 Thank you, can everybody hear me okay? Okay, great, because they told me they don't have control over sounds, so I was hoping that worked out. So I'm gonna go over why expression is so important, and really quick, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I know this is the last session, you've done amazing, the organizers have done amazing, so thank you for being here. So I'm gonna go over why expression is so important, and I'll go over it in a few different contexts. So on the organizational level, for an individual, and then societal level as well, and I think it's gonna be quicker than you expect. But expression is an action of art, and inarguably, art thinking is good for business. This is something that just sticks with me, I'm a huge advocate of art thinking in the business realm, and crossing disciplines there. Now, most of you that are here have come here for an experience, so I'm gonna ask you, are you willing and open to do a brief exercise with me? It'll take two minutes, is that okay? You don't have to move. That's fine, just nod, if so, okay, perfect. So I want you to take a minute, think about something that you want, something, you know, a reason that you came here. Just think about it in your head, and think about why you want it. And now tell somebody next to you, don't be scared. Go ahead, you have one minute, go ahead. Thank you. See, this is good, this is exactly what I needed. Thank you so much for doing that, you guys, thank you so much. See, this is perfect, this is exactly what I want, is you get to see the passion on everybody's face. So this is perfect, so thank you. Thank you for being open and participating in that. I'm gonna jump, I want you to table the reason that we did that, but I'm so proud for anybody that participated. And I'm gonna start right at the top. So why expression is so important, be very quick. So why expression is so important, expression is the act of being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the root of connection. Connection is the foundation of empathy. Empathy is the key to understanding. Understanding is the first step to love. Love is the core of care. Care is the basis of action. Action is the driver of change. Any questions, I'm done. Yeah, okay, great. So that's the first run through. I tend to think about business the way that I think about people in the sense that it all starts as a ginormous blob of energy. And this blob of energy is either just some kind of universal matter. It could be just ideas that manifest. It could be God. But regardless, it's a bundle of energy that moves into some sort of physical manifestation. And I like to think about business this way because you have the power to create it the same way any other form of creation might have with you. And I was thinking about this and came across a word called, well, a word, I guess you don't call a word something, but it's Dasein, which I think is hilarious because it sounds just like design. But it's not. It's a German word and it was coined by Martin Heidegger, who's a very controversial German philosopher. And what Dasein means is being. It literally means like existence. And so the way that you are a human being is one part of it. And then in addition to that, and when I say in addition, I don't mean this definition or that definition. I mean, this is actually, the word means both definitions at the same time. So it means being and it also means being with. And so the same way that we are people that are individuals, we're also people in society just by the very nature of our being. That's what Dasein means. I wanted to make that point because we tend to exist from a subjective realm thinking that things kind of just are from our point of view, but things are always subjective and objective at the same time. And this word really gets that across. So now we're gonna move into foreign organization at the organizational level. Why expression is so important? So the virtue of honest expression is that it's authentic, so it's not full of shit. In an era where authenticity is touted as one of the most, the utmost requirements of organizations these days, the word authenticity itself is actually thrown around more than dude at like a surfers conference. But expression by its very nature implies authenticity. So you can't really have fake expression that's just lying, but real expression is always authentic. And when you have that within an organization, you are full of ideas that actually are not just authentic throughout the organization, but are real ideas, we'll call them. And so are you open to feedback? So I spent about 50% of my time as a consultant. I have organizations that come up to me and one of the biggest things that they bring up is their communication with colleagues, with vendors, with clients, but mostly within themselves, within the actual organization themselves. Excuse me. And they have trouble communicating for fear of insulting somebody or offending somebody. And so one of the easiest ways to go about this of giving feedback is to just ask in the beginning, are you open to feedback? And to be prepared that they might actually say no, which is fine, but if they say yes, you've already got a little bit of a buy-in as far as that reception goes. So it makes communicating that much easier, it makes your life so much easier as far as expressing what you need to express. And it helps them see that you're kind of with them in the way that you're approaching this. Another thing that's really important is for expression in general is periods of ideation and periods of feedback or criticism. A lot of times we tend to filter ideas as they come along. This is the wrong way to do it. It's a horrible way to do it because you actually end up stifling creativity. So if you have one period just of ideation and everything gets to come out without a filter, without judgment, people put their best foot forward and put any kind of wild idea on the table. Afterwards, if you have a designated time that you know is specified for feedback and criticism and it's not so harsh, so people come in really aware of these two distinct time periods and what to do with them. So that's something that's really helpful as well. And then having those periods of feedback is critical because that's a really good time to think about budget requirements, timeline requirements. If you have the resources that are capable for whatever idea this is. So for an individual, I'm very proud of all of you because as an individual, expression is an act of bravery. You really let that sink in. That's what it is. Any artist that we admire, any entrepreneur that we admire, we admire them because they are very much themselves. When I was young, I like to tell the story because it's so ridiculous that I'm on stage talking. And when I was young, I used to have a goal when I started my business, I was like 17 or 18. And my goal would be like, tell one person your name today or like say hello to one person. And so that to me was, you know, that was my goal of expression. That was what I needed to do. And so for an individual, the base requirement is that you've got respect and self-compassion for yourself and for wherever people are at on their journey because it's not an easy thing to do. All right, so this is the biggest lie we tell ourselves and it's very interesting to see this play out both on an individual and societal level. So I was in Paris this last year and I spent some time in different parts of Europe and one thing that I noticed is that Europeans take childhood hobbies and they do them their whole life. And in America, if you don't absolutely excel in eighth, ninth, or 10th grade in sports or in performing arts or music, you tend to drop it. We have such a stigma with the monetary value of these things that we forget how well they play out in our lives in a ton of different ways. And so we have this tendency as a culture to think, well, if I'm not the best at this, then I'm just gonna stop doing it. But that actually works against you for a number of different reasons. So just keep that in mind that these things are exceptionally good for you. They allow you to express and they impact more areas of your life than you actually think. So you should take a moment to just, if there's anything you've dropped because you just loved it because it wasn't bringing you monetary value, binge watching House of Cards doesn't count here because it's a passive thing, but think about things that are active acts of expression. So things that involve creation and I tend to write them down and just pick whatever I wanna do or go with whatever you're feeling, but understand that these are very valuable things and directly related to your business. So for a society, my expression is so important in society. Do you remember these in school, this teacher I used to do these analogies? So as a person, what culture is to, does anybody wanna shout at this? So nervous. At what? Very close. Very close. Yeah. So societies that rank high on self-expression, excuse me, self-expression values also tend to rank high on interpersonal trust, which leads to a culture of trust and tolerance in which people place a relatively high value on individual freedom and self-expression and have activist political orientations. So this is from the international perspectives on organizational behavior, great light summer reading, if that's what you're looking for. And this is actually, well, Betty Jane Punnett does a really great at studying this on organizational level, but she also expands this to society and talks about the three big reasons that expression pulls through. And so one reason that's very important for society as a whole is that it's a driver of innovation in a very real way. So new ideas emerge with the more expression that we have. It promotes a culture of transparency because you have people actually expressing not just their ideas, but the fact that they, the willingness and knowledge to share. And then it actually develops the soul or the life energy. And I include that to mean that which in my business and that which is within myself and some of the best organizations that I've seen throughout the world, IDO and Acumen and all these other big ones do a very good job of understanding that this comes through that way. So the value of art thinking, this was introduced by Amy Whitaker. She speaks on this, she holds an MBA from Yale University and an MFA in painting of all things, which is awesome, from the University College of London. And she says that art thinking is a process not of going from point A to point B, but an actually inventing point B, which I think is such a cool way to look at it. So this definition in my opinion is that of a true entrepreneur, because if we're thinking of somebody like Airbnb, so Airbnb didn't think, actually, I'll take the next slide, because design thinking is something that really often just gets confused with art thinking and they're very similar, they're very compatible, but they're not the same thing. So Airbnb, for example, didn't fill out how, didn't figure out how to fill more hotel rooms, they actually invented an economy of trust. So they didn't try to reach this point B and they actually just made one up. So to read this for you, the key difference is that in design you have a brief. So you're trying to ask, how can I make this better? How can I execute on this brief in the best possible way? Whereas in art thinking, you're asking, is this even possible? And so this is the place where you're playing with the unknown and you're actually developing the question and the answer. And so they're greater stakes in art thinking because you have no idea and you're sort of making it up as you go along, which is one of the most beautiful things about creation in general. So these are some tools and resources. Just really quick, I want it to sort of run through. Emographics, which if you were here, not in Galvanize, but in 2016, you know that I totally made up this word, but it's a thing. So it goes along with demographics and psychographics, but it's really the emotional intelligence and understanding the emotional landscape of the people that you're working with, be it your client, vendor, colleagues. And then there is something, a couple of tools that actually enhance expression and will also help you understand the client has proven really valuable for this, is the imagination game or visualization. Empathy mapping, which is a really, really powerful tool for understanding people in different contexts. Contextual immersion, so if you are studying a product for people who are blind, for example, that you actually put a blindfold on and you go around your week this way. And then there is emotional method acting, which is kind of like a combination of all three of these things. But the point is to get to a place where you really understand. On the individual level, something that's really powerful is developing your asks and developing your gives. So most people come to a conference like this, just open to the experience. And if you come in actually having your asked, a lot of people are nervous to do, it doesn't mean that you have an agenda, it just means that you know what to ask for should you have a valuable resource in front of you. Because a lot of times people will say, well how can I help? And then you're stuck and you have no idea how to actually answer that question. And it helps you, it'll help you develop your ask if you come in with this established set of gives. So what can you comfortably give to the people around you? What are you confident that you can introduce somebody to a resource or make a referral if it's fitting or something like this? So having those gives in place actually will really help you develop your asks. So plus acumen, ideo.org, gaping void, Seth Godin, these are some big influencers in this space. I highly recommend you check them out. If you haven't before, gaping void is the one who's been diagrammed that was, that came off from. And then here is just something to ponder. One is instead of using our jobs to pay for our lives, we use our work to express the highest part of our beings. And Hugh McLeod is the actual founder of gaping void. He is coming from a corporate background, a really heavy corporate background. He used to go after work to bars and just draw on the back of business cards, these little cartoons. Now he sells them for $150 a print. And then also runs his whole business. He's done culture consulting for Microsoft and Intel and HP on a really amazing guy. And so finally I'm gonna run through these slides again because I want it to stick. Why expression is so important? Because expression is the act of being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the root of connection. Connection is the foundation of empathy. Empathy is the key to understanding. Understanding is the first step to love. Love is the core of care. Care is the basis of action. And action is the driver of change. If you want these little booklets, I brought some and I put them by the ginormous WordPress logo if you want little reminders. Do you have any questions? It's a very dense topic. No? All right, then you're free to go. Please enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.