How to Make Smart Decisions Your Team Needs

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W. Park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on ZVO Parks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

0:52 Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at www dot Dvpork dot com and you can connect with dvnts contact dants dvpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host TV Park. Good morning listeners, and of course it is Tuesday morning and we are here together and just excited to be with you today. We have a special treat for you, something very different than what we usually normally talk about it. Before we get into it, I just want to share with you my book The AI Agency is out, and one of the things I want to share with you is that one thing that happened recently, my client shared with me that he was able to use one of the frameworks and use it in his company and it really helped him out and he's positioned very strongly for our promotion. So if you're looking to grow your business, or if you are looking to just kind of figure out what to do in the next era of AI, the AI Agency is for you. All right, without further ado, we will welcome our guest.

2:16 Welcome Lisa, Hi, Great to be here, Great to have you, Lisa. Do you recall a moment or a person in your life who might have left to pass to Mark on you? Oh? Wow, so many. I'm thinking of a I'm thinking of a famous, a famous cartoonist here in. The United States that I really looked up to. And I got to meet her at a comic con one time, and very quickly I did a little sketch, a little doodo of her and gave it to her and she was so she was so wonderful to me, and she kind of offered to be my mentor, and so she's become a good friend now. And that was before I became a professional, So that that was really amazing for me to have appear like that.

3:09 Oh, that's phenomenal, and you are a contoonist or if I'm not getting it dried, please do let me know how did you get into it? Well, it was something I wanted to do. And I was a little girl when I was when I was a child in New York City, the first thing I ever bought with my own pocket money was a little book of Snoopy cartoons. I'm still such a fan of Charles Schultz. I have a copy lug with my little Peanuts characters on it. And you know, that was really what I wanted to do. I would study it and I would say, how is it? These are just marks on a piece of paper. How is it? Why is it making me feel sad or feel like laughing?

3:54 What? What is it that? What's this magic here? And my parents encouraged my creativity, but at the same time, they were from the Depression and they were worried that I would that I would be starving. So I was discouraged from trying to do that as a career, and so I ended up doing being an advertising instead, which was kind of I loved it. I loved making television commercials and things like that, but I never stopped drawing on the side. And there's a publication. I don't know how many of your how much of your audience is in the United States, but here in America there's a there's a magazine, very famous magazine called The New Yorker that's that's not for comic strips. It has cartoons though, for grown ups. And that's sort of the super Bowl of cartoons. And when I was in my twenties, I applied to you know, I sent in some of my work, and I got some very polite rejection letters, you know, and some encouragement, but you know, not I didn't they didn't take anything from me, and I wish I could say I've been trying ever since my twenties to do this, but I kind of gave up.

5:06 I didn't. I didn't choose to give up. I just, you know, you just forget about it, you stop doing it, but you think, wow, this is not going to happen. And then a few years ago I met someone at another comic book convention, and they were at comic con in San Diego and they saw my work and they said, you know, you should try again because they're looking for more women and they're looking for different voices. And I was like, okay. Well, he said, well, the next time you're in New York, let me know and I will. I will. If I'm going down to see the editor, I'll take you with me and we'll i'll introduce you. And I thought, wow, that's really that's nice. And do you know I went back to New York three or four times after he made that offer, and I did not did not take him up on it, because I thought, oh, he was just being nice. Oh you know, and then one day I just said, are you crazy? Let him know you're here.

5:56 So I did, and I met the editor, and obviously it takes a long time to get into the New York, or so I thought. But I went down again the following week with a new set of new package of work, and the very next week she did buy me. So that was a complete surprise. And then so then so all of a sudden, I went from you know, it only took me thirty years and like two weeks to do this, And it's not my main profession, but I'd love to teach other people how to use pictures to communicate, because I find it really a wonderful direct way of doing it, especially in the age of AI, which I know you're very interested in, and so am I. I love AI, and yet I feel that you know that human human marks on a piece of paper are still are still relevant and still stand out, especially now.

6:54 I want to comment on a couple of things you mentioned. It only took me thirty years a dream realize as a dream realized. There's no the way I look at it is there's no age to it, there's no there's no season. For it, and it comes trough, it comes true. And when you talk about it, I come from lean six sigma background, and I'll tell you there's so much power, you know. View stickies and sharpie's and. Wallpaper, like you're sticking out and writing it out. So even today, there's so many studies that show that Immn's best pal is pen and paper.

7:35 So of course that is so powerful that you got into it. And how was the feeling, you know, when you got into it. Well, it was a crazy situation because you know, the first time I went in, I was, you know, very nervous. I brought in a stack of things that I had drawn a long time ago. But there were still funny jokes because they were they were green kinds of things with dogs and I had I had won with uh. With the devil sitting at a table in a in a board room meeting. Everyone else is just a regular person, but the devil is sitting at the head of the table and he says something. He says, Uh, listen, you guys.

8:17 When I when I need an advocate, I'll ask for one because someone has someone has just said, all, let me play Devil's advocate. So there he's like, ah, but I'm bump. Anyway, she liked that one. She kept it. I was like, oh, you know, so I went away from Uh. She didn't buy it, but she just held it over and I and I went away from that first meeting feeling like I already won because I had the courage to come in. I actually had a meeting. This is what professionals do. And I felt like that's almost that's enough. I mean, I'm happy. I'm happy already. And then the following week when I came in, I drew a whole bunch of things that week just so that I would have something to show, and I didn't think they were very good. But the night before, the night before I I went in, there was I had an idea because of something that was happening in the news, and I thought, that's really funny. I don't usually do political cartoons, but this one it was just a funny moment in politics, and I thought, I don't know, this is this is funny. I'm going to I'm going to do and I really just the next morning, I just really scribbled it very quickly. And so when I went to see the editor, I I showed her, you know, the things I had done for the week, and as I suspected, she said, well, this is okay, but oh well, we've already bought something like this. Oh well, you know, I'll here are all the things wrong with this one.

9:34 And I'm like, okay, that's fine. I said, listen, I did something very very fast this morning. I know it's not for the magazine, but I wanted you. I wanted to show you that I could come up with a fast idea. And I showed her this this straw that I'd done that morning, and she looked at it and she said, well, that could be the daily cartoon. And I said, what's the daily cartoon? I didn't know what she was talking about. And the daily cartoon for the New Yorker is doesn't go in the magazine, you know, only was online. And it's related to things that are happening that day, like, for example, today at the time of this broadcast is Saint Patrick's Day, and they'll probably have a daily cartoon about Saint Patrick's Day. So so I said, oh, okay, and then she said, uh, and we send it out with a humor newsletter goes out to two million.

10:17 People said wow, that's great. And then she said, well, it's too late for me for us to run it today, but we could run it tomorrow. And I was like, are you And. I literally said an unprintable unbroadcastable word to her. It was like, are you kidding me? Are you? And it was like, well, you know, just be just don't get too excited because we have to watch the news cycle. And this was this was a cartoon that featured then President Trump, who was now President Trump. This was the first administration and I and I and I was like, oh, you mean if he says anything or he does anything between now and tomorrow, that makes this no longer a funny joke, you won't be able to run it.

10:58 And she said, yeah, that's about it all. And I prayed, was like, please don't say anything, Please don't tweet anything, Please don't do anything, because I want my childhood dream, please please. And lucky for me, nothing happened between the time I showed her the cartoon and the time that they decided the next day to use it. And the crazy thing was, I mean, they gave me a contract and all this stuff just has happened. I was in a daze. And the funny thing was that that day, because it goes up, that same day, I started getting calls and emails and messages from people I had not seen since I was a child. It was people in grade school who saw my name, and they must have subscribed to the Humor newsletter and they were like, are you the Lisa Rothstein He used to draw horses on the back of your mouth tests and Miss Covasi, are you literally?

11:50 People I hadn't seen since I was ten years old, and it was the craziest thing. And it's oh and the best thing about it was that somehow I captured lightning in a bottle. And everybody thought this was a funny, a funny joke. And so I'll see if I can find it to show it to you on my iPad. But somebody from CNN, Jake Tapper from CNN shared it on his Twitter, and then a broadcaster from Fox News shared it on his Twitter, and then the Washington Post shared it on their Twitter, and that suddenly everybody was sharing this. It went completely viral. It was the first thing I'd ever done for them, and it was it was it was just a crazy moment, and I out of the park.

12:32 You knocked it out of the park. I did. That's that's usually what happens. I have very good beginner's luck the first time I do something, you know, so I've never been able to do that again since then, it was just it was just a crazy you know, something struck me funny, and apparently other people felt the same way, and so it was it was just a very very viral thing and it was really fun that that happened. Yeah, so I still get a thrill, you know, it's not it never gets old. Also, sometimes what really gets me excited is when something gets licensed for products like this. This is a This is a bunch of a set of note cards that has one of my cartoons on the front, and it's basically all the cards are are have do have dog cartoons on them for people who are just listening.

13:20 It is a story with a man and a woman meeting in the park and the dogs are hugging like they haven't seen each other in a long time, good old friends. And the man says to the woman, I guess you're right, we must have met before. We have met before. And that came this. This, this cartoon came out of real experiences I had in New York City where when I got a dog, suddenly I got to know my neighbors, but we didn't know each other's names. The dogs all knew each other, dogs had their favorite friends, but I'd be like, I don't, I don't I know the dog's name. I don't know the person's name. I don't know who this other person is, but my dog knows her dog. So that that was how that was how that cartoon came about.

14:02 That is beautiful. So when you draw on your life experiences as you draw cartoons. Yes, I mean that's that's Listen. The biggest hardest part, I think for any cartoonist is everyone's always asking where do you get your ideas or how do you get ideas? I mean, drawing is drawing is not that hard for most of us. It's the it's thinking, it's it's coming up with it's coming up with with ideas. And so from your own life is really a great, a great way to do it. You see a lot of good a lot of good, funny things that come out of family situations or marriage situations or parents and you know, like your own parents.

14:43 I like to do. Things that use animals instead of people because it just I don't know, I've always loved the I love you. Know, there is no personal feelings involved, and they're like just like music. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're very it's very neutral and uh and then there are also so many, so many funny jokes with with with animals. You know, I've done a lot of animal cartoons. In fact, I had a big show of all of all of my animal cartoons at a at a gallery a couple of years ago, and they they somebody offered me this show, and I'm like, I'm not sure I've done enough animal cartoons to do this, because they wanted an animal the thing.

15:27 And then when I looked through my archives, It's like, no, I have. I have like dozens of these and here's let's see, here's one ah that I did with a friend of mine. What happens. What happens when you become a cartoonist for the New Yorker is everyone you've ever met says, oh, I have an idea for a cartoon, would you draw it? And most of them are terrible, but this one was actually pretty good and they actually bought it. I don't know if you can see, but there's a man playing chess with a dog and he says to his wife, he's not that smart. I just took his queen for a biscuit and so and the Dotterie is still staring at the board wondering like how did he lose this game? You know? Yeah, and you know, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So coming to that, so many times what happens is that, you know, teams can be sitting there, you know, they're stuck right and they're going into the polish or I cannot say this, I cannot say that. So can you share, like you know, a teach our audience how we can intentionally, like you know, create some rough sketches to cut through overthinking.

16:36 Right, So now that we've talked about all of my experience as a cartoonist, and I'm going to talk to you about how it's important not to make things look beautiful. So but I do use a lot of car I do use a lot of cartoons cartooning techniques in the way I teach people how how to draw. But like you can, if. You're sitting in a situation, you can have a situation where you're basically like the team is over here, this is a cliff, like this is a mountain or something, and you've got you've got your team over here, and there they've got they've got something that's just a bunch of people over here and then there's maybe something that they want over here, and that could be that could be money, I'm gonna make make a bag of money here, or that could be some kind of victory, some kind of prize of some kind.

17:24 You know, you can just to find what I'm hearing over here? Is that, like you know, as you're sketching for our listeners audio listeners, is that on one side you draw where the current status is, where people are, and then to the right side of the paper you. Can have your goal and viteorva you want to like, you know. Sometimes it can be product, people can be building, it can be actoring. Draw out your goal. Right exactly, and it does and it can be a very for anybody listening and not seeing. It's very simple little icons that are that anybody can draw that everybody, Okay, this rep and it's money, this represents victory of some kind. You know whatever, and you don't.

18:05 You can put words too. But but it doesn't only have to be pictures. But then which you can do is you can basically say, well, what here's the gap we want to be. We're here, we want to we want to get here, So now what what's the what are the stages or the steps that can make that can bridge us from going over here. And so now we can now we can define like what goes in each of these boxes, and you know, you could be writing things. You can be you know, you don't only have to be drawing things if you want to get fancy, you can also be like what happens if we fail? Like what happens if we don't make it? You know, are there sharks in the water down here? Like? Or is there really no no consequence to our not making it across? But but the the idea is like, anybody can draw this. But what's good about this is that it opens up a conversation. Now we're all looking at the same picture. We're all facing in the same direction, looking at the same thing, and saying, well, what if we.

18:58 Added this over here? Or what if we change our goal to be something else? Or what if we add more. People to our team so that we can do more work to get across this thing? I mean, that's these are just ideas. But the point is that having a rough sketch like this gives people allows people to feel included because it's not a PowerPoint, it's not finished, it's not AI where I press a button and you have this beautiful finished thing that that now feels like, well, I'm not sure I can actually add anything to this because it's done and I wasn't involved this. I like to do this kind of work before I involve any kind of finish, like you know, like people go straight to a finished product. We have such great technology that allows us to even before AI happened, you know, you could go straight to a beautiful a beautiful presentation or something like that. And sometimes they're really the thinking didn't go in before, and now you have a beautiful presentation of very unprocessed thoughts, you know, And so this is this is a great way to process you're thinking, to allow everybody to be creative, to allow everybody to feel included and to feel heard. And everybody owns the finished picture because they've all contributed to it. So there's more there's more buy in from everybody on the team, and there's more memory that of what here's what we decided.

20:25 Oh I remember when we drew that picture together, So now I know what I'm supposed to do instead of like, oh, I left the. Meeting and I'm not sure what just happened. You know, I do know that whenever I do this sort of thing, and I'll do it on my iPad sometimes, but when I'll do this sort of thing during a PowerPoint or during. A because you can, you can do You don't have to. Sketch instead of doing a presentation. You can do both. In fact, I know someone who taught me something called smile slide sketch. So this is if you're doing a virtual presentation or you're doing a virtual meeting. Smile is me on the camera, like like you're on the camera right now, talk talk doc. I'm saying my thing. Now, I might go to my PowerPoint and say, let me see here's here's here's what we're talking about today. And now I might go to my sketch pad and say, let me show you what I mean, and then you start to draw out an example of what you mean.

21:15 Those If you cycle between those three, those three things, you keep the engagement because people don't aren't just sitting there passively looking at the same at the same picture, at the same face the entire time. But it also gives people different ways of understanding the same information I've told you, I've shown you, Uh, you know, some writing about it, and now I'm going to draw you a picture about it that tells the story of how it might work in real life. And it's just a really complete way of explaining a concept. So that's the and it's it's it's a great way of in keeping people engaged on really long zoom calls too. Yeah, no, especially with the Virshow and so many companies, you know, because of what happened, you know, post COVID. Yes, companies bringing people back into the offices, and yet there are more teams there that are still working. So this is a really good way of engaging, especially during the zoom calls. So many times what happens is that there are some hidden layers, and what happens is that like people are awarding those So do you have any techniques in that drawing that could cut through those conversations?

22:24 Yes, I mean, like everyone knows about the elephant in the room, right. So sometimes sometimes when i'm when I'm facilitating something, or I'm when i'm just sometimes I work with other people and they're facilitating something, I will literally I will literally draw an elephant. So for your people who are so this is this is a very quick elephant. So I literally draw an elephant. These a little worried worried elephants. So you could actually, uh, if you're using something like Mirro or a mural or something like that, one of the online whiteboarding collaboration tools, this is actually a little bit easier, but you can actually ask people to to put make sticky notes of what they think.

23:13 What have we not mentioned? What are we what are we tiptoeing around? I mean sometimes I'll hear and I'll say, I am I as the as someone who might be describing in a meeting or like taking visual notes, and people ask me sometimes to give my give my uh not not my opinion, but basically what did I hear? It's like, well, I heard all this, but here's what I didn't hear. And I have this suspicion that people are not discussing this for some kind of reason. And people are like, oh, well, we just didn't want to go there. They admit it. But you can just you can have a picture of an elephant and basically have everybody come and put sticky notes around the elephant like this, these are these are things that we haven't talked about that I think we should discuss or here's something that's big, a big deal, and but obviously nobody wants to be associated nobody is it's help it's helpful if it's anonymous, you know, because nobody wants to the reason people don't want to talk about it is because they don't want to have They just they don't want to be the one to bring it up. So uh, in some cases, virtual meetings are better for something like this because you know, on a on a program a platform like mural or miuro some people call it myro.

24:19 I know, Mirror dot com is like Mirror is very popular. What's the second one you mentioned? Mural It's called it's so annoying that they have very similar sounding names. It's called mural, m u r a L. It's like a mural, like a like a like a wall mural. It's the exact same that's the exact same thing that Miro does. And but one of the things that is, you know, during COVID, we all get very familiar with these with these programs, and I did notice that there were some advantages, Like one advantage to the to to doing it these kinds of things remotely is number one. You've got you've got able to do a synchronous uh asynchronous work, but also people in different places in different time zones can all can all contribute. But the best thing for me is you can actually put up your sticky notes without anybody knowing who's was, who's so, and you can vote on things without anybody seeing how you're voting. So for people who don't know this this technique in design thinking and other kinds of workshops like that, you'll have something that they call dot voting. So people people put up their sticky notes. I don't know how much how many of your how much of your audience already knows this, So I'm maybe telling everybody things they already.

25:36 Have, please walk them through I know mode. Yeah, so you'll have everybody has sticky notes in there, and what I One thing I love about this tech, about all the techniques in design thinking is you're getting to work together, but alone you're not. It's not a bunch of people talking to each other and and brainstorming. I love brainstorming, but usually one or two people dominate. I'm usually one of them, one of the two people dominate. The converse when it's when you're working together alone or alone together, everybody writes down their ideas on a sticky note quietly, and then they all put the sticky notes up on the wall, and then everybody gets to see what everybody else was thinking without being influenced by each other. And so what you could do with the elephant situation is you could have a picture of an elephant and basically have everybody write down sticky notes of what are we not discussing that we should be discussing that has been a problem for a while, or what is an awkward conversation that needs to be had, and people can write privately write down what they think. And if you're doing it remotely, you can have people be like anonymous, putting these things up on the wall and on the virtual wall, and then you could decide everybody can see now here all the things that everybody thought we should be talking about. You're able to see how many other people agreed with you because they put up almost the same idea you did, and you can see. And then you can and also have people vote. You have you get you give each other each person so many votes, so many dots. We call it like sticky dots, to

27:08 put on each of the each of the things, thinking which of these things should we really just tackle because it's going to give us the most impact if you're doing it remotely. It's kind of fun because you can't see where the dots are going until we reveal the winners. This one got twenty five dots, and this one got five dots. Okay, obviously this one is the one that we need to be talking about. And it's it's it's a communal it's a communal experience without people influencing each other, which I think is really helpful. Yeah, it's kind of to make to make a fun picture of an elephant. And and okay, this doesn't have to be that serious. Let's let's let's just let's just finally tackle this problem.

27:49 Yeah, helpful but powerful. Yeah, And so you have talked about, like you know, especially in this AI era, like what happens is some times people are talking through air. So for example, like you know, one of the things I believe is that if you don't use you lose the skills. So it's important to keep on like fine tuning it and harnessing your skills. So while you're doing that, and then a lot of times what happens is, especially so many of my clients are already like using a generated things. And bringing it so it can reduce the trust. Is it you're talking? Is it AI talking right?

28:33 So? How can you. Mentioned about like you like, there's so many people like who are scared, including myself about. Drawing is but it becomes a point of humor. Do you have a simple technique that our audience can use immediately? Yes, I mean it's it's simple, but it takes a little time to explain. I do. And you probably see I have a book over my shoulder. People who are looking this little book called Drawing at Your Genius, where I talk about this a lot. I break it down into into three different buckets because people think like, well I can't draw, and they think, but that's what they what they really mean is that I can't draw everything, like I couldn't draw something, you know, like out of the blue. And I'm telling them, well, it's a little bit like if you will go to Paris and you want to go to a restaurant and order lunch. You don't need to know how to say absolutely everything in French. You don't need to know how to read balls act. You just need to say, need to know a few simple things. And so the few things that you know that I feel like people need to know are I break them down to three things that.

29:39 Start with C. I talk about character, concepts, and context. So character is like, well, you know, there's all kinds of like different expressions you can make that just takes Look, this is the sort of thing that I was telling you about earlier, where when I was studying the Peanuts books, like how is it that I just changed these couple of lines and it changes the expression of the people. So character would be how to express humanity and emotion and not just a stick figure. And I show people how to do stuff where it's easy but still. Not a stick figure. I'll show you that in a second. Concepts are things like icons and symbols. So if people can look, if people are watching this, I'm showing you a picture of the Earth, which is basically just a circle with a couple of squiggles on it, but it looks like the Earth about how you draw it. But the magical thing about that is that it can mean lots of different things depending on what words you put with it.

30:35 So it could mean you could be talking about travel, or you could be talking about logistics. For your company. You could be talking about climate or you could be talking about world peace. It's the same picture. But the idea is that it can symbolize lots of different things. And so there are a few symbols that that might come up a lot in your work that you can just learn to draw very quickly and that be very simple. And then there are things like then there's context. And what I call context is a little bit is like the the first drawing that we did. That had the two cliffs, where does this live? Where is the where is the Uh?

31:16 It's like a metaphor you know, or frameworks or things like that, diagrams things and things like roads and bridges and icebergs and things that that that that anybody can draw, but that that will allow you to and then you can put the characters and the concepts in those same pictures. Let me show I'm going to show you a little example of what I mean about about how about how character. Can can change. But I take people through this all the time. Usually I do more, more, more different examples, but because of time, I'm going to keep this short. So if I if I make these I make I've made a bunch of oval shapes and and I'm putting about a third of the way down some some eyeballs here, and then I put it under that like a little a little.

32:04 U shaped kind of a nose. So now so now we have like six identical faces here and on the top row I'm going to put these people are all going to be smiling. So now we have, you know, three people on top who are who are pretty much the same expression, expressing the same emotion. But if I take if I if I do two lines here and maybe a little tear drop, that person has a completely different emotion. Oh yeah, see how it makes it and it makes you feel something. It's it's so that's this is this is what I was telling about when I when I first when I was five years old and I was looking at snoopy cartoons. Then I take a third person and I make two different kind of marks over the eyes, and that person is like, it looks like the sneaky. So we have just a regular person, you know, a kind of an emotional person, maybe watching a sad movie or something, or you gave them a gift and they're and they're and they're moved, or they're looking at their child for the first time or something or cute puppy. And then this person is planning your demise. This person is a sneaky, evil person.

33:11 The difference between these three is a couple of lines different and anybody can do this, you just have to practice a little bit. And if you do. Down here. More like unhappy people. Now, these three are all the same. These are all just generally displeased people. But if I take the eyebrows from this person and put them on this person, that person is now sad, you know, give them a tear drop to that person is sad and grieving and upset. Very simple, very very only two only three different marks on here. Yeah, very powerful. Look yeah, I know the same. And then the same thing with this. I'm going to take this eyebrows and put it on here. Now you have an angry person. So now you now for people who are watching on TV or on your computer, you are now looking at six completely different expressions, six different emotions.

34:06 This could be your customer, This could be your client, This could be you know, your colleague. You know, I want people to go from from angry to to just happy, or I want people to go from from sad to determined and let's let's go and get let's go and get our competition. You know, we lost last year and now we're going to go. And my point is each of these, each of these faces tells a story, and it is not you don't have to be an artist to do this, as everyone thinks, Oh, I'm not an artist. It's like, this is not about art. In fact, I like to say, the worse it looks, the better it works. And people don't believe me. People say, people think, oh, you're only saying that because you're an artist and I'm not, and you're trying to make me feel better. I'm saying absolutely not. I'm saying I have to force myself to do the simplest. I don't want people to say, oh, I love the way you drew that.

34:57 I don't want that. I don't want people to say, oh, you're such a wonderful artist. I want people to understand the idea. What's the communication. So the more you make it about the picture you're drawing and not about the idea you're communicating, you are stealing from yourself. So it's better to not be good at drawing. It's better to just be clear at drawing and in that case, you really only need the bare minimums. That's what I was trying to demonstrate. Just there. Oh, that's so powerful, and I'm definitely getting your book, and I'm sure like our audience is going to get your book. And so one very quick question, as we are getting to the end of the show. So many times what happens is that people are stuck in the decision making. Do you have any quick tips as to sometimes decisions are dragging on from mom's how could the drawing cut through it?

35:50 Well, I want to talk about that, and I also want to answer I don't think I answered your question before about trust because with the AI and to me, one of the things that I love to say about about this kind of work is that it's it's proof of humanity. It's proof that a person was involved at some stage in this process. When you see a rough sketch, it means that that I, this was not produced by AI, although I could make a picture like this, but the idea is, here's here's something where people were actually thinking about this and then and then you've given it to AI to to maybe generate some more ideas or something like that. As far as decisions are concerned. It's a lot easier to get to a decision when you have you know, when you have uh, something where it's like, well, you know, here here, I am at the beginning of of a of a long journey that we're going to take to Maybe maybe you're in project management or something, and we're trying to get from here to here. It's like, well, what sort of milestone should we have along the way that we are going to that we're going to do.

36:51 It's like when you're when you're talking about this in front of other people and they can add their their suggestions, and then everybody can decide right then and there, well, which of. Which of these things are we going to do? Which of these. Things will will we'll give will will give us the most uh, we'll get us the closest to where we're trying to get to. For example, and I. Mentioned design thinking before, in many cases, if you're doing a design sprint or something like that, there is a time for discussion. But then there's also somebody who has been designated from the beginning as the decider. It's like, so that we can move forward, we can we can all make our case for what we think, but then at the very end of the end of the day, Deva is going to be the person who decides, and and everyone agrees that you're the decision maker.

37:43 And and that. Doesn't mean, you know, we trust you not to do something completely different than what the group wants. But if there are if there's two or three competing ideas, you're going to be the one. And that's it. So the first most important thing for making decisions is to decide that you're going to decide. You're not going to say, well, let's have an meeting or something like that. This meeting is meant to have an outcome, and the outcome is going to be we're going to make a decision about how we're going to move forward with this project. And if there are some things where we need more information that we're going to decide, we're going to have that information by you know, tomorrow or two weeks from now, and then we're going to But you know, most of the time, you can make a lot of decisions right there in the room, but it's helpful to have to see it all again when you're looking at something like this together and you're adding your own ideas to it. Together, everybody's facing in the same direction. They're not talking across the table from each other and arguing, we're all looking the same way, and we're all adding to this picture and all discussing. And also it surfaces any misunderstandings like oh, I thought you meant this, but now I see you mean that. It's like yes, okay, well, well all right, and then people walk away at least with understanding where they agree and where they don't. But the most important thing about deciding is deciding that you're going to decide and not and not out of politeness sometimes just let things float on everyone. I think people don't I don't think people don't decide because they're indecisive. I think sometimes they don't decide because they want They don't want to

39:13 make anyone feel bad that you know that they're that they're that their wish was not the one that went forward, or something like that. When you when you when you're when you do a collaborative process like this, no one can say they were not heard. No one can say, uh, you know, I didn't get a chance to make my case. Everyone makes their case and then and then if if you've set it up this way, then there is a decision, someone is someone decides, and then and then you can go forward and then if it doesn't work out, you can go back and try again. But if you but if nothing is decided, nothing happens, so. So powerful, and thank you, thank you for sharing your wisdom so generously and so many times. What happens is I hear back from our listeners and viewers and audience will share that that little thing resonated. And I'm sure today our wonderful audience is going to take away so many things with them and it's going to be so helpful for them.

40:10 To not only be. As you mentioned, you know, you're not talkument good artists, but like you know, be better communicators. And it's so important that And there's so many different applications of this. So Lisa tell us, where can people connect with you? Where can they find your book? Well, the book is on Amazon right now. That's that's the only place you can probably get it. And if you like, my website is drawing out your Genius dot com, which makes it very simple because that the name of the book is drawing out your Genius and the subtitle is used vision thinking to sell ideas, drive, buy in and lead change. So if you're doing any of those things, if you need people to buy into your idea, or if you need to if you have experiencing change in your organization and you want people to understand it, then it says it's something there are. There are applications in it for how to use this in sales, how to use this in meetings, how to use this in innovation, and things like that. So I hope people enjoy it.

41:12 But the first chapter is all about the about how anybody can use character, concepts and context to help communicate and lead better at the office or at board home. Mm hmm, any last advice you'd like to give. Yes, here's a secret everybody. Most everybody thinks they can't draw. If you're the one who is brave enough to pick up the marker and go to the whiteboard or go to the piece of paper or go to the iPad, everyone is going to be paying attention to you. Everybody's going to lean in, everybody's going to ask you after the meeting, oh, could you send me those visual notes you showed or those diagrams that you did in the meeting. They don't ask for the PowerPoint slides. They ask for the little scribbles you did during the meeting. If you have the courage to be the one to pick up the marker, you will be You will be in a position of influence that you don't even if you think now you couldn't do it because everyone's afraid. And when you when you have the courage, then you then you become the leader. So just a little secret for people in your audience.

42:13 Well, thank you, Thank you so much, Lisa. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. It was wonderful. And that's the beauty of these conversations. We can bring so much for our audience and make their lives better. So I'm sure that whoever's watching it, do get Lisa's book because it's going to help you communicate better. And who knows, you might find it to use it even in your relationships where like you may not be having a. Conversation here's me and here's you, and here's what we're arguing about. You know what. I haven't tried it, but maybe I should.

42:56 Yeah, there's something ideas that are already percolating in my head, like very could be used. It could be with amongst. Children or well I think children would I have not used this with children. I don't have children of my own, but if I did, I would definitely use this with children because they love this sort of thing and they're so creative, and they'd be like, well, what if we put this over here and that over there. It's like, well, we could do that, and then you know you're acknowledging their contribution and it's no longer a fight. Now, it's a collaboration. Now, it's a design thinking session. So it's Yeah, I would definitely try this with kids. Yeah. So there are so many different possibilities. Take it, run with it, enjoy it, and thank you wonderful audience for joining us and letting us know how we can serve you and support you so that we can bring guests like Lisa. Thank you Lisa for joining us and help you live the life you deserve. Not only that, but be joyous and be successful and be thriving.

44:00 So do let us know, and thank you one for making this technically possible. Do well and take care until next time. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your host v Park, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence, Vpark shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dot dvpark dot com and you can connect with vat contact at dvpark dot com. We look forward to you're joining us next week