Kate:

"Can you just tell me, is this good or bad?" I was like, "Well, depends on your measuring stick. What's your measuring stick?" Like, "Yeah, but can we talk about industry standards? And can we talk about..." I'm like, "Yes, we can, but that's someone else's measuring stick. We need to develop your own ruler. You don't have a ruler, and that is why you are lost as F right now."

Chris:

Kate, I'm super intrigued by who you are and more importantly, what it is that you do. You popped in my LinkedIn direct messages. I'm like, "Wow, this is super fascinating." So you help to coach creatives, is that the idea?

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

So this is exciting, because I've never heard anybody do this before, so to my audience who doesn't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about your story?

Kate:

Thank you. We've heard of nutrition coaches, we've heard of sports coaches. We might have even heard of life coaches. So when I say I'm a design coach, people say, "What is that?" Well, the way I like to think about it is that as designers, we spend so much time empathizing with our end user, right? Because our job is to really listen. Listen and listen, but we don't spend that much time listening to ourselves, and to our own inner world. So, I switched from doing user research on other people, to doing inner research on me. And when I saw that power, I was like, "Wow, this is really changing my practice. I wonder if I could bring that to other designers?"

Kate:

And so, I trained as a coach, and I started shifting the conversation from, "Hey, what do you think? Tell me all your problems." To, "What do I think? What's my opinion? How do I feel?" And I started to see really cool things happen with the designers around me, so that's where I started.

Chris:

Wow. Okay, so the journey began with yourself first, so people talk about exercise, so you did innercise. You're figuring out, "Who I am." You're listening to yourself. You're learning about yourself, versus turning it towards other people. There's this classic expression. I think it cuts across most industries, not just ones in creativity, where the shoemaker's kids have no shoes. We're so good at doing things for other people that we neglect our own things. Architects have the worst offices, typically speaking, unless you're Gensler, they have terrible offices but they designed beautiful spaces, because they neglect taking care of themselves. So you began this process, what did you discover about yourself?

Kate:

Yeah, I really like that analogy, Chris, because I'm the wife of a woodworker. And I still don't have my beautiful kitchen, so I understand that. How did we start that process? Well, it's actually very common for a lot of people that go into the mental health space, or coaching space to have been triggered by a personal story. And so, my personal story was that I was running at full speed ahead, marathon style in shoes that didn't fit me, and I was getting blisters. It was killing me. So I was a techy girl, in the techy world, in a top tech company, top of my career, and it was hurting. And it caused a huge burnout. And so, that burnout then was a brilliant opportunity, hitting rock button, to say, "Okay, how am I going to get out of this? I'm at the lowest I've ever been? How am I going to build myself back up?"

Kate:

And I decided to listen for once, instead of ignore that deep voice inside of me. It was like, "Okay, I've been ignoring it, and ignoring it. And I'm going to listen to my gut, and my intuition, even if I don't like what it says." And the painful thing that I realized was, "Kate, you're listening to everybody else but yourself. You care about this, you care about that but you're not listening. You have no idea what you care about." And that was really painful. And my ego said, "Ouch, I don't like to hear that." And I thought, well, if I was going to iterate a prototype, like a piece of software, if I was going to iterate myself, I wouldn't have to have the whole thing figured out. I wouldn't have to [inaudible 00:04:42] and rent a new product. I would just start with a tiny baby step. And so I'm going to do that to myself. I'm going to prototype myself in tiny baby steps.

Kate:

And so, the first step was, "Well, what do you think about working in the middle of a field? You're constantly saying you don't want to be in the office, you want to be in the field. And you're scared of what people will say. You're scared of being judged, but let's explore that. What would it mean for you to live in the field?"

Kate:

So I went full remote. I started remote working. You might say, "That sounds like a really big jump." But I did it very slowly. I asked my next contract because I was just freelancing. I'm like, "Can my next contract be just a few days coming in?" And then I slowly increased it, baby steps until I was full-time remote. And then I started doing that to everything else in my life, my morning routine, my time with my husband, my work life balance, everything I did tiny experiments. And that's how I developed reality prototyping the program.

Chris:

What was the biggest shock or discovery to yourself about these changes that when you're at the end of it seemed like massive change, but in the moment there's small changes, what did you learn?

Kate:

Yeah, that I'm very scared, constantly scared of what if? What if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if people judge me? What if I get rejected? And then realizing that actually no one cares and this whole thing, this whole performance, this whole wonderful magic of exploration is for my pleasure. So stepping into my pleasure and enjoying the wonderful curiosity for myself and knowing that then that would have a ripple effect. So, the other shock was learning that it's not selfish to want to design your life and to want to learn about yourself because I always thought that it was.

Chris:

So it sounds to me like what we experience on a human level is a lot of resistance. We fabricate stories and we tell ourselves this can't happen because of these reasons. And that prevents us from taking action and going through this process of taking in your words, small baby steps, you start to expose yourself to the real truth, which is nothing like what you imagined it to be. I heard someone else say this, I think it was [Blair Enns 00:07:02], who said, "When we go to change our site, because we want to be repositioned as a product designer or a person in consumer packaging goods, CPG stuff, that all our clients are going to be up in arms and saying, "How dare you. We're not going to work with you again." When in fact most of your clients don't ever visit your site once they hire you."

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

And so, it's that perception or that concept in our mind that keeps us from making those changes, and so I love what you're saying. Just try it. You don't have to go for the whole thing at once, take the smallest viable step or action that you can and see, and you can measure and you can iterate. I like that you're using those UX principles on yourself because we wanted not ship a perfect product, what we look for is progress. And so that's what you were able to do.

Kate:

That's true.

Chris:

So let's fast forward a little bit. You said you wanted to work in the field?

Kate:

Yeah. I actually said that to my boss.

Chris:

In the field is outside, in the yard under the sun? Is that okay? All right.

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

I just wanted to be clear because... All right. So did you move?

Kate:

Yeah. I went from the city to the countryside and I went from a very nice flat to a very little tiny shepherd's hut next to a forest. Again, didn't do it all in one go, just took a baby step. What would it be like to spend one night? Just one night stayed at a friend's place then maybe a few more nights in an Airbnb, just slowly baby steps and really thinking, well, I want to experience what it feels like. I don't want to get stuck in my head because when I get stuck in my head, that's where all the doubt and the negativity comes in. But when I literally try it, I can say, well, I tried it and now I know if it's serving me or not serving me.

Kate:

And so slowly I realized I really liked it. I didn't miss being in the city. I didn't have a fear of missing out. The events that I wanted to go to, I planned for them and I made them happen, but I really liked the peace, I liked the trees, I liked the space and I had WiFi, so that's all I needed.

Chris:

These days that's all that's really important to run a business is to have good internet connection and you're solid, right?

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

So did you start this journey pre-pandemic or post-pandemic or during the pandemic?

Kate:

Definitely before. A few years before, it's been a long road. Let's say it's about four years of transitioning and it was triggered by this hitting rock bottom and leaving my techy job and trying to redesign myself and saying, "Well, who do I want to be?" What's the 2.0 version of Kate? How does she walk? How does she talk? How does she smell? How does she hold herself? And I was trying to imagine all of these things and sometimes the whole visualization movements that people talk about and vision boarding, sometimes really helpful. Sometimes they can also feel really overwhelming. So like, I don't know. And that's where I defer to just try it, there's nothing to lose.

Chris:

Wonderful. So I suspect now you smell a breath of fresh air in the countryside, because how do I smell?

Kate:

My perfume is actually called Forest, that's a bit cliche isn't it?

Chris:

It's very fitting though, it works. Okay. So I'm still very intrigued by this whole design coaching thing. As a designer, as one who helps other people figure out their creativity and their design, I've never considered myself a design coach. The term is a little funny, a little odd for me, a little peculiar, so help me understand why this is different than anything else I know?

Kate:

Yeah. Language is so important. We often conflate different terms, don't we? And I think in the creative industry at large, the biggest confusion is mentor or coach? And I have a really, really lovely, simple definition to help differentiate between the two. Mentorship is when I come to you, Chris, and I say, "Chris, you've been here before. I'm going to ask you some questions and you're going to tell me your wisdom." And when you are a coach, you say to me, "Kate, you are whole and complete. I'm going to ask you questions and we're going to discover your wisdom." And this beautiful, who is asking the question and who wisdom are we drawing upon? Differentiation is the biggest shift that I think for instance, the design industry needs because we tend to overly optimize towards, "Well, what do the big guru say? What do the tech companies, what do the unicorn say? What do the successful YouTubers say?" And this disempowers us. And it disconnects us from our intuition, from our gut.

Kate:

And so my mission is to reconnect people with their intuition, to reconnect them so that they can draw upon their own wisdom and they can trust themselves. And I think as we start to do that, and I have already seen that in the people that I'm coaching is, really cool work because it's different, it's original and it's meaningful because it's coming from something that's in a deep core place. It's not a copycat, it's not a cookie cutter. And that's exciting to me.

Chris:

I've often described it as this. I didn't use the word mentorship, but I would say an expert or a consultant will teach you how they did it. So this is my way, whereas the coach will help you find your way. What works for you will be different than what works for me.

Kate:

I love it.

Chris:

And this is the problem oftentimes with say, the best example I can give is with athletes who have God-given talent, have certain physical attributes, and so playing the sport is easy for them. So if they were to say coach you like if Michael Jordan were to coach you on basketball, hell just stand there and throw it and it'll just go in. And just move around your opponents. And when you try it, well, you're not six-two or six-three-

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

You're five-eight, and you have two left feet and it doesn't work. So understanding each person for their individual strengths and weaknesses and helping them to find their way, I think is super empowering. I'm curious as to what similarities or differences you see between, say a design coach, the way that you're talking about, as opposed to say a professor at a design school, aren't to both helping you to find your way, or maybe it's different, I don't know. What's your perspective on this?

Kate:

Yeah. No, I love that question because we need all of it. I think a mentor is really useful because you want to go and say, "Hey, I've got this blank sheet, let's brainstorm ideas together." Tell me your wisdom, but it's very useful, but we shouldn't use it, a bit like your diet you can't only have protein, you need a balanced diet, you need some carbs, you need some veggies. So it's the idea of, okay, I can't just lean on someone else's wisdom. I need to also have my own need to develop my own. And I think that's where we have that scale.

Kate:

You have therapists on the one hand who are really very non-intrusive, non-directive who are really looking at the past and then slowly, the scale comes in. It comes slightly more directive, where a coach is holding space for you. Holding space, very structured conversation but for your agenda, still not telling you what to think. And then it goes, as you said into teaching and consulting where you really are directing and telling someone, "Look, this is what we should do. And these are the options and trade offs." So yeah, it's a scale and we need all of them.

Chris:

So how would you differentiate design coaching versus any of those other things? Tell me what's the difference?

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

Just so I can wrap my head around it.

Kate:

Yeah. So, when someone comes to me or my program, I'm very clear and I say, "We're going to be asking you questions for you to let get to know yourself and I'm going to hold space and we're going to think together and we're going to have thought partnership." But every now and again, you might ask me a question and you say, "Kate, what's your advice? What would you do?" And I'll switch hats and I'll put on my mental hat and then I'll tell you, "Well, from my point of view, this is my opinion." But it's really important on an ethical level to verbalize that you're switching hats because when you're in a position of power and someone's in front of you and they're vulnerable, they might confuse your opinion for their own wisdom. And that's the responsibility, that's something that I find very important in our industry.

Kate:

And if you're going to coach someone, you go around saying things that are your opinion, you might have done harm. You really might have thrown someone under the bus. You were talking earlier about doing something that was good for you and not good for them, so that is the core difference that shift in whose agenda are we driving here.

Kate:

And then I think the second difference is that you can have a coach in any different area of life, but I chosen to be just the design coach of just to help designers because I can really emphasize deeply and I can really understand the language and the Jingo. So when someone talks about doing a sprint or doing a rapid prototyping, I know exactly what they're saying and I'm with them, whereas if they were talking to a normal life coach, they might have to explain a bit more context setting. So we save a lot of time that way.

Chris:

I see. So, I mean, I don't want to say it this way, but the way I understand it is, so you are a coach who specifically focuses on a very narrow niche of designers and design types, is that correct?

Kate:

And I generally do all creatives, but at the moment I am focusing on designers, yeah. The problem solvers of the world, I love that.

Chris:

So what does the typical designer do that you work with? Are they product designers? Are they graphic designers? Do they do something else?

Kate:

That's it, product designers, graphic designers, service designers.

Chris:

So when they come to you, I'm curious as a person who I see myself as a coach and sometimes as a mentor. Sometimes I meet students or clients who aren't quite ready.

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

And they bring with them all kinds of ideas, attachment, expectations, resistance as to why they are exactly who they are. First, have you had those kinds of people come into your life? And if you have, what are you noticing? What patterns do you see? And then ultimately, how do you help them?

Kate:

Absolutely, that's a great observation. I see a lot of people that are stuck and sometimes they want help to get unstuck and to get clarity in their thinking. So we'll just literally detangle their thoughts in a conversation together, but they're not willing to actually change. They're not ready. They're willing to observe and look at, "Oh, I'm not speaking up enough in meetings." "Oh yeah, I'm blaming everyone around me." "Oh yeah, I'm not doing anything for myself right now, any creative things." Or, "Oh, I have imposter syndrome." But when it comes to actually taking an action, we will get to a point where they've said, "No, I'm not ready."

Kate:

And that's for me personally, where my journey ends and I say, "Great, we've done some brilliant noticing together. And I recommend that you go and chat about that with a therapist and get to the bottom of that and unlock that when you're ready. And then when you're ready to take action, then you can come back to me because that's where I can help you. I can hold space and hold you accountable for taking that next step. And we can set goals and we can work together to do that." But it's not my calling to work with people. I haven't been trained in therapy, in counseling and psychology, so that's definitely a different kettle of fish.

Chris:

Very interesting. My wife has made this observation about me, which is, she says to me all the time, "It seems like you're most compelled to work with people who have heavy resistance. What is it that you find so interesting about these people?" And I don't know. And so, you and I were a little bit different here, when somebody says to you, "I'm not ready to take that step." Whether explicitly or implicitly, you close out the engagement to say, "Okay, there's only so much I can do here. If you're not willing to do the work, if you're not ready to take action, I'm not the right person for you." And I get that. I just look at you and your voice and your tonality and your body language says you're very much at peace and you're not really trying to shake the person's world upside down, because if they're not ready, they're not ready.

Chris:

I, on the other hand, take a much more... How do I say this? Confrontational face on direct way of talking to people and I find it fascinating. Because if someone, I wish this were the case. If everyone who came to me was looking for help, was ready to do what it is that I asked them to do and helped them to unlock their own creativity or their own limiting beliefs, it would be a magical world I have to tell you. It'd be a fantastic place where students were pliable and they're driven and they're motivated and they take action. But I find that the ones who resist the most, offer me new opportunities to look at a problem that then spurs my thinking into developing more tools or resources or better questions and frameworks. And so, that's why I think I'm turned on by it. I mean, do you have a similar sense yourself? I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this.

Kate:

Yeah. I completely recognize what you're saying and I can speak for myself. I wouldn't try and label what's going on for you, but for me the place where it resonates inside me is I want to be a fixer and I want to fix things and I want to be the savior and they call it the savior complex. I want to like save people.

Chris:

Yes.

Kate:

And so it triggers that side of me and I'm like, "No, I can't let this go, I want to help them." And I like to solve problems, that's why I'm a designer, right? So it really tickles that part of me. And I think because of my own journey, I've decided not to activate that side of myself because I'm actively working on not doing that. Maybe in a few years I will have resolved that area and I'll be more game to be more of a shaker and a stirrer because the world needs those twos, right? But for me, I'm really interested in that tipping point where I can get someone that I want to change. I don't know how to, and I don't know where to start. I'm overwhelmed. What shall I do? That's my market. Somebody who is curious or even they're willing to take an action, but they don't want to right now, there just has to be some willingness to try to experiment and then we begin and then we can walk together.

Chris:

And what do you do to attract those types of people to you so that they're ready to do the work?

Kate:

I think that's an ongoing question. I'm still discovering that and working what that is. But I think that by me having an intuition, gut-based, empathy-based, self compassion-based focus, naturally people who are seeking that will be drawn to me because they're like, "Yes, I want more of that in my life." And they seek themselves out, whereas if someone wanted someone more, a shaker and a stirrer, then I think they would be attracted to that more confrontational, more provocative language. So I think people filter themselves, depending on what they're ready for, whether they're ready for a big challenge or a little one.

Chris:

I'm curious, and if you don't feel comfortable answering this, just say pass on this. I'm curious if you could define two prime examples on the opposite end of the spectrum, where someone is an extreme shaker and stirrer and someone who's deeply compassionate, mindful on that spectrum of people that we might know, personality types. I'm just curious. They could be in the design industry or they could be in any industry whatsoever. So it's just so we have some-

Kate:

Anchor point.

Chris:

Benchmark as to what the extremes look like.

Kate:

I love that. Okay. So just top of mind, [Gary V 00:23:32] comes across to me as someone who's more of a shaker and a stirrer because he'll interrupt and he'll interject and say, "So, this is what you're saying, this is what I think I'm going to put it back at you. I'm going to shove it back, reflect. Go, go, go." There's also a lady that I've recently worked with called [Dana 00:23:49], I've forgotten her surname. And she said, "Okay, stop. I'm going to stop you there, we're going to pause. Everybody in the room is listening. Is everybody listening?" It's very high engage, high energy.

Chris:

Yeah.

Kate:

And that's fun, right? It's really fun. But I think someone that might be more on the other side would be, I want to say Oprah, but that sounds a bit cliche, but she's a very good listener. And there is power in the questions that she asks, which are transformational. And then she holds space and doesn't interrupt while the thinker is thinking and all that thinking can happen. And loads of insights can come to the person who is talking with her and they can leave transformed because she didn't interrupt them. And then the power is in the thinkers head, not in the person's talking.

Kate:

And I think generally in the design industry, we tend to take people's power away from them because we want to come up with the insight. We're like, "Look how clever I am. I came up with the insight." But then you've just showed that they're reliant on you. And actually I would love it if the designers were having that amazing spark of joy and eureka moment inside them, and they were feeling more powerful. So I think that's probably why I shift more to the other side, but we need both.

Chris:

Yeah, well it's because we're all on the spectrum in different parts in our life.

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

Sometimes we need a little tough love and sometimes we need some compassion and someone to hold space for us to think through our problem and to provide that gentle touch. And I think it is beneficial to society to have those also because of points of contrast, because we might not realize if everybody's like Oprah, Oprah would not be special at all.

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

And if everyone were like Gary V it's like, okay, it would not be unique or different, and so we can all live on some part of that spectrum, whatever works for you. Now you just reminded me of something, a confession on my part. My own transformation and the style in which I taught.

Chris:

So for 15 years I taught at a private art school, art center and I taught the way I was taught. And that comes from the old school of teaching, which is I'm the boss, I'm the expert. I will give you my opinion, but it's not really opinion, you must do what I tell you to do. There isn't a lot of room for like, "Let's have a discussion about this." Not really, right? That's the old school art teacher mentality. I don't know if you had that same experience, but back then teachers would quite literally take their work and throw it on the floor and not even talk about it. And that was their critique. Not entirely helpful, very personal and somewhat emotionally abusive but that's the style of teaching that I heard about. And then I was buffered by one generation, so it wasn't as critical as that.

Chris:

And so when I returned back to school, I started teaching. I was also critiquing like, here's the assignment and now I'll tell you everything that's right and wrong about your work. And from that, you have to put the clues together. And then I discovered something many years into this. The patterns were happening over and over and over again in that the students had clarity in class, but outside of class it was confusing as F. They didn't even know what to do. And so they entered the fog of the week or whatever it is. And they would come back making similar mistakes is because as you pointed out, the student becomes heavily reliant on listening and being directed by others so that they know what to do, without that they don't know what to do with their loss, it becomes a crutch.

Chris:

So later on, I started to apply the Socratic approach, which is, "Let's talk about this." Be a question-based inquiry so that you can then start to formulate your own conclusions about what you need to do to make this thing better. And it's a very difficult process, it takes a lot longer than saying, "Change that, get rid of that, do two more of these things and you're good to go." And it seems to me like your coaching style, the thing that you are more attracted to, and the thing how you help people is, to empower them by asking them very thoughtful questions. "Do you want to expand on that? Did I get that right?"

Kate:

I'm so with you. And I think that it also is mirrored in the world that we live in, right? You know how everything is a sine wave, up, down, up, down? So now I think we're in a time where we've been copycatting too much. We've been copying, we've been just doing what our teachers told us, and we are suffering the repercussions. We have a deficit of imagination and we have a deficit of a generation of risk takers who want to play it safe. And we see that in our UI, that's all becoming the same. And in our templates that are all becoming the same and the globalizations, we're all aligning. And there's a beauty in that harmony, but we need to go on the upside of the sine wave. So we need to rebalance it. And so I think that we need both.

Kate:

And I think that we just need to be really intentional when we are shifting gears, because if you only do the Socratic inquiry, then you might have missed a moment where somebody needed that arrow. And so I think what I'm advocating here is learning to balance both techniques. And we talk a lot about this in the design practice, which is, "I like this, my intuition of the market says X." The data says Y or the data says something else, and we need to use data. We're surrounded by so much information that we can use. We can't just use data alone, otherwise we miss that human factor, that magic, that amazing [je ne sais quoi 00:29:21], that bit that you can't put your finger on. And if we only focus on intuition, we might actually miss the bigger picture because we might not be as connected to the universe and to the world as we think we are.

Kate:

And so for me, I imagine myself standing on those surfboard practice balls, where you're standing on a platform on a ball and you're just trying to get that balancing motion. And I think that's the constant driver for us. And it also changes depending on what cycle you're in. So if you're in a discovery cycle, you're innovating in a new market or a new field, you're going to have a lot more openness divergent but if you are actually in delivery and execution and you really just need to get something done, you might notice that you are more directive and that your time's running out. So I guess I'm advocating for an awareness and an intentionality of these tools.

Greg Gunn:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Welcome back to our conversation.

Chris:

I would love to try something with you right now because I'm also very intrigued that you're a design creativity coach. So if I came to you and I feel stuck, let's just say I've been in the business for 10 plus years and I'm feeling like I'm running out of ideas, I'm not as motivated as it used to be. I've fallen into some loop and I come to you and I'm ready to change because that's one of your prerequisites, right? I'm ready to do the work.

Kate:

Brilliant.

Chris:

So Kate, how would you begin talking to me to start to help me unravel my problems?

Kate:

So the first thing is to get you to share, tell me about what you're feeling and it needs to be real. So it has to be real, it can't be hypothetical. So it has to be a real problem.

Chris:

Okay.

Kate:

And then the next question is where do you feel that in your body, where is this coming from?

Kate:

So I get you to connect to where is that tension? Is it in your shoulders, is it in your jaw or tension there? Is it in your belly? Tell me where you're feeling it?

Chris:

So you're connecting people to a problem, to a spot where they feel in their body. Where do you go from there? Let's say, I feel in my jaw and this is true when I'm stressed out. When I have to give a presentation, I'll feel it in my jaw, the day of and for many days after I'm like, "Gosh, what is wrong with me? Why is it so sore right now?"

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

Definitely feeling the jaw. Where do we go from there?

Kate:

What's it telling you?

Chris:

I don't know. I mean, it hurts. I must not like this because I'm doing something on a subconscious level. I don't mean to mash my teeth together, I know it's not good for my teeth. I don't know, help me out.

Kate:

What would you like to be different?

Chris:

I would like to be not stressed out. I would like not to be tense when I'm speaking because I don't think I speak at my best when I feel that way. And my body can't handle this, I cannot see myself doing this long term if this keeps up.

Kate:

Okay. So we want to go from being tense to being what?

Chris:

Relaxed, at ease, feel more like myself, not so self-conscious of the words I want to use.

Kate:

Not so self-conscious. And what do you feel is making you self-conscious?

Chris:

Well, when you speak there's a lot of people listening to you and if it's being recorded, it's going to be preserved forever. That might make me feel self-conscious-

Kate:

Forever?

Chris:

Forever, like this podcast.

Kate:

What about forever feels uncomfortable?

Chris:

Well, there's a permanency to it. And then it also means my future self will be able to look back and say, "You dummy, why'd you say that? You misspoke." You don't even believe that, but that came out of your mouth or that's not the word you were looking for, it was this other word.

Kate:

Would you say, "You dummy" to yourself?

Chris:

I mean, I do.

Kate:

Why might you say that?

Chris:

Why would I say that? Well, sometimes I don't know if you ever catch yourself doing this. I'll walk around, I'll turn the corner. I'll stub my toe on the leg of a table. I'm like, "Oh, you've clumsy idiot." Because first of all it hurts. And so you're just releasing that energy in some moment pain.

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

So yeah, I do say that. I mean, I'll tell you a story. It is a real story right now. It's embarrassing. My car broke down on the freeway and it was a very stressful moment because it's in a dangerous spot on the freeway. And eventually I was able to drop the car off at a tire repair shop because my tire has blown out and I was waiting there for an Uber to pick me up in the darkness of night. And it's a quiet weekend, so it feels very lonely and isolated. And I saw the truck that dropped me off, turned the corner, circling back. I was like, I wonder why? I mean, he must be checking in on me. And I also had this little bit of regret that I hadn't tipped the other guy because the other guy had just taken off so quick, I was like looking for my cash.

Chris:

And so I waved down the truck and I pulled the money out as walking over through the truck. I realized it wasn't the same person, totally different person, same truck, same flatbed. And I was like, "Ugh, this is really awkward. What do I do?" So I just gave him the money and I'm like, "Hey, thanks for what you're doing." And he took the money and I just walked away. That was super weird. And then I was thinking to himself, "You dummy, that's not the same person. Why would you think that?" And so I was like, "I'm not going to tell my wife this story, because she's going to have a good laugh."

Kate:

So what I'm hearing is that you're feeling embarrassed about your behavior?

Chris:

Yeah.

Kate:

Feeling caught out?

Chris:

That's right.

Kate:

And it's the same thing, the same feeling for you when you're thinking about your future self, looking back, you're thinking you feel caught out?

Chris:

Yeah.

Kate:

What do you notice about that?

Chris:

Well, I notice that if I hold onto these feelings of embarrassment, it only compounds. But I find that if I just tell people the amount of shame or embarrassment that I feel has dissipated massively, and so part of that is just to be able to say to myself, "We're all human, we do dumb things all the time." And there is really no point in beating yourself up over something. And if you can laugh at situations, just own it, it won't haunt you or hurt you as much as it might.

Kate:

So what I'm hearing and you can tell me if this is wrong, is that maybe when you're you are clenching your jaw, are you laughing at the same time or are you doing something else?

Chris:

I think when I'm clenching my jaw I'm just really super hyper self-conscious about the words I'm allowed to say. I don't think there's a lot of laughter there yet.

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

Right?

Kate:

Right. So what does that tell you?

Chris:

I'm not sure. Help me out here.

Kate:

You said that you noticed that when you move into a space where you feel like, everyone does this, this is normal. I can laugh at this, this is common. This is something common to everyone, then it dissipates. So what's that shift that you're already doing?

Chris:

Okay, I see what you're saying. I think when I'm present to those negative emotions that I'm feeling, if I can intercept them before their able to manifest through my body, I have a totally different physiological response to that feeling. And so even that moment, when I gave the wrong guy the tip, which was super embarrassing stupid, I'm like, this will make a funny story. I have to flip it instantly, otherwise I'm going to sit there and dwell on it like, "Oh, so I didn't tip the right guy and I tipped the wrong guy. He's probably driving away thinking what an idiot." Maybe he's thinking you think all truck drivers are the same or something, I don't know. That was dumb. But if I was able to flip and reframe a much more at peace with him, I could even tell you without feeling and reliving the shame that I felt at that moment.

Kate:

Yeah. So what I heard is that your power is when you flip and you reframe something.

Chris:

Yeah.

Kate:

Amazing. So you have your answer, which is that when you are feeling your jaw really tight, you're like, "Ah, I haven't flipped this. I need to reframe this. What do I need to reframe? Ah, now I know where to stop."

Chris:

Wonderful. Thanks for playing along with me. I just wanted to help. I just wanted people who were listening to this, "What are these two weirdos talking about right now? And how might that work?" And you just demonstrated. This was a real feeling, it's not one that I have to deal with as much as I used to, but I can draw upon real experiences to see how you would approach it. And I like how you asked lots of questions and gave a lot of space for the person to think through the problem. I also noticed something about you, your tone changed a little bit, right? Not to say that your tone was wildly different before or after, but I noticed you slipped into a much slower, calmer, lower tone voice and you were phrasing questions very gently. And it just seemed like you flipped into coach mode right then and there versus, "Hey, I'm being interviewed for a podcast thing."

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

And I noticed that right away, is that true?

Kate:

Yeah, that's so true. That's really good noticing. It's my way of giving the power to you. So I'm really listening and holding, and even when there's a silence, it can be uncomfortable, but it's like, hold it, because that's where you're thinking. And if we were obviously in private and you had more space, you'd be able to keep thinking. And the beautiful thing is that you will keep thinking after this podcast, you will continue thinking and that's the power of coaching is that it doesn't stop when you stop in the conversation. It continues in the mind of the thinker. And that's quite cool as well, because most things that you like in life, they stop when you stop paying for them, whereas the questions and the feelings that you're thinking now they can evolve all by yourself, a bit like a dough that makes itself.

Chris:

Well, I guess once you start to open the floodgates things flow and I guess, I mean, metaphor analogy-wise, it's getting unstuck and allowing that thinking, that train of thought to continue. And so once you're able to unclog or open it up and then the person can continue thinking about those things and asking themselves those same questions without your presence, right?

Kate:

And can we just take a moment to say how epic you are to be vulnerable and to be open and to share your thinking live on a podcast, it's very rare to be a fly on the wall of a coaching conversation. So yeah, I'm really impressed by your openness and your vulnerability to your listeners.

Chris:

Well, thank you. There's some observation that I have around these different paradoxical ideas in terms of most people, they want to show strength by showing absolute strength, but in vulnerability is true strength.

Kate:

That's right.

Chris:

And I've learned that the more in a way that I accept myself and the way that I'm transparently communicating and exposing parts of me to other people, the reaction that we fear is like, "Oh my God, they're going to judge me, they're going to think I'm a doofus. And I don't have my stuff together." But I find that it's quite the opposite, that more people become attracted to you to say like, "Wow, you're so comfortable in your own skin that you can share these moments of vulnerability so openly with people that's a sign of strength." So it's one of these dynamics where what we want, the opposite is what we need to do. So if we want to be strong, we need to be weak.

Kate:

Isn't that really annoying? So counterintuitive.

Chris:

Yeah, it's a really good clue that everything that you want, do the opposite and you'll see what happens. If you want to be a great conversationalist, just learn to ask questions and listen.

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

Totally the opposite.

Kate:

Yeah. The antidote, isn't it? It's that if I want to heal myself, I have to do the opposite of the thing that I'm looking to heal. Yeah, it's so true.

Chris:

Yeah, that's right. If you want to overcome your fear of public speaking, you got to just go out there and face the demon, the tiger and eventually you'll start to realize in baby steps that tied to the beginning of our conversation here, in baby steps, you realize I've got nothing to really be afraid of. Now there's a lot of work, a lot of steps in between, but I'm just giving you the cliff note version of it.

Kate:

Absolutely. And that this comes up a lot Chris, when I'm talking with creative confidence about leadership and design leadership, people say, "But how can I be confident? And how can I show leadership if I'm really unsure?" And we're in a time of uncertainty and there is so many unknowns, so much ambiguity and people often say, "I don't know how to do that." And I think that, I will ask a series of questions to get them more comfortable essentially with the unknown and being uncomfortable. And we'll go through a process to try and reconcile the desire to get rid of that feeling so quickly.

Kate:

But I'll also move into my mentorship hat and I'll give examples of how in my own life. I'm in a new company for instance, called Mattereum, and we are doing something that no one's ever done before. There is no precedence. There is nothing I can lean back on. I can't Pinterest board, I can't Google it. I can't ask another leader what their advice is. And so, I'll often talk about my own discomfort wrestling in this exciting new space. And I think as you said, the best way, because then people don't feel alone. They're like, "Okay, I'm not the only person that wrestles with this and it's okay." And if you are telling me it's okay, then it must be okay. And that permission slip to feel discomfort is a huge one when we've been taught to remove friction, to remove uneasiness, to remove uncomfortableness, to remove any discomfort of any kind, it's difficult to do that.

Chris:

I have a thought that just popped into my head. Seeing how you coach designers and creatives, I have to ask this question. And the question is, what are the three biggest hangups that designers generally have and how do you address that?

Kate:

Yeah. They're quite consistent, obviously everyone's unique, but they are. So the top one is, am I doing it right? So the desire to be following the right path. There is no right path. The only right path is listening to yourself and actually finding out what's good for you. And so really trying to get over that hump. "Yeah, but what's right? But can you just tell me, is this good or bad?" I was like, "Well, depends on your measuring stick. What's your measuring stick?" "Yeah, but can we talk about industry standards? And can we talk about..." Like, "Yes we can, but that's someone else's measuring stick. We need to develop your own ruler. You don't have a ruler and that is why you are lost as F right now we have to create your own ruler and together we are going to make a ruler and then you will know where you are on your ruler." So that's a really big, tough ball to get over. The second one is perfectionist.

Chris:

Wait, before you go to the second one, can I ask you a follow-up to that?

Kate:

Yeah, please.

Chris:

Okay. "Am I doing it right?" What is the motivation there? Why is somebody asking you that question to begin with?

Kate:

There's a couple of reasons, but generally it's fear of failure. So it could be fear of lost time or fear of wasting time, not getting to where you want fast enough, but that's always comes back to approval of others, approval of parents, approval of friends, society and disappointing them.

Chris:

I'm glad you said that. I'm right there with you, so this is perfect. Okay, sorry. Number two.

Kate:

Number two, not in order, but just the three that come to mind.

Chris:

Yeah.

Kate:

Is not being good enough. So fear of basically perfectionism, it has to be perfect. "I'm not good enough. I'll never be good enough." And if I applied the same follow-up question, where's that coming from? That's honed, I'm not a psychologist, but that is honed from birth from when we're born to being an adult. We just constantly learn that we are not lovable, we're not likable. We've done things wrong and that we don't live up to standards that other people have for us. And so, we're constantly being compared. And so, therefore it's no wonder that we are worried we're not good enough and that we won't be loved.

Chris:

I have a personal question to ask you. Was there a time when you felt like you were not good enough?

Kate:

Oh, yeah.

Chris:

Tell me about that.

Kate:

I felt it a lot constantly before this transformation that I'd gone through and I still feel it all the time, but not in such a heavy way. So the shift is that I can now watch it. I can watch it happening a bit like a balloon floating and I can then get my big pen and pop it and say, "No, I'm not going to give into that thought." But before, I had them everywhere and I was not aware of it at all, just constantly in this state of my work as a designer will never be good enough because I never have enough time to learn all the things I need to learn. And I have to know everything because I have to be in complete control and see everything. And if I'm not, then I'm going to fail. And if I don't have all the facts, then my answer's not going to be good enough quality. A lot of pressure.

Chris:

That's a pretty high bar to hit to know everything because knowing everything would take you forever.

Kate:

Right? Completely unrealistic, completely delusional. But when you're in it, I didn't know that. I just kept holding myself against the standard that I could never meet. And that's painful, really painful and uncomfortable. And then other people around me would feel uncomfortable like, "Oh, she's uncomfortable, she's stressy. I don't like being around her." It just ripples out. Everyone's uncomfortable now, awkward turtle. So, that was a big shift.

Chris:

What other ways can that pursuit a perfection manifest itself in maybe patterns of thinking or patterns of action, just small or big things so that if we're unaware of it, as you were before, all of a sudden, if we're you're listening to this or watching this video, "Wait a minute, I think I do that. Maybe this is the beginning of a journey." So can you tell me how that manifests itself so that we can look for the warning signs?

Kate:

Yeah. A big one is hesitation and procrastination because instead of just going for it and just trying it out, we talked about before, just have it go. You tend to avoid doing it because you're scared of it going wrong or you're scared of it not being perfect. So if you catch yourself hesitating, say, "Am I being thoughtful? Is there something that I genuinely need to think through, that's helpful for me? Or am I just avoiding pain right now? Am I avoiding shame? I am I avoiding embarrassment?" And again, that comes back to the body. Where is it feeling? Is it making me feel tight and shrinking? Or is it, "Oh, this is a really expansive, exciting question." And you can tell in your body which one it is.

Chris:

I like that, thank you. And when you say that, once you did the work, it started to dissipate, you are more conscious of it, but you still have moments where that will pop in years later. So today, what does that look like or sound like for you?

Kate:

Oh yeah. Okay. So I'm in a meeting and I am feeding, I've shared everything that I want to share and I've delivered maybe a pitch or I've delivered some work that I'm proud of. Silence, crickets. No one says anything. And then I'm like, "Okay, whose listening?" And then still nothing. That's when my doubt kicks in because I'm not getting constant praise, constant recognition, constant affirmation. I create a meaning. So the story that I tell myself is, "Oh, I'm not getting constant feedback and praise, therefore I'm not good enough." And so it normally comes in my tummy and so I'll feel it like, "Oh, I'm feeling that really uncomfortable feeling. I want praise, give me praise. Why are there no emojis? Why are they no likes?" And I'm like, "Oh, I know what that is. That's just me wanting constant praise, that's fine and I can let that go."

Kate:

Because as soon as I name it, then I can get my pen out and I can just pop that bubble. And I'm like, "Oh, you don't have power over anymore. I know you, friend, bye-bye." And that's really relieving. But when I don't know what it is and I'm not aware of it just controls me. And I'll get into a sweat, I'll get sweaty armpits in the meeting and I'll might stuff to my words or I might turn my camera off or something like that.

Chris:

Very good. So the takeaway from this is to be able to be an observer to your own emotional state, to create a little separation between how you feel and how you observe yourself feeling. And once you feel it, label it and then ask yourself, what do I want to do with this? If it's a good feeling, embrace it. If not, pop it.

Kate:

I love it.

Chris:

Just so you have no power over me, friend, not today. What is number three?

Kate:

Yeah. Number three is desiring a shortcut. "Yeah, but can't I just do this instead?" "Yeah, but what if I just take this and this will it be faster?" And I don't know if it's the intense pressure of eyes and ears on the planet, a few hundred years ago, you wouldn't have had so many people watching and knowing what you're doing and being able to see your actions and LinkedIn and so forth. But it could also just be the speed of life is so much faster that our expectations forget the realities, that anchor is to the physical world. So yeah, but I can get Amazon Prime, but I can get Netflix on demand, but I can click a button and suddenly magically, this thing appears. So people expect, "Well, why can't I magically get this resilience that I'm looking for? Or the self-compassion? Why is it taking months or years?" And so this is impatience with the physical world and with your body and the limitations of that. And that takes a while to get over.

Kate:

That's one of the things that I think in coaching takes a bit longer to understand, that's the slowest burn, but once you get there, then it's brilliant because you don't have such a high unrealistic expectation of your own transformation.

Chris:

You, you reminded me of this bit, that comedian Ronny Chieng does about Amazon-

Kate:

Oh, yeah. No, tell me.

Chris:

It's hilarious. So he goes there's something about being in America that we've created this expectation that we'd have everything now. And you look at Amazon, Amazon's a great example. Amazon came out with two day shipping, it's fantastic. They've shipped faster than anybody else. So people at Amazon thoughts, "So what if we did one day, same day shipping?" So Amazon Prime, same day shipping. And so Ronny's saying there like, "That's not good enough for me, I want Amazon now, as soon as I think it, I want the chips and pour the chips into my mouth. Actually, I want you to be precognitive, before I have the desire for chips, I want it to already be here, put it in my hand, open it up for me." And so, he does this, it's hilarious.

Kate:

I love it. Preempts my every need.

Chris:

Yes.

Kate:

We're going there, aren't we?

Chris:

We are. And it's just, I mean, I'm old enough to tell you this, that I used to remember when there were three channels on a television and you can only watch it a specific time Saturday morning cartoons. And if you overslept, too bad, so sad, right? And now kids can stream thousands of channels whenever they want in 4K high definition video. "Oh my gosh, what a different world we live in." And so it's creating this hyper sense of expectation in terms how fast we can achieve a result.

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

So what do you tell folks when they come to you with that mindset? How do you get them off that shouldn't this be faster?

Kate:

Where is that coming from?

Chris:

You get right back to the question?

Kate:

Yeah. Why? I don't generally say why because it makes people defensive. Why are you thinking that? But where is that coming from? Who told you that things need to be fast? What voice is in your head?

Chris:

Right.

Kate:

Yeah. Does it need to be? I mean, when 5G came out, I remember because we live in the countryside. My husband was so excited. He was like, "Oh my God, I can have my photos uploaded..." He's a photographer as well. "Photos can be uploading. I can be on my phone playing a game and I can be downloading this." And I just thought, oh no, people's expectations are going to change with 5G. If everything gets faster, people will expect you to respond to emails faster, people will expect you to message faster, people will expect everything to be faster. I was thinking, this is terrible.

Chris:

You know what? I just realized something.

Kate:

What's that?

Chris:

That your line of coaching or your style of coaching is to ask a question and what your questions do is to help a person label the emotion, the feeling, the desire, the motivation, so that they can become aware. "Oh my gosh, where is this coming from? And why do I believe that?" So you don't ask the why question, but in a way of asking and labeling it or helping them to, they get to ask the question of like, "Why do I believe this to be true? And who put this idea in my head that this was possible or this is the standard?"

Kate:

Right.

Chris:

Is that what you're doing?

Kate:

Right. And if we don't do that, if we don't have someone ask us that, then I think what happens is you end up just following someone else's agenda, right? Because someone will put their ideas in your head and they'll put their companies they want to build and the emotions they have. But if we don't have access to our own feelings and our own motivations, then I think that's when we end up not following our dreams, not following our passions, our desires. And so that really motivates me. I don't want you as my coach to follow someone else's dream, I want you to follow your dream. And I think one of the keys to that is getting you to constantly mirror back and get back in touch with yourself so that you don't let that side of you die.

Chris:

I'm curious because I'm mindful of time here where almost at the hour here. My question, did you prepare three truths in one lie out of curiosity?

Kate:

Oh my gosh, no I didn't.

Chris:

Okay.

Kate:

I'm really spontaneous. [crosstalk 00:57:32]. Oh, I'm spontaneous.

Chris:

You want to try?

Kate:

Yeah, why not?

Chris:

Can you? Okay. So I want you to devise four things that you're going to tell me.

Kate:

Okay.

Chris:

Three of which are true, one is a total fabrication.

Kate:

Okay.

Chris:

So the way the game works is if it's easy for me to spot the lie, then you'll lose. So we want to know three crazy things about you and one totally fabricated thing. So you may want to jot these down because I might ask you to repeat them, and if you can't, then I don't know that's the lie. So we'll do this. So I'm just trying to maximize your probability of success.

Kate:

Okay, let's do this.

Chris:

Okay. First I love your spirit. I threw you a curve ball and you're like, "No, let's do it. I'm like, "Oh, okay." And you just attack the problem. Okay. So without further ado, Kate, you're going to tell me three truths and one lie and is my job to detect where the lie is. So audience listen in where she's going to tell us maybe a couple times, and then we're going to have to guess together, okay? Go ahead, Kate.

Kate:

Okay.

Chris:

Number one.

Kate:

Thank you for offering that I can read it. So the four of them, okay? Number one.

Chris:

Yep, four.

Kate:

There are four things that I'm really proud of that I've achieved. I am super proud that I have raised $1 million for a startup that I worked on. Number two, I am super proud that I have saved a friend's life from getting crushed by a lorry.

Chris:

A what?

Kate:

A really big moving car. A huge-

Chris:

Oh, okay.

Kate:

Like a truck.

Chris:

From a moving truck? Okay, Got it.

Kate:

Yeah. I'm proud that I have helped many women around me get equal promotions to their male counterparts. I am proud, number four that I have written a book on the power of ritual design in the modern era. You want me to say them again?

Chris:

I got them, that's why I was taking notes too.

Kate:

Okay.

Chris:

So don't give me any visual clues.

Kate:

Okay.

Chris:

I'm going to talk through my logic-

Kate:

Poker face, yeah.

Chris:

And see... Yeah, Poker face. No, reactions because I could have worked-

Kate:

You're very observant?

Chris:

Yes, I could see your little ticks and tells. Okay. So I'm going to go through process of elimination. The one that seems most true to me has to be that you've been able to help women get equal pay to their counterparts. I feel like you're doing your job. Look at you.

Kate:

I'm just nodding, I'm just listening to you.

Chris:

You're cold as a cucumber right now. Guys, if you're not able to see this, she's totally poker face. I can't tell if she's holding four ACEs or it's a two seven offset off suit. Okay. So I imagine that one must be true. I also believe that if you've been able to do your job well, that you've been able to help people raise a million dollars for their business. That one feels pretty true too. A little different reaction on your face. Now, a little more stern and a little more stoic here, okay. So to me it's a flip of a coin between saving a friend from being crushed by a truck, or you've written a book about ritual design. Now 50/50 shot here. I'm going to say the lie is you have not yet written a book on ritual design. And I want to pause, just our audience and then my thought process, what is your guess is what the lie is from these four?

Chris:

So did she help raise a million dollars for a business? Did she save her friend from being crushed by moving truck? Did she help women get equal pay to their male counterparts? Or has she written a book on ritual design? Okay and the lie is?

Kate:

Drum roll. Our voting system is just computing the customer... The votes around the world.

Chris:

America you've spoken and...

Kate:

The lie is that I've written a book. You were right?

Chris:

Yes.

Kate:

You are right.

Chris:

Process of elimination.

Kate:

Well done.

Chris:

All right.

Kate:

Well done.

Chris:

I win the prize of hopefully the audience's respect. No, I will say this. I did go on LinkedIn, I did look at your profile. I did not see where you've written a book, because usually that's pretty up at the top.

Kate:

Yeah.

Chris:

So there was some help there, but it's probably the name of your forthcoming book, isn't it?

Kate:

I would love to write a book on it. I don't know when.,I don't know how, but it's something very special to me. I would like to do that, yeah. Because we've lost ritual and we need to bring it back.

Chris:

Well, Kate, it's been a real pleasure having a conversation with you. I entered with some skepticism, I must be honest. Well, here's another coach, but not just a coach, a design coach to add more nuance to that. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I love your energy and the way that you approach things. I think if more people, teachers, boss bosses, is that leaders, people in positions of power would adopt this style of talking and working with people. I think the world would be a better place. Thank you very much.

Kate:

Thank you. Thanks for having and being so open, it's been a pleasure.

Chris:

Now if people want to find out more about you, where can we direct them?

Kate:

So if people want to learn more about design coaching, then they can go to realityprototyping.com. And if people want to learn more about what I'm doing at Mattereum and leading in a new space in design, then they can go to mattereum.com and I'll make sure I share those two things with you.

Chris:

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time and your energy and I want to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing and hopefully not before long, this book will be done.

Kate:

There you go. I've said it now. It's out in the world.

Chris:

Yes, it is. We're going to manifest it into reality, right?

Kate:

One baby step at a time.

Chris:

That's right. Thank you very much.

Kate:

Thank you. My name is Kate and you are listening to The Futur.

Greg Gunn:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribed to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week, The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode and thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music.

Greg Gunn:

If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by rating and reviewing our show on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me, head over to thefutur.com/heychris and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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