Episode 27 of “What is Innovation?” is live! This week, Jared doubles the insights with Grady Powell and Haley Robison Dake, collaborators on an innovative learning experience called Metatrack, and leaders with distinguished careers as innovators. They share their point of view on innovation as a way of viewing the world. Listen and subscribe today!
Grady Powell and Haley Robison Dake, collaborators on an innovative learning experience called Metatrack and leaders with distinguished careers as innovators shares their point of view on innovation as a way of viewing the world.
More about our guests:
Grady Powell is a future-oriented strategist, executive, and entrepreneur. The founder and CEO of Openfields, a research, strategy, and design firm committed to helping leaders imagine and implement a more creative and just future. He is also co-founder and trustee of Capita, a creative think tank for harnessing the power of big ideas to ensure a future in which all young children and their families flourish.
Haley Robison Dake advises early-stage companies and teaches at the University of Texas Austin. Previously the CEO at Kammok, an outdoor brand based in Austin, Texas, that designs performance gear to elevate time outside. Haley's most inspired at the intersection of design, business, and education.
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Episode Guide:
2:10 - What is Innovation
3:07 - Innovation as a skill
4:53 - Engaging in the creative process with Jim Gilmore
5:51 - 2 Types of Innovators
6:46 - Incremental innovation value
7:34 - Act of courage and stamina
8:12 - Relative value: Incremental vs Revolutionary innovations
10:10 - Work Collaboration
11:46 - MetaTrack
14:21 - Equipping People to be lifelong learners
15:41 - If MetaTrack existed years ago...
18:01 - Beauty of Hindsight at work
22:05 - Domain expertise
23:16 - Hiring 'T-shaped' people
25:46 - Experience, Hobbies, Views, and Innovation
29:40 - Haley's 90 days in Wyoming Wilderness
32:28 - Os Guinness: Contrast is the mother of clarity
35:04 - Advice for Innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.
/This transcript was automatically generated using AI; please forgive any inconsistencies. We are working to provide the correct and more concise copy of the transcript. For urgent needs, please send us an email.
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Jared Simmons 00:05
Hello, and welcome to what is innovation. The podcast that explores the reality of a word that is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. This podcast is produced by Outlast consulting, LLC, a boutique consultancy that helps companies use innovation principles to solve their toughest business problems. I'm your host, Jared Simmons, and I'm so excited to have Hayley Robison dake and Grady Powell. Haley Robison dake advises early stage companies and teaches at the University of Texas Austin. She was previously the CEO at kammok, an outdoor based brand in Austin, Texas that designs performance gear to elevate time outside. Having worked at IDEO, Bain and company and Stanford University. Haley's most inspired at the intersection of design, business and education. Hailey holds a BA in business and finance from UT Austin and a joint MBA and MBA from Stanford University. She is a national Outdoor Leadership School graduate and worked as a field instructor in Wyoming. Leading outdoor expeditions focused on personal leadership. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, Christian son James and dog Kelly. Grady Powell is a futures oriented strategist, executive and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of open fields, a research strategy and design firm committed to helping leaders imagine and implement a more creative and just future. He's also co founder and trustee of capita, a creative think tank for harnessing the power of big ideas to ensure a future in which our young children and their families flourish. Previously, Grady led a leadership development nonprofit based in Washington, DC, and worked as an agency guy at EPA and company advertising. He attended Furman University where he studied economics and ran cross country and track and field. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina with his wife, Sarah, and their four children. Haley Grady, thank you so much for joining us today. just excited about this conversation. And looking forward to your thoughts and insights on on innovation. I like to get started with a simple question. What is in your mind, innovation,
Haley 02:14
I think simply ingredient are actually discussing this before we jumped on the call great. He has a very succinct version of innovation, but just being able to take a new idea and apply it in a new way. So I would say that innovation is about knowing when and how to apply a different method that allows different ideas to take root. It's starting from a place of creativity and inspiration to expand thinking and then take that thinking and idea to a new application.
Jared Simmons 02:48
Right. Great. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I
Grady 02:51
would agree with that. I think innovative people are always looking around them and finding creative thoughts or insights or new tools and, and finding new ways to use them and use them in different contexts and use them to be more effective and more creative and more productive. I think it's something that skill you can actually learn way.
Jared Simmons 03:09
Tell me more about innovation as a skill. What does that look like?
Grady 03:12
This is something we've actually been working on together, Haley, and I've been with a colleague, Jim Gilmore, the author of the experience economy, where we talk a lot about the beginning of that process is often observation. And we think innovations actually about design or development or scale, right. But really, the act of innovation, we think begins with seeing a situation or seeing human behavior or seeing a need in a new way that other people may not notice. So if you want to be innovative, go to the place and no one else is doing the work. Right. Right. You're in the middle of a market is already there. You got to go somewhere else. And I think that often begins with seeing opportunities in new places. And you ask the question, how is that a skill? We actually believe you can cultivate skills of observation. There are tools, methods that you can use to see insights ideas in new ways.
Jared Simmons 04:03
I see. I see. And is this something that if I wanted to learn to be more innovative, so you think there's kind of two schools of thought some people think there are these sort of genius innovators, the Tesla, Einstein, Henry Ford, you know, solo individual genius innovators. But more and more, I think as we learn more about how innovation works, and how inspiration works, it seems that there's more conversation around the ecosystem and the environment to support innovation. As you talk about it as a skill and you know, powers of observation. It sounds like you might have more of a view in the ladder sort of camp. In your work. Have you have you come across a lot of attributes around you know, what it takes to be an innovative person or is it really more of a learnable skill set? Maybe what do you think about that?
Haley 04:53
I think it's absolutely a learnable skill set. One of one of the things that we've been exploring in our class. is how you engage in the creative process. And grading mentioned, observation is a really great starting place.
Grady 05:07
by association.
Haley 05:08
Yes by association. So one of the ideas that Jim Gilmore has been working with us to develop and equip our students with his lateral thinking, creative thinking methods, and one of them is by association. So taking two things that typically don't exist together, it's been a realm of thought, and looking at what patterns or connections they have, and then how that might apply to new ideas. So there are lots of tools and practices, I also think we talked about learning something, and it's a skill that can be practiced. And it starts with trying out small things in your thought pattern or in your daily life and creating a feedback loop to learn from those so that you can grow in innovation. And when we talk about you mentioned, the two types of innovators, Tim Brown, who was one of the leads at IDEO, he breaks down innovation into several different categories. And most of the innovation that we see, which I think is accessible to most people is incremental innovation, it's the innovations that are taking existing ideas and applying them to existing audiences. But it's new in nature that it hasn't been done before. And the ones that you mentioned, like Henry Ford, that often has an equality of invention. And I would say Ken brown would say that's like revolutionary innovation. That's something that's a total category changer. And so how can we start to push out as most of us, I think, are more inclined to incremental innovation and gained the skills to be revolutionary innovators, and I think it takes a lot of work, and practice and discipline around building those creative capacities.
Jared Simmons 06:46
What do you see is the relative value? I know there's a star quality to the revolutionary aspect of innovation? But can incremental innovation be as valuable as these revolutionary innovations?
Haley 06:57
To find? find valuable AI?
Jared Simmons 07:00
Right, right.
Haley 07:00
My instinct would be to say, absolutely, are we thinking of value in terms of scale, or the kind of delta impact, but I think there is a lot of value that can be generated from small innovations in the well being of families, communities, how you operate your household, you know, there's, there's so much value that can be generated from things that may not be considered revolutionary.
Jared Simmons 07:26
Right? Yeah, I would agree with that. A great deal. What are your thoughts on that?
Grady 07:30
Yeah, real quick to go back to your previous question, as Haley was saying, there, obviously, sort of innovators that break the mold, and that are going to operate at a level that most of us aren't going to operate. But even those folks are never alone. Right. And I think it's, I think we definitely are of the mindset that doing something new breaking into a new space, sharing a new idea is always an act of vulnerability. In a way, it's an act that takes a lot of courage and stamina. And anytime you're surrounded by a community that's going to encourage that, and celebrate the small wins you make along the way, and keep asking questions and keep reminding yourself of who you are and what your purpose is, that's always going to, I think be critical to sustaining that kind of greatest thought,
Jared Simmons 08:11
hmm. You're talking about incremental versus revolutionary innovations? And what relative value of the two types?
Grady 08:18
Yeah, that's a good question is the is the invention of the vaccine more revolutionary, more impactful than the invention of the COVID? vaccine? Right? No, that's, that's an interesting question. Another thing that's really interesting, this is Kevin Kelley, in his book, what technology once talks about sort of the evolution of technology and a lot of innovations sort of inevitable in a way right? There existing technologies and experiences, and the whole thing's an ecosystem in a way, right? All these technologies and advancements are evolving. And we all play smaller roles than we like to imagine. But if Louis Pasteur and invented pasteurization, you know, which expands life expectancy in the US exponentially, right, somebody would have done it. Right? Not because Louis Pasteur was the only genius who could ever figure that out. But because we're all in an ecosystem where ideas are advancing technology advancing, we get to participate in that. Right. Right. Obviously, people have access to those communities and that type of education and the kind of tools and resources that it takes. But in some ways, it's freeing to imagine that our job is sort of show up, show up as ourselves and show up with the voice that we've been given. And I don't know that we always have to worry about or can't even control the type of impact we're gonna have in that context. Hmm,
Jared Simmons 09:29
interesting. Yeah, it freed sort of freeing yourself from the burden of expectations around outcomes and impact. Also, like the sort of point you're making there about evolutionary, or incremental innovations are often built on the back of a revolutionary innovation at some point. You know, you talk about COVID being a vaccine, but that whole protocol and concept around vaccines and the invention of the first one was a revolutionary thing. I hadn't really thought about that sort of ordering of those types of things before. That's a great point. Thinking about the ecosystem for innovation as your reference. Tell me about how you intend to show up and play a part in that ecosystem. What role do you see yourselves playing
Haley 10:10
one role, particularly speaking, I mean, Grady and I work in several different spheres. But in our work collaboration around meta track, Grady just mentioned the importance of having communities of being surrounded by people who are asking questions who are supporting you who are allowing you to risk and be vulnerable. One of the roles that we see is creating the container and the space for that dialogue to happen, and especially in contrast to this cultural moment, which is very driven and dictated by technology, particularly coming. Now hopefully out of the pandemic, as we resume roles that are more embodied and physical sharing physical space, where, historically that's where a lot of those new ideas were sparked, because conversation was aimless, and we were navigating the world with a more observational view than being screen bound. One of the things Jim Gilmore says is everything you see on a screen is derivative, meaning that someone else saw it first. And it's important as innovators that we are able to see and adopt new sight for what's out our windows and to be grounded in a reality. And so how do we encourage people to go from where they're at in front of their screens, and have new sight for the world and also create space and place for people to have those conversations and to be able to encourage each other towards those insights? Because learning happens with other people and from other people. And so one of our roles as educators in that sense, is creating that environment.
Jared Simmons 11:44
Make sense? Well said, Do you want to give people one or two sentences about meta tracks? To put that in a bit of context?
Grady 11:51
I'll give it a shot. We started meta track, because I think Haley and I both had experiences where we've been in communities with people who love to learn, who were willing to ask the questions about their lives and their purpose and their impact. And who love to learn for the sake of learning. This wasn't in order to scale a company or sell a business or to get a degree or it was actually sort of approaching life with a very entrepreneurial attitude, right? I think we were encouraged and taught like, once you see your whole life in that way, amount of energy and creativity and freedom, and motivation that comes from understanding you can you can do things in new ways. You don't have to follow what's always been done, right, you can find a lot of meaning and purpose, wherever you are, you're not really stuck. There are ways to build and to create and to generate communities and meaningful experiences wherever you are, once you begin to sense that and taste it. It's just something that's infectious, something you want to share something you want other people to understand and see. And when they do, and it's so motivating. It just happens with our students elite happiness, my clients, when they have that aha moment that, wow, I've got permission to be creative here. You know, I thought there was only one way, there's actually lots of ways, those moments where people just feel release and see possibility and all of a sudden, are given a little bit of encouragement to pursue it. It's really motivating. And that's really what met attracts been about has been creating that kind of environment that hate is describing that kind of community, especially early on, we've really been focused on young professionals, because we feel like so much of the education system right now is narrowed their educational experience, in a lot of my work. A lot of people I work with talking about cradle to career, we're trying to build this whole pipeline that moves kids from early childhood development into pre K, and so they're kindergarten ready. And so they have third grade reading scores. And so they're hitting their, you know, all the way down the line till they get a great job. And I think a lot of talented young people get a great job. And then they're like, so what? Oh, yeah, and in some ways, this has been about creating a community around people who have found themselves in that position and reigniting a passion for learning in their lives.
Haley 14:00
Pretty to to continue from that there's the so what but also the now what, and once you've been part of it, education track that you kind of get spit out the culmination of your first job. And then you realize there's an expansive set of choices beyond that, that you'll need to navigate. How do you equip people to take ownership of both their learning and their career journeys from a place of agency, self understanding, and perspective that can really influence how they then engage and build as contributors and leaders in their respective spheres, whether that's staying in their job or thinking about what's next. And so, medic track is really how do we equip people to be lifelong learners as a process because that process then can have impact wherever you want to direct it, whether it's your career, or the building and scaling of a company, but getting really curious about the process of being A learner and growing your creative capacities because so often we're focused on the the outcome, but you don't focus as much on the process and practices that you need to cultivate as a person to drive those outcomes, irrespective of the sphere you're in, because one of the things we realize is that nowadays work and careers will be more fluid than ever, right? And people will need to have the skills and the self awareness to navigate that really thoughtfully and intentionally. So as we've focused on the young, professional audience out of the gate, we want to support those individuals to do that to make decisions creatively, thoughtfully, intentionally, and with meaning and purpose.
Jared Simmons 15:40
Well said, If meta track existed when you graduated from high school or college, do you think your path would be different? Here's why I'm asking that question. Because the hearing the two of you talk about it, it sounds like something that could only be born of a set of experiences or a set of understanding a lived experience that underpins what you're doing. So if it existed, when you got spit out of the career track, do you think you'd have ended up in a different place?
Grady 16:06
Can you click into that? Jared, my experience was that I did have that experience. I mean, that's that's actually what I'm trying to share. I'm afraid other people don't have it. So I spent four years in college, I didn't think about my career, hardly ever, I wasn't at college to get a job. I also moved the basically the last generation college students, I didn't have a cell phone in college, I didn't have Facebook, in college, I just got my first email address, right? I did not spend college looking at a phone worried about what people thought about me or my posts, like I spent college, taking the bare minimum of my major. And taking as many electives as I could in all different types of experiences. I had a close group of friends that we did all kinds of independent work at school, we invited speakers to campus, we created conversation groups and book studies, we went on our own trips that we designed, we got research grants to pursue projects we designed together. And it was all out of love and passion and curiosity that no, it was a huge opportunity that we were afforded to do that. Sure,
Jared Simmons 17:03
sure. And
Grady 17:04
I just see, more and more people don't understand that experience. They feel isolated, they feel pressured, they have a lot of anxiety, they feel like their job is to be productive, right. And those are questions, I didn't feel the same pressure. And part of that, from my upbringing and the way my parents believed in education, what they taught me, part of that was the experience I had and part of is the world that we're in Sure, sure, there's little more safe time, it felt more safe, felt a bit more open. There were still a lot of things that weren't had not come to the surface that we needed to deal with. But it gave me a grounding now to pursue all kinds of things in my career that I never would have otherwise, have a space to think and act and speak. It's outside of this career engine.
Jared Simmons 17:47
I
Grady 17:48
think I cultivated a lot of that space, prior to my career. And that sustained me and helped me be more creative throughout my career.
Haley 17:57
As a beautiful answer gradient made me rethink my initial instinct. But it's hard to say right, because that, you know, the beauty of hindsight and imagining a different future had you known something at a certain point. I do think that my experience with what Grady just described happened after college later in my 20s, when I took several risks to do very intensive learning experiences, one in wilderness education, one, the leadership, fellow and theology fellowship, where I first met Grady, and then graduate school, I moved eight times in my 20s, and had a number of experiences that have informed what we both desire to bring to bear through meta track. I do think what would have changed for me had I experienced and been exposed to some of these ideas earlier, is probably my orientation towards work and how I perceived my role in how I was to contribute and pursue career and work. I went to the University of Texas studied business had a very, almost myopic view of success. I pursued strategy consulting, and had a wonderful experience. But I lived in fear of my own performance standards, and had a lot of limiting beliefs that kept me from really entering more fully into the work and having faith to take risks earlier in my career. And so I think I would have, I hope, like sometimes there's just maturity and having exposure and experience that changes these things. But of course, I do think being able to have a greater sense of confidence and how I was going to approach work would have been of benefit to me earlier. like to ask a question right out of college, and that's how we would like to serve people who participated medic track is to gain confidence in taking those next steps. Even if there's uncertainty And then,
Jared Simmons 20:00
right? Oh, that's also a beautiful answer, Hayley, I really appreciate the fact that you both sort of had your own meta track experiences in your career. And I can probably think back through my career and identify similar moments. And it feels like what you're doing is bringing a structure and an intentionality to creating those sorts of insights and kind of aha moments for people so that it's less serendipitous and more of a an intentional point in a person's development. The other element of what jumps out at me is when you sort of unpack this, this concept, you know, there's a famous Mark Twain quote that says, I never let my schooling interfere with my education. My mom wasn't very happy when I started my scholarship essay off with that, with that, with that, quote, but it's always been one that I've really sort of been attracted to, because what you both described were sort of, you know, out of the auto didactical, sort of, you know, cheating myself learning on my own learning, you know, under my own steam, defining my own view of the world, and then schooling takes on a different sort of context, it doesn't, it doesn't become the definition of who you are, it doesn't become the definition of success, it becomes a tool to further your exploration or to deepen your understanding of the world or yourself. And I really, I really think that what you're doing with with meta track is going to allow more people to connect with that, from a place, you know, I was always a bit of a educational rebel. And so those that kind of came to me naturally, but I think there are other people who will get the benefit of, you know, I want to connect to something, I want to have some structure something to kind of hold on to, but I don't want it to define me, and I don't want it to be so domain specific that it cuts off possibilities. And so that's what I really like about what you've built, and what you sort of stand for, with the work you're doing. And I really appreciate that.
Grady 22:02
Just one or two quick responses to that. One. I think a lot of people are afraid of domain expertise, because it does feel limiting, right? Mm hmm. That's when you recognize domain expertise as well, I'm going to sort of put my identity into a domain to say different when I have when I have a voice, and I have a vision and have a community that will support me no matter what, yep, right, whether I have domain expertise or not, right, then all of a sudden, I have a position to stand and say, this domain expertise will help serve a purpose. It's something bigger than expertise, right. And I think so often in our lives, we're immersed in cultures or systems that define success for us. We don't have that sort of vantage point to stand that community to stand with, that lets us direct it, where we want to direct it, why we get swept along. And before you know it, you get swept along, and you all of a sudden believe all the things that everyone else believes and you feel the same way. Everyone else feels and you're not sure what you're contributing, and you're not sure what your questions are anymore. That's what happened. That's normal. And we need those moments to step back for silence and reflection and critical thinking, to say, Where
Jared Simmons 23:10
are we going to stand? Sure. Yeah, now worth it, that's a great way to put that
Haley 23:16
just went by that. The idea always says they hired t shaped people. And that is people who have maybe an expertise or a depth of understanding and one specific vertical, but they're able to apply it and imagine its application across a breadth of possibilities. That's the top of the T. And I think innovation is similar to like, you need the vertical to come in with the the perspective, the point of view, that's going to shift the game. But you have to have the ability to connect the dots in a lot of different ways. And so that idea of education being the horizontal top of the tee, and then secondary post secondary schooling is carving out that vertical education in the broadest sense is really the development of the whole person. And when you start to talk about education, in that sense, it gets really exciting because you can you see how we can start to shape even the smallest or almost monera seeming of environments to really be educational in the sense that it's working to elevate and, and work for the good of the whole person. And that's where you develop that horizontal line is thinking about the communities, the institutions, the places that shape your understanding of the world. And schooling is where I think as you age in schooling at early schooling, it is very critical to that that top of the tee, but of course, as you move in your schooling, those things start to intersect. And it would be interesting to have as a someone going into college that that major is just a stake in the ground for that vertical but it's not the horizontal line, the way that I'm going to be as a whole person and all the different environments all interact with each other. course of my life or career?
Jared Simmons 25:02
Yeah, that's right. Because if that vertical defines you, you end up being more of an AI. Right then than a T, it can dampen the effect of even abroad experiences. I've seen people go through, you know, very expansive experiences, building houses in, in third world countries and you know, doing all these things, and they come back and they're not necessarily that different in their day to day lives. Because you don't broaden out into that tea just through experience, or just from having, you know, seen or heard something, you have to allow yourself to be affected or changed or impacted by it. Speaking of the top of that tea, that's a great analogy, I think, for me, music for me is what has always kind of rounded me out. And you know, I noticed that great, you're a runner, and Haley, you are an outdoors woman, as you all were talking about the coming away from the screens and things like that running and outdoor expeditions and things like that, by definition take you away from those screens and sort of the limiting sort of aspects of things. One of you could talk about the role of those types of experiences in how you view the world and maybe maybe innovation a bit.
Haley 26:12
I love that question. That question you. And I know I'm gonna love Grady's and great. You've been sharing how you've reconnected with running lately in a really powerful way.
Grady 26:24
It's been it's been great. I remember a time in high school, Jared, grew up in rural western Pennsylvania, and the cold, snowy winter, like they always are up there. And we were out for a long run after school one day, and we're on backroads. It's just snowpack everywhere, and snow as far as you can see, right, right. And we're in the woods on these back roads. And remember, we come around the corner, and there's three deer in the road, and they see us and kind of freeze and then bound up off this hill into the woods, right, unbelievable. And we just kind of look each other like, wow, and we run up to where they ran off the road. And you know, it's there in the track in the snow or their tracks, right, like, let's go. Right off the trail, we climbed a fence and we follow those deer through, we probably ran two or three miles through the middle of the woods, we ran down by a river and we saw their path along the river, we found a way across it. Our goal was just to see the deer again,
Jared Simmons 27:18
right? Yeah.
Grady 27:19
And we didn't know if we would, they're way out in front of us. But we could follow their tracks. And so I just didn't remember cresting this hill one time, quietly on this run and just looking down into the field, and we saw them again. Wow. And I just the exhilaration of that, right? Like that, for me was one example of running that just, it was pure curiosity. It was just joy. We're following the tracks. Let's see where they go. Let's see where this adventure takes us. Right. And so that's a lot of running is like that. For me. I don't wear headphones, when I run, I don't want to hear music, I want to hear what's in the world. You know, I love I think learning is a physical activity, that when my body is active, and my blood is pumping in my muscles are flexing, like it gets me thinking and feeling different ways and it opens my spirit in my mind up. And long distance running allows you to get into a rhythm and normal pace. And you can lose yourself in that process. Right. And I think that's where some of my deepest sense of peace comes from. And a lot of our creative thinking come from my let go of all the expectations. And all of a sudden, things that interest me are the things that are important to make and kind of rise to the surface. And as they do they mix and mingle in new ways. And I in my runs feeling great and feeling at peace and having seen the world in a new way. And it's often the source of just a lot of joy and curiosity in my life. Oh,
Jared Simmons 28:39
thank you for that. I have the deepest admiration for runners, particularly long distance runners, being a non runner myself, but admire those things. That element of curiosity and exploration and connection to your self physically but also connected to the outside world. Great, he almost made me think about taking up running. So that is the deepest compliment I can pay you my friend.
Haley 29:03
So likewise, I was thinking of moments running women's that I've been running when I've spent time in the wilderness, the story you told is brought me back to a lot of beautiful moments, two things and one Grady from your comment of the running it allows certain things to rise up in you. And the power in that made me think of connecting to my wilderness experiences and how they've shaped and informed my being in the world. My husband and I had this realization because he loves to go to the wilderness alone. And I have often pursued my time outdoors with others. And one of the things we're just exploring that contrast and that difference but in my experience in guiding and being part of groups that have done extended time in the wilderness to my my leadership training was 90 days in the Wyoming wilderness from February to May of 2011 which involved a lot of snowpack initially and a lot of cold nights for A girl from Texas,
Jared Simmons 30:01
90 straight days,
Haley 30:03
90 straight days, I think there was a three year period where I'd spent almost one year of nights camping outside. Wow. So I did 90 days. I'll come back to that in a second. But fast forward a couple years, I was leaving high school girls on 20 day expedition in the Wyoming wilderness. And these girls were 13 to 16, maybe a little older than that, it was the most humbling leadership I've ever had. But they showed up that first day. They were in their teenage years from just such different backgrounds and sets of circumstances and even in their development, you know, from being fully adorned and makeup to braces and the full gamut. And after 21 days, we were hiking out to where we were going to get picked up by the bus that was the very end of the trail. And we were all singing Lord of the Rings covered in this state of 20 days outdoors. And there had been such a unifying element of this time together, where so many of the perceived and in some ways real barriers are differences between these women at this young age had been slowly broken down, but also just even eliminated by our environment and walking into an environment where we shared on a day to day basis, the very same basic needs in a very visceral way, in our in our face, like we needed shelter we needed to eat, we needed to take care of our bodies so that we could move together. And there was just the the core of our humanity became front and center, like the really basic things that we needed to care for ourselves and each other. And every person just sort of emerged at a very kind of soul level, in this way where they just came out to play to show up to be fully themselves not having to worry about things back home that were affecting them or ways that they needed to perform in front of their friends or their peer group. And it was a very free way of getting to taste what's possible for how we might live together and how we might experience one another. And that's always what's drawn me into the wilderness is eliminating a lot of the barriers in a way that unifies us so we can experience each other. Where are those things right are rising to the surface as Brady put it. And then the second thing that I've loved about the wilderness, maybe more is when I come from it is that creating that point of contrast has helped me to see myself and the world more clearly. Eyes. Guinness is a theologian, author, friend of gradient eyes, and he said one time and I'll never forget his a very thick British accent, which I won't try to impersonate here. But he said contrast is the mother of clarity. And so many times when I've been in the back country for two to three weeks, and I come home, I see things about the place I'm going to that I would have never seen before. And that has given me a lot of perspective which I've benefited from and how do you take those perspectives and those aha moments and translate them into new environments. So a very concrete example is I spent 24 days in the desert of Utah, could not wait to take a hot bath, got home, filled up my bathtub, and all of a sudden felt this sinking feeling that that was weeks worth of drinking water, that I had had to seek out water holes of the desert and purify it. And I had a new perspective on water that I didn't have before. And that contrast helped me see that more clearly.
Jared Simmons 33:54
That's a great example. Contrast, being the mother of clarity is is a great way of thinking about things. And I think you know, I'm taking away a lot from what you said, but one of the biggest things is just the duration. The time you're talking about. You're talking about weeks, you know these increments that you're talking about and I think people in grade two, you're talking about running miles and miles and miles. And I think in in our current environment, there's a lot of quick fix a lot of how can I do this most efficiently. There's an MBA, get your MBA in 15 months, get it in 12 months, get it in nine months, you know, all these other, you know, start a business in three easy steps. And I think what you two are both highlighting for me and hopefully for others is just there's value in one disconnecting but spending time in things and you know, immersing yourself in in experiences so that you can create that contrast. You can't create that kind of contrast in 30 minutes or an hour or a morning you're not going to look at a bathtub differently after you know a quick walk around the block. So that to me, I think is very powerful in both of your stories. I wonder if there's any advice you might have for future innovators out there.
Grady 35:10
just getting warmed up. I'm like, now that now that, like, much stuff, I want to talk about my Can we start over?
35:21
innovation?
Grady 35:25
Let me try to answer your question that way. And then Jared, if it fits great, if not, I can answer it again. But it's just a few things, I think, are really important. And I think this is important for innovators. Sure, for people. And when I say innovators, I mean, I think people who want to make a difference, who want to have an impact, who want to be challenged and want to have to grow to the occasion. So I think it's both about the kind of person an innovator wants to become and the kind of impact they want to have, who said it earlier. And when you're younger, I think you think having good ideas is the trick, right? But we all know, that's not actually the trick. Because often ideas come out of the system that we're in, and we just don't realize that I think what's really important and you were describing this is how do we become the kind of people that can what we like to say, sort of work from the margins, right? How can you sustain the creative tension at the edge of the system and actually see what it is. And if you can sustain that position long enough, and hold the creative tension, where you are sort of one step in the system and one step out, where you have a distance, personally, professionally and relationally, that you have the ability to challenge the system and its assumptions, right, right. I think that's one of the most valuable things, anybody who wants to be creative and have an impact and live a whole full life and create that kind of community that really matters. Quote, I wanted to share it from Martin Luther King, Jr, who talks about the people are going to save the world of the transformed disciplined nonconformists. That's the language he uses to talk about the kinds of people that the system can't co OPT the kinds of people that have a voice and a vision that are able to work upstream. And the whole culture of going one way. And it may be against something you believe or something you value, something you want to change, who are the leaders that are gonna be able to take a stand against that current right
Jared Simmons 37:07
now? Right, right.
Grady 37:08
We already talked about today being in a community, but also I think it takes being willing to be different, being willing to be disagreed with being willing to really say what you think it's that creative tension? It's a little bit that contrast. I'm like, I'm sort of in it, but I'm not of it. Right? It's that contrast where I think the really meaningful ideas for how our society who needs them so badly right now, ideas for how are we going to operate after a pandemic? How is work going to change in ways that are going to be more human? How do we bridge so many political and racial divides in our community? It just seems so overwhelming. We need leaders who I think like King said, are willing to be nonconformist, and have the discipline have the perspective to do that. And I think a lot of that will happen in the private sector in more traditional settings of innovation, I think a lot of that it's going to happen in our civic spaces and our social spaces and our community spaces. So that would be my encouragement for an innovator would be get to the margin, get to the edge, find the artists that are speaking to your world, find musicians. jerris sounds like that's a space for you. Find the people that disagree. Find the people you disagree with, because it's going to be on that edge where those contrasts become clearer, and your role becomes clear. That's great,
Haley 38:26
thank you. A visual of this that Grady told me once that is stuck with me is that if you're within the system, it's you're in the river, you're just being swept along. But if you can find a way to sit by the edge of the river, then you can feel the current under your feet, you can see it and you can have that perspective. My advice for innovators, maybe say, like crazy said, really simply it's just cultivating opportunities for contrast, and trying to step on this kind of have a different vantage point on your life, if you were to step outside of it, and see the ways that you're being formed. So often, we're formed by things we can't even see. I mean, the ways that our use of technology is forming us without us even being conscious of it. It's so important that we then create opportunities to be intentionally formed, what I what we call counter formation, but what are the disciplines the practices that I'm going to bring into my life intentionally, to operate in contrast to the things I can see and can't even see? Because we can find a lot of inspiration and imagination at those intersections. And so if I'm spending my whole day talking on zoom, that might look like once a month having a day of solitude or silence where I don't speak and I go on a walk or I read and that is in contrast to the norm in my life, but that's where we get refueled where we can find rest and where our imaginations can gain new capacities. for that type of innovative work that's going to be required to make the changes we need to see in this world.
Jared Simmons 40:05
Wow. Thank you. That's great advice for innovative and great advice for me personally. So thank you both for that. I appreciate your time. And so exciting to reconnect with you, Haley and to meet you, Grady. Sincerely, you know, we're kindred spirits. I really want to thank you both for being on today and look forward to staying connected. And hopefully, maybe we can have you guys back to cover all those things that went off in Grady's head that, that we didn't get to today, but thank you both for your time. I appreciate it.
Haley 40:35
Thanks for having us, Jared. This was a blast.
Jared Simmons 40:37
Likewise.
Grady 40:38
Yeah. Thanks, Jared. It's been a really good time. I really appreciate it.
Jared Simmons 40:41
All right, take care.
Jared Simmons 40:47
We'd love to hear your thoughts about this week's show. You can drop us a line on Twitter at OUTLASTT LLC, or follow us on LinkedIn where we're OUTLAST Consulting. Until next time, keep innovating. Whatever that means.