"Innovation is a way of thinking and behaving that gets you into a space [where] you are doing design thinking, acting & behaving like an artist, [...] being unafraid to fail [... and] taking big swings."

Innovation is more than market disruption. In this week's episode; Joran Oppelt of Illustrious Consulting takes Jinx and Robyn on a journey into and through the ecosystem of business and the process of innovation. From the trees to the fungi, Joran powerfully visualizes the 3 realms of innovation that business owners and corporate teams should be working on to build more creativity, inspiration, and engagement.

In this episode: Joran Oppelt, Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins, Robyn Sayles

More about Joran:

Joran Slane Oppelt is an international speaker, author, and consultant with coaching, storytelling, design thinking, and virtual facilitation certifications. He helps executives and business owners move from complexity and fatigue to clarity and accountability using human-driven and visually-powered transformation. He is a master facilitator who leads game-changing meetings for clients and has trained other facilitators to drive transformation, delivering “great reckonings in small rooms.”

Connect with Joran:

Illustrious Consulting - www.illustri.us

Joran on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joran-oppelt/

Amplified Executive Coaching Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/amplifiedcoaching

YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/joranslane

*******

get on our fucking email list: https://sendfox.com/ufmb

join our fucking facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unfckmybusiness

subscribe to our fucking show: https://unfuckmybusiness.com/listen

visit our fucking website: https://unfuckmybusiness.com/

*******

Season Two of Unfuck My Business is sponsored by Seide Realty. Visit them at whystpete.com and let them unfuck your real estate experience.

*******

Below is a rough transcript for your convenience. It’s not perfect because we want to spend our time unfucking your business, not unfucking this transcript.

Hey, this is Kathleen. And when I'm not unfucking businesses here on the podcast, I'm unfucking real estate over at whystpete.com. My company is Seide Realty and we are excited to sponsor this episode.

This is Godriguez is from GodriguezArt.com, and you're listening to Unfuck My Business no bullshit advice for business owners who want to be resilient as fuck. Now, let the unfuckery begin.

What is up unfuckers. We've got a, another member interview today with a really interesting guy, somebody I've been following on Facebook for a long time, and finally had the chance to meet right before COVID hit and locked us all out. And we had some really interesting conversations, but I didn't even really know at the time that he was involved in a similar sort of technology space as I am, because I've known him as a thought leader in the men's spirituality space, facilitating thoughtful conversations around life and our place in the universe and really thinking about those questions from an interfaith perspective, which I find appealing, but he is also the founder of Illustrious Consulting, a visualization, process analysis, and executive coaching firm. And, we wanted to talk today about using creativity and innovation to transform your business right.

Too many of us get locked into these patterns where what has always been is what will always be. And because of that, we really fail to see opportunities to improve our business, to grow, to open up new product lines, or sometimes to even like strategically pivot into something that you never even thought that your business could be.

... Because you didn't open your thought process to that. So I'm going to hand off to my cohost and show runner, Robyn Sayles. She has a series of questions that I would love to hear the answers to Robyn.

Hey everybody. Thanks so much, Joran. Thank you for being here. Say hello

Hi everybody. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. You are one of those people, as Chris said that you meet interesting people, but then some people stick out to you as like interesting people. One of the most fascinating dudes I have ever met. And I'd be remiss if I didn't tell the story of one of my favorite things and the first time you and I had the opportunity to meet in person, as you held an event for readings and performances of care, Kerouac works.

In that church and it involved like live saxophone, playing and sound healing and professional readings of Kerouac work. And I just like, I could not hold my shit together. I was like torn down all the way to my basic elements and rebuilt by the end of that experience, it's truly one of the most favorite things I've ever done.

And I'm so glad that like, that was the thing that allowed you and I to finally meet in person.

It's also one of my favorite things I've ever done. And I'm really glad that it affected you the way it is today.

It made my beatnik heart so happy. And for anyone who's not familiar, I'm talking about Jack Kerouac, the author, the king of the beets, although he'd be the first person to dispute that title.

And he has history here with our local area St. Petersburg, Florida.

Right.

Unfortunately, this is where he died, but his ghost and his shadow remains strong. Especially if you go to the bar that I'm pretty sure his memory is still haunts.

Yeah. And I've got to give Maureen McDonnell credit. Cause she's the one who she's the president of keep St. Pete lit and the founder of the sunlit festival. And she came to me. I owned the Metta Center at the time at the Metta center of St. Pete, which was a community and wellness space. And we had done some readings there. I think we had done a roomy reading there. We partnered with a local, local Catholic community to do that.

It was just a super cool collaboration. And then we were going to do another one and she said, why don't you do care? And then the follow up to that was like, why don't we have it be the closing ceremony? Like, why don't we have it be the last night Sunday of the festival? And I was like, well, we can do that, but I'm sure not going to squeeze all those people into the Metta Center.

So we've got to find a different venue and luckily, yeah, that Unitarian church offered up their space and man, yeah, between Ronnie Elliot and Coleen cherry. Jamal on sax and Don Cooper on the drums. We had gongs and Gabriella playing the singing bowls. And I mean, it was like a, I mean, it was unforgettable, unforgettable .

Yeah. Every time that picture comes up and like my photo memories, I'm just like, oh yeah, this may seem unrelated, but I start with that story because it's one of my favorite memories from living here. It's one of my favorite memories of you, but it's also a great connector to our topic today because I think Kerouac was an innovator, a natural innovator in every sense of the word. He, he broke all the rules and in fact, encouraged other writers and want to-be writers to break all the rules and set their own rules. And just the fact that on the road is written on this continuous scroll, you know, that other people will be like, what are you doing?

And it just made sense to him. And so let me start with the first question about innovation in particular, that has become one of those words that's like a business marketing buzzword. So in your experience, what do people think innovation is and what is innovation really?

Hmm, yea, ok...and you're right about it, the meaning it's one of those kind of meaningful and meaningless words.

Now I know that it gets so overused, my colleague, Jeff Nelson, I know if you were listening, he would put empathy and storytelling in that same category. Those are words that we hear all the time and there's so used within the business sense that they've lost all meaning and context. So, I mean, to answer your question, I think what innovation really is, is a way of thinking and behaving, that gets you in a space where you're doing design thinking and acting and behaving like an artist and thinking in iterations and being unafraid to fail and taking big swings. And, but you're doing a lot of experimentation. So you're thinking like a scientist and you're, you know, you've got to put on your lab coat and then you've got to pull out the calculator and then you got to put the lab coat back on and it's, it's a lot of hats switching.

Mode switching. You know, if you look at the McKinsey model of horizons on innovation, you know, every time you get to a different horizon, you have to be a different leader. You have to talk differently, you have to lead differently if the different have a different team in place. So it's a lot of just switching back and forth, which requires another overused word, which is resiliency, right?

Which is that kind of flexibility and nimbleness in business that people need to work like a muscle, what they think it is. I think what people primarily think innovation is, is only the third horizon, which is that disruptive innovation, which is like, what's the next iPhone? What's the next internet.

What's the next razor and blades, you know, it's like everybody thinks innovation is going to lead to some big breakthrough. But when I left the corporate innovation consultancy, I worked at for five years and started my own. What I found was that entrepreneurs and small business owners need innovation best practices too.

And they can put them to use just as well. If not more effectively than some of the more large, slow stuck kind of cumbersome organizations that are trying to do the same thing.

I want to come back to that idea because I had something about that. But I also want to check piece of thinking with you. When I talk to folks about innovation, I tend to use the example of the expression.

Well, he can't see the forest for the trees. And I think a lot of us have heard that expression. Maybe some of us even used that expression. Oh, you can't see the forest for the trees, but none of us really think about what that expression means. And so when I talk about innovation with folks, I say most people are going around in their day-to-day lives, literally millimeters from the tree in front of them.

So they can't see the forest because all they see is tree because they're so close to the tree. All they know is this tree that's right in front of them, literally millimeters from their face. And innovation is the ability to and, not just the ability to, I think really the linchpin of innovation is the awareness that you can step back.

And get a different perspective and see the whole forest and know that your life and your company and your project and your, whatever it is, is more than just this tree that's millimeters in front of your nose. It's the awareness that you can step back and see that there are many different paths around that tree left right over under.

And so that's, that's one of my favorite analogies to help people understand it's such a cliche expression, but when you really break it down and think about what it means. Then people go, oh, I've been living right here. Thinking all there was, was the bark that's right in front of me when really there's a whole forest around.

Yeah. I think that level of awareness and context is important in business. And then, like I said about the code switching, I think it's also important to layer in like, if your business is the tree, then you need to manage that tree and you need to care for that tree and you need to grow that tree and you need to be aware of the kind of toroidal function or life cycle of the tree where the acorn or the leaves are falling and it's composting into something else and it's coming back up through it. There's a rhythm and there's motion to that. And there's life to that. And that's what business this is. Right. But it's also connected in the mycelial network and the fungus and the mushrooms and the other trees around it's shit.

It's holding hands underground with the marketplace and the ecosystem around you. And thinking then beyond to that kind of third horizon, you also have to consider the what's called the perloo, which is like the edge of the forest, where it turns into Savannah or desert or plane or whatever. And that's where that's where mutation happens in the perloo.

That's where the laws of the forest and the network start to fall down. And that's where real play and improv and innovation can be happening. So you have to manage all three of them.

I love it.

I feel like the guy I've ever heard in my entire life of, of the network of, of being in business, I'm like speechless.

Yeah. I mean, and not, and not everybody can see, like you said, the forest for the trees, but the ecosystem for them. And the ecosystem for the forest and the edges of it. And you see something like mutation or innovation, it's like that magic science thing. Like some people, if you see it, you don't even like understand it.

You don't know, you don't recognize it when it's in front of you. So it requires a different mindset, different thinking

completely. And so you mentioned earlier about. You've left corporate type of facilitation programs, things of that nature. And you've opened your own thing. And I have a similar path of like trying to take what I learned in the corporate world and bring it to smaller businesses.

I feel like innovation training and design thinking and things of this nature to many small to medium-sized business owners probably feel like that's a luxury for big corporations with big corporate budgets. We don't have the time or the budget for innovation training. So how do you bring it to them?

How do you let them know that, like, you don't just want to have this, you need to have this.

I mean, I don't, I don't sell innovation training and data that we did at the consultancy. I worked at better or worse, you know, implemented it, and used it and succeeded to varying degrees. And, what I've found is that I don't even use the word innovation with smaller companies because what they need is, you know, what they need might be a customer experience journey or what they need might be something like a Story Brand that's a little more, you know, that maybe shakes hands with the marketing department or what they need might be, you know, they might be looking to deepen or find, you know, or harvest some partnerships in their network and, and look to collaborate. I mean, technically that's open-ended, like beyond the walls of the business and, and looking to where collaborations connections might happen, where you might innovate, but they're not thinking of it in the terms of open innovation.

They're thinking of it in terms of like being a good neighbor and said, COVID has hit and nobody's going to make it solo anymore. So I might need to partner up with other consultants or other architects or other orthodontists or whatever, right? Like how can we get through this, to there? So the language of innovation can come later.

You know, we just, I'm more focused on what people are needing in the moment.

If you don't use the word innovation while it's still innovation, obviously you're, you're talking in ways that the business will understand, because maybe those words, as part of all the other words you outlined just don't really have enough specific meaning.

Right. But at the end of the day, whether or not we're using that specific word, we're talking about creatively visualizing certain aspects of the business, right? The process of production, the way that the business communicates it. How do you help like spawn creativity in a business when thinking about these things?

It can be, depending on what the, the picture of the problem is, you know, that's typically one of the first questions I asked, you know, what is your image or picture of the problem? it might be along the line of connecting vision, which you just touched on with strategy, which is the other thing you just said.

There might be that you've got a real visionary leader, but they haven't surrounded them with. A bunch of integrators, you know, in, in, in Lang in the language of traction that have both the visionary and the integrators in place, there might also be culture issues that are happening, team development issues that that need to be worked on.

I rely pretty heavily on the disc assessment. I'm a big fan of the, how to fascinate, which is the Sally Hogshead system, but it's, it's not for everybody. Neither is disc though. I had somebody tell me the disc. Really masculine and could be weaponized, but I rely a lot on a disk. So, cause I love it. I've seen a lot of really great transformation happened through that, but yeah, culturally there could be team development, things that need to happen.

You know, you can just as basic as a team charter or a communications charter, that needs to be. I know. And there's also a story, like you said, like, you know, how do we talk about them business? So it could be based in storytelling and working more with the sales department or the marketing department and how you're telling the story all the while, keeping the customer at the center.

Right. And then that's the thing it's like, people like to talk about themselves as a business. We did this, we have these awards. We, we, we, instead of. Putting the customer in the middle as the hero of the quest, you know, and showing up as their guide. So a lot of that is just kind of where I help them to shift their thinking.

I love that in the deep Wells of my soul. I love that so much of the work that I do just simply in the branding space is, is about helping people make those mind set shift. I work with a lot of fellow podcasters and the reason I find over and over and over again, same, same thing applies in business as does in podcasting has done it in YouTube being, even in authorship to a certain degree.

The reason why you have the idea to create something is not always the same reason why people are drawn to it. And in order to get the message out to the masses effectively, we need to understand why they're drawn to. The mission and vision. And the reason behind why we create this show is probably not necessarily the same thing that, you know, our listeners get out of it.

Right. And so at the end of the day, if we just remember that we are not Luke Skywalker, we are Yoda. We are , you know, we are the person who shows up with the, just the right tool that you need to finish your quest or just the right bit of information to solve the puzzle or unlock the door. But I do think you need to get people to a place where they realize that they're missing the key to the lock or the piece to the puzzle or the tool that, that will solve the quest.

And I remember one of my favorite analogies is the wizard of Oz, you know, and, and with those archetypes as her guide, you know, showing up as the heart and soul and the courage and the brain and the intellect and all of that, which at the end then ends up being like all the pieces of herself. Right.

You can show up as the guide and be part of the solution and still be able to tell that story in compelling ways

to Kiersten interesting question that comes up because I tend to have different perspectives on things like the example that you just came on, the wizard of Oz, right. And, and the idea. Of mentorship and being a mentor in terms of the hero's journey, but, but like how participative that mentors should be or when they should show up.

Right. And so one of the fundamental issues I have with the wizard of Oz is Glinda allows Dorothy to go through so much before bestowing her with you've had the power all along. Where the fuck were you? Three weeks ago? Right. Why did I have to go through all of this shit? And so I'm interested to hear your opinion, like how much do we let people suffer to learn the lessons that we've already learned?

When is it appropriate to step in as the mentor to say, hold on, I've made that mistake. You don't need to make it right. I fundamentally disagree with the whole pay your dues. Bullshit. Yeah.

Well, it might not be a dragon or a witch, but we can't slay our client's problems for them. Yeah. So it's gotta be, and we learn by doing, you know, so we've got to support them and be show as the code.

You know, and that might be the w the, the version I used to show up as a coach versus a mentor, because mentors typically are trying to work somebody up, take them under their wing and make them into a better version of themselves and give them a leg up within the organization or whatever. And usually in a mentor client relationship, the client is responsible for the process, right?

Where a coach is client relationship. The coach is responsible for that process. And the coach is seeing the potential at the white hot center of them and believing in them, not trying to understand them, not trying to turn them into themselves. Right. The coach is just, you know, lifting them up as they go.

So I think a better analogy for me is always the coach and yeah. Letting them do the work, they've gotta be able to do the work they've got to, not that they have to prove it. Not, they gotta do fricking homework, but like just do the work, show

Them

you can do the work. Yeah. I like to argue that point for the sake of argument sometimes because I'm really interested to hear other perspectives.

It's funny earlier today in a different segment, we were recording. We were talking about how making space for everyone to tell their part of the story. And so you have your part of that story. I have my part of that story and I love offering the alternative points of view so that we can find something mutually agreeable in order to make the thing move forward.

And I think that's part of the fundamentals of the coaching process. I find, you know, you and I work in similar spaces on different tracks, but the heart of coaching is the heart of coaching. Right. And I find that one of the best things that we can do as coaches. Is remove the interference. It's not about inputting knowledge, it's about removing the interference.

And so I'm interested to hear from you in the businesses that you work with in the clients that you help in your executive coaching capacity, is there common interference that you find yourself helping them to remove over and over and over again? And if so, what is it?

Yeah. I think with, with entrepreneurs or CEOs that are kind of just starting to grow the team, there is a real heat or interference as you call it around self doubt and around imposter syndrome and around just the stories they're telling.

And, you know, I, I, you know, I find myself having to say, is this true? A lot people are saying making excuses or. Describing blocks, you know, that are totally internal to themselves. There is describing it in external language, but what they're really describing as an internal block. So I find myself asking, is this true a lot?

I think in larger organizations where people have teams in place, it really is about not so much managing the strategy, but managing the team. It's showing up as a leader and trying to show up better and communicate more and more efficiently and improve themselves as well. Leadership development skills go.

And it could be even just showing up to give them more back to the community. Like they could, there's a whole thing with like founders who are like, kind of at the end of the rope and they're like, kind of done with it. And they're just kind of like daydreaming of a way to get out of the business.

Should I sell it? Can I say, can somebody else do the things I'm doing? You know, like what's vital versus functional, that kind of thing. Or what's in my zone of. So just getting them to harness what they love and like get involved in something where they can give back to the community or just stay engaged and stay motivated is sometimes important.

Sometimes it's very little to do with the business. It's just about happiness and about passion and satisfaction. So it runs the gamut. But I think there are some themes. Yeah. Depending on the size of the team.

Awesome. Speaking of common theme. I'd love. If you could share with us a story where creativity, innovation, that mindset shift created remarkable change either within an individual or within an organization, demonstrable something to help people understand why they should open themselves up to more of this type of thing.

Yeah, I can think of, most recently, I've got an executive coaching client who was dealing with comparing herself to other people. Like she would see other people's successes and wins and breakthroughs, or whether it was business growth or. Acquisition, any of that stuff, she'd say like, well, why, why can't I do that?

Right? Like, what is this person doing that I'm not doing? And then she would instantly go into comparing herself to others. And we worked on a turnaround for her to use. It was like a morning practice and a nightly practice where she could try at night taking a little inventory around the. The moments over the day where she did that.

And then she could turn that around into celebrations either verbally out loud or in a journal. And she could celebrate them, clap, like physically get up and clap for them or write it down and say good for them for doing X, Y, and Z. Right. And then the morning practice was what is now the next best thing?

What is the one thing like, usually I work with three big rocks for her. It was like, let's just focus on one big rock, right? What is the one thing that day, each day that you will do that you will commit to getting done. Right. And so writing that down to the journal and we called this process, we called it metaphysical fitness, but working this muscle of like turning it around every night, every morning, every night, every morning, and doing your reps and she got so good at it that she started not only clapping and celebrating these people kind of out loud and verbally started reaching out to them.

And messaging them and saying, I just saw what you did or what you posted. And I just want to celebrate you. I want to commend you and tell you what a good job you did acknowledge you. And this is not only turned this feeling around for her because now it's not a moment for comparison. It's an opportunity for celebration.

But it's also led to some really cool collaborations, like not many, but there's a couple people that are like, yeah, thanks for that. Hey, have you ever thought of working with someone on a, you know, like it's turned into stuff? So that's the most recent example I can think of.

I love that. Thank you so much for sharing it.

And metaphysical fitness is gonna stick with me for a while. I take a similar approach to those. Some of the LinkedIn messages, if I'm in the re frame of mind and I get the unsolicited LinkedIn messages, it's easy to look at all of them as garbage and, and be annoyed by them. But when I'm in the right frame of mind, I'll pick two or three and I'll turn them around and I'll say, oh, I see that you're following a sales script.

Did you know that I used to write sales training, let me help you make this better for the next one of these that you send out, you know, And so every, every one of those things is an opportunity to sort of flip the script. and speaking of flipping the script, I can see that jinx has something he wants to ask you.

Yeah, shoot.

So I have it on good authority that you have some opinions about the use of various fungus in order to enhance innovative thought. Would you care to share a little bit

about that? Well, sure. I mean, I'm a, I'm a big fan of psychedelics. I think that there are, they can be very useful and practical, in personal development.

And they've provided me with breakthroughs in vision and even strategy sometimes, you know, in, in thinking about my business, I mean, they've primarily provided me with deeply emotional experiences. You know, where I'm like listening to like rush Mon and offs, second concerto on vinyl. And I'm like in tears, you know, just like experiencing the beauty and the oneness of everything.

But again, back to the analogy and the metaphor of the forest, I think if we allow ourselves to play in the interconnectedness and at the edge, right at the perloo where there's, you know, where law, these laws are breaking down. That allows us to reframe. And that allows us to come back into the business with a, a broader or more wide angle lens and allows us to see things that we normally wouldn't.

And yeah, I, to me, it's not a controversial thing. I think it's medicine and I think it's a spiritual practice and I don't recommend it for everyone. But, and I don't do it a lot, but I recommend it to those who are seeking, that kind of, of depth or vision or experience a

while back comfortably beyond any state or federal statute of limitations.

I spent a few years on an extended psychedelic journey, exploring the universe, as a psycho, not as a. And, I think, you know, some of that really sticks with me to this day in the way that it allows you to break down certain mental constructs and start creating lateral process movement in your head where, you know, you're able to sort of organize, you talked about visualization as part of your, a consultancy, right?

There's no better way to visualize complex thoughts or idea processes in your head then, you know, through the controlled use. A reasonable amount of hallucinogens. And I, you know, if we look at all of the great thinkers and how much time they spent, you know, ingesting various forms of things, to shake up their own consciousness and, and break up their own thought, you know, we see that there's certainly a measurable outcome from that.

I wonder if there's some clear analogy for how to apply the idea of the hallucinogen rethinking of the universe into a methodology for business process analysis.

You know, for me, I think what it does is, is softens us to rub up against what's emerging. And I, and I think it's different for me from like, it's not a shortcut, right?

It's not like you can it's it's not like you skip to the end and you can figure out the way things are interconnected. And, and the way that ecosystem, the way there's interplay within an ecosystem, it's not like the ending is revealed to you. You still have to do that work. you know, a cardiologist still has to listen to thousands of hearts in order to recognize the themes and the patterns, and be able to be as responsive and, and develop a sense of expertise or wisdom around that.

It's not like a cardiologist. Take psychedelics and like become an expert, but they would get to a place where they can see the world where all hearts are connected. Right. And they might get to a place where there's an electromagnetic field that is happening and created through the, through the, through the rhythm of the heartbeat.

And we're all one inside that field, there might be some revelation for them. But they still have to do the work. They still have to listen to thousands of hearts and putting the 10,000 hours in and do the thing to become an expert. Right. It's not a shortcut. So I think that both are important. I mean, if anything, yeah.

It's

probably a walk through the desert, but the biggest thing for me is, is that, you know, like the idea of breaking down structured thought into something a little more freeform. You know, to a lot of times to improve business process, you really have to functionally tear down all mental structures about how the business works in order to like completely come up with new ways to approach that thought

process, you know?

Yeah. And we're talking about beauty, right? We're talking about something that is subjective for telling you about an image or a vision that is held in the individual that is perceived as beautiful or better than something else. Right. And this is subjective. For me, it's like, you know, you can play all the notes on the page or you can jump off the page and then improvise, you know, and you can turn that into jazz and you can play with it.

Is that beautiful to you? It's, it's totally subjective, right? Is the vision that is before me. Beautiful. It's up to me to decide that I'm

always a big proponent of emotional connection. And especially when we're trying to connect with. You know, the people around us, the people we want to buy our thing, take our class, you know, engage in our services, listened to our show, consume our content, whatever it is, the fundamental thing that's going to make me keep coming back is I have some sort of emotional connection, you know?

And so I do think much in the same way that opening yourself up to new ways of thinking, whether it's through somebody. With a particular process, you know, or a particular coaching style or psychedelics, you know, like whatever gets you to open up to a different way of thinking so that you are more open to making those emotional connections.

That's, that's only gonna benefit all of us

is the worldview, right? It is this kind of lens or framework that we're, that we're talking about upgrading or expanding or. Giving more depth or span or more complexity to our worldview. And you can do that through looking at hundreds of maps and laying them out on the table and saying, oh, these are all like one thing, but it's still not the territory.

I still have to go out and explore the thing. Right. Or you can have a vision of that territory, you know, and be really emotionally connected. But again, I think both are important. You need them. You need something that is physical and time bound, you need the map and the agenda, you need the artifact and how you're going to move through it.

So I think that it's a dance.

I love that. It's absolutely a dance and I think we are, you know what that makes me think of if you ever watched any of those dance competition shows like, so you think you can dance and. They always stress that it's a competition for America's favorite dancer, not America's best dancer, because there are people who come on that show who are truly immaculate technical dancers, but they make zero emotional connection to the piece or zero emotional connection to the music.

Or they have zero emotional connection to their. They dance because it's something they were good at. And they were put through a lot of training and now they're technically very capable, right. But if, if nothing is transferred in an emotional way, you know, you, you can't make a connection to it. And so you see these young folks who know that there are good and yet they're voted off and they just don't understand why.

And these judges try to explain it. You're a very good technical dancer, but I'm not getting things from you. Right? And so there's so many people, I think we've all encountered folks in our working lives and our client base and our friends and family who are good technical dancers, but they have no idea why they're dancing or the emotional, you know, significance of what they're dancing to.

Right. They're not doing anything to make the connection with those around them.

And from that metaphor, I'm feeling pretty good about my backyard, barbecue, booty drop.

I got rid of them, you know, and, and Jordan, you mentioned how to fascinate earlier. That's one of the reasons I love that particular assessment is because it helps people understand where they can make those emotional connections. If they've never been shown that they can, if they've never been taught, they don't know the language of how to begin to build those emotional connections, that particular personality assessment.

It gives people the language to help them to begin to understand where the connection points are, that that people are naturally drawn to within them and how to enhance that. So, yeah, it's, it's all a big dance. Oh, I love it. I love it. We have sort of in tone. about your various experiences, you are a man of many interests, and who has had much like myself varied experiences in your past, musician, spiritual thought leader, men's health and spirituality, this innovation thinking you've got more certifications than I can count on one hand.

You've co-authored a couple of books. Where do you see the connection point? How does your experience. In one area influence what you're doing now. How do you bring musicians, spirituality, all of those things together to make you. The executive coach that you are today? Yeah.

I think the thread that runs through all of that for me is building and leading community.

I can remember back when I was a musician and it wasn't just leading the band. It wasn't just bringing a song in and, writing and arranging and producing and recording and to, you know, how are we going to, how is this going to translate to a performance? How are we going to do it on stage? You know, all of that.

It was more like, where are we. In harmony with a scene around us. And that became really important for me. I think to the detriment of my own project, I focused on others and it w we formed this thing called the Southeast music Alliance, which was in response to a big FM radio station now shock jock, making local musicians fight in a boxing ring so that they could have an opening slot at a festival.

And, you know, so we like publicly responded and banded together and formed this thing. We had a podcast and put out compilation CDs and put together a conference in St. Petersburg that brought a and R reps to the, you know, to the region. And we did a lot of work around seeing building. And I think similarly around the spiritual community, where, where I started the integral church eight years ago, as a, as an interfaith, local interfaith just kind of meet up right now.

You'd call it a meetup, right. Where people can come and hang out. That saw me. Yeah. Write the book on integral church and how to lead circles and how to, how to do these things. You know, what is the process? What is the order in which you do these things? What are some, some quick interfaith rituals? I can kind of bake into my community and because we saw these communities popping up, you know, like the Sunday service, which is atheists that gather in bars and like do singalongs to Beatles music.

And like the spiritual community is popping up no matter what you call it as people that want to kind of convenience. Personal transformation and social transformation and creativity and accountability. And there's all these kinds of criteria that Harvard divinity school, you know, we'll describe to them, but people want, and they crave that, you know, so that saw me traveling around to the parliament of the world's religions and all these other conferences and speaking on building interfaith community, and that then turned into this global thing.

And now there's integral churches in Hungary. And, we're talking about translating the book into Hungarian. All of this stuff is through the marketing and the messaging to the innovation. It's all about bleeding, a band or a tribe of people and having some kind of charter or agreement in place and agreeing on a framework or a lens or a worldview that you're all going to move through.

Whether it's the inclusivity and exclusivity principles in religious and spiritual communities, or whether it's the team and communications charter, or the code of values at a corporation. Every business to some degree is a cult and vice versa, you know, so it's all interconnected and we're all just leading and building and creating communities that we want to see in the world.

love that so much. Every business is a cult and every cult is a business. God damn. If that isn't one of the truest motherfucking things I've ever heard in my life. Oh, my friend that leads us to our infamous lightning round. I am going to ask you a series of quick questions. We want your knee jerk answer.

Don't overthink it. Don't stress about them. So number one, cocktail of choice. Nice. Your go-to de-stress method.

it's a centering sequence. Eric Maizel wrote it. I do it. So a stands up thing that I do. Nice.

Okay

.

Oh, okay.

Peanut butter, crunchy or smooth,

extra crunchy, extra crunchy

And what is your favorite insult?

Take your flunky and dangle is the only thing that I can think of right now. Now it comes from, comes from a movie called Miller's crossing. It's a Cohen brothers movie from like 19. One of the best things ever, but that's the only thing that comes to my mind.

That's so much because a lot of times people say like motherfucker, or, you know, something that you hear all the time, but take your flunky and dangle plus bonus points for the obscure movie reference.

Zuora. You've been like an extraordinary guest. It, it has been, quite, quite an interesting, session. And, and I like you blow my mind at least three times during this conversation. So I'm super happy that we've had you on here. We're going to make sure if you guys want to reconnect with Joran, uh on-line or whatever, we'll make sure that the appropriate contact information for him is in the show notes and.

You know, as a takeaway here, above and beyond that, you know, rip down those fixed structural thinking, approaches to how you do your business, you know, really be free format and be creative with it. You do have to do the work. You're going to have to walk through that desert. You're going to have to, you know, actually experiment with things and test them out and, and, and, you know, find your way forward and maybe eat a few mushrooms along the way.

But, you'll, you'll actually see some real growth in your business on the back. From all of us here at unfuck, my business, we will see you next Tuesday.

what are you waiting for? Take what you learned in this episode and do something with it. You'll find all the links and resources we talked about in our show notes for this episode and go to unfuck my business.com to subscribe to the show.