):
But then it wasn't a few yearsand till after that maybe five
years, and I was like what if Ijust went all to the?
I went to the pendulum otherway and just went all comedy and
then and as a caveat, as a sidenote here, you know my
listeners, my audiences knowthat I'm I'm about never give up
, go for whatever you want to gofor.
I could have said that was standup comedy and said listen, lynn

(36:57):
, my wife, I love you and I wantto follow my dream of this here
.
It's going to be, I'm going tobe less present, I'm not going
to make as much money, at leastnot initially, but this is my
dream because I believe I can doit now.
I believe I could have done it,had had enough time.
But there was a realization ofI'm not going to.
So it's not about that.
I gave up.
Right, it was, it was aboutadjusting that.

(37:19):
So how did I bring that back in?
To answer your question, it waslike man, the two really do
merge.
Like you can bring that standup back into the keynote.
Now it does have to be moreintentional, like there has to
be a reason.
You can't just be funny for noreason, right, it's like this
this is funny, we're laughing inspite of this problem or this
issue, but it's teaching us thisabout life.
So so when I really did, youknow, finally settle on that's,

(37:40):
it's going to be a convergenceof these two things, with
keynote speaking being the leadthing, and it did like you said.
What was boring about keynotespeaking?
I think it needed that spark,and I'm always adding the new
spark.
You know, at first it was, youknow, there was always the magic
, and then there was, like thesoccer, then the humor, and
always bringing something in.
So I'm sure that you know, withyour clients, we don't have to

(38:01):
give up this idea completely.
But what are the best parts wecan bring back in?
That's going to supplement whatwe already have, to make us
even greater and keep us on ourtoes and scratch that itch of
this other thing we want topursue and bring it all together
.
I'm sure that's part of yourskill set is seeing the birds
eye, and I love those questionsthat you go deep with because,
as you're asking me what'sboring about keynote speaking, I

(38:23):
was reflecting back on yeah,what did make me go through that
whole transition is sometimesit takes someone outside of
yourself and outside of theorganization to peak in and be
like, oh, if we just move thesepieces around and added this and
took this away, it would justtransform business.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
There's a, an author, formerprofessor, named Roger Martin,
who I've he's set the tone forhow I think about a lot of these
things, and he has a phrasecalled integrative thinking.
Okay, and he talks about how,in a lot of decisions, it feels
like it's either this or this,it's either keynote speaking or

(38:59):
stand up, and integrativethinking is a systematic way of
breaking down each of thosedecisions into their component
parts options into theircomponent parts, and then making
a third, unexpected option thatis uniquely yours.
So in that case, you wereattracted to the humor of Mark's

(39:20):
approach.
That doesn't mean you have togo all the way.
He found that happy middle.
And so what is that for you ishow much?
How much humor?
Is it 30% humor, is it what?
Because it's all about theintended effect, the impact that
you want to have, and how youcan do that in your own unique
way.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Well, and along those lines, one thing we talked
about over breakfast.
I asked you in mind, sharing ithere because I thought it was
something valuable, becauseyou're talking about the three
horizons, right, Because I'malways thinking that.
I'm always thinking what isthat next, right?
What is that next stand upcomedy thing that I'm going to?
And I think the most recentthing for me was podcasting.
You know, I knew that was onthe horizon for a long time, but
, but there's three horizons.

(40:00):
Tell us about those.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
And a lot of folks at the KREMA team now are probably
giggling, because I can't havea conversation without
mentioning something like that.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Oh, it's a horizon, specifically, or?
Some deep concept, like Lawsonmentioned this is why I wanted
you all, man, I mean becauseyou're a fun guy, but seriously,
I mean he's already mentionedso many professors and authors
and good stuff, man.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
But say, the three horizons model was developed by
McKinsey years ago originallyand it's lost some impact in
terms of timeframes and whatnot.
But as a way to think aboutyour timelines and the questions
you ask to support futuresuccess is is has been really
helpful.
So the first horizon is whatare the things that are

(40:47):
immediately in front of you?
And so, if we're talking abouttechnology and analogy might be,
what are the bugs in ourtechnology that we have to fix?
We just absolutely have to fixwhat are the accessibility
issues, the usability issues,and then so that's a horizon one
thing whatever is mostimmediate in front of us and
that will force us to askdifferent questions with our

(41:07):
customers, with salespeople,then later on down the line.
These are very near term, short, short term, fixed type
questions.
Horizon two is in the immediatefuture and that might be a
question like what new featuredo we need to add into our
product?
Assuming bugs and other issueslow, low level issues are

(41:30):
resolved, what is the newfeature, what are the new
features we can add to make ourproduct that much more useful,
interesting, appealing, etc.
And that forces us to askquestions that are not as
obvious.
So we can ask our customers.
What do you not like about theproduct as it is?
Where do you have troubles?

(41:50):
We can look at the call supportor the call center transcripts.
We can talk to our salespeoplein here why people aren't buying
it, and so we can decide wherewe want to build the product in
terms of features.
That's the same product, sameusers, but the workload and the
investment is a bit different.
And then third horizon might bewhat are the new customers that

(42:15):
we want to attract to ourproduct?
And then, working your waybackward, what are the features
they would need?
What are the features that theywant?
But what needs do they havethat we can help solve?
Maybe it's a part of thisproduct, maybe it's not, but on
the third horizon it's usuallyhigher level questions when are

(42:36):
we going in the long term?
Who are the people that we needto go after?
And it's a helpful frameworkagain, because those questions
are fundamentally differentOftentimes we ask if we're
looking at our vision for thefuture.
companies will ask moreusability centered questions and
sometimes it happens where weget into research or strategy

(42:58):
engagement and we say what?

Speaker 1 (43:01):
kind of feedback do you have from?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
your customers and they'll say we only have this
really low level usability orissue type questions.
Okay, that's great, we can workwith that.
But we need to go back to thosecustomers and ask them
different types of questionswhat more environmental
questions, contextual questionsand try to shape a broader

(43:22):
picture.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, so I mean what I like about that from what it
sounds like you're saying.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
You're asking questions up anddown the line.
You're going from one to two tothree, three to two to one.
I mean you're asking all thesequestions at the same time
because they're all related,right?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, and I guess maybe sometimes, because,
depending on the stage of theproject or the stage of thinking
, you're not going to get to ahorizon three, answer through
horizon one question.
Sure, sure you can.
That's really hard to get to.
It'll be a winding path to getthere Right.
And so there are differenttypes of research, there are

(43:58):
different types of strategy, butyou can be talking to the same
customers throughout.
It's just a matter of how youextrapolate, how you put those
different responses together.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, gotcha.
I'm just curious, becauseyou're a great communicator
You're good at explaining thingsyou're good at explaining.
I know your major wascommunications.
How has that major played intoyour work?
Was that a springboard or wasthat just a major?

Speaker 2 (44:24):
I started out as an English major because I loved
the textual analysis that I gotto do in my English classes in
high school.
It was a lot of fun and I know,again, I'm a whole lot of fun
at parties.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Let me tell you.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I love the analysis of it.
But then I needed another classin my schedule and I took a
communications 401 class thatdidn't have any prerequisites
and it was called Persuasion andI really, really enjoyed that
class.
I did well in that class and Ithought I can be a double major
for a bit how hard can this be?
And then I gave up the Englishmajor and finished out in

(45:02):
communication and it was theobservational side of
communication that I reallyenjoyed about that major and I'm
not gonna lie, it was not hard.
I actually took it because,back to the math question, I
only had to take two weeks ofmath to satisfy that major, so
that was a big deal.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Dude, yeah, similarly , I was in family studies, which
I think is a few notches belowcommunications in terms of ease.
I think I had a statisticscourse later on in college and
so wow, so okay, back to thehorizons idea.
What's on the horizon for you,for Tyler Hilker, you know what
I mean If we look at horizon twoor even three, personally or

(45:44):
professionally.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
That's a great question, horizon one I'll back
into it.
Horizon one at the Kremah iswe're in a really fun stage
where we are doing more and moreresearch and strategy work,
helping our clients get moreinvestment, more clarity about

(46:07):
what they wanna do in the future, and for a lot of them it's not
that they weren't able to dothat, it's in terms of
intelligence or whatever, causethese people are wicked smart
and they're a lot of fun to workwith.
But we come in with a differentperspective.
We worked with a range ofclients in different industries

(46:27):
and part of our valueproposition to clients is that
we bring the best of these otherindustries and say I'm working
with this banking client overhere, you are in telecom, I can
connect the dots between thesetwo cause situationally there's
a lot of similarities and sowe're building that out into and

(46:48):
not just our own line ofbusiness or our own service,
because we've been doing thatfor years.
But it's becoming more and moreof who we are and how people
see us.
And that's fun because itreflects the value that we've
provided to our clients for along, long time.
And Horizon 2 would be gettingbigger in terms of that, not for

(47:09):
the sake of getting big, butbecause we want to have that
much more impact, and in thenext couple of years, given the
economy now we want to be reallydeliberate about that.
We want to be we don't hirelike crazy, like a couple other
companies, I mean a couple othermany other companies.
And we want to be developingthis capability throughout

(47:34):
everybody at the company andHorizon 3,.
That's hard to say, I think, fora company like us that changes
the environment, is changingaround us.
It's a matter of, excuse me,figuring out what those currents
are and how do we ride them,because it's very tempting to,

(47:55):
excuse me, ride those waves andjust only look at the waves and
get blown around by them.
And so for us, what does itmean long-term to be a
technology we call ourselves ahuman-first technology company,
where we want to be serving thepeople with technology and not
be technology-led?
But given AI, given all thesethings that have come downstream

(48:21):
from that not just AI butblockchain, virtual reality,
augmented reality, all thesedifferent technologies
converging at once is going tobe pretty remarkable, and so we
have to be paying attention notjust at the surface level
developments, but those deepercurrents, and so we need to have
capabilities and competencies,skill sets, perspectives that

(48:48):
are good at those and can handlethose, but not limited to those
.
We don't just want to befocused on the surface level of
just one of those, want to be apartner that can help clients
think through any one of thosethings.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, I like that analogy of the waves.
It's hard to see past the wavesand I think the listeners can
I'm sure can relate when we'rein survival mode.
I'm not saying you or yourcompany are, but it makes me
think of when I'm in survivalmode.
It's hard for me to think aboutmy retirement plan, you know,
when I'm 90, it's like how do Ikeep my head above water right
now?
So, as a team leader, wouldthat be a good term for you, are

(49:27):
you?

Speaker 2 (49:27):
a team leader, a department leader?
Are you a leader as a leader?
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
I mean, I know you lead people.
How do you keep the people youlead inspired and in the
possibility mindset?
Yeah, that's a nat, that's Joe.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
You've got like two here.
Sorry, joe.
Yeah, it's okay.
Yeah, so I was gonna mentionthat's another dark side of
possibilities, because I cancome up with possibilities for
anything, and that includesnegative.
And when the situation turnsdark, when things get hard, it's
very easy to come up withnegative possibilities.
And so the trick isn't stoppingthat, the trick is redirecting

(50:06):
into a more not even positive,but just maybe optimistic is a
better way to do it.
I'm a pretty quick optimist,but in general.
But if things get hard it'slike, oh man, now we have to pay
attention to this risk, thisrisk, this risk, this risk, this
vulnerability, all that.
And so the trick isn't to saystop it, I'm not gonna think of

(50:26):
any more possibilities.
The trick is to say in whatways is this good?
In what ways would thishardship create new
opportunities for us to dosomething different?
Man.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
How does this?
It's opportunities andlimitations right, right, right
yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
What do we need to stop doing?
Because possibilities oftenimplies more, do more, do more
than that, but it might just bedo less.
What do you need to stop doing?
Because that's gonna take youdown the wrong path.
There's actually more risk,more vulnerability down that
path than you say.
We're not gonna do that anymoreand so when, honestly, the last

(51:01):
year, given the broad economicspace and the tech space, it's
been hard and so it's forced usto reconsider again what we're
actually good at, what haveclients told us time and time
again that we're good at, thatwe enjoy, both as a company and
as individuals?
How do we fall back to thethings that are unique about us

(51:23):
and that we can do well and thenlean into that, rather than
saying we're good at this onething, what else can we be good
at?
What else can we be good at?
And it's like I said before,it's a discipline to pursue
those, the possibilities thathave a certain level of impact,
because again, it's gonna bedistracting whether those

(51:44):
possibilities are negative orthey're just not the best ones
that you pursue.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
I mean again, it's a parallel with the soccer
juggling thing.
Once I hit a certain number.
I hit like 11,241, as I sharewith my audience, and it was two
hours of continuous kicking.
The reason I'm telling I'mbringing this up is because I
could have kept going to try toget a bigger number, but I
discovered something calledsoccer freestyle, which is where
you get tricky, you catch theball in the back of your neck,
you do tricks.
I think you've maybe seen me dosome of that and it's for me

(52:11):
that was kind of the next levelthing.
It's like I could keep countingkicks and keep trying to go
higher and higher, but I feltlike there was this different
thing that I could do.
So while my whole lifemonitoring.
Keynote title is somethinggreater is always possible.
I agree.
Sometimes that greater thingmight be stopping, resting,
doing less, so that you canfocus, laser focus on certain

(52:31):
aspects and create a biggerimpact with those, and so
something greater is alwayspossible.
It doesn't mean working harderall the time.
It might mean working less andgetting a bigger result.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah, 100%.
And again, I mentioned beforecompounding returns, where the
more you practice, it looks likefor the video, it looks like
this and then eventually itstarts to kick up.
And that's when you're doingfreestyling, you're not just
juggling it off your feet.
And if you can't reframefrustration or struggles or
difficulties into something witha positive possibility, some

(53:07):
sort of optimistic option, thenit's gonna be super discouraging
and you're just gonna attemptto dig it up.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah, man, yeah, wow.
How does this design stuff LikeI'm thinking about?
You're an awesome family man.
You have an incredible family.
How does the whole creativitypart of you, the design part of
you, that loves that?
How does that carry into yourpersonal life?

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Right now at home.
It's funny because we are inthe midst of a few different
like low level renovationprojects.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
And the reason those are taking so long is because my
wife and I keep thinking of newpossibilities.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Ah, wow, case in point, right it's oh, we could
do this, oh, we could do this,we could do this.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
And it's taken work for us to, because we've not
done projects at the size before, and so it's taken work for us
to talk about what reallymatters and actually a great
case of this just a couple ofmonths ago.
We have a big garden and we hadtalked about making that bigger
in the next couple of years,and so we moved the garden fence

(54:16):
in anticipation of that, andthen we started to think it's
kind of a horizon three typeidea right, yeah, let's prepare
for that future.
And then we were gone a lot thissummer.
We had a lot going on.
And then, as the summer wrappedup, when we started talking
about the garden and gettingready for next year, we thought,
man, we've got two summers ofour oldest at home.

(54:39):
We could take advantage of thepossibilities of having a larger
garden and the fun that is.
We could also take advantage ofthe possibilities that we could
have with these kids.
That's kind of a no-brainer,right.
And so we said you know what,scrap the garden Because it
would afford us certainpossibilities.

(55:00):
That would have been great, Idon't know, 10 years ago, but
they're not the possibilitiesthat we wanted to get advantage
of now, given the constraintsthat we have.
And we wanna make the most ofthis time with our kids because,
I mean, they're gonna be gonesoon enough Hopefully no, but we

(55:20):
love them and we wanna spendtime with them.
And already this summer was that.
Oh man, how do we make the mostof this?
How do we make the most of this?
And so Amy and I got to pointwe were out there talking about
the garden and we're like, no,we don't wanna value this as
highly as we did, and there waseven a moment where I said, well

(55:41):
, I thought you wanted a biggergarden.
She said I thought you wanted abigger garden.
Oh, I see how it's all.
We're trying to communicatewithout communicating about what
we wanted and what the otherwanted.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
So we're recognized as the communication major.
Good job, good job, a littlelate.
Well, a little late than never.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
And so it it forced us to talk about what we value.
Okay, and I value, I mean weeach said I value time at home
or time doing stuff out on theroad.
Like you said, we loveadventure, we love road trips,
so we value time with these kidsover and above our, the things

(56:24):
that we enjoy individually athome, like gardening, like being
outside in the yard, whateverthat is, and so it's, and with a
couple of other projects, whatdo we value?
Do we value this or do we valuethis, and or what are the other
options?
Get, what are the otherreconfigurations that aren't
immediately obvious, causethat's another thing with the
possibilities, it's we're oftenenamored with the possibility

(56:46):
that first comes to mind oh, Ihad this idea.
And we will go through exercisesat work to say, yes, that
that's a good one.
That's possibly it, but let'stake a step back and see what
other options we can come upwith.
Jason Freedy, who's the founderof base camp and 37 signals
it's a software tool, he says.

(57:07):
He wrote in a blog post yourfirst design might, might be
your best, but you won't knowuntil you can't find a better
one.
And so we say this is my firstidea.
It is my job to find a betterone.
If I don't, then we go back tothat one.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
And so, with the house, with work, that's why
it's so hard for me to shop forpants, by the way, I'm not even
kidding.
I'm like this is great, but man, what else is possible?

Speaker 2 (57:30):
What else could I do?

Speaker 1 (57:31):
So with the house, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
So what are the?
You have to work to generatethese other options so that you
know you've exhausted all thepossibilities and say, no, I
know definitively, this is thebest one, and and so again back
to the house.
We're finally suddenly intothis is what we're going to do,
this is where we're going tostart, because in doing this,
this decision unlocks theseother decisions.

(57:55):
It's not one big monolithicproject.
It feels like that and it'seasy to think about it like that
, but what is the one thing thatwill set everything else in
place?

Speaker 1 (58:05):
So in that moment, when you chose time with your
teenage children over garden, ina sense, how do you feel in
that moment?

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Absolute freedom.
Yeah, like both of us were likethat's easy, like we didn't
have the burden of having tofigure this out and squeeze it
in all the alongside, all theseother things we needed to do.
We just said explicitly andsaid this is what we're going to
value.
We want that.
We want that big garden.
We might get it someday, wemight do that, but from a values

(58:37):
perspective, this is what needsto happen.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
I imagine that's, that's awesome and that's the
kind of work that you and Kremudo for your clients.
Give them a feeling of freedom,like, oh, this is what's
important, let's, let's focushere.
I love it, man.
Well, thanks, I'm sure thelisteners are going.
Wow, there's probably somethings that maybe you need to
look at.
You know, like I do in my life,and prioritize a little bit and
figure out, you know, how tofind that freedom.
So, man, appreciate you sharingthat part of it.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yeah, that's huge.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
And if you, if there is something for you you know,
please comment and just let usknow what's.
What are you going to dodifferently?
How can you experience freedomby just being intentional,
having that designer's eye tofocus on what's going to give
you the most ROI?
So, man, I have a couple offinal questions before I give
you those, and one of them is anon the spot, but it's a fun on
the spot, okay, before we dothat, I just want to say thanks

(59:24):
again to Exeter Rashani for thewonderful breakfast for the
space.
It's really great.
It's always a blast being here.
Sonya, our server.
I've looked out at her everytime.
She's awesome.
And I've drank this entire.
Yeah, that's, that's good.
You've had that entire cup,that tire pot, I love it.
And then thank you also toShannon, the manager, for making
all this happen.
So, okay, how can people whowho maybe do need KREMA maybe

(59:49):
there's some professionalslistening how can they get ahold
of KREMA?
What's the best way?

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Our website is KREMAus KREMAus, okay, and you
can read about us there.
Obviously, linkedin We've got agreat YouTube channel with a
whole bunch of content.
Like I mentioned, the podcast.
My personal site isTylerHilkercom.
I'm also on Twitter andLinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Okay, awesome, and if you?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
want reach out to me directly, Tyler, at KREMAus.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Okay, tyler, krema Tyler at KREMAus.
Okay, we'll.
We'll link your personalwebsite on the podcast.
And don't forget also ZeroShoes, baby, check them out.
Yeah, check them out.
They're incredible.
Zeroshoescom.
Slash, go, slash.
Devon, would love for you toexperience the freedom that you
get when you go natural and gobarefoot.

(01:00:35):
Thank you, tyler.
Okay, awesome.
Last question for you.
One piece of advice for mydaughters Anything?

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I heard you ask this to Will and I thought how am I
going to answer that question?

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
You've had weeks now.
Oh, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
He gave a great answer.
Will said something like stickwith each other, be each other's
friends.
Oh yes, and that was.
That was really good.
And I mean I again I wasthinking about all last night
and I might, I didn't haveanything good.
So your daughters get zeroadvice, that's right Well.

(01:01:20):
I would say something along thelines that don't get distracted
by everything out there, likethere's a.
One of the advantages that youhave as a big family is the many
touch points to stay grounded.
And when I look at people myage or younger, some older of

(01:01:44):
course, they've cut off thoseroots in pursuit of something
that they wanted to pursue,whether it's their own dreams or
a new situation.
Sometimes that's healthy andgood, but I see a sense of

(01:02:05):
groundlessness in a lot of ourdifferent aspects of our culture
.
And so how do we stay grounded?
Remember who, not just where,we came from, but we are
somebody and we come fromsomewhere, and there's power in
remembering that, for better orworse.
I mean, that's not to say myfamily situation was perfect

(01:02:26):
growing up, but it shaped me andit's up to me to make the most
of that and to see how God canshape us through that.
And so it's kind of a corollaryto Will's, because that was a
really good answer, but find away to stay grounded with each
other, with who you are, inpursuit of whatever

(01:02:48):
possibilities are out there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
That's great man.
Thank you All right girls.
You heard him Great advice andI think you all see now why we
needed Tyler Hilker on thispodcast.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
So I think you can join I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
So great, just having the wisdom, and it's always,
it's always.
I always get a nugget or twofrom Tyler.
So, okay, all right.
Well, I think that's what we'regoing to wrap here.
Watch us on YouTube, go toDevon Henderson speaker and
subscribe, like, share it withsomeone who you think needs this
message.
And don't forget, you know,comment, rate the podcast to let
us know what you think, howyou're going to live differently

(01:03:19):
from something that Tyler saidhere today.
And with that we are going todo my sign off line, which is
what else is possible.
But I always say what else theaudience usually says is
possible.
So I'm going to have, I'll say,what else you say is possible.
Got it Okay, all right, y'allThanks for joining and never
stop asking what else ispossible Boom.

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#19 Design Your Life with Tyler Hilker

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