Full transcription:
Chris: Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in to our first episode of Results May Vary. In this first episode, Tracy and I are going to talk about what design means to us and how we've applied it to our own lives and ultimately, what it can mean for you. And in future episodes, we're going to talk to people who are already using design in their lives in some interesting way. As well as those who are curious to get started. Our dream is to build a community of people that can create and take advantage of any opportunity that interests them. To do this really well, your participation is key. If you want to try out, share back your own life design experiments, or if you've already got a great story about how you've designed some aspect of your life, we'd love to hear from you resultsmayvarypodcast.com or on our Facebook page. We're experimenting in our own lives here and there. We've seen this process work in so many applications, and we believe it's a really potent tool for people. But the whole thing is an experiment. We're gonna give this a go with you, our audience, and we can't wait to roll up our sleeves together. Okay, let's begin. To start off, Tracy and I sat down to discuss a few questions we've been asking ourselves, like how will we apply the design thinking process to lives?
Tracy: Your life is designed by default, right by the choices you make, and sort of the things you decide to do and your values and your belief. And what you don't really think about is the fact that you are orchestrating that design, whether you do it intentionally or whether you do it mindlessly, right? I think what's important is that people get a sense of that everyday opportunities to design and so it's more to shifting people from thinking about it mindlessly and realizing that they have the ability to do it themselves.
Chris: I always think those studies are really cool. Those ones where they go interview really old people that are about to die, and that's going like what are your regrets or not? Yeah, and they always say it's really similar thing, which is why I wished I would have pursued the things that I really wanted to what's something you really wish you could be doing right now, but aren't for some reason? The design process helps you creatively and effectively carve that stuff in. And I think the show is as much about making opportunities or whether it's seizing the day or closing the gap or pursuing the thing you always thought you would.
Tracy: It's about the possibility, like what's possible for you.
Chris: And I don't want the show to be this big political thing about consumerism. But I always felt like we talked about this as it always felt funny and forced that you got to get into people's lives and then forced them to buy a product that they probably didn't need the idea of actually stopping at the part where it's cool and helping people with the things that they need help with rather than forcing something onto it that doesn't need to be there is what's really interesting.
Tracy: You're right, it is sort of a natural that the product or service or business has to live in between you and what you want. Yeah. And certainly there can be opportunity for a product or business to be in the middle. Yeah, it helps you Yeah, like a Fitbit or something like that. Yeah, to get on track. That's cool. But it shouldn't always presuppose that that needs to be there.
Chris: The product organizations are so amazing because they have great designers and marketers and insight people that know how to stir that up and then throw up product against it. That's great. That's a great insight. Cool. Now how do we use that to sell more Fritos so what if we could stir that up, but we don't have our intent is clean. One of my kind of life goals that never had a rational business model behind it was to create a place where you would go to basically drop your home narrative, go to this new place and learn all this cool new stuff, and then bring it back but where it falls apart is people do great on vacation and whatnot and then they come back So I have to have some thread. What I thought was, it'd be cool if we did those workshops that you always bring somebody with you. And you're going to kind of co-create. And so that works two ways that zero accountability, buddy when you go back, and it breaks this stigma around showing up alone to fix your things, your work session.
Tracy: The Camp Grounded experience that I had.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. But you did not like it, did you? Can you tell me it was not very good?
Tracy: Well, I liked it probably for reasons that were different than what the organizers intended. They really wanted it to have this playful, you know, retro camp, feel. Yeah, color war games, and you can sing songs and all this stuff. And that was great. But I signed up thinking I might be into that. But then I wasn't really into it. What I was into was connecting with people on a personal level, you know, you didn't have any of your technology. You weren’t allowed to have an iPhone or even a camera unless it was like an old school film camera. Yeah. You weren't allowed to use your real name, you weren't allowed to talk about work? Interesting. They did have some like design activities that sort of forced intimacy. And I'm okay with that. Yeah. But they were so fast. And then you would go from like, all sitting around the campfire talking about something meaningful, and people are crying to like going out and doing a three-legged sack race or whatever. And so I wanted to hear the stories that people told about themselves when they weren't allowed to talk about work, then who else are you like? How do you describe yourself? And so what I got out of it was solitude and time to really reflect on important milestones that were coming up in my life, turning 40, maybe leaving my job? Yeah, what was my fear that was behind that my fear was is really like abandonment in the future. When I'm old and infirm, who's gonna take care of me. And then it took me down this path where I started to think well have I ever been abandoned and not taken care of in my past, but the reality was, even though I yeah, may be abandoned by one person here, there. There's random support, sometimes from you know, like your parents, sometimes just from strangers or like someone at the grocery store, who is nice when you really need it. And because I'm adopted, I think, Oh, I always have that narrative that I'm afraid of, you know, fear of abandonment. But when I thought about that, it was like, it's actually pretty amazing. I came into the world and nobody was like, nobody was waiting for me on the other side, expectantly. Yeah, nobody was excited that I was coming. And for two months, I was going to foster care situation. So I had people taking care of me who had no skin in the game. I wasn't going to stay with them. They weren't going to adopt me. They're just kind of taking care of me until my parents came on the scene. And that was, I actually found that incredibly joyful to think that there are doctors and nurses and caseworkers and a birth mom and they've cared enough. Yeah. When I was at my complete, most vulnerable,
Chris: Right? You have nothing. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. So I'm curious. And so where did that where do you think it came from? Because that seems everything you're saying sounds like that isn't a threat at all?
Tracy: Well, I think the End Times is about not adorable and tiny, not with a future and possibilities ahead of you. The way that I'm trying to design my life is by having enough money to pay somebody well.
Chris: So how about things like having enough money for retirement, this distant future thought, we've probably all struggled with that. But when you think about it, it's really intangible to think that far in the future. What do we need to do today, tomorrow, five years from now to get there? One great design trick is to break down these large fuzzy goals into smaller, more incremental experiments. This experimenting puts a low-risk way and some parameters around things you can learn and tweak to make better. deconstructing something potentially overwhelming also helps you disconnect from limiting thoughts or emotions around the outcome is just an experiment. No need to be perfect. No need to be right. learning what doesn't work is just as important as learning what does. A few years ago, Tracy tried this approach with running.
Tracy: I used to hate running like it made me sick to my stomach and I was bad at it. I was slow. I was doing boxing boot camp. And we would have to run sometimes, and I would get sick the night before and thinking about maybe we're gonna have to run the next day and it was impeding my enjoyment. I realized that I could maybe design a way to make running at least like I'm not gonna like it. I'm not gonna love it, but at least make it so I'm not afraid of it. And so I started thinking about what are the factors that I really don't like one was running with other people and always feeling bad that I'm holding someone back or I'm competing in my head. So I'm like, Okay, I'm only gonna run by myself, and then they're running on a treadmill seems so sad. So I thought, Okay, well, I'm only gonna run outside and in nature and in pretty places. And then I thought, well, you can't just start running. Sometimes I feel compelled to run, but I'll hold myself back when I'm walking, be like, Oh, just be so freeing to run. And that feeling of feeling free, was really enticing. So I thought, well, I'll just walk into my body says, Hey, it'd be fun to run, and then I'll start running. And then when my body's like, holy crap, I'm gonna pass out now, I'll just go back to walking. I did that. And I was able to in short time, like, get around this lake, it was, you know, it was like walking, walking, walking, run a little bit, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. And then eventually, it was like, Oh, my God, I went through a whole song, and I didn't stop running, then I'm like, halfway around the link, and I didn't stop running. And then I finally made it all the way around. And then the little cherry on top was the music choice. Eminem!
Chris: Yeah, we only get one shot.
Tracy: And it totally worked. And then I was running, and it was going on doing it myself. Yeah, when I didn't even need to. And then I stopped for a while and then I didn't have the capacity to run as far and then I got really.
Chris: And now you're back to hating it again.
Tracy: No, but now I know, I can do it. So I'm not afraid of it anymore. Okay.
Chris: I think he just said on a big one, one of the biggest curses for people is at a time when you actually were okay at the thing that you're trying to do. Again, if you can remember a time of what it was like to be good at it? How do you do this second beginner, third beginner, 10th beginner, 12th beginner thing and get back out there? Again, it's really discouraging. The new things come with this, the feelings of being feeling dumb and inadequate. And you notice that as people age up, they just don't want to do that stuff. And you can't blame them. Because you tend to want to do more of the things that you're good at. I think this process will be fun to sort of nudge ourselves and people we know to do the dominant adequate things.
Tracy: Yes. What's the motivator? When especially if you know, you're never gonna be as good as you were before? What is the thing that you enjoyed?
Chris: About it? And how do you recontextualize it I'm in one of those crises right now, part of this the cycling stuff, it's like you when you did it when you were 25, and you're living a college life, and you didn't have all these responsibilities, you could really throw yourself at it, and you're not gonna be any faster than you were then you're just not. So then the tendency and you see this with a lot of the guys and gals are they just start to go longer. So I've kind of checked that box really well.
Tracy: What's the longest that you've ever done?
Chris: Well, I did an Iron Man and then did the reason why it has been this Leadville 100 Mountain Bike race. So it's high altitude, and it's 100 miles. And it's a long day. It's like, you know, nine hours. Yeah, but there's still like, you still touched the thing, the original thing that you remember when you were 22. But then you can't you kind of hit this peak, right? Like, then you can go longer. Well, I guess you could, but that you finally had this realization where it's like going longer, just stupid. It's kind of a waste of time. But you still remember what the feeling was like. And you still want to kind of hold that narrative, but recontextualizing it is what matters. So I joke with my friends that they should change the categories. So right now the categories are 20-25, 25-29. And that's all it is, is age categories. So line them up, Agent up and go. I've thought it's like it should be like, do you have a job or not have a job? Is your job a hard job? That's a different category, then it's like, do you have a hard job and one kid to a hard job and two kids and three kids because I've got plenty of friends that would crush the hard job and two kids category that feel like they suck because they're competing with somebody that just doesn't have his responsibilities. You know, that's brilliant,
Tracy: Actually. That's like the essence of what we're talking about. Yeah, it's looking at this mindless division or design of how the races were thinking what are the actual categories that relate to people's lives? Because just because I'm 29 or I'm 30 Yeah, what's really the leap there with the difference that I made one category or the other? Right? When you're talking about that? I was wondering, you said you kind of recontextualize it for yourself to do the longer thing what was the essence that you were going for?
Chris: What was the what was like kind of the carrot you were chasing the same thing like placing, you know, it's still disk drives to do well, but that ends up you only go downhill your stock price. It only fails in that model. Like doesn't, it doesn't go up. What is interesting about that is those people didn't get paid to do that, like the motivations to do it takes this extraordinary effort. And it might not out some of it might not be healthy. You know, I remember talking to Greg Lemond and an idea project and he's like, you want to know the secret to winning at a highest level, and he's like, have a really shitty dad because he is saying he's like, look at any of these top guys, like their dads yelled at them, beat them, disowned them, you know, like, so they were out there with something to prove. I'm not looking at those people as like, all aspirational, because I actually think a lot of it's really unhealthy to beat that motivated, like, what's your little to come down? My favorite was Team In Training and training this woman who had never done anything like that before, she just had the best attitude. And we would wait out there forever for her to come in, you know, the training would last three hours longer. And I loved her. That would tell her that she'd say to me when she came in, I might be in the last place here. But I'm ahead of the millions of people that would never show up. And I was just like you are gold.
Tracy: Reframing is another great design strategy that relates just as much to life as it does to business. Ask yourself, are you solving for the right question? Is it how do I get back to running like I used to? Maybe it's more about feeling strong? Or like you've overcome something you never thought you would? What are 10 different questions you could consider? Or 20? Which one seems the most exciting to answer? Or what are new ways you can look at something familiar to find renewed motivation or interest? To Chris and me, these personal experiments really point two ways you can start designing your life. But we wondered if you don't do design for a living? Does this even make sense? Out in the world design means many things. There's graphic design, interior design, product design, intelligent design. And now we're talking about designing your life. We needed a guinea pig to test our concept. So we asked Chris's fiance Alyssa, how she would describe what we were up to. In your own words, how would you describe what the podcast actually is?
Alyssa: I don't know, navigating, had a - something about like navigating life or, you know, life is crazy, because there's all these things that we have to manage. And so figuring out ways to, to manage them, so that you can enjoy life, because we're only here for a certain period of time. It's like Oprah's live your best life.
Tracy: What would you expect to be in the podcast?
Alyssa: I want to hear people's stories of what triggered something that made them think like, Whoa, I gotta not let life happen to me, but take control of my life.
Chris: What'd you tell our audience what you think that design processes?
Alyssa: I don't know, I guess when I think of design, I think of it as touching every aspect of it.
Chris: So what do I do at work?
Alyssa: You think about how people, I guess I think about it as behavior, how people behave, and how can you create an experience or a service or a product that affects their behavior and, and like, fills a void or creates an experience for them that they either didn't know they wanted or wanted to be improved?
Chris: And how do I do that?
Alyssa: And you have a team that and you say, go do that? Okay, so I know. So you go.
Chris: So you think I got a team at work? That's the first thing.
Alyssa: I thought you meant that IDEO right now? Yeah, well, I don't really know what you do at your current job. So I know that, you know, a piece of part of it is talking to people and understanding how they, what their behaviors are and then you take those back and you synthesize them and you try to identify trends, like what are themes. It's like a way to take everything and distill it down to the truth. And I would guess what you're doing now is you're going back to product people and saying, either we need this or this thing that we currently have needs to be changed or adapted some way.
Chris: It's a creative process, you know, traditional design done well looks at the world in a unique way. And that spits something out that's new and different. And so I think what we're trying to do is take this creative process and apply it to something where that creative process isn't usually applied, and we don't know it might blow up and we have no idea
Tracy: And be like the word creativity is also scary.
Chris: That's true. Not only do people not understand design, they wouldn't understand creativity. Are they? These are all loaded words.
Tracy: You understand its something that creative people have been anointed. Creative? Yes. Like they're good in art class? Yes. Or whatever they do. It's not necessarily
Chris: So people will ask us, so are you teaching people to play the flute
Tracy: It's about solving problems creatively, but it's just like, I'm a problem solver. You can be a logically minded person and solve problems. Yeah, be very analytical. And it's just saying, like, the creative part is really just coming up with more options for how you do that. We're all creative problem solvers. That's how we have evolved to stay alive. And so it's extrapolating that same process from how we have figured out to run away from tigers, but then to put on the lens of, Okay, how do I manage my schedule? I'm going to have a really busy workload, how do I exercise more, you're trained or you're destined to solve problems creatively. This is just a more specific process of how you do that.
Chris: So if you were to think of like an opportunity seized or something you'd want to throw at this, is there one that you would throw in the ring?
Alyssa: I have always wanted to volunteer for Girls on the Run, which is like a nonprofit that educates girls, I think like eight through 12, they eventually run a five K, but it's nutrition and self-esteem. And there's this whole curriculum that they go through, and I think they meet me once a week. It's a huge passion of mine. I'm huge. Like, I am the daughter of a football coach, and who was a feminist and I'm very, I and I played sports on my growing up. And I truly believe that girls who play sports, it's great for them for confidence and whatever. And every year I'm like, I should do, I should coach and I never do. My excuse is I don't have time. But I don't think that's a good excuse. Part of it is sec stress. Like if you know if practice or they meet once a week at three. So I have to leave work at two and yeah, and then maybe there's like, and so what does that mean for me in terms of if I was going to run that day?
Chris: And maybe that is too much of a commitment. So it's something else you're gonna teach Lucy how to run a small, like, what's the small thing? Yeah, well, that's where design can be interesting. Because if design is playing back to you, and I think this will be our job is to hold back the like, why don't you just go sign up for girls? It's like, what's the one tiny thing you could do? Yes. And you might come up with Well,
Alyssa: You know what? I'm not good at that at all. Because I don't do tight. I'm black or white. Right? So I don't do tiny things. I'm either gonna run for two hours, or it's not worth it to me to even like, put my shoes on. So to me, I'm gonna like do Girls on the Run showing up? Yeah, that like, and I love your idea, actually of Lucy. That's really cute.
Tracy: Yeah. And also, like, it's not about chasing you, knowing that you're black and white. How can we use those mechanisms and whatever inspires you to get you to do the things that you want to do?
Chris: She really wants to do an event where she guides a blind person through the event. And that's something that you've talked about a lot. It could be more achievable. A little easier, perhaps than Girls On the Run. I don't know how complicated it is.
Alyssa: Yeah, I think you've met them before. But yeah, I mean, people do it for Iron Man. But people will do it for marathons, you either run next to them, or you have like a bungee cord. And you run together and you guide them.
Chris: Hey, guys, just a side note here, we're intentionally designing the first episode to be vague on the design process, mostly because we didn't want to kick things off with this long lecture. But also because we're experimenting with how we should talk about design thinking as it pertains to life. For today, we just want you to take away the idea that you have the ability to design your life in lots of ways every day, big and small. But why should you believe us? Alyssa wondered the same thing.
Alyssa: What gives you the right is not the right word. But what makes you to the people to be having this
Chris: Unfair advantage.
Tracy: I mean, the thing that we had was having worked at a company that is considered the leader in design thinking and problem solving and great systemic change. And then because we had that expertise and experience, we can take that and try and apply it in a whole new way. But I think we don't have the permission or the right to tell people how to live their lives or to tell them they have to change who they are. It's more about knowing who they are as individuals and allowing them like you talked about, you're the designer for your own life. And we're merely like present here. taters? Yeah, guy. I don't know how to solve your life's problems, right? Like an expert in nutrition or sleep. I'm an expert in the creative problem-solving process. And there are things that you can learn from that and apply it to your life. But you're going to be the one who's experimenting with this. We're always looking for somebody to instruct us in things that we actually innately know.
Chris: You just need a little nudge out of the nest. It seems like the process now is to look offset the problem on the internet, think to yourself about what you should do, and then maybe tell somebody and try it and fail and then repeat with new information. So it does seem like people could really use something new but like we've said it's kind of innate just needs to be unlocked with some steps.
Tracy: It's interesting that it's to us. Yeah, because I've had some people at work be like, yeah, it wasn't intentionally designed. Yeah, you know.
Chris: It's a pretty cool unlikely pairing. Even the relationship itself, it shares its root is like design stuff. But then I think there's other values. It's funny because I think the stuff we shared in common is what the show is all about a lot of the stuff we've talked about where life changes, and just like struggles and just evolutions of ourselves and what we're trying to do, and then just humor, and then design was a thread across all that. So yeah, it makes a ton of sense, actually.
Alyssa: How will you know if people are learning, or if people are taking what they're listening to, and actually applying it to their own lives?
Tracy: I think we're talking about including people in the show like to bring this something they're interested in pursuing this possibility. So we'll work with them to come up with experiments that they can try, and then kind of come back to them and say, What was working? What wasn't? And then figure out what were the aspects of that that did work? And is there more of like, a universal insight to glean from that. But then also, I think, we should have some sort of a mechanism where people can be having conversation with us back and forth. And whether it's a website or Facebook page or something, where they're like, okay, you know, I tried that thing that you talked about. Yeah. And then it made me think of these other six things. I tried those. And here's what worked and what would love it if people were interacting.
Alyssa: Yeah, to me. Someone who likes closure. Like, I wouldn't want something put out there or I'd want to check in and see,
Chris: It makes you think of like, when you said that I was like, Oh, yeah, I've been wanting to volunteer as a handyman for old people, you know. So you think of others and it stirs it up. So I wonder if the community starts to the dangerous thing is to give advice, but if the community starts fueling, here's what I'm gonna try. Maybe it's just a public forum for other experiments that are being triggered by these experiments. Yeah, I think I think one thing I'm curious about too, is the design process, and we should for audience explain the phases of design process. Yeah, we can do that now. Or another time is it's actually surprisingly disciplined and rigid. And I think that's great, because it keeps everybody rooted. But on the other hand, I'm excited about this, because we're taking the design process into a little bit of unknown territory is what will change in the design process because of this process? I'm really open to that and excited about it . Is it faster? Is there another phase? What happens? Because I think the design process like one that comes to mind, for example is it kind of ends, you know, is like the product design that launches? And that's kind of the end, but that's not the end of somebody's life. So how does it evolve over time? And what's that mean? And I think that's, it'll be really interesting to look at that. Sam Tracy, we're coming to the end of our show, I think what we should do is, close it out. Like what do you think some of the key takeaways were from our inaugural episode?
Tracy: One of the things that I took away, I thought was really interesting was the discussion about defining and designing categories, and sort of our acceptance of how categories are designed that we just say, oh, okay, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this or do that, because it's a default, not ever taking the time to think about it step back and say, Does this make sense? And I wonder if there are ways that our listeners can think about in their own lives? What are some categories that I subscribe to, without thinking about them? And what would be better? Can I change that? Can I make suggestions? Am I in a place where I can completely like in your case, with the bike riding? Can I say I'm going to do a bike race but the categories I'm going to ask everybody to sign up for all based on their situations in real life and not their age.
Chris: Mine is about the fear thing. I think that fear thing is really interesting. And I think we skirt around fear with lots of talk and lots of chatter in there. Real thing is just everyone's a little freaked out. And I've heard a couple of examples recently one was like another, I think it was Tim Ferriss podcast, just go into a coffee shop and lie down on the ground and we laugh at that but there's no harm, like nothing's gonna happen to you. Maybe you're asked to leave or something. It's like, there is no harm when just how awkward and how freaked out people would be to do that. And another one was this, this thing that's kicking around the Good Guy Discount, the good girl discount? What does that where you go to checkout to purchase anything? And you just as soon as you're checking out, you're just like, Hey, can you give me a good guy discount? And you just ask, like, if they'll take a little bit off the price?
Tracy: Really, I've never heard of that.
Chris: And people are getting, they're pretty successful at it. Like if you do it, you can connect them there. It's shocking how many times people are like, yeah, I can give you 10% off or something,
Tracy: That's amazing.
Chris: And so but I think the interesting part is when it brings up this point, fear among you're like, I'm not gonna ask that, like, it's just so ever, but there's really nothing to lose. No. And I think all this stuff ultimately is around breaking down that fear and fear something so significant, but it's just like, just do it. I mean, just go talk to a stranger, whatever. Yeah. So yeah, I thought that was a big theme today. And something that this podcast can really help people with is just like, break down the fear and just go right through and just do the stupid thing or whatever. And I think you'll be glad you did. I think a big theme of our show is breaking it down into micro experiments, break through the fears and just try the thing out.
Tracy: That's awesome. We made it. This is officially the end of our first episode of results may vary. We'd love to hear what you liked about it, and what can be improved? Let us know on Facebook or visit results may vary podcast.com. That's where you'll find show notes and where you can reach out if you want to share your own life design experiments. Or if you've already got a great story of how you've designed your life. And if you would be so kind, subscribe to the show and rate us and write a review on iTunes or Stitcher that'll let even more people start designing their lives. Special thanks to composer and filmmaker HP Mendoza for the Results May Vary theme music and Graphic Designer, Anessa Bramer for the logo. And of course, thank you so much for listening to Results May Vary.