Episode 10: Marcus Whitney
Getting to the Next Level with Marcus Whitney
Episode 10: Show Notes
High performers experience near-constant pressure to improve. Marcus Whitney — venture capitalist, pro sports owner, keynote speaker, athlete, author, among other hats — shares how he plans to reach to his ‘next level.’ This is a deeply personal, wide-ranging conversation with a true virtuoso of creative craft. From exercise to creative dry spells to scaling ventures to a beginner’s mindset to the benefits of therapy, we cover a lot of ground.
Key Points From This Episode:
• Introducing today’s guest, Marcus Whitney.
• How exercise helps calm down Marcus’ busy life and exhausting your body versus a workout.
• Why Marcus has seen this year as his least creative year.
• What the ‘next level’ of his life and career mean to Marcus and how he plans to get there.
• The importance of allowing yourself to be a beginner in order to achieve success eventually.
• Adopting the mindset of scaling as a creative act.
• Marcus tells us about his cathartic experience in therapy.
Quotes:
“I think that doing hard things triggers us as humans to be able to adapt on demand to other hard things and the familiarity that we have with hard things makes other hard things not seem so jarring.” — @marcuswhitney [0:02:34]
“I wake up every day and I feel thrilled that I get to do the things that I get to do. But I don't feel this burning sense of needing to prove that I'm competent and capable because the world has reflected back to me at this point in my life, dude, you're good.” — @marcuswhitney [0:15:32]
“[The] process of having conversations and exploring I think can and usually does lead to the potential collaboration with other people.” — @marcuswhitney [0:30:50]
“No matter what you think you believe about someone, they are a human and they are for sure dealing with all the same stuff that all humans do. And there's insecurity and there's unknowing about their own path.” — @marcuswhitney [0:41:15]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
EPISODE 10 [TRANSCRIPT]
“MW: A big part of what I think I need to remember is going to be important for my overall being in whatever I try to do next is to not limit it to things that I know I'm good at. The discomfort of being a beginner again. The closest I come to that right now is jujitsu, just because jujitsu is so incredibly complex and difficult. It's so hard to become good at it, that every time I go train, I feel dumb, and I feel like a beginner.”
[0:00:39] JU: You’re listening to Paint & Pipette. I’m your host, Jeremy Utley. I teach innovation and entrepreneurship at Stanford University. Thanks for joining me to explore the art and science of bringing new ideas to life. Let's dive in.
[EPISODE]
[0:01:02] JU: All right, party people. Welcome to another live episode of The Paint & Pipette Podcast. I am thrilled to welcome to the stage with me, Marcus Whitney. Marcus is among other things, a co-owner of a football club, a venture capitalist, a bestselling author, a jujitsu champion, all around, bad to the bone, rockstar, and I am excited to dive in.
So, a couple of things to note for getting Paint & Pipette listeners, we're going to get real here. Sometimes we get real, sometimes we get real, and it's going to get real today. That's inspired by the amazing conversation Marcus and I had a couple of weeks ago. As we were talking about this session, he shared some things with me that with his permission, we're just going to dig into and get into where he finds himself and his journey of creative mastery now. He said, “You know what? I'm going to do some research. I’m going to be prepared for this conversation.” We appreciate the vulnerability, Marcus. We appreciate your willingness to lay it out there and share with us.
I wanted to start with something that you said just in the pre-show, right before we get started, I said, “How are you feeling about putting yourself out there?” And you said, “I did a super hard workout, so there's no anxiety.” I just got to hear how does that relate to your life? How does bringing exercise impact the stresses of the life of a venture capitalist, leader, author, et cetera?
[0:02:34] MW: I think that doing hard things triggers us as humans to be able to adapt on demand to other hard things and the familiarity that we have with hard things makes other hard things not seem so jarring. Also, there's so much emerging clarity. We've been thinking about ourselves. And this is probably largely an artifact of the industrial era, compartmentalizing everything and figuring out like how this cog goes with this cog, and so forth and so on. As opposed to when we were living in community, agrarian society, I think we just had a much more integrated view of everything.
We've been thinking about, like the brain, and this is where all the brain is. Now, we're learning so much about how much of our brain is actually in our gut, and our nerves, and all of these other types of things, and The Body Keeps the Score, and all that stuff. So, exhausting my body has a massive impact on my physiology, and the way that I think, and specifically coming into a situation like this, to be transparent, and not in a way that – I mean, nothing I'm going to say is I'm going to be ashamed about. But if I hadn't worked out, there's a little bit more potential that I could be anxious about it. How am I going to come across? What are people going to think if I'm actually talking about this stuff? I can't have it. I literally have no energy for it.
[0:03:51] JU: But you said something to me that I just want to keen on for a second. You said it's not just working out, you said, “Exhausting my body.” I think some people do a workout but exhausting my body, talk to us about exhausting my body versus just “a workout”.
[0:04:05] MW: Okay, so that gets into a transition that I made really last year, which was as an adult, who, as a family person, a professional, I run a business and I'm on boards and civic community and all that other kind of stuff. We all know the guidance of we should all workout, we should all exercise. Last year, I decided to take that a step further and embody the identity of an athlete, and doing that by saying I'm actually going to compete, I'm going to set ambitions for myself to be competitive in jujitsu, et cetera, et cetera.
So, when you shift from being someone who, you work out to stay healthy, to being an athlete, the difference is, you're not working out anymore, you're training. And you're training with purpose, and training with clear goals. So, for example, today is 89 days to the big competition of the year from me, which is Master Worlds, that'll be in Las Vegas. So, I'm on this path right now of training towards this. As an athlete, I have coaches. It means I'm very fortunate to be able to do this, but I have coaches. I have a strength and conditioning coach. He doesn't play around. I mean, I show up. I do what he tells me to do, and I'll just tell you what I did today, so you can get, you can get an understanding of what I mean when I say –
[0:05:17] JU: By the way, this is foreshadowing. You telling us what you did today is actually good foreshadowing of you telling us some other things later. So, it's like, it's perfectly, [inaudible 0:05:23] consistent, right?
[0:05:26] MW: Great. I don't mind sharing all about how I'm living my life right now. So, I have a competition tomorrow. It's just a tune-up. I don't care if I win or lose. But I have a competition. So, I text my coach on Thursday after a really hard workout, and I say, “Hey, by the way, just a reminder, I'm competing.” He was like, “I don't care. Nothing changes. You have to be able to compete under stress.” I was like, “Okay.” That was an indication of like, what today was going to be.
He did compress the time that we trained. But this was the final week of the strength cycle that we're working on, and we did five rounds. Normally we do 10 rounds, two different halves. This time, we did five rounds, and the core exercise was squat. I did five sets, five reps of 425, and then we did some straight up and down jumps with the weight thing that you step into the middle of, I forget what it's called, but you step into the middle of it, you can hold it with two handles, and so that probably had 110 pounds on it. Like doing those, and then there were some kind of like hip exercises holding two, I think, those were 50-pound dumbbells. But the key exercise there that like destroyed me was 25 reps of squatting 425 pounds.
[0:06:33] JU: Dude. I know. I'm in awe right now. It’s related, by the way. I mean, going back to your point, you made the point. It's this idea of compartments, right? We can think about exercise as this separate thing. But to recognize kind of the cascading impacts it has, your physiology, your psychology, how you show up when you've stressed your body that way.
I spoke with a professional athlete last week, who was at a tech conference, and he had actually had an ACL injury, so he's not able to do the same kind of training. But he said, he actually does ice pads because they do the same. I said, “What does it do for you?” And he goes, he said, “When you're squatting 425, or when you're in the ice bath, there's no room to think about anything else. It's like, everything else goes out.”
[0:07:17] MW: Everything goes out.
[0:07:17] JU: And there's something to that. I just wanted to acknowledge that and honor that when you and I were preparing, and I asked you, are you ready to dive into the conversation, say, that you referenced the workout. Because I think a lot of people think, all right, what do I have to do to get ready? And it's their body gets removed from the equation. How did you learn that, by the way? Or how did you learn that you actually needed to be creating the space to incorporate your body into your whole life kind of preparedness?
[0:07:46] MW: Just generally, as I was getting older, I recognized I needed to be working out just to kind of stay in shape. I started gaining weight. I mean, it's kind of typical. You get married. Okay, well, maybe you don't need to think about looking so good because you're married, you’re happily married. Then, you start with kids and all this other kind of stuff. So anyway, I kind of got out of sorts. But then I would say the other real thing, the real health issue that I ran into was drinking. I was working really hard being an entrepreneur. I was like running half marathons or whatever. But I was also drinking. It was as I continued to get older, and the realities of the world got more intense that drinking became more and more of just a real negative force in my life.
So, a little over four and a half years ago, I quit. When I did that, and I gave myself some space. I actually was talking to somebody yesterday about like what was the number one benefit that you got out of not drinking? I said, “Better sleep.” Now, ask me what the number one benefit is of better sleep. It's like everything. You know what I mean? So actually, not drinking was not the thing. It was not drinking gave me back my sleep.
[0:08:47] JU: Right. It's like you want to start your day at 60% or 100%.
[0:08:51] MW: Totally.
[0:08:52] JU: Like, how many people plug in their phones at night so they start their flight. If you think about sleep was like basically plugging your body in, imagine how many nights would it take when you woke up and your phone is at 60% before you got a new charger? Maybe, a few days. It’s like, “This thing is broken.” But most people are like, “No, no, no. I can wake up at 60%. I'm good.” It's like, you're crazy. No way.
[0:09:14] MW: Yes. But when you get used to it, you just keep doing it. You're just used to it, and you've sort of settled into that energy pattern, that energy level. You start accepting that as your reality, as the baseline for what life is supposed to be. So, once I started sleeping better, I just started realizing, “Oh, man, I have so much more capacity that I didn't know I had before, but I also have more time.” What am I going to fill that time with? Right? So, I started filling that time with being more engaged in living with my body.
[0:09:45] JU: Okay. You say capacity. I'm just like, I'm chomping a bit. I realize I'm holding myself back but I'm chomping.
[0:09:50] MW: No, all good.
[0:09:50] JU: You’re talking about your capacity. Let's just dive into you. What I'd like to start with, today what we're going to be talking about for folks who are just tuning in right now is really next level. That's one of the things that came up again and again, is Marcus getting to the next level in his journey, and he talks about how there is a whole other level, and you want to get there, and you've kind of been putting it off. You’ve kind of been thinking about it. You've been kind of plotting, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today, and what it takes to get to the next level, how to define it, et cetera. I think it has implications for all of us in our lives where we've got a chapter behind us, and people may look at you and go, “Well, I can't compare to that.” But everybody's got a book of experience that they're now drawing upon as they think about plotting the way forward.
So, I think this will have incredible implications for everyone. I wanted to key in on one phrase that you mentioned to me, as we were speaking the other day, where you basically said something to the effect, because we're talking about your book, Create and Orchestrate. You said, weirdly, this year has been the least creative, probably. But you said, I have done the math, and it's worth the time. I thought that's a really interesting place to start because there's so much tension there. Can you tell us a little bit about what does it mean that this was a least creative year? And also, what does it mean to have done the math and you have made the decision that it's worth it? I realized there's a lot there, but let’s –
[0:11:11] MW: Yes. So, I like to create, and I would say, over the last 20 years, I would be hard-pressed to find any two-year stretch, where I didn't try to create something meaningful and new in my life. That might be a business, that might be some type of club. The things that have endured till today that I can reference our Nashville Soccer Club, Jumpstart Health Investors, my book. Those is just three quick examples of things like that.
Last year, I would actually say the big thing was creating without any doubt, my identity as an athlete, which was a form of creation. Because I had a ton of imposter syndrome about actually being able to say that about myself, because I think generally speaking, the world says, once you're in your 30s, you're not really an athlete. You know what I mean? Like, you're just an old person trying to stay in shape, right? So, the level of training, the commitment, the time I put in, and then the results that I got in competition, all of that codified, no, I am an athlete, and this is now an enduring part of my reality.
Actually, what has happened is, and a lot of this is tied to once I stopped drinking, I've been performing better, generally speaking. So, things have been more successful. The things that I've created are enduring, the fact that they endure takes time, and I now have this portfolio of work between the book which manifests mostly in keynote speaking that I do, and let's say I do that six to eight times a year. Okay, let's just say. The fund that I manage, that is my day job, right? So, I'm doing that pretty much all the time. I don't have any official working role with the soccer team, but the stadium is a five-minute walk from my front door. They play 20-plus games a year.
[0:12:56] JU: Don't act like that doesn't take time.
[0:12:58] MW: It takes time. I have a bunch of seats. I'm always inviting people. It's a big part of my life. It's a big part of my life, in terms of the amount of time and energy that it takes. And then, the cherry on top is jujitsu, where I'm now training, whether it's strength and conditioning, mobility, Pilates, or actual jujitsu. I don't know, 12 hours a week or something like that, and probably more. Probably more than that, not to include my competitions that I'm actually doing, which will kind of eat a weekend up. So, if you take all those things that I'm so blessed to be able to have, you just think about a day, a week, a month, a quarter a year, it's like, I've run out of space.
[0:13:36] JU: You're getting to the answer to the question of why is this the least creative year. I'm hearing a bunch of creative pursuits, but you've called that the least creative year. Why is that?
[0:13:44] MW: So, at the end of last year, my birthday is December 30th, so every end of the year, it's really cool. Because as everyone is thinking about the new year, I'm also thinking about the new year, but I'm also thinking about my personal New Year. At the end of last year, I had this very different feeling than I've had in any year in recent memory. It could be a first-ever, but certainly recent memory, which was I didn't have any particular thing new that I was excited about. It was all just like maintaining –
[0:14:16] JU: Yes, your sustaining.
[0:14:16] MW: – and scaling. Yes, maintaining and maybe you could consider it scaling, but I would say mostly main – mostly holding on and improving probably, qualitative improvements of the things that I have created doing those. And there was also the sense that man, I've become so undeniable. So, part of what we talked about was, the hard-honest thing is I'm going to speak about myself in a way I would not normally speak about myself because people will be like, “Oh, this is your ego. Blah, blah, blah.” But in order to work through this, I have to tell the truth. You know what I mean? And it’s like –
[0:14:53] JU: I'm happy to give a disclaimer, if you want me to give a disclaimer for you.
[0:14:55] MW: Yes. I would not normally speak like this, but we agreed, like we're going to use as a bit of a word shot to allow, also maybe to give people permission to speak about themselves in the same sort of honesty, right? It's like, I'm pretty undeniable at this point. Now, of course, things can go wrong, and I can still fail and all sorts of things like that. But just my work ethic, my competency, my credibility, the accomplishments, it's like, I don't have anything to prove. You know what I'm saying. Now, I still need to deliver, I’m managing a fund. I need to deliver great returns in that fund. That's different than feeling like deeply, intrinsically, I have something to prove. Those are not the same thing. I wake up every day, and I feel thrilled that I get to do the things that I get to do. But I don't feel this burning sense of needing to prove that I'm competent and capable because the world has reflected back to me at this point in my life, dude, you're good. You’re really good.
[0:15:50] JU: Maybe that's a good point for those who maybe aren't familiar even just to give you a chance to kind of take stock and the disclaimer part is this. I've asked Marcus to come and share honestly, where he's at without bragging. This isn't his idea. It's my idea. But share with us where you're at, so that because the question really is, how do I take it to the next level? Or you haven't done it at the next level yet, but you've been thinking about it. So, before we talk about the next level, we got to talk about what is this level? Where have you attained to? And then how do you start to think about what's next and bringing some of that creativity to bear on this next chapter?
[0:16:22] MW: I would say, from a net worth perspective, I'm certainly in a pretty solid position. I'm managing a $55 million fund personally, but my entire platform of which I'm on the board of, a co-founder, and a significant owner manages over $120 million. We've been building that over the last eight years, and we're honestly just getting started. We're continuing to grow. I've released a book. My first book was a bestseller. It continues to sell hundreds of copies, and some months over a thousand copies, and I worked really hard for almost 10 years starting in 2014, doing my first TEDx talk, to be like a viable keynote speaker. Now, I have a great agent. I only do substantial bookings. Or I do stuff like I'm about to do the – I'm actually pretty excited. I'm going to do a keynote for the Big Brothers Big Sisters graduation.
So basically, I only do it for free, for stuff that I think, that I feel really honored to do. Or like, it would shock most people to know how much I charge for keynote now and get. But this is something I've been developing as a skill set for nine years. Now, I can go with no preparation, walk into a room and deliver. Deliver, solidly. It could be a room of 300 people or 3,000 people, it doesn't matter. I've got the ability to do that. I'm definitely a minority owner, but I have an ownership stake in a professional sports team in the United States of America. I mean, that's like ridiculous thing that many, many people aspire to do one day. It's my reality. You what I mean? It's part of my reality.
Then, the most recent thing has been Jujitsu. I started training two and a half years now. I'm obviously competing mostly in my age group, and also at my belt level. But in my age group, and at my belt level, I'm a world champion. That's just not deniable. You know what I mean? It's just a fact, I won.
So, all of this was not always true. In fact, like a lot of this stuff actually finally culminated in the last five years, quite frankly. You know what I mean? There was more than 15 years of hard work without a whole lot to show for it, building up to me being finally ready to get here. So now, I'm here, I'm kind of out of time.
[0:18:36] JU: In what sense? Free time? Free bandwidth, you mean?
[0:18:39] MW: Yes, free bandwidth. In order to continue to do all these things I've mentioned that really are super important to me and mean a lot, they all require time. They all require time, focus, energy, commitment. So, I'm a little bit out of time. Then you have to also add in family, and I've spent a lot of really important quality time with my family this year, and I intend to continue doing that. So, I think the thing is, now that I'm here, and I've done these things, and these are things that if you had told 18-year-old me, this would be happening. Dude, it would freak me out to know that –
[0:19:11] JU: Yes, blow your mind.
[0:19:13] MW: – to know to know that I would be able to have this life, right? Yet, now I'm here.
[0:19:19] JU: So now, you're here, and you and I were talking about next level. What is next level as you've reflected on it? What does it mean to you? Because is there another level? Is there another gear? Before we talked about how to get there, where is there in your mind, given where you are, given that there's no more time, what does it look like to go to the next level?
[0:19:37] MW: The best I can do is I can tell you what I've been thinking. Okay. One thing, for the first time, and I think it's very much tied to this removal of this need to prove myself. For sure, I feel that I'm having the first real thoughts about retirement. Now, I'm not in retirement zone at all. But this year, I've literally been thinking about like, “Okay, but when? When would I?” Because if I'm just going to be maintaining this and growing, the net worth grows and the size of the fund grows, and I win more championships, and I go to more games, and you give them saying like write books, I do more keynotes. Okay, there's nothing wrong. I'm not complaining. But I'm just saying that sense that I'm actually embarking on something new isn't really there.
So, I've been thinking, wow, back to the point about I've spent the time to calculate the value of not doing something new, and it's the right thing for me to be doing right now. The right thing to do right now is to continue doing the stuff I'm doing okay.
[BREAK]
[0:20:37] JU: How many ideas have you tested today? How about your team or organization? Ideaflow is a set of tools that help you test more ideas faster. I've worked with both high growth startups and global organizations, and success comes when you test more ideas faster. Want to learn how better Ideaflow can help your organization? Check out my website, jeremyutley.design, or reach out to me at jutley@jeremyutley.design. I'd love to talk with you.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:21:09] MW: That's really clear. But it does start to push me out and think, “Well, what about seven years from now? What about 10 years now?” I'll still be young. I'm 47. I mean, 7 years. I'm 55. I'm young.
[0:21:23] JU: Maybe let's go back to the math because you said I've done the math. What does it look like to do the math for you? And when you project out seven years, are you just hit a copy paste on the columns? How do you think about –
[0:21:36] MW: No. I mean, I very much think about wiping most. I don't know if all, but wiping most of the columns out. It's everything from totally doing nonprofit work, to considering public service for the first time ever, to thinking, “Well, do I want a brighter star in the sense of bigger social media followings”, and actually doing a book deal with a publisher, and all of those things now feel much more on the table than before. And I'm not necessarily leaning any particular way. But I am having to acknowledge that I've kind of closed out a challenge. I'm in a bit of a holding pattern. That's just the truth. I'm in a bit of a holding pattern. I can't just sporadically try to create something because I'm old enough and wise enough now to know I don't really have the bandwidth for it. I have ideas. There's no time to do them. I know that.
[0:22:32] JU: You said something to me the other day that I wanted to come back to, which is relevant here. You said, “I'm testing a lot of things in little ways.” I'd love to know, what does it look like to be testing at this level? How do you think about deploying test? Because we taught at Stanford at the D school, and with entrepreneurs, a lot about scrappy experiments, rapid prototyping to learn quickly. So, if you could give us just a peek at what is this –
[0:22:57] MW: What does that look like?
[0:22:58] JU: What is this experiment, and what does look like? When you say I'm testing a lot of things in little ways? What does that look like? What are a couple examples?
[0:23:05] MW: Yes, so a couple examples would be taking some discretionary money that I have, and working with a friend who's a great brand developer to like design a brand. I'm not ready to launch the brand at all, but just kind of working through all the difficult parts of like building a brand. What would the audience be? How would this thing be positioned? What's the archetype of the brand? Okay, what would it look like?
So, I'm playing, there's no intent to launch said thing. But like, I'm playing in that sense. That's one way I'm experimenting. Another way is just conversations. Just being open to having conversations that I was not open to have before because I was in the process of striving, and creating with real serious intent. Now, I'm able to have a bunch of exploratory conversations with people just even learning about what their life is like in public service or being a retired person who mostly spends their time doing nonprofit board work. Just like learning from them, and getting a sense of how that might fit for me. How might that fit.
It's a lot of that, right? I mean, I don't know how I can go much further than that without getting in the danger zone. You know what I mean, of like, actually doing something. I mean, spending a little money is actually, that feels pretty tangible. Spend some to develop.
[0:24:28] JU: One thing I wanted to mention is, one of my creative heroes is Jerry Seinfeld. I think there's bearing on your case. Not, that by the way, this isn't like advisory or anything, but just one thing he's making me think of is Seinfeld, have you ever seen the documentary, The Comedian? Okay. You should watch it like Netflix like tonight and everybody's watching here or listening there. You should watch it. But to me, it has bearing for one very important reason. It's filmed of Seinfeld after the show Seinfeld is over. You can think about ease of meteoric, global phenom at this point. He says, “Show's over. I want to go back to stand up.” You go, “Wow. You've had the best show in the world for the last 10 years, like call Letterman. He'll be on tomorrow. It's only 15 minutes. You've been writing a 30-minute show every week.” No, no. It's not how he does it. You know what he does? He goes into the comedy clubs, and he bombs every single night for a year.
To me, the thing is fascinating is you think about Seinfeld, we see him on Letterman, 10 million of us think he's a genius. Well, how does he get to the point where 10 million people think he’s a genius? It turns out, the formula if you want a very simple formula is, a 100, it's the people who attend the show, times 300, the nights per year, 30,000 people thinking he's a doofus, equals 10 million people thinking he's a genius. My point is, I can't help but wonder, Marcus, for you, what's your comedy club? What is the arena in which you can experiment and try things out to learn what's worth getting on Letterman, so to speak?
[0:26:05] MW: I think that's a great analogy. One other thing I want to point out about it is, a big part of what I think I need to remember is going to be important for my overall being in whatever I try to do next, is to not limited to things that I know I'm good at. The discomfort of being a beginner again, the closest that come to that right now is jujitsu, just because jujitsu is so incredibly complex and difficult. It's so hard to become good at it, that every time I go train, I feel dumb and I feel like a beginner and it's not just starting at an old age.
[0:26:43] JU: But that's part of the training, right? That to me, like you have to find an environment where you can be a beginner. There's this awesome scene not to give away like anything too much. But you'll love this. There's this great scene in The Comedian, where imagine you see Seinfeld on a billboard for a comedy club. You go in, there's 100 people there, and the great Jerry Seinfeld is on the stage, right? You start watching him do his bit and he forgets a line. Do you have the audacity to heckle him? Because in this show, this woman, Seinfeld forgets a line and she goes, “Is this your first time, buddy?” It's so visceral. Seinfeld, he breaks the fourth wall, and he looks here. He says, “This is how comedians develop material.” Man, as you can tell, it's quite painful.
To me, it's so poignant. Because there's no way to go from Seinfeld to Letterman. Seinfeld did not protect him from the need to go through the valley of experimentation. To me the danger of a brand, the danger of the Marcus Whitney brand, so to speak, well it’s too precious. And what Seinfeld did, he basically said, “You know what, to 100 people, I'm willing to look like a doofus. I've got to do it.” It’s the only way I'm going to look like a genius to 10 million people. I think finding one's Comedy Club, it's a really apt metaphor. But where are the insulated, contained environments where I can look like a doofus? I mean, where my brand can look other than it might look eventually so that I can learn. Because Seinfeld's routine is, he gets up every morning, he's got a yellow legal pad, and he's writing jokes, and he's reviewing his notes from yesterday, and he's got line-by-line notes on timing didn't work.
I mean, he's cutting syllables out. He's that – but the point is, you talked about trying things out earlier. To me, a high-fidelity experiment doesn't mean it is high-scale. It means he, like Seinfeld. I'm very clear on what I'm trying, and I have a meaningful feedback loop. What he's trying, on Thursday is, I waited two more beats before I landed the punch line, and the feedback loop is did they laugh, right? I mean, granted, he's blessed with a very short feedback loop. But to me, it's really easy to kind of let ourselves off the hook with a generic, “I'm trying stuff”, but we have no clear outcome – there's no laughter. There's actually no clear outcome variable, in which case, we can let ourselves off the hook in a million different ways and say, “Yes, it worked.” Per, what, right?
But if we get super clear on the outcome variable, and measuring is blank, and what I'm trying to do to deliver that outcome variable is blank, that at least I can be intellectually honest with myself, right? But it's actually way harder, because then you have to define those two things. Whereas just doing some stuff, it's like, I don't know. I guess it worked. I guess it didn't. I don't know.
[0:29:28] MW: Yes. All right. Well, I kind of know what that means I need to do –
[0:29:32] JU: Well, let's talk about it. What are the implications for you? I mean, let's just go there? I can only bring the comedy club. I don't know what it looks like in your life. But how are you thinking about that?
[0:29:39] MW: I think that I've got this very, very careful dance, I have to walk, right? Which is truly my focus on the things that I'm doing now, it's not only protecting my ego, it's really my commitment to others. Now, are there things I could pull out of there that don't have that same level of commitment? Yes, so for example, I could pull a jujitsu out. That's like a pretty easy one to point to.
[0:30:03] JU: Somewhat [modular 0:30:04].
[0:30:06] MW: Yes, that's a pretty easy one. I could reclaim a bunch of time. I feel like I would actually be robbing myself if I did that. But it would at least be one that didn't have the kind of commitment to other people, that things like managing a multimillion-dollar fund has. That is not a joke. You're a fiduciary. You have real commitment to other people. So, I'm very clear about that part. I'm very clear about that part. And at the same time, I think that there are things I can do, especially through the vehicle of empowering other people because I think I'm kind of at a stage where I can do that, where I can empower other people. I don't want to say create through them as if they are a vessel for my ideas. I don't mean that. But this process of having conversations and exploring I think can and usually does lead to the potential collaboration with other people. Where I could serve a role that's much more appropriate, given my current commitments, board, chairman, something of that nature, but still kind of have that creative vehicle to do the work.
[0:31:17] JU: The other suggestion I would just submit to you here is I can't help but wonder whether there's an opportunity for a reframe and whether instead of seeing like scaling these, it's like, I can either be creative, or I can scale these things. I wonder what it looks like to treat scaling as the creative act and start to see, “Okay, what are discrete prototypes I can experiment so I can deploy in service of scaling, not in service of creation from whole cloth?” But in service of what I'm already doing.
Right now, one of the things I think about, I'm working with the CEO right now of an advertising firm. One of the first things I'll do is somebody say, let's run an experiment. It's like a physical therapist asking you to touch your toes. I learned a lot just for that one. You want to experiment. It gets a little tripped up, right? But then we started talking about, “Well, hey, what's really working?” And he says, “Well, okay, one thing it's really working is, in our team meetings, when people ask questions, things go really well.” I go, “Great.”
Okay. So, let's just say for a second a hypothesis is, we want people to ask more questions in team meetings. It's very basic, but simple, and easy to follow. Well, what could you do to get people to ask more questions in meetings? He rattled off, like four or five things. I go, “Great.” In the next three weeks, try thing one in week one, thing two in week two, thing three in week three. But importantly, here's the thing, write down how many questions people ask.
[0:32:33] MW: Oh, that's great.
[0:32:34] JU: Then, when we talk in a month, let's debrief. You did this thing in this week, how many questions that people ask? This thing in this week, how many questions? Then, okay, so now you've got a number value for each of these weeks, right? There's 5, there's 10, there's 7. Now, ask a different question, which is, how did it feel? Because our meta hypothesis is more questions makes meetings feel better, which we still don't know, right? But there's kind of two levels of experimentation there.
But the thing that struck me was, that is an example of scaling as the creative act, rather than he's not creating from nothing there, he's actually trying to make the team more effective and hum, and riff with each other in a more fulfilling and enriching way. But as the CEO, what I know is, if he'll bring that experimentation mindset there, the team environment can actually be his laboratory.
[0:33:21] MW: So, I think that's a really important reframe for me because what I would not want anyone who was watching or listening this to, come to the conclusion of, is that I'm not very, very happy. The set of activities that I have on a day-to-day basis. I'm very, very happy. I’m very, very happy doing the things I'm doing.
[0:33:40] JU: You feel the opportunity potential, right? It's like it’s almost a weight. It’s like, what do I do with what I've been given, right?
[0:33:46] MW: At the end of the day, and people who know me know this, if I wasn't happy, I would not be doing these things. I am very, very happy doing the things that I'm doing and I certainly do approach what I do naturally, as a creative, and in a creative way. I see this work as creative. Having been a prolific creator from scratch –
[0:34:09] JU: Right. A particular definition in all of it –
[0:34:12] MW: I have a deep association with that. I have a deep association with this. Oh, I'm not the guy who's done one thing. You know what I mean? So, there's a big part of my identity that's wrapped up having been able to create, often co-create multiple things, and therefore, if I'm not co-creating or creating something that new, am I actually creating? That's an identity issue for me. So, that reframe, that's like a very good one for someone like me.
[0:34:42] JU: Well, and what I would say, I mean, going into your own content. I didn't want you to come here and do a keynote. Folks can see lots of amazing videos of you –
[0:34:49] MW: Yes. They’re online, whatever.
[0:34:50] JU: But like, take your eight concepts, just as an example. I can imagine, in one sense, you have a portfolio of activities, from soccer, to the book, to keynote speaking, to the fund, right? There's four right there. Well, one way to think about creating is I got to have a fifth thing. But if you think of scaling as the creative act, maybe I drill into the fun, and I go, “Wow, there's eight areas here, eight concepts here. Which one can I drive with experimentation? Which one is the marketing or operations?” I'm not going to tell you, obviously. You can kind of dig in and go, “Whoa, I've never thought about experimenting on the sales channel.” Now, if I'm really clear about it, it's a way of actually kind of putting more wood behind the arrows, but in a creative and an experimental way.
[0:35:35] MW: All fair and true. Also, things that I'm doing, I just really am not giving myself credit for those things as being particularly creative. I'm mostly looking at those things as like, kind of operational. You know what I mean? And only because it's within something that already exists, even if it's an aspect of it that isn't that new of that thing that already exists. You know what I mean, which we’re constantly working on that.
[0:35:57] JU: It just comes down to definitions, right? It just comes down to your personal definition. For me, sometimes, I teach with a legendary mechatronics professor at Stanford, and he says, “The only thing better than solving a problem is disappearing a problem.” To me, there's something really powerful about a reframe. When the problem just goes away, I may not have to solve it, right? It could be I'm not saying this is true. But there could be almost this existential angst of like, I'm not creating. If you just recast what it means to create, all of the sudden, that's gone. I am creating. That's different than saying, how might I bring creativity? Or it's like, actually, no, that old definition no longer serves me, and now I need to recast creating in a way that serves me now, and that reinforces my identity and brings breath and life to the stuff that I want to be amplifying.
[0:36:49] MW: That all resonates. It shouldn't surprise you. It's also stuff that I tend to tell other people, sounds like.
[0:36:54] JU: Right. The problem is, I can't solve my own problems.
[0:36:58] MW: Yes, exactly.
[0:36:59] JU: This is why, I mean, going back all the way the beginning of the conversation, we're meant to do life and community. We're meant to do life or relation to one another. Because I'll tell you a fascinating – I had on the podcast, recently, a fantastic thinker named David McRaney. He's got a podcast called, You Are Not So Smart. It's all about cognitive biases. He's writing a book right now on genius – he's so good. He's so good. He actually came and shadowed me at Stanford recently, and spent some time in the classroom. We did a bunch of stuff together. He told me about this study. You'll love this, Marcus.
He said, researchers have put somebody in virtual reality sitting in front of Freud. Freud will ask him questions about, “All right, tell me about your problem.” By the way, it doesn't matter. You can choose your own adventure. Skinner, Young, it doesn't matter, right? You're sitting in front of a psychologist, you tell them the problem. Then, via VR, they have you go to the other side of the table, and they have an avatar say what you just said, and they prompt you to respond as a psychologist. They do this a number of times. David told me something like 75% of people say that they have a meaningful breakthrough on their problem.
[0:38:13] MW: Wow.
[0:38:13] JU: They're literally talking to themselves.
[0:38:15] MW: That sounds amazing.
[0:38:16] JU: There's so much commentary there. But I think it's really hard for us to play that role for ourselves. I mean, I find myself like, I kid you not, I saw one of my favorite students ever. She is now at Google X. She's incredible. I ran into her at a coffee shop in Palo Alto the other day, and she said something like, “Tell me what's going on.” Just like you have with me, I kind of just unloaded a bunch of stuff. And she goes, I kid you not. She goes, “Jeremy, you know what you should do? You should take the scrappiest, fastest action to eliminate one of those risks there.” My first thought was, that's such a profoundly great idea.
My next thought was, I taught you that in class. I told you that. I was like, “Amy, did you just repeat my lesson back to me?” She goes, “I did.” That’s the beauty of this stuff. To me, that’s why we enjoy these conversations, not because we don't know it, but because we don't know it for ourselves, right?
[0:39:15] MW: Totally. Totally. I don't talk about it as much anymore. I talked a lot for a while about being in therapy, because it was – I mean, I still am. It was just so profound, the breakthroughs that I would have having things that were hiding in the shadows reflected back to me in a way that was nonjudgmental, you know, what I mean, where I could just like actually deal with the thing with no sort of shame or guilt attached to it, right? It is a powerful, powerful mechanism. That ability to have reflection, but with another person. So, I submit to that.
To me, honestly, I get a lot of that in my athletic activities with coaches. It's like, I'm doing something but they see what I'm doing and they see in a way –
[0:39:59] JU: They're giving you feedback. It's an out-of-body experience. Going back, I mean, kind of full circle. We are embodied creatures and we impose this false distinction on ourselves a lot, which is not helpful. But then there's also this, we actually need the out-of-body experience too. Kind of coming full circle, ironically, not disembodied, but out-of-body where there's feedback and there's perspective and there's counsel. To me, it's actually a beautiful way to close the conversation.
Hey, folks, I know we're running up against time. Thank you for joining us today, Marcus. I want to say from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of our community, thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for diving in. I hope it's been helpful to you just to talk through this. This is a very unique episode of the podcast. But to me, when you and I were introduced, and we started diving into where you are on your journey, I thought there's nobody else I'd rather enjoy digging into these kinds of personal issues with you. So, thanks for opening up to us, sharing your story with us, and know that you got a bunch of people in The Paint & Pipette crew that are in your corner and excited to see what you do next.
[0:41:01] MW: Appreciate y'all. Thank you. This was awesome, fantastic way to close out the week. I'm glad it wasn't just some like talking head presentation. I think this is the reality. I mean, I guess this is just where – this would be my parting shot. But this is the reality. It's like no matter what you think you believe about someone, they are a human and they are for sure dealing with all the same stuff that all humans do. And there's insecurity and there's unknowing about their own path. I'm finding myself in one of the happiest, most accomplished, most fulfilled times of my life, still being part of this human condition and still wondering, why am I here? What am I doing? What's my purpose? I wake up every day with very purposeful things, but like, what the heck am I doing? So, it has been really, really helpful and fun to unpack it with you. Thank you, Jeremy.
[0:41:49] JU: Yes, we're all in the journey together. That's right. I'm privileged to get to be a student in the classroom with you. Hopefully, folks, if they take nothing else away from today, they take heroes are people too. Heroes are people who are facing problems and who are seeking to keep getting better themselves and we're all on this journey together. And it's a delight to get to learn from you today, Marcus. So, thanks for your time.
[0:42:11] MW: Thanks so much.
[0:42:11] JU: With that, we'll see you in two weeks. We got Liz Wiseman and then in four weeks, we've got Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired, who's going to be here to talk about his book, Excellent Advice for Living, which we can't wait to dive into. Until then, be good everyone.
[OUTRO]
[0:42:26] JU: By day, I'm a professor, but I absolutely love moonlighting as a front-row student next to you during these interviews. One of my favorite things is taking the gems from these episodes and turning them into practical tips and lessons for you and your team. If you want to share the lessons you picked up from this episode with your organization, feel free to reach out. I'd be thrilled to do a keynote on the secrets that I've gleaned from Creative Masters or put together a hands-on workshop to supercharge your next offsite adventure. Hit me up at jutley@jeremyutley.design for more information.
[END]
One of the defining contributions the d.school is helping teams ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like semantics until you realize we need to show up in different ways.