November 28, 2024 • 34 mins
For a week devoted to gratitude, we decided to revisit this episode with Ryan Modjeski about empathy, compassion, and curiosity, originally aired on November 9, 2023. There are so many great lessons in this episode, but the most important one is that empathy is teachable. Happy Thanksgiving, US listeners!
"The culture I try to build is one that is unafraid to try and the only real sin is making the same mistake over and over again." - Ryan Modjeski
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In the last few months, I've been working with a
new team who's looking tostrengthen its empathy muscle,
so I immediately wanted to goback and listen to our interview
with Ryan Majewski, who wasthen the CEO of social and
emotional learning platformEmpatico and is now a wildly
talented free agent that someoneshould go out and hire.
(00:21):
But I can't think of a bettertopic during a week devoted to
gratitude than empathy.
There are so many great lessonsin this episode, but the most
important one is that empathy isteachable.
Enjoy this rewind and we'llcatch you next week for another
new conversation.
Happy Thanksgiving, uslisteners.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is Un than compassion.
It's noticing your biases andbeing able to see from another's
point of view.
In this rapidly shifting worldwith so many global high stakes
challenges, empathy isn't a niceto have.
It's an imperative skill forour collective future,
especially for the nextgeneration.
Building empathy at scalesounds unlikely, but our guest
today is doing just that and inthe process, showing us
(01:26):
technology used for good,building empathetic connections
between children around theworld, for fostering social
emotional learning and, close tomy heart, increasing children's
literacy.
Ryan Majewski is the executivedirector of Empatico, a free
platform that helps kids aroundthe globe become more empathetic
, compassionate and tolerantthrough meaningful connections.
(01:48):
Ryan has been a technology forgood advocate and a leader for
over 25 years.
He built the top grossingliteracy app, reading Rainbow
Skyberry, as well as UNICEFKidPower, a platform that has
empowered kids to use theiractivity to help save the lives
of over 100,000 severelymalnourished children around the
world.
Ryan, hey, thank you for beingwith us today.
(02:10):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It's amazing to have you here.
So when we talk about buildinglife skills in children, I feel
like the conversation, certainlyhere in the Valley, is around
STEM, technology, engineeringand math, but your work really
focuses on topics like emotionalskills.
Uh, curiosity, compassion,empathy.
(02:32):
How do these qualities help usbuild a better tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I.
I have this idea that in thenear future, with the large
language models cropping up likethe, the stuff that they're
teaching in school today will be, in a large degree, handled for
us in the same way that, like,a calculator, helps us with math
and science, you know,grammarly is going to help us
write our papers and write ouremails, like.
I can imagine a day that I'mnever going to drive a car again
(02:58):
and I can imagine a day where Inever have to actually write an
email again, right, like.
So the ability to do thatbecomes less important than you
know being resilient by being agood collaborator, by being a
person with critical thinkingskills or someone who makes
choices that are ethical abouthow they want to build the
(03:20):
future.
You know and you can say, inthe same way that calculators
have opened our minds up todoing higher order math,
computers have opened our mindsup to doing crazy modeling and
physics, so we can makebuildings that could never have
been built before.
Ai and language models shouldbe right now.
(03:41):
They're on their way, but theyshould be able to help jumpstart
our creativity and take us tohigher and better places than we
as people have ever been ableto go before.
And then the question is what doyou choose to do with that?
And I would think if I were ateacher in this, you know, in
school right now, I'd be mostconcerned with critical thinking
(04:03):
skills.
You can process all this.
Like you know, this fire hoseof information you're taking in,
and the ability to make ethicalchoices and collaborate in this
future that we are barrelingtowards.
How did you get?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
into this work.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I've always been service or mission oriented in
my work.
My journey to this role is apretty funny one.
I got into video games andmaking video games right out of
school.
My very first job was workingon a Beavis and Butthead video
game.
Nice, yeah, thank you.
But over the years you knowthat first kind of phase in my
(04:45):
career, I would say I read thisbook by Haruki Murakami.
It was like Dance, dance.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Dance.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And the main character in that book wrote the
articles in a travel magazinethat were never meant to be read
.
It was just like you neededarticles, but really it's for
the pictures.
And he called this work,shoveling cultural snow, and I
feel like what I was doingduring those years making video
games about CSI, New York orwhatever was shoveling cultural
(05:15):
snow, Like it didn't really haveany cultural importance.
There's some video games thatdo Last of Us very resonant.
You know Murder, she Wrote thegame.
You know you can.
It's debatable.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm not going to say this we will not speak of angela
lansbury on this show so youknow, um, I.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
At the same time, I was also working on, uh,
veterinarian medical simulatorsfor tween girls.
I was working on on simulatorsfor nursing students at the
college level to simulateinteractivity between them and
teach personal skills anddifferent things that you can't
teach in a normal textbook, andso that, in my mind, got me
(06:00):
thinking about education andbuilding for education and other
ways you can use game-likestructures for in technology.
Um, and then the the housingcrisis hit in like 2008, 2009.
Our company locked up.
We were all furloughed, um, soI instead spun up um my own
(06:21):
company called honeybee labs,because I figured like, if I'm
gonna go out and this is how I'mgonna lose my job, I'm gonna do
it on my own terms and die, youknow, on my own sword.
And so I just started this thingand um, and that wound up
getting me sort of acquired byreading rainbow and that's why I
wound up leading their productteam and I've just been sort of
like sliding this gradient fromfor-profit cultural snow to like
(06:45):
nonprofit change, the worldtype stuff.
And the thing that blows meaway when I joined UNICEF was
like I looked at the, at RajeshNandan who hired me.
I said I cannot believe that mystupid skills can save the
lives of a hundred thousand kidsLike how does that even work?
How did you find me?
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
You know how amazing.
I mean, how did he find you?
What are the skills that theywere looking for to help change
the lives of children across theplanet?
At UNICEF.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know, I would say that my last few stops on my
career path, people have hiredme because they thought they
needed creative help and reallythey need operational help.
So I've done the same thingkind of over and over again when
I joined Reading Rainbow.
(07:35):
They've gotten a whole bunch ofinvestment.
They were like featured in theWWDC, like LeVar was up on stage
when they were launching theiPad.
They're like Reading Rainbow isgoing to be in the iPad, like
that's how high profile it was.
I showed up and they had likethree or four months left to
finish the thing and theycouldn't figure out really how
to start.
You know, they thought theyneeded to figure out how to make
(07:55):
books interactive and that partwas easy.
It was like industrializing theteam to make 300 interactive
books in three months was thehard part.
The team to make 300interactive books in three
months was the hard part.
But it comes with properorganization, proper like setup
behind the scenes to get you tothe point that you can scale the
(08:16):
work you're doing.
You're building things with afactory mindset instead of a
bespoke mindset and then theretention stuff comes from just
caring about what you're doingand and analyzing your work and
being very critical of your work.
You know, I was a magician for20 years oh, you were.
Yeah, well, we can talk aboutthat, but yeah, I was a magician
for 20 years and when I wasworking on my show, the thing I
(08:40):
did is I would create a set list.
Yeah, I would go out and do mybits and I had like eight or 10
different tricks that I would do.
And then, like before they evenpaid me, I would go to the back
, bring out my calendar, writedown what worked, what didn't
work.
Like the kids hated me, likethis got a huge laugh, whatever
it was, and I did that for ayear, wow, but it was like that
(09:03):
type of like critical reflection.
And that's the process you haveto also bring to retention, like
who knows what's going toretain people?
There's tricks you know.
There's trade, you know thingsyou can do, but but really like
being that methodical aboutself-criticism is the only way
to get those numbers up.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
And we will be right back.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So are you familiar with the game Mary Shagger Kill?
Sure, okay, good.
So we did a spin on this gamecalled Hire, fire or Boss.
Okay, three names one to hire,one to fire and one to pick, as
your new boss Got it.
Okay, this is great.
For the first one we'll dochildren's television hosts Fred
(09:54):
Rogers, paul Rubens or Bill Nye.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I would hire Paul Rubens.
You could control him, he'samazing.
Bill Nye, well, I would hireI'm terrible at this.
I would hire Rubens and Nye,but if I had to fire one, I
guess I'd fire Rubens becausehe's problematic, and I would
make Mr Rogers my boss, 100%.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Oh my gosh, I love that I had Bill Nye as the boss.
He seems boss-like like.
He seems like he needs to be incharge.
I don't know this is allassumptions.
I feel like, um, fred Rogerswould be in the work with you
like real, like you'd want toget in and get his hands in it,
and I also fired Peewee Herman.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I'll also say I this is kind of biased on this one
because I worked for LeVarBurton at Reading Rainbow, who
then is a student of Fred Rogers, and so I feel like by osmosis,
I am a second generationstudent of Fred Rogers.
That's why I would make him myboss.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yep, that's a wonderful place to be, to be
part of, like the Fred Rogersuniverse in some way or another.
I might be the only one thatbelieves that.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I don't think anyone thinks that about me, but I like
to think that I.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I like to think that about you thank you, yeah yeah,
okay, molly, do you want to gothrough the second one?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
oh sure.
The second one is for higherfire.
Boss is, on the magic side ofthings, david Blaine, david
Copperfield or Harry Houdini.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I know too much about these people.
I know Jeez, can I, can youcome to me?
Last, I got to really thinkabout this one.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
This one is okay, okay, um, I would.
I don't trust David Blaine, soI would fire him.
Hire Harry Houdini.
Boss David Copperfield.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, so Houdini was a pretty cutthroat business
person.
Yep, he would send People weretrying to do escape acts at the
same time as him and he wouldsend his brothers around to beat
those people up to scare themout of the business.
Oh wow, he's like.
He's like the most.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
He's a thug, he's a mob boss, that's right, he's a
magic mob boss.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
He would go.
He would have his brothers youknow his stooges go up and swap
real locks for fake locks withhis competitors, so they'd
actually be locked up on stage,oh shit.
And then, and then, to controlhis competitors, he decided that
he couldn't eliminate them, sohe would own them and made his
brother into a character namedHardeen, who is his number one
(12:40):
rival.
But really it was all of themall along.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Oh man, I kind of like I'm scared of him.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Tough guy to fire.
That's the thing.
He's either boss or fire, Idon't know.
I think he's the boss.
Copperfield is very successful,so you gotta hire him because
he's gonna take you places.
And, Blaine, I wouldn't want to.
That's a regrettable attrition.
That's what that is.
Okay.
I'd let him flame out and leaveme.
(13:08):
I wouldn't let him go.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
My favorite David Blaine moment was when he did a
magic trick in front of DeionSanders and Deion Sanders was
like it was so in awe of it, andthen his final comment was I
need a nap, and walked offscreen and I was like, oh whoa,
his mind was so blown.
He needs to go take a rest.
(13:30):
Beyond, beyond, you designproducts for children, but I'm
pretty sure you have adults onyour team.
So I'm curious what are the?
What are the skills that youfeel like are missing, or maybe
that you're most excited aboutin the world of work today?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah Well, I won't speak about my team today,
because they'll probably listento this too, and I actually I'm
I'm so infatuated with them.
I, you know, you dream of ateam that is as trusting and
cohesive and self-starting asthe team I have.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, the things I look for when I'm hiring are
critical thinking skills.
You know, it's that ability toput something out and then
disassociate enough from it tobe like that worked, that didn't
work.
I'm bad at that.
I need help, blah, blah, blah.
Whatever the culture I try tobuild is one that is unafraid to
(14:30):
try, and the only real sin ismaking the same mistake over and
over and over again, likelearning and being able to learn
and being able to thinkcritically about how we get
there.
That's the only thing thatbothers me or that I care about.
The other thing that I think Ilove about my team and I try to
instill in teams, is thisembrace of change and this
(14:52):
embrace and flexibility.
If you're going to work asquickly and effectively as I
like to, you have to be able tolet go of stuff, change your
mind.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is, when you
think about culture settinginside of your organizations,
you're thinking about criticalthinking, adaptability,
resilience and this learning howto do something better
constantly.
When you think about the workthat you do around social
(15:22):
emotional learning and empathylike the work that you do around
social emotional learning andempathy how does that work show
up in the products that you arecreating?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
One of my critiques of a lot of nonprofit
programming is a failure to, ora tendency to, match the
activity you're asking someoneto do with the outcome you want.
Yep Absolutely Like if thisprogram was to empathy, no one
would ever do it, yeah Right.
If you're just like this islike six steps to empathy, like
do these empathy pushups?
No one's going to want to do it.
(15:59):
The market doesn't want it,teachers don't want it, kids
don't want it.
If you're to say we justlaunched this new empathy truth
or dare game, so it's truth ordare with an empathy twist, and
the questions are like what'sthe last song you listened to
and how did it make you feel?
And the dares are like go tellsomeone how much they mean to
you.
And the students can play thisin the classroom.
You can play with your family,whatever you want to do, and you
(16:21):
earn points.
It's a game, but in that way,like the play is the important
part and the outcome is thelearning, and you're sort of
like getting through osmosis asyou do it.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I think this is a great way to this is a great
point of transition into the andfocus on empathy and how
Empatico is actually encouragingchildren to build empathy how
how do you do it?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Very well, I hope I don't know Um the um.
When I was a computer or videogame designer, one of the things
that I always said was all Icare about is hiring an
empathetic person.
That's a skill you can't teach.
I can teach the rest.
Once I started working inEmpatico, I realized that
empathy was teachable, and thatwas a really big sort of aha
(17:08):
moment for me, and one of thethings I was sort of frustrated
with was that the goals of whatempathy meant were like 20 years
in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You know it's like more resilient people.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Like you know, all these things are way in the
future and I wanted to makesomething more measurable so I
can say you know I loveanalytics, obviously.
So what can you do on myplatform?
And how can I count it, how canI measure it?
How can we show it as a skillyou're building, rather than an
idea or a, you know, the softeridea.
And so we created this thingcalled the empathy framework.
And you know, without boringeverybody, the quick version is
(17:45):
that the current thinking around.
Empathy which I learned, um,from this book called war on
kindness, which I recommendeveryone read, uh, is that
there's three types of empathy.
There's behavioral empathy,cognitive empathy and emotional
empathy, and they sort ofinterplay with each other, um,
and you can think about it aslike understanding what other
people feel, understanding whatother people think and
understanding how to help others.
(18:06):
Right, it's the three differentways of thinking about it.
And we said, like, well,actually, there's, there's
another layer to that, there'sanother access to it, which is
empathy with yourself, right,like mindfulness, self-awareness
, self-care.
And then there's empathy with,like your, your peer group or
your family or your in-group,which is all about, you know,
(18:28):
kindness, perspective taking,emotional recognition.
And then, after all of that,there's empathy with the world,
and that's all about diplomacyand inclusivity and
collaboration and all thesethings, and and we realize that
our work is really focusing onthat outer ring, that that with
the world without developing allthree layers of that, I think,
in my opinion, you're you're ina weakened state Like you're
(18:51):
much more resilient if you haveempathy with yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And if you try to have empathy with the whole
world without having a strongsense of self, you really like
putting yourself in a badposition, in my opinion, and the
other way around if you have noempathy with the outer world,
but only empathy with yourself.
Like we know, people like thattoo, like it's not a good place
to be.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Back with more in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
When we at IDEO would talk about our design thinking
process or human-centered design, we always started with empathy
first.
So when you think about userresearch, putting yourself in
someone else's shoes, how do yousee empathy making us better
(19:43):
creators, better collaborators,particularly in the adult world?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, well, I'll answer your question a little
bit different.
One big IDEO fan, big fan ofyou, know you, Molly, and the
work you've done and of course,you too, JB Not really, but we
run a program called Coding withEmpathy in conjunction with the
(20:12):
Aspen Institute, the StevensInitiative and Codeorg, where we
connect classrooms in.
Egypt and the US, and also inMexico and the US.
Oh, great, yeah, it's reallycool, so cool, so it's part of
their Hour of Code program andwhat we do is we teach, you know
, we teach empathy and we teachsocial, emotional learning
skills in conjunction withcomputer science.
So the first thing you do aspart of this project is we have
(20:35):
the kids show up thinkingthey're going to make a video
game.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Don't tell them that's not how it's going to be.
Hopefully they don't listen tothis.
What they wind up learning isyou know a lot of this.
What you're just talking about,molly, we we have them think
about their community and thinkabout what they could do to help
their community and how theycan use technology to better
their community.
I love it, yeah, and that's thetype of design thinking that we
(21:01):
need more of, but the people whowant to take care of
communities, they need a processand a place to be, and I think
that's that's what we're tryingto build, thinking around and
build towards, so that whenthese kids enter the workplace
they're not just like, oh, I'mgoing to make another video game
.
They can think, wow, I can usetechnology to improve, you know,
(21:22):
the environment it can improve.
You know, like, the migrationissues, like the stuff that kids
come up with, were incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's incredibly powerful.
When we were over at when I wasover at Facebook working on the
ads team, we would hirethousands of engineers every
year from across the industry.
They came from Uber, they camefrom graduate school, they came
from amazing companies andthey're all building advertising
(21:55):
products for generally smallbusinesses and sometimes
agencies and brands as well,which are quite larger.
None of these people that wehad ever hired had ever owned a
small business.
They'd never done all thisstuff.
So they're like oh, we justneed to build an effective
product that does the thing thatwe say it's going to do, and
(22:16):
it's like no, if you're a smallbusiness running a flower shop
on a corner in London, how isthat different than running a
food stall in Bangkok versusrunning media and placing media
on a trade desk in New York?
They're all using the sameinterface and they all have very
(22:38):
different experiences with itand it's really important that
the engineers who are buildingactually understand who that
customer is and and what drivesthem crazy about our product and
what what they love about it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, well, and what I love about an organization is
embracing the neurodiversitybetween all of us.
Right, like I heard, some likeit was I'm going to say this
wrong, but it's a very likedivisive statement that you know
organizations consist of Cstudents hiring A students to
manage B students, and to me,like that's one that's kind of
(23:20):
rude.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I love that I do.
I'm still going to use itsomeday.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
But what I actually think about it is that it's not
that one group is better orleading the other.
Actually, that's the part Ithink is divisive about what I
said.
But if you can embrace thatdiversity in the way we think
and who we are and I thinkworking remotely actually opens
up the aperture of who we canwork with, both in terms of
(23:45):
geography but alsoneurodiversity Then we actually
can build better teams andstronger products together.
That collaboration creates thebiggest innovations, I think,
than either one trying to do itthemselves.
The thing I really believeabout like ethical design and
(24:17):
ethical product developmentbelieve about like ethical
design and ethical productdevelopment and the reason why I
like to be in the nonprofitspace is that you can be more
mission oriented.
You know I'm a.
I'm also a big fan of um,what's his name?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
BJ fog, like uh yeah, Everything that he teaches.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I was exposed to him like maybe six, seven years ago
and I was like, oh, he justlearned everything magicians
know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
What do magicians know?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Well, like how to manipulate behavior.
I'll give you two examples ofhow magic can be used to sort of
influence or drive people theway you want them to go.
One is this idea that I reallybelieve in and called.
It's about the application andrelease of pressure, Right?
So if I'm a magician in atheater setting, let's say the
(25:01):
dumbest thing you can do isinvite the audience up on the
stage with you and ask them totalk Like why?
would you ever do that?
That sounds like you're.
You're inviting disaster.
It is the whole point of amagic show.
So how do you manage that andhow do you make sure it works
out successfully?
And so you take this idea.
Well, magic, magic, but you're,you're applying pressure and
(25:23):
you're giving them a releasevalve.
So coming up on stage isprobably also one of the like
most nerve-wracking thing anormal person would ever do.
All they want to do is go backand sit down, correct.
So you can actually like applyjust slightly more pressure by
like maybe leaning over them,maybe like speaking fast, to
like just slightly more pressureby like maybe leaning over them
, maybe like speaking fast, tolike really sort of like flood
them, and then you can have themmake a free choice.
(25:44):
That's actually a predeterminedchoice and it feels free.
And, you know, with the promiseof like, as soon as you're done
, you get to go sit back down,right, and so they'll, they'll
do anything to get out of thereand you can actually like cause
them to pick a?
Um, the most likely path or theeasiest path to to exiting,
which is like, let's say, I wantyou to pick one of four things.
(26:06):
You'll pick the third one,because that's what people
normally do, and if I can kindof like pressure you, you'll,
you'll think less and you'lljust do uh, and so you can use
that in um, you know, if youwant to drive conversions, you
can you know?
The best way out of thisterrible situation is to
subscribe to my website.
You know like, again, a lot ofmagic is convincing people to
(26:27):
make a free choice, when reallythey're making a predetermined
choice.
So one is to you know like youflip through the cards.
You like pick a card, any card,and you like magically force
them to take the one that is theace of spades.
That's easy, but you can alsolay three objects around in
front of someone and say, pickone of these three.
And then they pick it andyou're like I, you know, I
(26:50):
actually knew that you hold up.
You know some prediction.
This is like you were going topick the middle thing, and so
it's.
You have this like matrix ofsolutions, and there there's
different outs for each one.
By withholding informationabout what you're doing, you can
alter reality in real time toget to the result that you want.
You can work all these thingsinto UX and UI design and also
(27:12):
into management and leadership.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That alternate reality in real time might be a
superpower of yours, and settingup operations for creative
teams to do their best work,because I know that I would be
on that team, being like it'sjust like magic.
He's always two steps ahead.
Wow, like I, like I'm already.
(27:36):
I'm already blown away by magic.
Just generally, I would like tobelieve in it always.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I read this book called Power of Moments.
It's a pretty digestible readand it really talks about how,
when you're storytelling, whenyou're creating a performance
which I believe that technologyor the type of the products I
create are in conversation withthe end user right, like it is a
performance, it is a story, itis all of that.
(28:04):
It's just non-linear,non-traditional storytelling.
But when you're trying tocreate these moments, then you
want to have peaks and valleysand awe is definitely, you know
this crescendo.
And you look at the book bookslike power of moments and they
really talk about how you canincrease your retention,
increase your um customersupport scores.
(28:27):
You can.
You know there's all these waysthat you can create magical
moments at unusual times thatreally stick in someone's mind,
like you don't want to deliverthe awe when their mind is
fuzzed out by noise and otherthings, right, yeah, um, one of
the the best instances ofmisdirection is that you can use
(28:47):
a, a large movement, to cover asmall movement.
So if you want to do like atricky thing with your hands
it's very technical and doesn'tactually look very good you can
wave your arms through the airlike in an arc and your mind,
like literally, can onlyregister the large movement, and
the small movement isabsolutely invisible.
it's like a defect in our brainsyeah, and so you want to
(29:10):
inverse that.
If you want to make somethingmeaningful, like you don't want
to add your awe-inspiring momentinside a big movement or inside
, like your you know, if youhave to, like fumble around and
get your credit card, you'retrying to type in all your
credit cards but you don't wantawe to happen, then no, you want
awe to happen the moment after,when you're like resting yeah.
And so I do think there's like aliteral, like technical
(29:33):
application of awe that couldand should be applied to
products.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I love that and also just also thinking about like
empathy is a driver, likeempathy is important in creating
meaningful and transformativemoments, and those meaningful
and transformative moments aremoments of awe, and I think
that's.
I think that's and how much youknow, I think in sort of the
(30:01):
world we're in today, thereisn't, there's less wonder
because we have access to somuch information and um, and so
I just think there's somethingreally powerful and how and how
you design and create that as aleader, within your um, within
your teams.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Well, and I think that people like yearn for
larger meaning and is part ofthat too.
You know like, absolutely I'mnot religious, but a lot of
people find the awesomeness ofreligion very attractive and I
100% agree and understand that.
You know like, when thosethings happen organically,
they're even more monumental.
(30:41):
You know, when they're notmanufactured by a magician like
me, they can be even morespecial and more powerful.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I love that.
Ryan.
Where can people go to learnmore about you and about
Empatico?
Ryan?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
where can people go to learn more about you and
about Empatico?
Well, you can find me onTwitter or X or whatever you
want to call it at rmajeski,which is hard to spell, but I'm
sure you could put it somewhereand you can also learn more
about our work at Empatico atempaticoorg.
Ryan, thank you so much forjoining us on Unserious today
and hope you have a great week.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Thank you both so much for joining us on Unserious
today and hope you have a greatweek.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Thank you both so much for having me.
Jb, you know I don't think wementioned this in the podcast,
but you and I go way, way backand it's just.
You live in my mind, you know,all the time, and I'm just so
pleased to be reconnected withyou and to meet you, molly.
It's been a real pleasure,thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
That was amazing.
Jb Ryan really is a magician.
What I took away from theconversation is a deeper
understanding of empathy and whyit's crucial, not only in
social impact but for success inthe world of work today.
I'm thinking about empathy nowfrom a lens of behavior, from a
cognitive lens, from anemotional lens, and, just like
the importance of starting withyourself, being kind to yourself
(32:06):
, change starts with yourself,and I'm pretty dazzled by Ryan's
career and the way he thinksabout leading teams.
He's really at the edge whenyou look at like the
conversations he's having aboutneurodiversity on teams to
artificial intelligence and thenthinking about the power of awe
(32:26):
in creating moments that matter.
It's it's pretty magical thatyou can create moments in a user
journey at unexpected timesthat stick in someone's mind
because the timing was right andso bringing that magician skill
to really designing for animpactful experience.
I loved it, just spoke to myhuman-centered heart.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I love it.
Yeah, I also found thatdiscussion of magic and moments
so resonant.
It's how we create thoseexperiences, that surprise and
delight.
I learned that magic working inretail and restaurants and when
Ryan mentioned that, we go way,way back 20 years ago.
Ryan and I worked at a wineshop in Washington DC and we get
(33:10):
these grumpy congresspeople andhill staffers and think tankers
every night and we send themout much happier with a bottle
of wine.
Obviously, ryan has taken thatmagic to much greater scale over
than Patiko Totally.
But, zooming out a bit, myoverall impressions are much
more serious and we recordedthis discussion a bit over a
(33:34):
month ago before we saw war inthe Middle East, and since then
I think the importance ofpracticing empathy has come into
searing focus and theimportance of teaching children
how to practice empathy isreally critical to the peace and
stability of our planet and ourpeople.
(33:57):
So how's that for an unseriousthought?
In the last few months, I've been working with a
new team who's looking tostrengthen its empathy muscle,
so I immediately wanted to goback and listen to our interview
with Ryan Majewski, who wasthen the CEO of social and
emotional learning platformEmpatico and is now a wildly
talented free agent that someoneshould go out and hire.
(00:21):
But I can't think of a bettertopic during a week devoted to
gratitude than empathy.
There are so many great lessonsin this episode, but the most
important one is that empathy isteachable.
Enjoy this rewind and we'llcatch you next week for another
new conversation.
Happy Thanksgiving, uslisteners.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is Un than compassion.
It's noticing your biases andbeing able to see from another's
point of view.
In this rapidly shifting worldwith so many global high stakes
challenges, empathy isn't a niceto have.
It's an imperative skill forour collective future,
especially for the nextgeneration.
Building empathy at scalesounds unlikely, but our guest
today is doing just that and inthe process, showing us
(01:26):
technology used for good,building empathetic connections
between children around theworld, for fostering social
emotional learning and, close tomy heart, increasing children's
literacy.
Ryan Majewski is the executivedirector of Empatico, a free
platform that helps kids aroundthe globe become more empathetic
, compassionate and tolerantthrough meaningful connections.
(01:48):
Ryan has been a technology forgood advocate and a leader for
over 25 years.
He built the top grossingliteracy app, reading Rainbow
Skyberry, as well as UNICEFKidPower, a platform that has
empowered kids to use theiractivity to help save the lives
of over 100,000 severelymalnourished children around the
world.
Ryan, hey, thank you for beingwith us today.
(02:10):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It's amazing to have you here.
So when we talk about buildinglife skills in children, I feel
like the conversation, certainlyhere in the Valley, is around
STEM, technology, engineeringand math, but your work really
focuses on topics like emotionalskills.
Uh, curiosity, compassion,empathy.
(02:32):
How do these qualities help usbuild a better tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I.
I have this idea that in thenear future, with the large
language models cropping up likethe, the stuff that they're
teaching in school today will be, in a large degree, handled for
us in the same way that, like,a calculator, helps us with math
and science, you know,grammarly is going to help us
write our papers and write ouremails, like.
I can imagine a day that I'mnever going to drive a car again
(02:58):
and I can imagine a day where Inever have to actually write an
email again, right, like.
So the ability to do thatbecomes less important than you
know being resilient by being agood collaborator, by being a
person with critical thinkingskills or someone who makes
choices that are ethical abouthow they want to build the
(03:20):
future.
You know and you can say, inthe same way that calculators
have opened our minds up todoing higher order math,
computers have opened our mindsup to doing crazy modeling and
physics, so we can makebuildings that could never have
been built before.
Ai and language models shouldbe right now.
(03:41):
They're on their way, but theyshould be able to help jumpstart
our creativity and take us tohigher and better places than we
as people have ever been ableto go before.
And then the question is what doyou choose to do with that?
And I would think if I were ateacher in this, you know, in
school right now, I'd be mostconcerned with critical thinking
(04:03):
skills.
You can process all this.
Like you know, this fire hoseof information you're taking in,
and the ability to make ethicalchoices and collaborate in this
future that we are barrelingtowards.
How did you get?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
into this work.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I've always been service or mission oriented in
my work.
My journey to this role is apretty funny one.
I got into video games andmaking video games right out of
school.
My very first job was workingon a Beavis and Butthead video
game.
Nice, yeah, thank you.
But over the years you knowthat first kind of phase in my
(04:45):
career, I would say I read thisbook by Haruki Murakami.
It was like Dance, dance.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Dance.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And the main character in that book wrote the
articles in a travel magazinethat were never meant to be read
.
It was just like you neededarticles, but really it's for
the pictures.
And he called this work,shoveling cultural snow, and I
feel like what I was doingduring those years making video
games about CSI, New York orwhatever was shoveling cultural
(05:15):
snow, Like it didn't really haveany cultural importance.
There's some video games thatdo Last of Us very resonant.
You know Murder, she Wrote thegame.
You know you can.
It's debatable.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm not going to say this we will not speak of angela
lansbury on this show so youknow, um, I.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
At the same time, I was also working on, uh,
veterinarian medical simulatorsfor tween girls.
I was working on on simulatorsfor nursing students at the
college level to simulateinteractivity between them and
teach personal skills anddifferent things that you can't
teach in a normal textbook, andso that, in my mind, got me
(06:00):
thinking about education andbuilding for education and other
ways you can use game-likestructures for in technology.
Um, and then the the housingcrisis hit in like 2008, 2009.
Our company locked up.
We were all furloughed, um, soI instead spun up um my own
(06:21):
company called honeybee labs,because I figured like, if I'm
gonna go out and this is how I'mgonna lose my job, I'm gonna do
it on my own terms and die, youknow, on my own sword.
And so I just started this thingand um, and that wound up
getting me sort of acquired byreading rainbow and that's why I
wound up leading their productteam and I've just been sort of
like sliding this gradient fromfor-profit cultural snow to like
(06:45):
nonprofit change, the worldtype stuff.
And the thing that blows meaway when I joined UNICEF was
like I looked at the, at RajeshNandan who hired me.
I said I cannot believe that mystupid skills can save the
lives of a hundred thousand kidsLike how does that even work?
How did you find me?
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
You know how amazing.
I mean, how did he find you?
What are the skills that theywere looking for to help change
the lives of children across theplanet?
At UNICEF.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know, I would say that my last few stops on my
career path, people have hiredme because they thought they
needed creative help and reallythey need operational help.
So I've done the same thingkind of over and over again when
I joined Reading Rainbow.
(07:35):
They've gotten a whole bunch ofinvestment.
They were like featured in theWWDC, like LeVar was up on stage
when they were launching theiPad.
They're like Reading Rainbow isgoing to be in the iPad, like
that's how high profile it was.
I showed up and they had likethree or four months left to
finish the thing and theycouldn't figure out really how
to start.
You know, they thought theyneeded to figure out how to make
(07:55):
books interactive and that partwas easy.
It was like industrializing theteam to make 300 interactive
books in three months was thehard part.
The team to make 300interactive books in three
months was the hard part.
But it comes with properorganization, proper like setup
behind the scenes to get you tothe point that you can scale the
(08:16):
work you're doing.
You're building things with afactory mindset instead of a
bespoke mindset and then theretention stuff comes from just
caring about what you're doingand and analyzing your work and
being very critical of your work.
You know, I was a magician for20 years oh, you were.
Yeah, well, we can talk aboutthat, but yeah, I was a magician
for 20 years and when I wasworking on my show, the thing I
(08:40):
did is I would create a set list.
Yeah, I would go out and do mybits and I had like eight or 10
different tricks that I would do.
And then, like before they evenpaid me, I would go to the back
, bring out my calendar, writedown what worked, what didn't
work.
Like the kids hated me, likethis got a huge laugh, whatever
it was, and I did that for ayear, wow, but it was like that
(09:03):
type of like critical reflection.
And that's the process you haveto also bring to retention, like
who knows what's going toretain people?
There's tricks you know.
There's trade, you know thingsyou can do, but but really like
being that methodical aboutself-criticism is the only way
to get those numbers up.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
And we will be right back.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So are you familiar with the game Mary Shagger Kill?
Sure, okay, good.
So we did a spin on this gamecalled Hire, fire or Boss.
Okay, three names one to hire,one to fire and one to pick, as
your new boss Got it.
Okay, this is great.
For the first one we'll dochildren's television hosts Fred
(09:54):
Rogers, paul Rubens or Bill Nye.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I would hire Paul Rubens.
You could control him, he'samazing.
Bill Nye, well, I would hireI'm terrible at this.
I would hire Rubens and Nye,but if I had to fire one, I
guess I'd fire Rubens becausehe's problematic, and I would
make Mr Rogers my boss, 100%.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Oh my gosh, I love that I had Bill Nye as the boss.
He seems boss-like like.
He seems like he needs to be incharge.
I don't know this is allassumptions.
I feel like, um, fred Rogerswould be in the work with you
like real, like you'd want toget in and get his hands in it,
and I also fired Peewee Herman.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I'll also say I this is kind of biased on this one
because I worked for LeVarBurton at Reading Rainbow, who
then is a student of Fred Rogers, and so I feel like by osmosis,
I am a second generationstudent of Fred Rogers.
That's why I would make him myboss.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yep, that's a wonderful place to be, to be
part of, like the Fred Rogersuniverse in some way or another.
I might be the only one thatbelieves that.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I don't think anyone thinks that about me, but I like
to think that I.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I like to think that about you thank you, yeah yeah,
okay, molly, do you want to gothrough the second one?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
oh sure.
The second one is for higherfire.
Boss is, on the magic side ofthings, david Blaine, david
Copperfield or Harry Houdini.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I know too much about these people.
I know Jeez, can I, can youcome to me?
Last, I got to really thinkabout this one.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
This one is okay, okay, um, I would.
I don't trust David Blaine, soI would fire him.
Hire Harry Houdini.
Boss David Copperfield.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, so Houdini was a pretty cutthroat business
person.
Yep, he would send People weretrying to do escape acts at the
same time as him and he wouldsend his brothers around to beat
those people up to scare themout of the business.
Oh wow, he's like.
He's like the most.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
He's a thug, he's a mob boss, that's right, he's a
magic mob boss.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
He would go.
He would have his brothers youknow his stooges go up and swap
real locks for fake locks withhis competitors, so they'd
actually be locked up on stage,oh shit.
And then, and then, to controlhis competitors, he decided that
he couldn't eliminate them, sohe would own them and made his
brother into a character namedHardeen, who is his number one
(12:40):
rival.
But really it was all of themall along.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Oh man, I kind of like I'm scared of him.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Tough guy to fire.
That's the thing.
He's either boss or fire, Idon't know.
I think he's the boss.
Copperfield is very successful,so you gotta hire him because
he's gonna take you places.
And, Blaine, I wouldn't want to.
That's a regrettable attrition.
That's what that is.
Okay.
I'd let him flame out and leaveme.
(13:08):
I wouldn't let him go.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
My favorite David Blaine moment was when he did a
magic trick in front of DeionSanders and Deion Sanders was
like it was so in awe of it, andthen his final comment was I
need a nap, and walked offscreen and I was like, oh whoa,
his mind was so blown.
He needs to go take a rest.
(13:30):
Beyond, beyond, you designproducts for children, but I'm
pretty sure you have adults onyour team.
So I'm curious what are the?
What are the skills that youfeel like are missing, or maybe
that you're most excited aboutin the world of work today?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah Well, I won't speak about my team today,
because they'll probably listento this too, and I actually I'm
I'm so infatuated with them.
I, you know, you dream of ateam that is as trusting and
cohesive and self-starting asthe team I have.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, the things I look for when I'm hiring are
critical thinking skills.
You know, it's that ability toput something out and then
disassociate enough from it tobe like that worked, that didn't
work.
I'm bad at that.
I need help, blah, blah, blah.
Whatever the culture I try tobuild is one that is unafraid to
(14:30):
try, and the only real sin ismaking the same mistake over and
over and over again, likelearning and being able to learn
and being able to thinkcritically about how we get
there.
That's the only thing thatbothers me or that I care about.
The other thing that I think Ilove about my team and I try to
instill in teams, is thisembrace of change and this
(14:52):
embrace and flexibility.
If you're going to work asquickly and effectively as I
like to, you have to be able tolet go of stuff, change your
mind.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is, when you
think about culture settinginside of your organizations,
you're thinking about criticalthinking, adaptability,
resilience and this learning howto do something better
constantly.
When you think about the workthat you do around social
(15:22):
emotional learning and empathylike the work that you do around
social emotional learning andempathy how does that work show
up in the products that you arecreating?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
One of my critiques of a lot of nonprofit
programming is a failure to, ora tendency to, match the
activity you're asking someoneto do with the outcome you want.
Yep Absolutely Like if thisprogram was to empathy, no one
would ever do it, yeah Right.
If you're just like this islike six steps to empathy, like
do these empathy pushups?
No one's going to want to do it.
(15:59):
The market doesn't want it,teachers don't want it, kids
don't want it.
If you're to say we justlaunched this new empathy truth
or dare game, so it's truth ordare with an empathy twist, and
the questions are like what'sthe last song you listened to
and how did it make you feel?
And the dares are like go tellsomeone how much they mean to
you.
And the students can play thisin the classroom.
You can play with your family,whatever you want to do, and you
(16:21):
earn points.
It's a game, but in that way,like the play is the important
part and the outcome is thelearning, and you're sort of
like getting through osmosis asyou do it.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I think this is a great way to this is a great
point of transition into the andfocus on empathy and how
Empatico is actually encouragingchildren to build empathy how
how do you do it?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Very well, I hope I don't know Um the um.
When I was a computer or videogame designer, one of the things
that I always said was all Icare about is hiring an
empathetic person.
That's a skill you can't teach.
I can teach the rest.
Once I started working inEmpatico, I realized that
empathy was teachable, and thatwas a really big sort of aha
(17:08):
moment for me, and one of thethings I was sort of frustrated
with was that the goals of whatempathy meant were like 20 years
in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You know it's like more resilient people.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Like you know, all these things are way in the
future and I wanted to makesomething more measurable so I
can say you know I loveanalytics, obviously.
So what can you do on myplatform?
And how can I count it, how canI measure it?
How can we show it as a skillyou're building, rather than an
idea or a, you know, the softeridea.
And so we created this thingcalled the empathy framework.
And you know, without boringeverybody, the quick version is
(17:45):
that the current thinking around.
Empathy which I learned, um,from this book called war on
kindness, which I recommendeveryone read, uh, is that
there's three types of empathy.
There's behavioral empathy,cognitive empathy and emotional
empathy, and they sort ofinterplay with each other, um,
and you can think about it aslike understanding what other
people feel, understanding whatother people think and
understanding how to help others.
(18:06):
Right, it's the three differentways of thinking about it.
And we said, like, well,actually, there's, there's
another layer to that, there'sanother access to it, which is
empathy with yourself, right,like mindfulness, self-awareness
, self-care.
And then there's empathy with,like your, your peer group or
your family or your in-group,which is all about, you know,
(18:28):
kindness, perspective taking,emotional recognition.
And then, after all of that,there's empathy with the world,
and that's all about diplomacyand inclusivity and
collaboration and all thesethings, and and we realize that
our work is really focusing onthat outer ring, that that with
the world without developing allthree layers of that, I think,
in my opinion, you're you're ina weakened state Like you're
(18:51):
much more resilient if you haveempathy with yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And if you try to have empathy with the whole
world without having a strongsense of self, you really like
putting yourself in a badposition, in my opinion, and the
other way around if you have noempathy with the outer world,
but only empathy with yourself.
Like we know, people like thattoo, like it's not a good place
to be.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Back with more in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
When we at IDEO would talk about our design thinking
process or human-centered design, we always started with empathy
first.
So when you think about userresearch, putting yourself in
someone else's shoes, how do yousee empathy making us better
(19:43):
creators, better collaborators,particularly in the adult world?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, well, I'll answer your question a little
bit different.
One big IDEO fan, big fan ofyou, know you, Molly, and the
work you've done and of course,you too, JB Not really, but we
run a program called Coding withEmpathy in conjunction with the
(20:12):
Aspen Institute, the StevensInitiative and Codeorg, where we
connect classrooms in.
Egypt and the US, and also inMexico and the US.
Oh, great, yeah, it's reallycool, so cool, so it's part of
their Hour of Code program andwhat we do is we teach, you know
, we teach empathy and we teachsocial, emotional learning
skills in conjunction withcomputer science.
So the first thing you do aspart of this project is we have
(20:35):
the kids show up thinkingthey're going to make a video
game.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Don't tell them that's not how it's going to be.
Hopefully they don't listen tothis.
What they wind up learning isyou know a lot of this.
What you're just talking about,molly, we we have them think
about their community and thinkabout what they could do to help
their community and how theycan use technology to better
their community.
I love it, yeah, and that's thetype of design thinking that we
(21:01):
need more of, but the people whowant to take care of
communities, they need a processand a place to be, and I think
that's that's what we're tryingto build, thinking around and
build towards, so that whenthese kids enter the workplace
they're not just like, oh, I'mgoing to make another video game
.
They can think, wow, I can usetechnology to improve, you know,
(21:22):
the environment it can improve.
You know, like, the migrationissues, like the stuff that kids
come up with, were incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's incredibly powerful.
When we were over at when I wasover at Facebook working on the
ads team, we would hirethousands of engineers every
year from across the industry.
They came from Uber, they camefrom graduate school, they came
from amazing companies andthey're all building advertising
(21:55):
products for generally smallbusinesses and sometimes
agencies and brands as well,which are quite larger.
None of these people that wehad ever hired had ever owned a
small business.
They'd never done all thisstuff.
So they're like oh, we justneed to build an effective
product that does the thing thatwe say it's going to do, and
(22:16):
it's like no, if you're a smallbusiness running a flower shop
on a corner in London, how isthat different than running a
food stall in Bangkok versusrunning media and placing media
on a trade desk in New York?
They're all using the sameinterface and they all have very
(22:38):
different experiences with itand it's really important that
the engineers who are buildingactually understand who that
customer is and and what drivesthem crazy about our product and
what what they love about it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, well, and what I love about an organization is
embracing the neurodiversitybetween all of us.
Right, like I heard, some likeit was I'm going to say this
wrong, but it's a very likedivisive statement that you know
organizations consist of Cstudents hiring A students to
manage B students, and to me,like that's one that's kind of
(23:20):
rude.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I love that I do.
I'm still going to use itsomeday.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
But what I actually think about it is that it's not
that one group is better orleading the other.
Actually, that's the part Ithink is divisive about what I
said.
But if you can embrace thatdiversity in the way we think
and who we are and I thinkworking remotely actually opens
up the aperture of who we canwork with, both in terms of
(23:45):
geography but alsoneurodiversity Then we actually
can build better teams andstronger products together.
That collaboration creates thebiggest innovations, I think,
than either one trying to do itthemselves.
The thing I really believeabout like ethical design and
(24:17):
ethical product developmentbelieve about like ethical
design and ethical productdevelopment and the reason why I
like to be in the nonprofitspace is that you can be more
mission oriented.
You know I'm a.
I'm also a big fan of um,what's his name?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
BJ fog, like uh yeah, Everything that he teaches.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I was exposed to him like maybe six, seven years ago
and I was like, oh, he justlearned everything magicians
know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
What do magicians know?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Well, like how to manipulate behavior.
I'll give you two examples ofhow magic can be used to sort of
influence or drive people theway you want them to go.
One is this idea that I reallybelieve in and called.
It's about the application andrelease of pressure, Right?
So if I'm a magician in atheater setting, let's say the
(25:01):
dumbest thing you can do isinvite the audience up on the
stage with you and ask them totalk Like why?
would you ever do that?
That sounds like you're.
You're inviting disaster.
It is the whole point of amagic show.
So how do you manage that andhow do you make sure it works
out successfully?
And so you take this idea.
Well, magic, magic, but you're,you're applying pressure and
(25:23):
you're giving them a releasevalve.
So coming up on stage isprobably also one of the like
most nerve-wracking thing anormal person would ever do.
All they want to do is go backand sit down, correct.
So you can actually like applyjust slightly more pressure by
like maybe leaning over them,maybe like speaking fast, to
like just slightly more pressureby like maybe leaning over them
, maybe like speaking fast, tolike really sort of like flood
them, and then you can have themmake a free choice.
(25:44):
That's actually a predeterminedchoice and it feels free.
And, you know, with the promiseof like, as soon as you're done
, you get to go sit back down,right, and so they'll, they'll
do anything to get out of thereand you can actually like cause
them to pick a?
Um, the most likely path or theeasiest path to to exiting,
which is like, let's say, I wantyou to pick one of four things.
(26:06):
You'll pick the third one,because that's what people
normally do, and if I can kindof like pressure you, you'll,
you'll think less and you'lljust do uh, and so you can use
that in um, you know, if youwant to drive conversions, you
can you know?
The best way out of thisterrible situation is to
subscribe to my website.
You know like, again, a lot ofmagic is convincing people to
(26:27):
make a free choice, when reallythey're making a predetermined
choice.
So one is to you know like youflip through the cards.
You like pick a card, any card,and you like magically force
them to take the one that is theace of spades.
That's easy, but you can alsolay three objects around in
front of someone and say, pickone of these three.
And then they pick it andyou're like I, you know, I
(26:50):
actually knew that you hold up.
You know some prediction.
This is like you were going topick the middle thing, and so
it's.
You have this like matrix ofsolutions, and there there's
different outs for each one.
By withholding informationabout what you're doing, you can
alter reality in real time toget to the result that you want.
You can work all these thingsinto UX and UI design and also
(27:12):
into management and leadership.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That alternate reality in real time might be a
superpower of yours, and settingup operations for creative
teams to do their best work,because I know that I would be
on that team, being like it'sjust like magic.
He's always two steps ahead.
Wow, like I, like I'm already.
(27:36):
I'm already blown away by magic.
Just generally, I would like tobelieve in it always.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I read this book called Power of Moments.
It's a pretty digestible readand it really talks about how,
when you're storytelling, whenyou're creating a performance
which I believe that technologyor the type of the products I
create are in conversation withthe end user right, like it is a
performance, it is a story, itis all of that.
(28:04):
It's just non-linear,non-traditional storytelling.
But when you're trying tocreate these moments, then you
want to have peaks and valleysand awe is definitely, you know
this crescendo.
And you look at the book bookslike power of moments and they
really talk about how you canincrease your retention,
increase your um customersupport scores.
(28:27):
You can.
You know there's all these waysthat you can create magical
moments at unusual times thatreally stick in someone's mind,
like you don't want to deliverthe awe when their mind is
fuzzed out by noise and otherthings, right, yeah, um, one of
the the best instances ofmisdirection is that you can use
(28:47):
a, a large movement, to cover asmall movement.
So if you want to do like atricky thing with your hands
it's very technical and doesn'tactually look very good you can
wave your arms through the airlike in an arc and your mind,
like literally, can onlyregister the large movement, and
the small movement isabsolutely invisible.
it's like a defect in our brainsyeah, and so you want to
(29:10):
inverse that.
If you want to make somethingmeaningful, like you don't want
to add your awe-inspiring momentinside a big movement or inside
, like your you know, if youhave to, like fumble around and
get your credit card, you'retrying to type in all your
credit cards but you don't wantawe to happen, then no, you want
awe to happen the moment after,when you're like resting yeah.
And so I do think there's like aliteral, like technical
(29:33):
application of awe that couldand should be applied to
products.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I love that and also just also thinking about like
empathy is a driver, likeempathy is important in creating
meaningful and transformativemoments, and those meaningful
and transformative moments aremoments of awe, and I think
that's.
I think that's and how much youknow, I think in sort of the
(30:01):
world we're in today, thereisn't, there's less wonder
because we have access to somuch information and um, and so
I just think there's somethingreally powerful and how and how
you design and create that as aleader, within your um, within
your teams.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Well, and I think that people like yearn for
larger meaning and is part ofthat too.
You know like, absolutely I'mnot religious, but a lot of
people find the awesomeness ofreligion very attractive and I
100% agree and understand that.
You know like, when thosethings happen organically,
they're even more monumental.
(30:41):
You know, when they're notmanufactured by a magician like
me, they can be even morespecial and more powerful.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I love that.
Ryan.
Where can people go to learnmore about you and about
Empatico?
Ryan?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
where can people go to learn more about you and
about Empatico?
Well, you can find me onTwitter or X or whatever you
want to call it at rmajeski,which is hard to spell, but I'm
sure you could put it somewhereand you can also learn more
about our work at Empatico atempaticoorg.
Ryan, thank you so much forjoining us on Unserious today
and hope you have a great week.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Thank you both so much for joining us on Unserious
today and hope you have a greatweek.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Thank you both so much for having me.
Jb, you know I don't think wementioned this in the podcast,
but you and I go way, way backand it's just.
You live in my mind, you know,all the time, and I'm just so
pleased to be reconnected withyou and to meet you, molly.
It's been a real pleasure,thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
That was amazing.
Jb Ryan really is a magician.
What I took away from theconversation is a deeper
understanding of empathy and whyit's crucial, not only in
social impact but for success inthe world of work today.
I'm thinking about empathy nowfrom a lens of behavior, from a
cognitive lens, from anemotional lens, and, just like
the importance of starting withyourself, being kind to yourself
(32:06):
, change starts with yourself,and I'm pretty dazzled by Ryan's
career and the way he thinksabout leading teams.
He's really at the edge whenyou look at like the
conversations he's having aboutneurodiversity on teams to
artificial intelligence and thenthinking about the power of awe
(32:26):
in creating moments that matter.
It's it's pretty magical thatyou can create moments in a user
journey at unexpected timesthat stick in someone's mind
because the timing was right andso bringing that magician skill
to really designing for animpactful experience.
I loved it, just spoke to myhuman-centered heart.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I love it.
Yeah, I also found thatdiscussion of magic and moments
so resonant.
It's how we create thoseexperiences, that surprise and
delight.
I learned that magic working inretail and restaurants and when
Ryan mentioned that, we go way,way back 20 years ago.
Ryan and I worked at a wineshop in Washington DC and we get
(33:10):
these grumpy congresspeople andhill staffers and think tankers
every night and we send themout much happier with a bottle
of wine.
Obviously, ryan has taken thatmagic to much greater scale over
than Patiko Totally.
But, zooming out a bit, myoverall impressions are much
more serious and we recordedthis discussion a bit over a
(33:34):
month ago before we saw war inthe Middle East, and since then
I think the importance ofpracticing empathy has come into
searing focus and theimportance of teaching children
how to practice empathy isreally critical to the peace and
stability of our planet and ourpeople.
(33:57):
So how's that for an unseriousthought?
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