Hi there, welcome everyone and we are here for season 2. I know there's been a bit of a gap but you know what that's always something which is worth, if you are going to get something really interesting there is probably something worth waiting for. So today is that first episode and I hope you are all excited because I'm really looking forward to this conversation with my first guest for the season, who better than Saul Kaplan to kick it off and Saul just you know you've read his bio. So he is someone who's really the founder of the Business Innovation Factory.  So I kind of really thought that that was quite interesting but yeah and this is really going to be the crux of our conversation and from there it is going to be many things because Saul really likes to talk about many different things and so do I so you know we are going to end up talking about Heaven knows what. So with that welcome, welcome everyone and I'm so delighted to welcome Saul to this particular show. So Saul why didn't you tell us a little about you know some of the inflection points of your career you know what are those two or three things that really shaped your point of view. Well first of all Abhijit, wonderful to see you. I think Saul just likes to talk a lot. It's really great to be with you, honored to kick off your second season. I really describe myself as a hopeful innovation junkie but I'm very focused on a part of the innovation conversation which is transformation. I respect all of the effort put into incremental improvements and all of the innovation work that makes the way the world works today a little bit better but I think we live in a time that screams for transformation. So my entire life and career has been about how do we make transformation safer and easier to manage, never easy but can we do it systematically and that's where the word factory comes in around fifth right because we need to be able to produce new ventures, new business models and I'm particularly focused on the ones that could actually change society for the better. So I'm happy to mix it up with you today. So you know when people sort of think about innovation and transformation these are words which I used quite a lot and so I always find it worthwhile to ask people when you say you know innovation what does that really mean and what does transformation mean for you? So describe the words and then we'll take it from there. No I think it's important to start there because that's one of our biggest problems when you say the word innovation or you throw out words like transformation right everybody you talk to you know if you talk to 10 people you get 20 different definitions and I don't know how we organize for innovation and get people and capabilities aligned to change the value equation unless we agree on what we mean by innovation. So for me very simple innovation is a better way to deliver value a better way to deliver value emphasis on the delivery. If it's not an innovation to me unless it actually solves a problem in the real world for a human right then it qualifies in my book as an innovation don't confuse it with invention right we invent a lot of things I love that society is very obsessed with inventing new technology new tools and new approaches I hope we never change that but inventing something new doesn't make it an innovation in the real world working to solve problems so I've been very focused on what does it mean to deliver better value and I've always been focused on the business model as what our friend Alex Osterwalder calls you know the unit of analysis we have to learn to think in terms of our business models whether we're a business or any other institution and I actually think we need to think that way as individuals and I'm sure we'll dig into that a little bit. Yeah because you know I've shared you know some of the links I've shared the link of your book and I've shared you know some of the articles and the business model innovation factory the book is there so highly recommend that you guys take a look at this and there are of course you know two articles and I was in particular you know that's what got me thinking that obsession with scalability must end because you know when you think about all startups what do they really think of they don't really think of serving one person they want to say that when is it that you know my product or service is going to be used by everybody if not all around the world certainly all across the country so in my book dreamers and unicorns I talk about you know moving from dreamer to unicorn you achieve that when everybody in your country geographical boundary knows about your product uses the product and you know your product has evolved to be able to sort of encapsulate such a large user base but you kind of seem to disagree with that why. Yeah well first of all what I and I learned this right the hard way right lots and lots of years as a road warrior consultant where leaders in the executive suite bang their fist on the table and said we want to transform you know we right and then they went back to their office and then the teams that we work with over time ended up doing important but incremental things to the current business model not changing the entire business model and one of the major reasons why we don't do transformational things even though we might have the idea to do it the reason it never gets off of the whiteboard is because we're obsessed with scale you start to get questions and we all know these questions right we get 8,000 questions right about what does it look like at scale right what's the return on investment how long is it going to take to get payback right we think we can analyze our way to something transformational I learned the hard way and I had to completely reinvent myself we'll talk a little bit more about this but I learned the hard way that you cannot analyze your way to transformation it's a generative act you have to explore your way there now I learned how to to make predictions and to do fancy spreadsheets in order to get a nickel you know from someone to invest in my projects we all learn how to do that but if you watch entrepreneurs and I've been watching my whole life nobody ever gets their business model right on the first try right even the most successful entrepreneur puts the spreadsheet together tries to raise the nickel right with a fancy plan with numbers about scale in the future and then when it hits the brunt of customer contact it's in the real world right most entrepreneurs I know that have been successful it's the third fourth fifth try before they land on a business model that might be scalable so if we start too soon being obsessed with scale and we have to answer questions to funders and stakeholders about the 8 000 reasons why right I don't think this will work or until you can tell me with certainty what scale looks like I'm not giving you a nickel right when we live in a world then that to do something transformational requires you to imagine it render it in the real world and then worry about scale so there's a time to worry about scale but we can't use it to kill ideas before they ever get off the drawing board so I think we have to put new models into the market and allow them to emerge and it's the learning that we do in the real world and the data we get from that experience that starts to create the evidence or the proof that gives us more confidence to invest more of our time and to invest more dollars in scale so there's a time for scale and share taking right and there's a time for the generative piece where you're trying to bring something wholly new in the world that can actually change society and do something truly transformational and I've been trying to build the tools and the mindsets and models to get more people comfortable with I use the technical term trying more stuff can we get our ideas faster off the drawing board out into the real world so that we can prototype them and see if they start to work and then worry about scale once we have something that's actually scalable instead of sitting back in our offices in our conference rooms analyzing with with decks to the cows come home only to learn that once we put it into the real world it isn't going to work and change the value equation so why did we spend all that time worrying about how to scale it so I think our obsession with scale is getting in our way and killing innovation and then the last thing I'll say on this is I actually think it's worse than that it isn't just stopping us from innovating and putting new models in the world which it's certainly is it's leaving too many people behind around the world because we have this obsession with scale that says one model wins and it's a war to see which one of these models is going to scale you know to be the king of the mountain right that's the world we lived in during the industrial era right and it's been true and those models don't work for everybody and so we leave more and more people behind we need an environment there will always be large models that have scaled but we need the generative process to allow new models to emerge and we have to stop leaning against that or we're never going to get the transformation that I think we all want to need in society and around the world you know one of the questions here you know which has come up here from you know listener question thank you very much for that I mean the question that they're looking at is and I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit the question is that you know is innovation something when you are trying to create value that's necessarily something that's going to take time is that why you should first figure out the value question before you think of the scale question is that what you are recommending well you have to separate it I I spent a lot of time with leaders like trying to get them to think differently about incremental innovation things that we do to improve the model we're already in right the way a business works the way an industry works the way a school works the way a hospital works right that kind of innovation can be more predictable we can do the spreadsheets for those we can side between project a b or c that's what we learned how to do right some do it better than others right but if you want to do transformational work right that will not work because think about it by definition the more predictable it is the more certain it is the less likely that it's truly transformational if it's going to be transformational you have to allow it to emerge and that takes time so we need a different set of metrics on how we make sure that we're making progress towards transformational new business models the existing metrics that we use for incremental innovation don't work we need a different set of skills and tools and I'll talk to you about what I call the three superpowers the things I had to learn to do as a scientist MBA it worked pretty well in that obsession with scale error it doesn't work so well in the transformational error so I've had to learn an entire new set of superpowers things like human centered design rapid prototyping and storytelling and engagement which is what I call the three superpowers of transformation and we can unbundle those because I think they're really relevant to the skills we need as individuals and as companies and organizations and as communities as we try to render the future that we all want to need around the world so I'm going to sort of ask you a sidebar question which is that you know a lot of people talk about an MBA becoming irrelevant is that true do you think that's what it is or is it that MBA needs to itself evolve because businesses and the models are evolving so what is your take on this yeah I mean I've come full circle on this as I as I've reinvented myself right and I've learned about the life skills of reinvention that I then apply to enterprises and to communities but I learned it in enterprises right because I grew up you know working for large companies consulting to large large companies right and so I do think that you can learn to do it but you've got it you've got to approach it differently with a different mindset not sure I answered your question well give me the give me the note of that question again and so you know if you had to really um if you didn't have an MBA would you do it would you sort of invest so thank you I I have an MBA and the superpowers it gave me which well I'm going to talk about new superpowers we need I didn't leave the old ones behind right so that the superpowers I got I needed as a scientist I had no clue how resources and people and strategies moved through companies and enterprises I mean I had no idea what that was about and I had no idea about financial modeling you know and and how to make that work at every scale of an operation so I'm glad I have those superpowers but those superpowers are not the core superpowers necessary to do transformational work to design compelling new business models that have the have the capacity to change systems which is what we what we all want and need so I think it's a both and I often joke if I could do it again you know if you force me right you know I'm glad to have both sets of skills now you know but I'd probably go more towards the MFA you know where I could learn human-centered design and rapid prototyping and how to imagine the future in a compelling way and engage people to involve involve themselves in that future so that we can increase the chances of doing it so I think those things are critical for transformation and I don't see how you get there with just the pure MBA skills now a lot of MBA programs are recognizing that and they're working really hard to change it as are the MFA programs that are coming the other way you know trying to build the analytical organization change management like those kinds of skills you know that are necessary for transformational change so we'll see who wins that race sure and it seems if I were to sort of you know summarize the idea that you talked about it seems that you know earlier the way the world was you know it is the hard skills which is how do you analyze how do you sort of create financial models etc all of that seem to you know give you a competitive advantage in the world of business but now as the world of business itself is changing a lot some of the software elements like you know human-centered design rapid prototyping or storytelling you know these are the software elements that seem to become far more important because there isn't a definitive path and that I think is potentially the shift but you know this was can I can I with with respect you know kind of push back on that um whenever anybody and so you I'm not signaling you out here when any whenever anybody uses the the dichotomy of hard versus soft skills I immediately challenge it you know and if you really get me started we'll have to spend the whole rest of the hour on it right these aren't hard versus soft skills the connotation of that is these are the ones that are important they're the hard skills these are the soft fluffy skills you know that we need over here that's not true they're both superpowers you use those superpowers in order to change the world to build new businesses right to build new business models right and to think of them as hard versus soft I think is the wrong way to think about it I think we have to think about competencies and superpowers that we need in a very rapidly changing world and I would argue that it's what you called soft skills that are the hard skills today and the and the others are really the soft skills that you need to of course we need a financial model right or else we're not going to be able to have the resources necessary you know to scale our models right but you don't start with that you start with what's the proposition in the real world what are you trying to change what's the job you're trying to do for a customer and it's those those skills of human centered design and rapid prototyping and storytelling that's the only way we're going to transform anything so to me they start to look like like harder skills to get and to build and sustain than the skills of analysis and creating strategic insights from lots of data which are important I'm glad I have those superpowers but I really don't I really bristle when those skills are called the hard skills I hope you don't mind no not at all I mean you know because I spent my bulk of my work is really working in the soft skills sort of space because so for me I realize that those are much more difficult to teach you know they are easy to learn because you know learning puts the responsibility on to your own self teaching is somebody else's responsibility and by by weight is the objective to teach or is the objective to have new practices that we can use to innovate and transform with right if the objective is to teach like okay I might debate you on that but but the way to think about this is what does it mean to build a new superpower and I would tell you getting somebody like me who's a scientist MBA to reinvent to someone who's about human centered design right at the at the core right let me tell you that's that might be easy to get me to understand the concepts in a classroom not so easy to do in the real world right reinvention is hard like those skills are really hard to do and yet they're the most important skills and why a lot of innovation isn't happening so well we have one of our viewers frame says I love it when you say superpower you know so he really likes it and yes I mean how do you distinguish between superpower and competency are they sort of used interchangeably or I don't I don't but I'm trying to make it personal right because when I wrote the book I did I fell into the same trap I wrote the first chapters about enterprises right I by then I'd extended enterprises to beyond companies you know to include all institutions because we can come back to this if you want right it isn't just companies that have business models that are straight jackets by design that's what they were designed to do they weren't designed for transformation right and so if you want to reimagine a business model a whole business model not just a component of one right you're going to have to get a lot better at that and that's what I've spent my whole career and life doing and the reason I use superpowers is I made that the last chapter in my book right people have business models too and what I've learned along the way is if we don't learn how to reinvent ourselves right we're never going to reinvent companies enterprises and then we can go up to communities and society it starts with us so superpowers are interchangeable in my mind with competencies they're the power to do something and and superpowers are the most important ones we all have lots of competencies organizations every company I know although what happens when you go into a company I mean I asked them for their competencies never mind superpowers if I say superpowers they you know they throw me out right but if I say if I use the word competencies they they get it right and I asked them to give me a list of their their core competencies and they hand me their org chart and I'm like no I didn't ask you for your org chart I don't want to know your power structure and what functional silos you have you know in your enterprise I want to know what superpowers what competencies you have and you know what most companies can't answer the question they don't have a clear view a shared view of what their superpowers are and if you don't have that how are you ever going to transform your business model because a business model is made up of superpowers core competencies the ones that really drive value and then a whole bunch of enabling competencies like we know how to order paper clips you know for the desk yeah okay we have a a competency to do it I'd hardly call that a superpower that drives value in the enterprise but yet when you get to customer experience and how we put the customer into our business models at the core and how we design to change the value equation for a customer that gets really core and those things are really hard those are the ones that are hard to change most of the early innovation was on the you know how do we buy paper clips cheaper and faster right now we're getting to the real stuff so now it gets interesting Oh when you sort of really think back on your journey you know what got you started about this whole thing about human-centered design because really the crux of and and maybe you know you should explain this for the benefit of all of us that you know when you say human-centered design what does that really mean for you that you start with the customer is that what it is or do you start with the human being you start with a societal issue that you should be looking at what's your initial point so I'll give you a little bit of the context of how I got here so you know again scientist MBA working in corporate America you know playing what a share-taking game even though we talked about transformation right we were trying to strengthen our business model we weren't trying to change the business model right and I kept wondering what is it going to take if we really had to transform or if we wanted to proactively transform to you know reshape the industry we were in we used to use those words a lot in consulting right you know like you know how do we become industry shapers right you know was language that we used for a lot of years so I left industry right and then I was in consulting where all of my clients were large companies and then I came back to my home state here in Rhode Island in the state smallest state in the country and I made the mistake of becoming an accidental bureaucrat I actually went into government right the governor at the time in my state came from the business world and he made the mistake of putting me into our economic development agency first as the number two guy he went back to wall street and then I joined his cabinet and became an accidental bureaucrat it changed my entire view of what innovation is all the years previously I saw innovation through the lens of an enterprise a company my clients for the first time I saw innovation through the lens of the people who live in our community consumers students citizens patients right and I started to think about the business models that these companies and institutions these were business models that have been around a hundred years this is how a university works you know this is how a company in the pharmaceutical industry works or in the drugstore industry like that model you had been developed a long time ago and we've been innovating for a long time within the constraints you know of that model when we live in a world where we need transformation and new business models so I live right next door to Rhode Island School of Design one of the world's you know leading you know design institutes and I have a lot of friends you know that are designers and I watched what they did right you know Mr. Scientist MBA with all my analytical tools and superpowers they had a different approach to problem solving right I watched them see it through the lens of the some of a person right and really understanding their experience and then having the guts to imagine a different model right to help that customer right rendering it in a prototype they they had no fear of rendering low fidelity models of what they were trying to do right and designing it and in an iterative generative way getting to something that was really exciting you know it became and emerged as a new design in the marketplace so I said I need that superpower right because if I had that superpower right combined with my business and science skills I could apply them to design a business model something they weren't doing they were designing all kinds of stuff and I said what if we could design a business model the same way and I started to build the tools and the methodology to do that so for me human-centered design represents a couple of things one what I call changing your lens you will never transform anything if you see the opportunity set through the lens of your current business model you will if you use that lens you will design things that fit into that business model right that straight jacket that that that constrains and controls what how you work right what the rules are how you behave it drives the cultural norms right it's all based on these models that have been in existence for a very long time the first step in any transformation process is to see the opportunity set not through the lens of the enterprise you identify with or you're in right or your profession or whatever your model is but to see it through the lens of someone else and I think the customer is the right anchor right to actually see the lived experience not through the lens of your enterprise that's the only way you're going to see what the real job to be done is not what you think the job to be done is but what they know the job to be done is and what the pain points are in their experience now I can start to imagine a business model but if you do it from the constraints of your current business model right it's not going to be anything more than an incremental change if you want to transform the customer experience you need a new model so you need the conditions and tools you know to do that which is why I always tell leaders transformational change is very different than incremental change in innovation you need to organize it differently and you need a whole different set of tools human centered design is the first fundamental superpower because it gives you the luxury the blessing of seeing the opportunity set in a new fresh way that you don't see when you wear the glasses or the lenses of the way your current business model works so so let's take an application of this idea and when you look at education and you know specifically higher education when you look at it who is the customer who who should it be designed should it be designed for the people who are paying the fee and therefore you know are the customer or should you say that you know they eventually get absorbed into the business world or something if let's say if you're looking at it from the lens of an MBA or a business school or are you sort of taking a broader picture and saying they should be able to impact the society in which the business is operating in which case you know that's a very different lens how do you come to the conclusion which one is right yeah great question great question Abhijit the and I have this discussion and it often takes a very long time it's amazing to me how bogged down we get in that very simple question of who the customer is right because immediately what happens is depending on where you sit in the organization you will say you know particularly in a large enterprise right somebody you know but what they'll do is they'll start naming stakeholders right in the value network right right so and they'll say our job is to you know is to compel this stakeholder group the investors you know the suppliers the distributors I believe that you should center in on who we're trying to solve a problem for the end user and that's the customer right I grew up in the pharmaceutical industry right it's a classic example right you know they're doing a little bit more but they still have a very long way you know to be customer centric in my view right because somebody else pays the bill right because all the other stakeholders are necessary in order to deliver value to the consumer and this is why more and more people are being left behind by one size fits all models we get further and further away from the real customer and what the real purpose is in the first place right of what we're trying to do which is create solutions right for a customer so the pharmaceutical industry is trying to create a solution that's supposed to be for me when I need that to take better care of myself or to treat myself when I get sick but all the other stakeholders in that value network right that that influence that decision maybe control that decision more than I think is necessary when we'll come back to that right I think we've got to get more I think we have to unleash more personal agency right and empower the consumer again and the good news is the technology is emerging so fast and the tools are emerging so quickly that we can organize we can self-organize I think the biggest trend right now and the thing that's bringing institutions to their knees and there are examples of this every week is what I call self-organized purposeful networks self-organized purposeful networks right and it's organic it starts with the end user right and it emerges this way and enterprises have been incredibly slow right to harness this trend and pretty soon that trend is going to overtake them right because we're going to command the tools necessary to organize networks and to map products and services to the experience we want and need so you mean you're absolutely right and education is a great one right to just answer the question more simply the student is the customer I mean that's why we're there other stakeholders are critical right to delivering value right some some things are more critical than they really are when you look at new technologies coming into the marketplace and they're very slow to embrace it right this is why we don't change because people in a business model right or people in a profession that went to school for a very long time to do something right and have degrees from fancy places right think they're the experts right and what we're becoming more expert in our own lives and able to grab the information grab the tools grab the support configured in a way that aligns with our lives and this is the pressure that's going to force large enterprises to transform themselves faster which we which we really need so you know we've got two quick questions and you partly answer the first one which is Sanjeev Seigl wants to know how do we know what the clients want when they're actually used to the legacy working system you know so that's the only thing they have experienced so what is the right way to understand what is right for the client or customer well in my world you use the magic words client and customer right right and so a lot of the work I've done has been focused on trying to help enterprises do the things we're talking about today right my entire life I have every black and blue mark you can possibly imagine trying to convince leaders of very large enterprises right to change to change it all never mind to transform right and there's a whole industry as you know right and the problem I had is I was I my business model the work we did was dependent on enterprises paying the bill to get the services I had to offer right and then I kept scratching my head and saying you know what like they're not adopting these solutions fast enough therefore we're not changing society fast enough so now I'm in the now I'm literally pivoting Biff from sponsored projects we've been in business for 16 years we've done 70 really amazing projects all sponsored by enterprises very few of which made it all the way through the process to a transformational business model that can now emerge in the marketplace and maybe some of that was we weren't good enough but I'm sure a lot of it was the obstacles to change and transformation in the enterprise so we're pivoting from sponsored projects to self-initiated projects now a smaller portfolio projects where we pick a design challenge that we are passionate about solving we use the tools and methodology we've developed over 16 years and we design new ventures right so we're becoming entrepreneurial again we're going to launch new ventures we've got our first one all the way all the way into the prototype phase already it's in the maternal health space it's called Luna you and it's a beautiful design challenge the pain points are so obvious the research and evidence is so clear that unleashing agency and empowering women right to take better care of themselves can create better health outcomes but we live in a healthcare system that wasn't designed for that right it was designed for when we get sick and have disease and heck pregnancy isn't even a disease so we built a personalized well-being platform to enable women to give her the information the support you know and the tools she needs to be empowered to improve her own outcomes and then use the medical system when something goes wrong to be available when there's an emergency right and so we're integrating with the system but we're dropping a new model into the system that is wired differently than the way most businesses are in the healthcare market is it then you know what it seems to me is that if you empower the customer or the consumer the consumer creates a path and then you build a business model around that is that another way of putting it or have I got it all wrong you you identify a challenge right I like to pick the ones that are really systems challenges big complex you know systems challenges and then you understand the experience of the end user in today's system and you immediately start identifying the pain points in that experience this is who they hire today right this is where they go to get product service information right this is what their experience is doing Matt right and there's no shortage of pain points in every one of these social systems whether it's education healthcare you pick the industry we can easily identify the pain points and then we can start to say what's their job to be done how do we now imagine a new business model first conceptually you know so first on the whiteboard but it isn't worth spending you know a very short amount of time these companies that spend years designing something right trying to convince themselves that it'll give them a predictable result it's crazy right they should be taking stuff off of the whiteboard in a napkin sketch putting it into the real world to see if that model could actually render change at a small scale you know before they grow we got to get much faster at doing doing this kind of experimentation which is the second superpower right like I learned how to do it in a big company enterprise market you never do anything unless you have the evidence base that you should do it and you can show the economic returns of what it looks like at scale right that's how you pick between project a b c or d that's how my projects got funded by enterprises that's how projects get funded within enterprises or institutions right but you've got to be able you know to unleash and invest in and and move early stage ventures new business models that represent transformational ways to change it and prototyping is the key difference we're used to doing you know pilots in industry I've got an idea right I've got it out there in a pilot with a you know 100 people and I'm once I put it out there I'm testing that model and how it works with 100 right to get more confidence that I can go to a thousand ten thousand you know 10 million prototyping is different prototyping takes a low fidelity concept off the whiteboard into the real world first it's a low fidelity prototype literally bubble gum and bailing wire right and you're seeing whether your concept of a model could actually work in as close to a real world environment as you can render it and then you once it's working you learn in real time and then in a generative way you start moving to make it work so it's not an analysis to see after a six month pilot did it or didn't it work it's a period of prototyping where you're changing the model on the fly to get to something that works it's a generative design process and it's a real super power because I know from my enterprise life right good luck trying to get permission you know from a senior leader and the resources necessary to do it when your entire model and all the financial metrics and tools are driven towards predictability this is why we don't change our business model so you know when I sort of draw so the image that was coming to my mind when you were describing this is you know when I do let's say I do a sketch note or something so I kind of do a little layout you know with pencil and they're kind of say oh I think the font is too big so if I put this much of space for the title it's not going to leave enough for all the ideas they sort of shift it to the side it looks tilted then you kind of say that okay I've done that I mean I seem to have taken up all the white space so let me just knock off what I can simplify it so it is this iterative process is that you know how it is I love this because it let it takes me right to the third superpower you know which I call storytelling and engagement and I smile because I've seen your graphic illustrations you have a superpower my friend right you know how to take complex conversations and help visualize them that's one of your superpowers not your only one but it's one of them I can't do it right you know like you see if you see one of my drawings you know you'd laugh here's what storytelling and engagement means in the old world it was push marketing top down right we have a department a PR department that controls the storytelling and the messaging you know we have a marketing and communication set of departments they control the messaging both in the organization and out of the organization transformation doesn't work that way transformation works when you can integrate stories that are works in progress right they are visualizations of and all kinds of ways to create a story using different storytelling channels and modes that helps somebody enter the conversation and then you build on it you do graphic illustrations I've seen you do it in several conversations I've been in that picture you create has incredible meaning for those of us that were in the conversation and then it intrigues people who see it to say what was that conversation about I like to be in that conversation and then you use other superpowers you have to kind of reel us into the conversation using other channels now we're having a real conversation organically with people that are motivated to be in the conversation change management for transformation is different than change management for incremental change change management for transformation means you get really really good at storytelling in lots of different formats I don't care if it's music or dance or narrative or drawing pictures right everybody creates an emotional connection to a different kind of storytelling and if you can engage me in the production of the story and you allow me in when it's unfinished business something enterprises hate right because they don't want it to go out to the marketplace until it's gone through eight levels layers of bureaucracy and they approve it in the 21st century everybody in the enterprise is a storyteller everybody uses internal and external channels to share the story through their lens and that's how you grow a movement more than a traditional company if you want your company to feel more like a movement where customers and the community is driving engagement and expanding it right you're going to have to learn the superpower of storytelling and engagement and it isn't traditional marketing PR and comms I can tell you that how did you talk to me about the way you learned the art of storytelling what was that like you know talk to me about the exact process of building that skill yeah so and I approached all three of the superpowers the same way because they literally were human center design rapid prototyping storytelling and engagement where what I call the three superpowers of transformation and it was personal for me the way I got there is the way I get everywhere right I only know and can really understand and act on something when I embody it myself it's got to be personal right because when I make it personal and this is the secret of agency and empowerment right if it's my story I'm going to be a lot more engaged into it than if it's a story that you're trying to shove down you know and and get me to you know to participate in so I knew I needed these new superpowers because I could see that my the superpowers I got from the early part of my career were not working in the transformational space I used to think that you could proselytize to get people to change to something significant right if I just keep talking enough like it's pretty obvious I can you know I can I can talk forever right and I'm reasonably smart and I do great decks right so I thought if I just and and I use what I call the Jewish aunt theory of management right my Jewish aunt theory of management I will nudge you until you change I used to think that I could get you to change with those tools I can't those tools don't work to get people to change the only thing that works to get people to change is when they can see themselves in the story themselves right so I had to learn these superpowers so I'll answer your question about storytelling but it was the same for the other two right and it was hard for me because I'm a classic marketing guy I mean my claim to fame when I was in industry before I went into consulting I worked at Eli Lilly and company right a big pharmaceutical company great company you know still a great company this day in an industry that's been consolidating like crazy right I learned competency thinking starting there they were way ahead of their time in thinking about competencies versus just the org chart but when I when I launched Prozac I was very clear yeah that was my big claim to fame and Lilly I got the opportunity as a young leader to work on the US introduction of a product called Prozac and I usually say that it was successful despite us but it was not a share taking game it wasn't the classic right and analyze our way to the future we it was a market making game right it required these new superpowers right and that's where I first learned this the difference in share taking and market making what does it mean to be a market maker versus a share taker who are the market makers how do I learn that how do I teach others that how do I build you know education and training programs that appreciate this so this has been a through line you know of everything we've done including every model that we design at Biff you know was being uh was was being able to do that and not as a bolt-on to an old model I didn't take these superpowers and just say I'm keeping the same model I used to have to solve problems I made these the core and then I took the old ones and I kept them on board as enabling capabilities I changed the core capabilities which reinvented me by reinventing me I could now start building tools and methodologies and taking on project work to help other enterprises do it and now I'm coming back full circle to say I think we know how to do it I think we can pick our own design challenges and take new ventures out to the marketplace so we can start to see these kinds of changes happen they're an integral part of what I do every single day but it didn't happen overnight I had to learn how to do it and to the very first conversation we had Abhijit right I didn't learn it in school right there wasn't a classroom to teach me how to do it I learned it by doing it by hanging out with others who knew how to do it by building a purposeful network which is what we did at this right we've got a 16 year network of a lot of people that are on that same learning curve right that wanted to run it to embrace those same superpowers and now that network is far and away our biggest asset right because there are our folks who are innovation junkies you know in a network some more tightly engaged than others right that have all been listening watching engaging importing those tools back into their lives to their enterprises and back home into their communities so in some sense you know Sol I believe that a really powerful story that you write you know whatever that might be big or small a really powerful story is the one which actually changes you in the process of writing you know hundred percent people ask me every day one of the things I I've done you've seen you've been witness to this and look at I didn't do it at first when social media first started right my team was saying you know you gotta we gotta play and I resisted it like any dinosaur resist change you know I resisted it I was not the early adopter until I think they got me on Twitter first right but then I recognized the power of social media most people use it because they think they're promoting themselves right I don't use it to promote myself at all right I use it because it's like going to school every day I have curated a network around the world you're in it and every day I have people provoking me hey Sol that was a good idea if you thought of this you know do you know this person or I'm vulnerable enough to say Sol that's a really bad idea that sucks don't do that let me tell you why right and I let it all come in I think you have to work out loud that's what storytelling is it isn't putting a pretty bow on something waiting until it's beautiful putting it out there you're having a press release at a big conference right and saying okay now look at us look at how great we are because then the crowd that's been watching what you've been doing behind the curtain right it takes them weeks weeks to take down things that companies have been planning for four years and if they had just started in an emergent way and built the crowd organically right they would have had much better success this is what the new model looks like this is why you've got to think in terms of your business model and innovation can't just be how to strengthen the model I already have it has to be a both and because no one leaves a core model right overnight this is a mistake and the premise of our very conversation if you're obsessed with scale in your head you think I've got a model it works good I know what my role is I'm respected right yep in that model and now you're talking about another model and when I take it all the way to scale it looks like I'm going to stop doing this model and then tomorrow I'm going to start doing this next one that's not how transformation works you got to keep peddling the bicycle of what you're doing today and then you got to carve out enough attention and resource and time to begin to explore and experiment with new superpowers so that you can put yourself in the position to determine whether and when it's time to reinvent to pull the trigger on I'm leaving this model behind and I'm going to this one and maybe that never happens but if you don't put yourself in the position to do it you're in trouble you're going to get Netflixed you're going to get disrupted just look at what happened over the course of this pandemic it is sad to me around the world how ill-prepared we were right the reason we were not prepared to do the things that we're only doing in the pandemic because we're constrained you know the old deal necessity is the mother of all invention we wait until it's too late and then we decide we need to change and I can't begin to share how much pain I've observed over the last year from people who weren't ready and the and folks that were the most behind in entering this new 21st century idea of the way we work are the ones that got hurt the worst and it is painful to watch we've got to do better than that but it takes time you can't scale it on day one it has to emerge organically and that's the rub isn't it?  Love it. A very short answer to that is I'm one of these odd people I suspect you might be too who doesn't want to set strategy one tactic at a time right you've got to have a view of the future what are you trying to do it can be like by next month or next year or five years you need to be planful but you also need to be able to throw the plan out the window right but that doesn't mean you don't have one right and so if you ask me on any given day I will tell you these are the things I'm trying to get better at today these are the things I'm trying to accomplish today that are core right not frivolous they're not just because you know I got another email you know that said I should do this that I don't just allow all the stuff to bubble up you know and then let the day to day stuff drive how I spend my day I have a plan that I go into it always gets blown to smithereens and that's okay but I'm cognizant if you ask me at the end of the day did I make progress on what I set out to do if I can't tell you that I made progress on that I'm going to double down on it tomorrow and the next day I'm going to keep in the front of my lens the things I'm trying to do the future I'm trying to create and I'm going to work towards it a lot of people will will say you know that you can tweak your way to transformation I do not believe you can I think you need a vision for the transformation that drives you and then you take small steps towards that vision that's different than tweaking randomly stuff in your current model right you can take small steps for both but one of them is surrounded by vision and one of them isn't when you look at you know the future what are some of the things you wish to accomplish you know in a in a three to five year time frame what skill you want to build what businesses do you want to build what changes do you want to see in your life what would you say yeah so it over the next three to five years and that's that's the right time horizon and when you get to be my age you know those three to five year time chunks really matter and so it really helps to to be planful about that in three to five years I think we will have created five new ventures at this they'll all be in this personalized well-being that measurably changes healthcare outcomes the first one will be in maternal health we've even got ideas of what the next four will look like we're changing the business model to go from sponsored projects to capture value to more of a venture studio vision you know where we're raising dollars to help finance the design and prototyping phases to by participating in the spinoff of these ventures and in there all the superpowers I've spent the last 15 years building are right at the core I've got to learn a couple of new ones right I I haven't been as close to the finance world I know enough to be dangerous but I haven't lived in that world and so I've got to build some superpowers there and so I'm having lots of conversations every day with those folks because no matter what you know there's going to be a meaningful part of every single day in my life that I'm doing that I do this kind of thing right that I'm just exploring I'm having what I call random collisions with unusual suspects or making a ruckus right I don't know what I'm going to learn until I have my next conversation and and there's a big piece of my day that I will that I weave that in because that's where the insights around the next superpowers I need to learn and strengthening the ones I'm trying to build on that's where they come from and you know what is a book that you repeatedly gone back to get inspired by oh god so many I'm an avid reader oh my goodness well you know I you know I would call out my friend uh John Hagel and John C. Brown my friends you know who wrote uh you know the power of pull you know the whole paradigm of from push to pull you know central to everything we've talked about right we grew up in a push top down world we're now in a world that where pull is at the core and we don't know how to do it you know we're at large we do not know how to live in that world and to thrive in that world build enterprises in that world and so there are a bunch of books you could read that would get you to that same place you obviously read mine it'll it'll give you some of the insights around those superpowers but that's a really good one so two questions you can ask me oh my goodness what uh well what are you taking away like I presume you're going to do one of your graphic illustrations to help you think about the conversation we just had and then share it I'm just guessing that that's something you might do so what's in your mind so I kind of like the idea of the three superpowers you know because that I think is very powerful for me that was a big one and this whole idea of you know the rapid prototyping um and you know for me also the idea that you can't sort of build a story and then present it it's something that you co-create in some sense with the protagonist themselves in this particular case you know it is the consumer so you sort of really work along with that that would be my takeaway from our conversation well what's that I look I look I look forward to it right I really do I'm sorry and I said that was one question do you have another one I get I get to ask another one right uh well give me your top of mind insights around how we how we do this globally right um you know how we think about this uh I think these network systems these new purposeful networks ultimately are global uh so uh what are you thinking as you listen to you know me sitting over here in America you know yacking about all this stuff so I think you know there are you know when you when you look at any change or any idea from the lens of a country you get bogged down by a whole lot of differences you know there are you know language or cultural differences and all that stuff so I think then in which case you know it becomes far more complex but when you look at it from a human lens you know what is it that matters to a human being I just think that then regardless of the country then it's a really a boundaryless concept I'm very sort of wedded to the idea of boundarylessness being one of the shifts five shifts that I talk about in my book but this is certainly the big one that when you look at it from a human point of view everything is really boundaryless because you then you and I are not very different we want similar things for ourselves and you know you want it to be a fair world you want equity you want justice etc all of that I mean then there are human ideals that you strive towards but thank you so I love that I just I would just say to you that nation states are probably one of the world's oldest business models and pretty intransigent so boundaryless is a really nice design challenge isn't it I love it thank you thank you so very much Sol I so appreciate you're doing this and you know it's I couldn't have thought of a better person to get episode one of season two thank you so very much for agreeing to be here and I will share that sketch note with you hopefully you'll like it sorry to put you on the spot my friend if you weren't planning on doing it now that's that's the Jewish aunt thing in me I guess that's that's the way it should be bye thank you so much for joining appreciate you're coming over and thanks a lot and I'll see you next week don't forget to tune in at 7 p.m next Wednesday uh uh India time because we have another really terrific guest who's going to come up you can't afford to miss that one bye bye


Hi, it's Bridget. Welcome to Sunday Morning Coffee with Bridget. I am waking up again this morning in Minnesota, my home state. Some of you who have watched me on Bridget inspired on Instagram or Bridget inspired on Facebook, you know that I've been traveling this week. I went to Texas, Houston mostly. I did spend a couple of nights in Galva, near Galveston in a gorgeous beach house. Yeah, I was there for the eclipse and the full moon, and I know that's insane. It was also pretty amazing the energy of the earth and we had a fight around the beach. Oh, and the water and the moonlight. Oh, it's just it was a lot of intensive infusion of clearing energy. And I'm still as is always with full moon energy, with the eclipse energy. I am definitely feeling that the aftershocks of that and it's what we'll see. We will see how things continue to push up to the surface as a result of initiating that kind of a clearing because that's basically what happens, you know, you initiate the clearing you invited in and it seems like oh, I'm good it's the phone is passed or the eclipse is passed or whatever astrological event is happening is passed and here I am. I'm like, oh, okay. I've heard pretty well. Well, guess what? It will push things up to the surface and you know what? That's absolutely okay with me right now. So I was thinking about when I came home yesterday and I came downstairs to my room and was putting some things away some card decks that I had brought in and journals and things in a book and I immediately noticed in the living room downstairs that the guinea pig cage was missing. Oh yes, we are one of those families that have had a guinea pig cage forever because there were two guinea pigs that we inherited from one of my oldest kids her friend and it was of course a sad sob story and in I think it was 2017 or 16 we got this guinea pig these two guinea pigs. Well, one of them um died about two years ago and the other one lived for like eight years, which I guess is a long time in guinea pig land and I noticed the cage was missing so I asked I said, hey What happened to the guinea pig?  I kind of felt a lot of relief I know this seems kind of silly like why Bridget? Why would you be so relieved when the guinea pig dies? Because it's been something that has had to have been tended to taken care of a responsibility a Duty an obligation long after my oldest kid moved out an inherited responsibility and we're gonna talk about that today as our topic for Sunday morning coffee that Relief of responsibility that sense of freedom that comes when something is taken off your plate and It just instantly feels lighter. I Can't explain it.  It's like that when they can drive themselves Then the responsibility shifts from you to an independence to them so it's this this this Change process from responsibility into independence and There's this freedom that comes with the release of responsibility So I was curious about this I was like Is responsibility a mindset a mind frame? Is it something we inherit? And My gut response was yes, it is something we learn it is a learned belief system or pattern of behavior which There is to some degree responsibility in everyone's life everybody Regardless of how small it is or how great it feels And I thought okay, then is Is that the reason then why people get stuck or feel stuck in their lives? Because as you know, I am in the middle of a great change a massive transition in my life and it is a long and slow unfolding process and it takes time for that kind of thing to happen and And Regardless of how fast the changes itself there is like I said with the full moon stuff and the eclipse stuff There are these after effects. There are it takes a while for things to push up to the surface to be addressed and dealt with And especially when your change is affecting and impacting people around you, which it often does That can create new challenges so this energetic I think of Responsibility is part of what we could blame if we need to blame something or point the finger at something like a cause It would be this response responsibility causes stuckness Because of the mindset you see the belief system about responsibility So some of you know that I work with divine feminine and I do it in just really beautiful archetypal ways and In that archetypal work it is this this idea of responsibility is more about Self-autonomy or the power word that's used is sovereignty an independent way of claiming power and moving through the world and doing what needs to be done by being you independent of the circumstances situations or other duties and and responsibilities around you This doesn't mean you avoid or negate those things it means that the way that you move through the world You are centered in your sovereignty And that makes a huge difference Because the energetic of responsibility in the divine feminine in the archetypal world is much more of a devotion in service to in Service for and with not because of this duty obligation pressure of the ego mind or Societal norms, but rather by choice of the sovereign person who is centered in her awareness of her knowing of what matters to her and Those relationships around her that could be seen or perceived as responsibilities to tend to In fact she the divine feminine receives this knowing that There is an opportunity for a beautiful devotion and service to those Relationships thus fulfilling what we would consider in the mind's eye or in our mental System of thinking our structure of thinking that is a responsibility. I am responsible Okay, so that's one sort of perspective about this The other is the responsibility piece is like the but I have to I Should I have to I should the I have to is I should where do those come from that? I have to do my homework before I go to bed or The I have to clean the kitchen After I make a meal or the I have to go to church Or I have to go to school who at some point in our lives we we have these I Have to I shoulds that come in and I have to my shoulds give us a perspective of How what we are doing or the way that we are approaching something or someone a relationship or a task It could be either is to say that There is an underlying resistance not even resistance, but an underlying desire to not do that There is a friction. That's right. That's a good word a friction between the task and or the relationship person and us and our core value in our heart our core value in our heart not our belief in our mind based upon the thoughts and the Passing down of other people's values our families or social structures our lifestyles etc. But Within ourselves in our hearts in our value system There is friction between that action or potential action that thought of action that per that that Comes in and the friction between that and your value of what you really would rather do instead Now it's not just about a system of I want to do this or I want to do that I'm only going to do what serves me. That's not what I'm saying at all This is about perception and understanding the nature in which you are going about your own life Is it from a set of obligations or responsibilities that feel heavy the energetic of responsibility feels really heavy And we have been trained to Utilize that almost like a shame tool or a guilt tool or a power trip from somebody that doesn't even exist anymore from that Grandmother or that parent etc. In your daily life And now here you are with the opportunity to be a sovereign queen sitting on your throne of center That's what we say in the archetypal world if you're more interested in it By the way, you're interested in that divine feminine archetypal work check out priestess presence on Facebook or priestess presence calm you can dig deeper into that again. That's priestess presence calm and Now here we are at this moment where for me it was the guinea pigs gone okay That is one less layer of responsibility that now is in my field Which lightens up then the evolution of the change and the transformation that I'm going through and it seems so little right? Like it's a peripheral thing. It's a guinea pig But the cage and location the cage is downstairs where my room is And it's in my living room space, which I want to which I have chairs for and Now it was sitting on this old dresser that I'd like to paint and use in my room and Bring some these beautiful big burnt orange chairs that I got from a friend of mine into the living room to create just a cozy sitting space for myself and I'm like creating space for me So when the guinea pig is not here anymore There's not a barrier or an obstacle in my physical form and then it caused me this morning as soon as I woke up the first day back in Minnesota They woke up had to put some chapstick on because my lips woke up dry this morning Come on. What is with the dry weather? And I have a humidifier just blaring next to me. Oh my gosh. I Missed the humidity of Texas.  I miss you too, Florida. Yes, I do. Although. I don't miss the weather delays, which is what happened yesterday again if you if you watch Bridget inspired on Instagram or Bridget inspired on Facebook you get to see all these photos and the beach reels that I made and the funny I watched a movie yesterday on the airplane coming back because we had like an hour delay sitting on the tarmac for a couple of different random reasons which was kind of funny, but also just like, yeah, okay figures and I watched Sex in the City the original movie, you know Carrie Bradshaw and the one where she and big were getting married and then he wasn't going to show up and there was this Whole miscommunication and so for six months They didn't talk and she was devastated and this whole thing like wouldn't get out of bed and all that And then the end they end up getting married at just a small little wedding and all that Because it turns out he really loved her. He just wasn't able to Do the whole big thing or he was just he had a lot of relationships. It's a whole thing. Anyway, so I'm sidetracked This is what it's like to just hang with me. Okay off on a tangent, but my point is this energy of Responsibility duty obligation does keep us stuck it does But it's us It is you and I that's doing that is our perception of that relationship our perception of That life situation that is what's keeping us stuck and we use responsibility as an excuse to stay stuck to stay stuck and Then we use the responsibility to To excuse our vices To excuse our addictions to excuse our poor behavior to excuse our lack of considerate Action or response to other people's needs we use it as a An out. Oh, I have to do this. Oh, I have to do that. We use it as an out When really it's not never an out. It's a temporary reprieve. It's a temporary reprieve It's like catching your breath and then having to go right back into the water and it's rough seas So if you can in any way open up your heart To the value of what the responsibility Represents to you and feel into it at the level of your value What you value what you value what you value what matters to you what matters to you what matters to you because that's going to Make all the difference in your energy and in your energetic field if you can lighten the load of responsibility and and and step in to those experiences circumstances situations or people with a Understanding of service or devotion Then it's going to make all the difference in the way you move through the world And it won't be a heavy duty or responsibility It will be a choice because even though it is a duty or responsibility. It is a choice You don't have to clean the kitchen before you go to bed Trust me those pots and pans will be there in the morning. That's what happens here. That's going to happen It's just a matter of when you manage or take care of it. It doesn't it's not like The world is going to fall apart or end But we make up these stories in our head that's exactly what's going to happen if I don't do it who will Stop doing it and find out And if the answer is nobody Then you know Then you know then you can make choices based upon the minimum That needs to occur or happen in order to maintain a level of flow in your life of energy So you're not just focused on doing some menial things some Just basic thing all the time and using that basic thing to avoid doing the deeper more meaningful work in your life It could be emotional work. It could be healing work You might better better spend that time journaling And allowing yourself to be aware of your own inner feelings To do some EFT or tapping to do some gentle yoga stretches To listen to a great song and journal while you're listening to that great song Things that can really support and promote your energy of wellness to encourage you to Explore more deeper what matters to you in your life So that you can create and co-create with God the creator source universe the life that you Truly are in most alignment with and you won't know when you are weighed down by responsibility But it's not responsibilities are not things that people put on you. They are projections or illusions. They're holograms. They are not actually Set in stone carved in stone, and I know some of you are yelling at me probably thinking well, but I have kids I do do I have four of them You want to go down with that you want to throw me throw down with that with me.  I'm speaking from experience. This is a message for me, too I have done this with my older children for sure and probably my youngest right now. Yeah and It doesn't help me or them it drives them nuts They feel stuck because of my sense of responsibility and I feel stuck because of my sense of responsibility Now whose issue is that really then you tell me all about how you're so responsible and have to be present for other people You just tell me all about that right now It's the way in which You operate from the value of what matters to you not the expectation of some old-ass story That was implanted from your grandparents to your parents to you. It's not about that show up and be present values sovereignty and service and A beautiful way so that the people that you're loving are free So that you who are you are loving you right so you are free and That is the magic So this is Bridget. Thanks so much for listening to Sunday morning coffee with Bridget I hope I've inspired your spirit today fills you with hope and encourage you to live your life It's your life after all and you get to live it just live it


We're so glad you're joining us on hope today and you know we know the purposes and plans of God always prevail, but it's so important for us to be in the presence of God and to seek His face.  I'm here with Tom Hollis and Anna Fry and Anna tell us about our guests because we're diving in deep about a little bit about purpose. We've got a great guest and it's so good to be with you on this gorgeous fall day in the Pittsburgh area. But let's say it is a very human thing to hold big dreams in our hearts and desire to do great things. But when we go about it the wrong way we end up exhausted, dissatisfied and confused. Well our guest today Kelly Needham will join us in just a few minutes for a conversation about why chasing dreams, finding your calling and reaching for greatness will never be enough. Oh Tom, we are excited about this conversation today. I'm very excited. I love it when people go and reach for everything that God has for them, but I also love it when we serve God day by day, Sydney just doing those things, plowing ahead. I've had transition times in my life where I've gone from doing everything that seemed like was world changing and then all of a sudden I'm working at a warehouse and I'm like okay, what do I do? How did I get here Lord? What do I do here? But God has a purpose and plan for every season. He really does and you know I just think about my own life of different things where it's like I'm like you Tom, I'm like okay like I don't know why I'm here Lord, but you know there's a purpose in everything and I think sometimes we get so caught up in the rat race of the world and we look at what the world is doing that we need to be reminded for those of us that are in Christ is about the kingdom of God and it is serving people so there may be a season where God calls you to be in the warehouse or maybe a season he calls you to be a stay-at-home mom. Whatever that season may be I think it is so important to have a God perspective so we can truly walk it out and have peace in it Anna because I think a lot of times it's just like this rustle and tussle in our spirit where it's like God's like no I have you here for a reason and a season and a purpose. Yeah absolutely I mean I think so many of us can relate to the tension we feel where so much of life is made up of ordinary moments and yet we know that God has given us something within us to be able to do extraordinary things and it's so how do we find that satisfaction in the dailiness of life? Well in her new book Purpose Fold Bible Teacher Kelly Needham shares why chasing your dreams finding your calling and reaching for greatness will never be enough. She has good and maybe surprising news for those of us who long to live into what we were made for so Kelly welcome to hope today. Thanks so much Anna I'm so happy to be here with you guys.  Yeah well I started in my early years of marriage where I actually felt like I was doing nothing interesting I was married to a man who was touring he was a Christian singer-songwriter so he's on stages preaching the gospel and I'm kind of behind the scenes folding the t-shirts running the merch table you know teaching people to use the credit card machine and just felt like well he seems to be doing the really cool significant things people are telling me every night how his music has changed their lives and well I went in on that type of significant activity in my life but I felt like my most of my day-to-day activity felt very meaningless and so that's really where I began to wrestle with this and I think even in seeing the ups and downs of our marriage and both of our lives getting to publish books and spending a lot of my time in the hiddenness of motherhood and just home making behind the scenes really neither situation being you know in the extraordinary moments or in the ordinary moments has fully satisfied my heart I'm really actually made for something more than that and I think even the celebrity culture we see around us testifies to it that you can achieve everything you ever wanted and still be unsatisfied we were actually made for something more than achievement and accomplishment we were made for a person and if we don't live for a noun we will just keep living for verbs and they will never be enough we'll keep trying to do things and it won't satisfy us so no it's not wrong to do those things but man if that's that's what our hope is in that if I get to achieve this thing do this thing finally have this role this job it's just it's never gonna fully satisfy we're gonna find disappointment on the other side if that's what we're hoping in yeah absolutely I want to read this quote from your book that I just absolutely loved you said we were made for nothing less than the infinitely glorious breathtakingly beautiful person of god himself we weren't made for dreams but for the divine we weren't made for a calling but for christ we weren't made for greatness but for god can you unpack that for us yeah uh Isaiah 43 I think says it best maybe my favorite where god is speaking to his people and he says I formed you for myself so when he looks at us and says this is what I made you for he doesn't say I made you to do this specific thing to live out this specific calling to do this specific x y z whatever it is I made you for me you exist for me that's what I think you see in Genesis chapter three where it says we're made in his image our existence is tied to a person not a set of activities and that's when we come alive when we understand that and I think the the way that we are being fooled which is why I titled my book that way is even in some of our christian cultural things we're looking to tasks to fulfill us we're saying no god made me to do this thing and and yes he may have gifted you in some really specific ways and intends for you to live those things out but he actually made you for himself primarily this is why Jesus says follow me he doesn't say come do these set of tasks he just says stay close to me I made you for myself and this is where we find a lot of freedom because not everybody even has the opportunity to choose what they would like to do I mean there are people in the world who are born with severe disabilities who don't have the opportunity or the option to pick and choose what type of purpose they in calling they'd like to live out there are people suffering in cancer treatment centers that the hard work they're called to is enduring sickness and treatment and that's like a full-time job or there are people who are caregivers there are people in extreme poverty in parts of the world if we preach the message that life comes alive when you can discover the purpose god made you you know put in you and then live it out there's just a whole group of people were isolating again it's not wrong to do those things but we were made for the very person of god and that means if at the end of our life we have very little to contribute to him we don't lose our sense of purpose we exist for him whether we have a lot to contribute or a little and again I find that to be such a freeing message and one that has grounded me through the unique seasons of releasing books and doing interviews like this and also when I walk downstairs and I have a lot of dishes to do and laundry to fold I still find meaning in that because I wasn't made for the task I was made for the person I do the task with and I do the task for and that has really brought so much purpose to my life in every moment well Kelly I really love that and I love that you know you are seeing and sharing with us both sides of that because I've again an organization that I was part of before there was this saying like we're ruined for the ordinary and the trouble was then when that's not there anymore all of a sudden the ordinary is what you have in front of you and and you know just how does someone who is very it can be a very driven person or has dreams and visions that are maybe don't seem to be there right now what does that person do with that ordinary day they find in front of themselves that's a great question an important one I think first it's good for us to know that you'll never escape the ordinary I mean you can do you can go do missions overseas you can you know get a job on a radio or a tv station like you all have or write books like I do but at the end of the day you still got to fold the laundry and you still got to call your mom and you still got to learn to get healthy habits in your life to have good sleep you know so the ordinary is never going to go away you cannot escape it it's just a part of life that God has been content to build into life and so it's part of his design I think it's good for us to receive it and embrace it and not see it as something evil and to escape and get away from you know Paul will say in the New Testament whatever you do whether you eat or sleep or drink I mean he's picking the most basic human functioning eating and drinking he says do it for the glory of God so he's trying to infuse the ordinary with meaning not escape it but I think the other thing that's really helped me is just paying more attention to the stories in my bible we tend to assign a lot of meaning to these stories because we see how God used them but if you really try and put yourself in the position of the people you're reading about so many of the things they're doing are not extraordinary they're doing fairly normal ordinary things they're enduring suffering they're having difficult conversations you know the New Testament exists because Paul wrote letters to people he wanted to encourage who are new in the faith I mean it's not anything astronomically you know most the time astronomically out in the out of the ordinary it's usually very ordinary things people did in faith what was set before them by God and he used it to advance his kingdom and so seeing that as I studied the bible more was really helpful for me to go okay I don't know how God's using this particular conversation with my neighbor right now or this particular way that I'm serving in my church that no one is really seeing I can't really see how God's going to take that and advance his kingdom but it's not my time to see it yet of course I see it in the stories of my bible because I'm after they were alive and after I'm alive I'm sure people will see all sorts of meaning that came from those ordinary moments of faithfulness but this is not the time for me to know that this is the time for me to be faithful and to trust that God is going to take anything I do in faith and make it expand and advance his kingdom in all the ways I would hope it would you know I just have to be patient and wait for the results of that till later I don't get to see all the fruit right now. Kelly that's such a beautiful point and can you also talk with us about social media and how that has added to our confusion about purpose and calling? Yeah it has added a lot of confusion because it's changing how we imagine things it is putting before us things to think about images and pictures and videos and it's showing us what is celebrated generally and the things that are ordinary just don't look very cool on social media I mean a pile of folded freshly folded laundry doesn't look very interesting so we don't post it but doing that with exercising patience toward my children doing it with a glad heart and all the things that may come from that I think God can use that in his kingdom but again all if all I'm seeing and all I'm setting before my eyes are the really unique out of the ordinary things other people are doing then that's what I'm training myself to move toward you know there's this passage in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 that says when we behold God we become more like him I think there's a principle there what you behold you become like and so if social media is what you're beholding all the time then you will of course move your life in those directions you will see less and less value in the hidden things the things that are happening behind the scenes those quiet moments spent with God or with a friend or a neighbor or a family member or praying and interceding you know you're going to see less value in those things because that's not being posted on social media and you're going to see more value in the things that are very visible but the kingdom of God is so upside down what God values what he sees as significant is usually not what humans see as significant you know it's what you see in the Tower of Babel they're building this huge tower to heaven it looks super impressive and God's not impressed he would rather scatter the people into things that are going to be forgotten so that his kingdom and his glory advances then then be remembered by this fully built tower and so social media we just have to guard how much we're letting it into our life and make sure we're stewarding our imaginations and kind of taking them back from what's being set before us and using I think the scriptures to awaken for us a different excitement and imagination for our own lives yeah so let's talk about that because I love that idea of like reclaiming our imagination from culture so what does that look like okay so i'll tell you what I do in my life so one has been reading stories in the bible and slowing down over them and paying attention like joseph for example uh joseph finds himself at like the top of you know the echelons of leadership in uh egypt and then fights for sexual purity he's you know advanced palm by pota for his wife and chooses to fight for holiness and purity and that is a great act a great work right but the result of that is he's thrown in prison and forgotten about for two years and i i'll use that to remind myself okay it's some of the greatest work in my life god may hide me and it may pull me into obscurity and that doesn't mean you're not with me and that doesn't mean that you have a plan uh so i'm using bible characters and people i read about there to just slow down and pause and go okay what did it feel like for him to be in that moment but then the second thing i'll do is i'll sometimes just pull scriptures from like the psalms and ask myself you know what is what is god impressed with you know it says he peers down over heaven and searches the earth looking for whose hearts are fully devoted to him and so i'll just take a moment sometimes even after i get off social media okay lord this is what our culture thinks is impressive is what's on this you know on instagram or whatever our youtube what do you think's impressive when you look at the earth today right now what are you excited about what are you maybe calling the attention of the angels over and going look at that that is amazing i love that what is he looking at because jesus when he's walking on the earth calls attention to a lot of things and it is not what his disciples are impressed with you know it's the widow giving her last sense in faith it is uh the you know bartimaeus the blind beggar just in his desperation and need having just no concern about himself and just begging god to heal him i want to be counted among that group of people i want to be a group part of that group that god looks at and goes i love that faith i love what that and and just taking a moment to even imagine that scene think about it really helps my heart come alive in some new ways it helps me to steward again that imagination away from what social media attempts me to think about and into what is what is god impressed with yeah and i'm thinking about mary and martha and how jesus loved that mary sat at his feet meanwhile martha was so busy busy busy running around trying to have everything be just right and isn't that one of our human conditions is that we have a very difficult time with resting with being still and so we are an exhausted people can you talk to us about the importance of resting and being still rest is so important you know it's part of the first covenant god made with his people he gave them a sabbathay told them part of the way they would be known as his peoples that they had the ability to rest because in god's economy he does the work not us but when we think that our meaning comes from what we do then we actually have no category for rest because meaning comes from our activity meaning comes from what we achieve and accomplish even if it's for the kingdom i think martha was doing really good things for jesus i think she would have looked at her life and said i'm doing this for you jesus but sitting and being with him is more important than doing for him and he makes that very clear in that story because again we're made not to do uh we're made to know primarily we're made for not verbs but for a noun we're made for a person and that means there's actually nothing more important than having time to rest and especially time to know him that means life's more about knowing in reality than it is about doing i mean you see that in jesus serman uh on the mount the very end he says all these people come to him saying here all the things i did for you and he'll say i never knew you uh knowing is more important and knowing comes by way of resting and being still it's really really good news that we actually have not only permission to rest but a command to rest and that's part of our true identity and what god has made us for kelly what's it been like to learn this and what should we expect as as people of god that will embrace rest and embrace focusing on christ what what has been the the fruit of that in your own life there's there's definitely been some wrestle in there because uh you know we like doing really cool significant things and sometimes i don't want to embrace what he has for me in the ordinary so there's been some healthy wrestle with god in it but as i've let him give me his vision for my life through the word to show me that uh i really am made not to do great things but to know the great one when i've really embraced that it has uh it has not de elevated moments like this writing books and all those things of course god is using those things i believe that i wouldn't have written a book if i didn't believe that but what it's done is it's elevated every other moment of my life to the same level of importance as i might place on a published book my published book matters and i prayed over it a lot but you know what my conversation with my unbelieving neighbors matters just as much the conversation i have with my kids at the end of the night matters just as much the way that i operate in my home behind the scenes the way that i interact with my kids teachers or the way that i interact with family all of that is as significant in god's eyes and as uh has as much potential to change the world and it's actually awakened a sense of uh my purpose is my life feels purposeful all the time now versus when it used to feel purposeful and just these really narrow seasons these small moments that felt really purposeful and everything else kind of felt like uh it's not as significant you know everything is meaningful now and not only that it's really freed me and relieved me from being attached to my work my work doesn't define me anymore and give me my sense of identity god does and it's liberated me to appropriately take rest breaks and even have an eye for where ministry may become an idol in my life and learn when it's time to maybe pull away from it so that my heart can stay close again to the one i was made for not the work i was made for but the one i was made for and uh it's just been so liberating and freeing and fulfilling and again that's one of the reasons why i ended up writing this book was going i want other people to experience that same joy and sense of purpose in every moment of their life yes it is indeed liberating and freedom to just enjoy the presence of god and not always be on that rat race towards the extraordinary so thank you kelly for your heart and for sharing your book and your heart in this book it is good news for every single one of us today thanks so much for having me i'm so glad to be here with you guys yeah absolutely well stay with us at home wherever you're watching today because after the break we have a scripture that talks about abiding staying sticking close to christ you're not going to want to miss the rest of the conversation we'll be right back cornerstone television exists because of the faithful support of our partners thanks to you we get to proclaim the good news of jesus both locally and around the world all this month is our way of saying thanks we are offering this beautiful and inspirational 16 month calendar for your best gift to see tvn this special israel calendar 75th anniversary edition celebrates 75 years of modern israel as a nation each month you'll enjoy a new and beautiful feature of the holy land you'll be blessed to see places in the bible come alive this 16 month calendar runs from september 2023 to december 2024 and has plenty of space for writing your daily activities request the special israel calendar 75th anniversary edition as our thank you gift when you give to c tvn today to give call<PHONE_NUMBER> or go to ctvn.org slash donate hope happens here we're so glad you're joining us on hope today and what you just watch if you want to get connected to us and support us for the good work that we're doing feel free to give us a call at<PHONE_NUMBER> we are so grateful for all of you whether you're in pittsburgh alabama jacksonville atlanta wherever you're watching from we love that you are part of our family we're so glad that you are able to listen to that conversation that kelly was sharing about really truly just pressing into jesus and knowing no matter what season we're in no matter where god has us it is so important that we keep our eyes on him and tom we have a scripture that we want to share with our audience today i want to share this with you i i do want to say i loved what kelly said about we're called to a noun jesus we're called to a person not a verb which is all the doing things we do that that'll stick with me but this this verse talks about that too john 15 five in the niv says i am the vine you are the branches if you remain in me and i and you you will bear much fruit apart from me you can do nothing now i remember this verse guys it says abide and now we don't use that that's not a verb we use very much i'm gonna i'm gonna go abide in my living room right now we don't say that very often but to remain to we understand that we to be in a place where you're in the presence of god to remain in that vine of jesus that's who we're called to that's what we're really meant to be is to stay there and to learn from take on think about the apostles they were with jesus three and a half years before they really got released they did a little bit of things but after that they really got released to go out and change the world but they spent that time abiding in christ remaining with him that's what we're called to anna that's the key thing i'm taking away from today right absolutely you know we live in a world that constantly pulls us away from the one thing that matters most which is enjoying the presence and person of god i'm sure many of you can relate to finding your identity and what you do whether that's motherhood whether that's your job whether it's your ministry but the thing with life is that our seasons our jobs what we're involved in is always shifting and changing and whenever circumstances of life even flip things upside down is suddenly you don't have what you put your whole identity in then where is it that we find our identity and our security and our satisfaction and our purpose well again it is in the person of jesus christ and so when he says to abide to remain in him who is the vine and we are the branches he infuses us with everything we need to live that full abundant life and you guys what i love about that scripture too is it does talk about how it is god's desire for us to bear fruit to bear much fruit and when we think about the fruit of the spirit that fruit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self control it's not publishing a book or like those are awesome but it's not the fruit that lasts i this is one of my favorite scriptures and it's so powerful and we just encourage you even as we go up the air just to read through the john 15 that whole chapter and just to meditate because what i really sense and feel that god is looking for us in this season to do is to be connected to him and i think too a lot of times i'm just gonna say this i just feel like there's just been this idol that's been in christianity and christian culture that has made me almost sick to my spirit about this i want to be an influencer i want to gain this power i want to gain that access like if you are seeking the holy spirit only to get things only to move up only to be a leader or to say look at me you have a spirit of pride that's within you and guess what god's going to do as you bear if you're in him he's going to cut off those branches he's going to prune you that's another thing when it comes to the fruit in order to bear fruit sometimes he has to cut away things that don't look like him that don't reflect him and so it's so important and we just encourage you in the season check your own heart go before the lord and say god what are some of the idols that have been in my heart what are some of the things that i have put before you what are some of the successes or what i thought life would look like because when i'm telling you when he their seasons he will pull it all away so that you will know that he is the only one that remains that he is the only one that deserves to be praised he's the only one that deserves your attention and your affection and your devotion and that is our heart cry for you today that you would just abide in him and the greek i know it means it's like it's just a dwelling it's just a boating it's about making residents and making home within him make him your home make your heart just so part of him and we are just so grateful that you've joined us on hope today and you know we just want to give you an opportunity to call our prayer line at<PHONE_NUMBER> because maybe that's something that you're wrestling with today maybe something you want to abide with Jesus like never before we'll just know what we have prayer partners that are always standing by that want to stand with you and pray with you and encourage you we love you so much know that your purpose is in him and him alone have a great day on tomorrow's hope today when life decides to knock us down god never counts us out speaker and author real talk kim shares how you can get back up after feeling down and defeated by choosing to live boldly and freely in your god-given purpose that's tomorrow on hope today cornerstone television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible