Rich Fernandez
Hello, everybody, and welcome. My name is Rich Fernandez. I'm your host today for our Return on Intelligence podcast, and I am thrilled to welcome an old colleague of mine from our Google Days, Frederik Pferdt. And we're going to have a great conversation about his book and about his body of work. and his book just came out yesterday, by the way, what's next is now, so this is wonderful, Frederik.
Rich Fernandez
Glad you could join us the day after. Welcome.
Frederik Pferdt
Thank you so much for having me, Rich. And, yeah, super excited to, to dive in.
Rich Fernandez
Great. Well, let me tell everybody about your background. if they're not familiar. so you were Google's first chief innovation evangelist, and you helped shape, really one of the most creative cultures in the world at Google. I know you founded Google's innovation lab because I spent some time there with you. and you trained tens of thousands of Google employees.
Rich Fernandez
I remember your, well, loved the course Creative Skills for innovation. and in that innovation lab, which is called the garage, I know you experimented with Googlers on a lot of cutting edge ideas taught, you know, these groundbreaking classes on innovation and creativity. and then you also do the same at Stanford University as part of the design school faculty.
Rich Fernandez
And, since then leaving Google and during the time you were at Google, I also know you worked with dozens of government agencies and other businesses and organizations ranging from the United Nations to NASA, the German Football Association, as well as the National Basketball Association, BBC, you name it. So many organizations and companies. and you also have been highlighted in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, the BBC and so forth.
Rich Fernandez
So, so many different, areas that your work has been featured and highlighted. And I'm just thrilled to have you here and, you know, and want to invite you to share some of your thought leadership on, this future ready mind state and innovation engine.
Frederik Pferdt
Fantastic, fantastic. Thank you for that, for that, kind intro. yes. So let's dive in. Yeah.
Rich Fernandez
Well, where are you joining us from today, Frederick? First of all.
Frederik Pferdt
Yes. so I'm here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. we moved here, about five years ago. Yes. right before the pandemic started. And, I'm joining you from, a little geodesic dome in, in a forest, where we live, and, funny story, we we built this dome with a couple of friends just right before the pandemic.
Frederik Pferdt
And, it should serve as a guest house for people who want to come over and, like, you know, stay here in the forest and, you know, connect with nature, but also do some maybe meditation practices or yoga and so forth. and Reiki practices. What we found is obviously that, you know, when the pandemic started, not none of the guests actually showed up, right?
Frederik Pferdt
Because, you know, we couldn't we couldn't have people over. and so it turned into, you know, my office. He turned to a school house, for my children and so forth. And what's interesting is that my friends keep telling me, like, hey, Frederik, could you actually predict the future because you've built something right before the pandemic was three months before the pandemic started, that, you know, serves as a perfect space for you to to work and educate your children and, you know, to, to just be in nature and so forth.
Frederik Pferdt
And, I, I keep telling my friends like, nobody can predict the future, but you really can, influence your, your future, right? And you can shape your future. And, I think that's what I, I've done with, with that building and, and, and since then, I think, just was more and more interested around this question.
Frederik Pferdt
How can we help people move away from, that question around what will the future bring in those predictions towards, a more active stands to ask themselves, what future do I want to create?
Rich Fernandez
Yes. Yes, exactly. I mean, in this book, you call yourself a future optimist. can you explain a little bit of. You know what that means?
Frederik Pferdt
Yes. so we we are mostly familiar, I think, with that term of, of a futurist. Right. a futurist who, predicts the future, who looks at trends, and so forth. For me, I felt, again, like predicting the future is not something we, I want to do as it creates, like, for me, like a false sense of safety for people where they feel like, oh, I know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Frederik Pferdt
I know it's going to what's going to happen in a year or in ten years from now. And I think, you know, that false sense of, of safety is, is really what our minds are craving for, right? So we're looking at all these trends we love to look at, the weather app. Right. or you know, stock market predictions or what's the latest technology, trends and so forth.
Frederik Pferdt
But I feel you know, as a future optimist, it's less about predicting the future, it's more helping people to shape the future. And, doing that in a way that we look at the future optimistically, that we see opportunities, in what lies ahead. And at the same time that we take control of what we want to create in the future.
Frederik Pferdt
So that is something, I'm, I want to help people to do, again, like, move away from, predicting the future and more shaping and actively creating the future they want to see happening.
Rich Fernandez
Right? I love that. And one of the things I really appreciated in your book was this notion of a future ready mind state, to enable that. And so, just a little bit of, lead into that, which is you know, for our audience, there's a lot of people who are interested in learning and development, both professional learning development, personal learning and development.
Rich Fernandez
So one of the things that a lot of people are really thinking a lot about is the future of work. For example, and in your book, in this book, What's Next is Now How to Live Future Ready. You put this important idea forward of having a future ready mind state. There's a few pieces to that. So could you explain that to us?
Rich Fernandez
And, you know, describe how that could be put into practice. at work and beyond.
Frederik Pferdt
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Happy to to, to dive in. again if we, if we want to focus, just for a moment again on this notion of the future. Right. as this is probably on a lot of people's mind, right? We love to think about the future. We spend a lot of time, talking about the future, trying to understand the future.
Frederik Pferdt
And at the same time, the future is uncertain, right? By definition. And, what I found is that people also often talk about the past rather than the future because it's familiar. Right. And it's certain, as it already has happened. And so that past provides us a sense of security and predictability, which is really comforting for our minds.
Rich Fernandez
Right? Yes. Hate, uncertainty and change. Right. The human mind hates uncertainty. Hard wired to hate it.
Frederik Pferdt
Absolutely. Right. Yes. Yeah. And however, like constantly thinking and dwelling on the past really limits our ability to imagine and create a better future, right? If we just spend time thinking about the past right, which we can change, right? I think that's, that's a waste of time. I'm now trying to challenge us to rethink our relationship with the future.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. So instead of passively anticipating what might happen, I want us to actively participate in shaping what will happen. And this shift in perspective, I think, is really crucial for overcoming that inertia that keeps us really tethered to the past. So most of what's happening, what what we both know in the so-called outer world, right? We can't control.
Frederik Pferdt
Right? But we can control our inner world, how we respond to things that is, that are happening to us and what choices we make in the moment. Right. And so really, that inner agency is where our true power lies, I think. And by focusing on our responses and choices, we can really influence the trajectory of our lives and therefore our futures.
Frederik Pferdt
And so for me, the formula is pretty simple, and equally powerful. The choices you make in the moment equals your future. Right? And so, I basically, came up with this notion of a future ready mind state, which is a way of thinking and being that really equips us to thrive in this ever changing world, right?
Frederik Pferdt
Where change is just constant. Right? And we know that. And so the elements of this mind state I, I share with people are optimism, curiosity, openness, experimentation and empathy. And so that really is something that I discovered in, in the work I've been doing, at Google, for example, you know, with, with tens of thousands of Googlers and training them and coaching them and helping them to, to literally built a future, right, and create the future.
Frederik Pferdt
And what I found is that it's not a specific environment and that, that people are in that helps them to be innovative. Right. So sorry for all the, you know, the people who are investing a lot of money and time in like building these like beautiful like, environments. Right. and it's also not the resources.
Frederik Pferdt
Right? Like, just by throwing resources, even, you know, financial resources or time or people at a problem. Right. You're not going to see innovation. Right? And it's also not a specific creative process that people need to follow to come up with these ideas. And what I found is really these five dimensions when they are at play, when people are having a radically optimistic view, when they are unreserved open, when they're compulsive, curious, when they like to experiment, and they really have this, what I call expansive empathy.
Frederik Pferdt
That's where you see that real the true innovation happens and people take control of their future.
Rich Fernandez
Yes. And Frederik are those. Well, I think it's a sort of rhetorical question, but, those seem like they're trainable skills. Is that the case?
Frederik Pferdt
That's the. That's the good news. Yes. We all have those at a certain level inside us. Right. So we all are having these uniquely human qualities right inside us. What's interesting also is that we probably don't use them too much. Right. Like how often are we showing curiosity by asking, you know, great questions. How often do we actually like to experiment, right, with a radically new idea?
Frederik Pferdt
How often do we, you know, look at a situation optimistically, right where we're trying to find the good in, you know, a moment or in a situation or an experience. So what's again, like the good news is that we all have those and they are trainable and they need to be unleashed. So that's I think the work that, you know, people responsible in land, functions and, and leaders in organizations need to really focus on to trying to really, build those capabilities, that people can have a radically optimistic view that they, you know, are more open to new ideas and perspectives, you know, show more empathy and so forth.
Frederik Pferdt
And, one last thing. I, I probably want to share is this notion of a mind state.
Rich Fernandez
Right? Yes.
Frederik Pferdt
we are all familiar with the concept of a mindset. Right. Mindset is something that is, you know, deeply, ingrained in our language in even, curriculum. If you look at schools, so it's, it's a concept that is, it's pretty familiar to, to people. Right. and it refers to that attitude that is determined by your history and other formative factors that really have shaped how you interpret and respond.
Frederik Pferdt
Respond to events in your life. But at the same time, your mindset also tends to be fairly hard to change, right, because it's based on your deeply ingrained beliefs. So, you know, if, if I put it that way, which when I, when I ask you like and you've probably, been asked a lot like, hey, Rich, you need to change your mindset, right?
Frederik Pferdt
You know, you're going to have to work pretty hard to break down this mental framework. You know, there's a lot.
Rich Fernandez
Of programming and a lot of conditioning that has led to, as you said, those kind of habit patterns, those habits of mind that are like our mindset.
Frederik Pferdt
Exactly. Yes. And even when I was writing the book, you know, autocorrect was kind of like always referring back to like mindset, which was a kind of like a funny a funny thing. Right? And so I want to build on this work that, is really powerful because focusing on mindset is, is something very important. I think it's the most important thing we can do.
Frederik Pferdt
And at the same time, I'm introducing something I call a mind state, which is a fluid and more dynamic way of, of of thinking about this. It's a kind of lens that really influenced by an ever changing mix of immediate factors that perceptually and also cognitively influenced the choices you make about how you act or react. So, in a way, it's similar to your pupils getting bigger or smaller to adapt to the amount of light in your environment.
Frederik Pferdt
Your mindset also fluctuates based on the content and the context of the moment. So this might sound a little abstract, but what what I really want to put out there is that notion that a mind state is something that is more short term. It's in the moment, it's dynamic, and you actually can influence it. All right. in a, in a way.
Frederik Pferdt
And a mindset is really that perception we have in every moment that determines how you experience the present. And it's a very powerful concept if you think about it, because then you really have, a way of looking at each situation and also controlling how you experience the present. And if you do that, you have a powerful way to, really control how you perceive the events of your life.
Frederik Pferdt
Right? And, that influence of your mindset is really direct, meaning that you can make these instantaneous choices to see something in a very different light and as a result of that, behave differently, right? And maybe cause a different outcome.
Rich Fernandez
Right. It's a state. It's not a trait. which is something we, we also teach in our, you know, search inside yourself, curriculum that there's, as you said, it's sort of a perceptual ability. We have moment by moment, to notice how we meet what's occurring in that moment rather than having sort of this preprogramed habitual mental or perceptual pattern.
Rich Fernandez
Right. and it can help, I think, help us release biases and, you know, kind of like cognitive mistakes that we can make because we're kind of, running an old narrative, perhaps, in new circumstances. And I can understand why, you know, humans are also really great at pattern recognition and, you know, credit where credit is due.
Rich Fernandez
It's gotten as far because we've learned from our mistakes. Hopefully, hopefully. And it's allowed us to kind of build on past successes and predictively, do things like forecasting and, you know, understanding a path forward. So it's really useful, except when it's not. And I think we missed that whole piece, perhaps is what I'm really taking from your book.
Rich Fernandez
Right. Which is like that. Let's pay attention to our state moment by moment. Our mental state, our mind state, as you say, is that would you say that that's a fair, fair assessment.
Frederik Pferdt
Absolutely. Yes. Yes. yeah. If, if, if you wouldn't mind, kind of like sharing a little bit about what the curriculum is about that, that you were teaching and kind of like, you know, how you feel. That is really helping people to also, focus on, you know, either mindset or mind state and trying to really, not just determine how you experience the present, but how can they use this?
Frederik Pferdt
What you teaching to shape their future?
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. Well, sure, I'm happy to do so. Just for context, for folks listening. You know, I run an organization that that grew out of Google actually was started a Google search inside yourself. And it's really formed on the basis of an understanding of the neuroscience, our human kind of neuroanatomy, which is how our brains work to process information, to make decisions, to perceive, to develop awareness.
Rich Fernandez
You know, all of these quality things, that we, you draw on every day from a sort of a brain perspective. but really, how do we harness the way our brain works and understand first, understand the way our brain works, and then harness that to strengthen qualities like emotional intelligence, which includes empathy, which includes attention and awareness.
Rich Fernandez
Self-awareness, for example, is the first quality of emotional intelligence. so really understanding how we're meeting, as you say, the circumstances that arise moment by moment. And so we, through neuroscience, through mindfulness is another, one of the practices we teach, present moment awareness of, of situations, how we're perceiving those things. So again, anchored in neuroscience using mindfulness we try to operationalize emotional intelligence awareness empathy resilience and then even effective teaming.
Rich Fernandez
We start bringing it out to the kind of collective level of how we're perceiving our ways of being together, how we're enabling things like psychological safety. So all of this is brain based, and maybe it's your language is mind state based, right. And so there are ways you can train your mind state again to use your language. And this is how we approach it as well.
Rich Fernandez
How do you train empathy for example. It's trainable actually trainable. You know and I love your term. So that's that's a little bit of a little encapsulation of our thinking around this. But I want to come back to your work as well because I love your term expansive empathy. Right. expansive empathy because very much I think in the world we have contract acted.
Rich Fernandez
I don't know what you want to call it. What's the opposite of empathy? Right? But it's like, like, you know, it's kind of this constriction, and it's this kind of like categorizing and that's it, and that's that, as opposed to this kind of kind of expansive empathy that you talk about. So maybe I can also then turn that question to you, which is how would you train?
Rich Fernandez
How do you, you know, with with your body of work here? And what's next is now how do you train? How do you understand how we can develop mind states like expansive empathy and radical optimism, right. And experimentation and all these things you talk about?
Frederik Pferdt
Yes, yes. great question. you know, to to give you maybe one example and a little bit of research, building on what you've just shared, which is, expansive empathy, how can we how can we train that? So for me, empathy in that way is not just empathy for others, but also empathy for yourself. Right?
Frederik Pferdt
Where are you trying to understand, what are your needs in the future? Right. And there's some powerful research going on from some of, my, my colleagues at Stanford University where they have, a project called the Future Self Research Project. And what they've done is they try to really understand the power of empathizing with your future self.
Frederik Pferdt
So, I'll share a little bit like how that research, what they actually found, which is, which is tremendously interesting. So what they've done is they asked, 20 year old students if they can, imagine themselves in ten years in the future. Right, so that it an imagination exercise where they, you know, had students close their eyes and like, you know, trying to build up a vivid picture of themselves in ten years from today.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. And the students were like, yeah, we can totally see ourselves in the future. You know, I have a little bit more money, maybe in a better car. And like, you know, they have, descriptors of like, what they, what they imagined, they would be like in ten years from today. Then they asked the students if they can picture themselves in 20 years in the future.
Frederik Pferdt
And the student said, definitely will have a family and maybe a good job or maybe also a house, you know, so they described kind of like how they will, be in 20 years from today. And now it's getting interesting because when they asked the students if they saw themselves in 30 or 40 years out, the picture got really fuzzy and blurry, right?
Frederik Pferdt
They couldn't describe anything about where they might be or what they might be doing. They had no image at all. And so, another of the research projects, studies put the 20 year olds in virtual reality, or they put virtual reality glasses on their on their heads, and they showed them a much older version of themselves, like a picture of, you know, imagined rich, like in in 20 or 30 years or like a Frederik in 20 or 30 years.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. Like, imagine that picture right in front of you, right? And with VR. Right. It's like it's it's it's very, real. Right. So you can, you can really kind of like, you know, see yourself in the future. And so here's, here's the interesting thing they found after several minutes taking in this image of their future self, the majority of the students said that they intended to pay more attention to their health and saved more money for retirement.
Frederik Pferdt
Actually double the amount, right? So you can see they're already are changing their behaviors right now because they could empathize with their future self. So it turns out that the future has more meaning when it's right in front of us. Right. Instead of being far out on the horizon and that is something very powerful that we all can train without VR headsets, right?
Frederik Pferdt
We can train ourselves to imagine how we will be in the future. You know who we want to be surrounded by. You know, the work we're doing, the activities, the environment we're going to be in. All that kind of like is a trainable skill to really imagine your future self. And the fascinating thing is it has an immense have a tremendous impact on the the current moment in your behaviors.
Frederik Pferdt
Again, as the students paid more attention to their health and put more money, towards their retirement fund.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. When, when you envision so we teach this to and search inside yourself, which is, you know, when you envision a possible future with clarity and definition, it makes it a little more likely for that to happen, because, again, it is much more tangible. and so that is, and you may recall, we have literally a very structured envisioning exercise where it's very similar 3 to 5 years, if you're living your best life, what it's what's it like named the people that the activities need the and we literally have people journal it longhand because that's also a way to encode in your brain, the possibilities that you're envisioning, which again, make them more
Rich Fernandez
likely in a lot of ways.
Frederik Pferdt
Amazing. I'm I'm adding a twist here. So, in my book, I, I'm trying to focus again, like, on these, on one of these exercises. Right. And I have a lot of practices that are, hopefully helpful for people to develop these, these dimensions of a future ready mindset around optimism, openness, curiosity, experimentation, empathy. But what I really want to do when people do this, imagination exercises.
Frederik Pferdt
And so I'm building on this study, is not just envisioning what you're going to be in the future, but how you going to be in the future, right? I think that's a powerful, shift where we trying to really imagine, do we want to be more open in the future, more curious, more kind, more empathetic, more loving? You know, all of these qualities that we want to show, show up with in the future and trying to really visualize those and make them, a vivid picture of yourself because, I never liked that question around, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Frederik Pferdt
Right. you probably heard that question, too, right? From your parents or like, your, your friends and so forth. And I never had an answer to that. And I felt it's, it's a question that puts you into, like, a already into a structure or a job or like, you know, a position or something. I'd rather ask, you know, my children and and, other people.
Frederik Pferdt
How do you want to be in the future? Right. What are some of the qualities you want to you want to grow over time, and maybe if you can have a vivid picture of yourself with those qualities of being more kind and being more loving, being more open or more curious, you're going to probably change your behavior right now towards that too.
Rich Fernandez
Absolutely. Yeah. Rather than the question was always, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I think the question, as you said, is how do you want to be? And, I, I remember I wrote a blog about this years ago, like over a decade ago. It's exactly around this question, how do you want to be, you know, as you make your path forward into the future?
Rich Fernandez
And I draw also on this thing, which I think is similar to something you touch on in your book, which is dimension X. we'll talk about that in a second. But in when I was writing this blog, one of the things that, I referenced was, so my, part of my family comes from the Philippines and in the Philippines, the word for work isn't work in when you ask someone, what do you do?
Rich Fernandez
What's your job? You don't ask that question. There's actually a term. The term is Hanna booey, which means if I said to you, Frederik, I wouldn't say, what's your job? What do you do for a living? I'd say Frederik and Hanna. Bohemia. Which means Frederik. What is your search for life? Hanna? Boogie means search for life. Right. And so it means.
Rich Fernandez
What are you harnessing to draw forth the life, perhaps through your work and other things. today. What's your Hanna by an old Hanna? What's your. What is your search for life, Frederik? And it reminds me of something. I read your book, which is dimension X, I think you call it, your unique superpower or signature reflex that makes big things happen.
Rich Fernandez
I love that. So tell us a little bit about dimension X and that the how ness of that, like the being that's in dimension X. That makes any sense.
Frederik Pferdt
Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, I'm, you know, proposing these five dimensions, as I mentioned. And what I found in my work is that there's always one unique dimension, that is very different to every human being. Right? And I call this a dimension X, which is a unique superpower everybody has. And so what I want to do is two things.
Frederik Pferdt
First is help people to discover their unique superpower, their dimension X, right. What is helping you to overcome challenging situations. So what is driving you forward? What is your your unique superpower that really helped you in the past as well? To do something extraordinary right. And so discovering that is the first thing that I want to help people to do.
Frederik Pferdt
And the second thing is helping people to use it more, right, to use their dimension X moving forward in building their future and shaping the future. And so I'm, suggesting, a life mapping exercise where you just basically map out kind of like some of the highs and lows you had in your life. And, you know that the higher the highs and the lower the lows, right, the quicker you can actually discover, like, what is your unique superpower that helped you to overcome these, challenging situations?
Frederik Pferdt
and, you know, when I did the, the discovery and, the life mapping myself. Right. I always came back to that, unique dimension X. That is true for me, which is a bias towards action. Right? So that's something that I live by and that's, something that really, probably is my unique superpower, where I use that bias towards action in a way that I'm not overthinking.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. Many situations I'm moving towards doing and acting, instead of like, you know, questioning or holding back. And so you find in the book kind of like, this, this mapping exercise, which can be potentially very powerful for people. and I, heard from, from many people who have tested this with that, you know, this is something truly valuable because going inside yourself and trying to really discover, like, what drives you and what motivates you and what's your unique superpower can be a very, not just reflective, but a very, helpful exercise.
Frederik Pferdt
And so the 14, people I feature, they all kind of like, share their unique superpowers in the book as well. And, my hope is that you know, that readers might, you know, really relate to these, as well to trying to see, like, oh, yes, you know, my unique superpower power might be connecting the dots or connecting people.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. So, a lot of people are these connectors, right? That is very powerful as a unique superpower. So I'm encouraging people to use that more often and to use it in, in their work and in their lives. So dimension Z is something that that is truly fascinating and, I hope, helpful for people, as well.
Rich Fernandez
It is it's a profound my experience of it, you know, having read the book and just being a practitioner of these kinds of mapping exercises and inquiry exercises, is that it's a profound exercise in self-awareness. Right. very much. Going back to what is your search for life? What I kind of open this question with, like asking yourself that, really reflecting on it.
Rich Fernandez
Well, Frederik, you also work a lot with the Stanford D school, their design school. I was be curious as well, what are some of the emerging trends you might see kind of in that creativity and design and innovation space in general?
Frederik Pferdt
Yes. so maybe two things worth mentioning. the first one, is around, the future of education, right, in general. And so in the past, some of my colleagues did a fascinating exercise where they're trying to really imagine the future of education. And, they wanted to put out a couple of provocations, right, that, you know, might really show you this could be like a way we we educate in the future, right?
Frederik Pferdt
We train and learn, differently. And one of the one of the provocations, they put out there was around moving away from choosing majors and, choosing missions, right? Student, which I found fascinating. Right? Instead of like, choosing, you know, from a set catalog of things that might go towards like a job that might even not exist, kind of like in the future.
Frederik Pferdt
Right? towards like, hey, I choose a mission where I see a purpose in, in something and also I see a problem that I want to solve. Right. That is like a mission that you can declare. And I think that's a powerful, way of thinking of the future of education, where we help students more, check in with themselves around, like, what is what is something I find meaningful?
Frederik Pferdt
And where do you where do I want to make a difference? And what is a problem I want to focus on and so that's the that's the first thing. The second thing is, actually an experiment we tried in one of our classes in the past, around helping students to navigate ambiguity. And that is a focus that we had, and still have, you know, with the school around helping people really to learn how to navigate ambiguity.
Frederik Pferdt
Right? Because life and the future is inherently ambiguous. Right? We all know that. And so what we did is we basically, shared the curriculum with students, which was an empty page. So the curriculum basically just had, you know, all the dates where we meet, right, the class dates and the times. But there was no description of what we're going to do.
Frederik Pferdt
All the.
Rich Fernandez
Pieces of how I perceived, how did they like that all.
Frederik Pferdt
These spaces were, left blank. Yeah. Right. So yeah, imagine how that went. What? See the reactions were from some of the students.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. Like, you know, terror probably.
Frederik Pferdt
Yeah. People were like, just, looking for like, some certainty, some clarity and some, some information. So they, most students reached out to us and say, hey, can you give us some, you know, idea what's going to happen, you know, in class, on these dates. And we said, no, it's it's going to be a class on navigating ambiguity.
Frederik Pferdt
It's going to be around agency. It's going to be around helping you really discover what's next. Right? And shaping that. So we wanted to start with actually putting students into a situation where they don't know what's going to happen, but they have control over it because they could help us decide, you know, what we want to, you know, discover what we want to explore and what we want to learn and teach together.
Frederik Pferdt
And so, it's, it was a, a risky experiment because usually, like academic institutions, they require kind of like a curriculum that's defined that really shows you like, step by step and in very, in very much detail around, like, what's going to happen in the future and what we going to teach. But we just we just flipped that and said like, no, we're going to we're going to discover that together with the students.
Frederik Pferdt
And it was a beautiful exercise in trying to really learn to navigate ambiguity. And I think that's one of the the second things I feel like, you know, we can really help people to do and to learn to really be more prepared for the future by navigating that ambiguity.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, very much so. I mean, in the end, also not just the universe cities, but also, you know, at a place like the Stanford Disco, but also at work, people have a lot of anxiety about the uncertainties of the future, ie the future of work. we could call it. so what insights based on all of this work, might you have to help people quell those fears yourself?
Rich Fernandez
Being a future optimist. What insights might you have to help people kind of quell those anxieties around the future of work?
Frederik Pferdt
Maybe. Maybe sharing two things, that that might be helpful for people. The first one is, using reframing as a way to look at the future of work, in a way that creates opportunities for you and maybe a little bit more excitement instead of, you know, anxiety and and feeling uncertain what you just described. And so, you know, back to the pandemic, right when the pandemic started, most people felt like now I have to work from home, right?
Frederik Pferdt
Or I have to, you know, I can't go to the office. Right? Those were kind of like the comments you you heard. And by reframing towards I can work from home, right? Instead of like, I have to work from home, you using a slightly different language that allows you to see that maybe as an opportunity, because now you can work from home and you don't have to.
Frederik Pferdt
And so these little reframes around moving away from, you know, I have to do this or you know, when, when it comes to work, like, you know, I have to meet with my team all the time reframing that towards. No, I can meet with my team all the time. Right. Is a small reframe that could really be powerful to unlock the opportunity that you then discover and see.
Frederik Pferdt
So using language as a way to to reframe, I think is a is a very powerful way to do, to look at the future of work as a, as an opportunity. And you can do that. The same with, you know, when it comes to the question of I, right? What what is I going to do in, in my job in like, you know, in, in, in, in, in the work I'm doing and so forth, instead of framing it as like, you know, I have to use I or I have to use this technology now framing as I can write and I can use AI to really be, a supportive tool in
Frederik Pferdt
my, in my work. And so these reframes, I think, could be very, powerful. The second thing that I, that I see, all the time when working with organizations is bringing values to life. Right. We, and in your work, probably as well, we see in many organizations there's values, right, that are usually printed out and like posted on, on the walls or like they have, like, you know, these values even written on t shirts, and so forth.
Frederik Pferdt
And I think that's great. It's a great start. But when you ask these organizations like how do you bring those values to life? Right? Most organizations don't have an answer. Right? Because they said, like, oh, we agreed on these values, which is a great first step, but we really have a hard time to live by these values day to day.
Frederik Pferdt
And so what I introduce is the power of rituals, right? Rituals as a way to really, create these small, tangible acts, with, with meaning that, you know, repeat themselves over and over again and they really create that muscle memory of an organization. Right. And these rituals, we we all live by, right? If we are part of a, a community, like a religious community, if we are part of a sports, club or if we, look at our cultures, right?
Frederik Pferdt
We all live by these rituals, right? And for me, the question is not, you know, are these good or bad rituals? The question for me is like, what rituals do I want to introduce in an organization to really bring values to life? And we have powerful rituals, right? Like welcoming rituals for our new employees, right. Where everybody's waiting like a.
Rich Fernandez
I mean, with exactly what happened.
Frederik Pferdt
Remember that. And then, you know, that really brings that value to life around, you know, fun and like, you know, just that playfulness. But at the same time, we have that welcome ritual for new employees where they are allowed to ask questions, right? The first week they actually arrive in the organization to the CEO, the founders and so forth.
Frederik Pferdt
And that really brings that value of transparency. And, you know, also curiosity to life, right? Where you trying to really give literally the microphone to the people who join your organization so that they are allowed to ask the questions, right, that they are curious about, and that transparency around being able to ask those questions and show your curiosity is something really, really powerful.
Frederik Pferdt
And there's lots of lots of rituals that, you know, you can think of as a leader for your organization to really try to experiment your way forward in shaping your culture. and maybe one, one ritual that I'm, feel could be, could be potentially helpful for our, lab folks that are that are listening and watching.
Frederik Pferdt
Is that, ritual around helping people to take more risks? Right. How many people in organizations feel like, you know, our employees are not taking any risk anymore? They're not trying to discover something new. They're just defaulting back on the on the known. And so I introduced at Google a ritual, called the Penguin Award when I, there's a little bit of a story around that.
Frederik Pferdt
When I was on a ship called the Entrepreneurship, I, was teaching, Stanford students, 60 Stanford students and 40 students from Chile. And we literally went to the end of the world for about ten days on this ship. And, we saw penguins, right? one day, standing on a on an ice shelf.
Frederik Pferdt
And, what's fascinating is that there's always one penguin that jumps first into the water. Right? The courageous penguin, the other penguin standing back and waiting patiently. If that penguin comes up again, you know, finding some food or if the penguin is gone, right? Becoming food, there's a 50% chance. And so I use that metaphor, from nature and introduced the Penguin award where I said, like, whoever jumps first into the water, meaning whoever takes the risks try something new or tries a new technology, a process and approach, whatever it is, they should get an award, a little penguin.
Frederik Pferdt
And so biweekly, that penguin was, you know, passed to the person who took a risk, who jumped into the water. And, you know, it was, a little note was written like, you know what what the risk was about and what the, the, the person actually learned. Because we all know if nobody jumps from that ice shelf, right?
Frederik Pferdt
No penguin jumps, the colony will disappear. And that's the same true for organizations. If you don't allow people to take risks. And if you don't reward people with a Penguin award, maybe to take risks, right, your organization might disappear. Right. And I think that's, one of the examples where we can see the power in rituals and how they help us to bring our values to life.
Rich Fernandez
And I love it. What a great example. And I think, you know, as leaders, we can support that risk taking lines. For example, not firing the first penguin who jumps in into the water because because I think there's a lot of fear. That's why people don't go first. But it might be unnecessary. And perhaps as leaders, we can kind of create the conditions for this kind of safe risk taking.
Rich Fernandez
and maybe we can end Frederik, you know, we had a little ritual to begin with. It's a ritual I do in my organization. We did this thing called a minute to arrive. It's one of the things we call a micro practice. which is actually settling the mind, and allowing yourself to just experience your mind, your heart, your body in this present moment, like.
Rich Fernandez
And so that's a little ritual we have. Which brings me to, this idea of reflection, contemplative practice, mindfulness meditation, whatever you want to call it. What is the, from your perspective? What is the, the value and the impact of those practices? Let's call them reflective practices in future readiness.
Frederik Pferdt
I think that's going to be the future of, learning and development. Right. Like engaging more in these practices because they're so powerful. And the research is very clear as well, that, you know, if you allow yourself to, to meditate and trying to understand how you think and how you feel to then maybe also, you know, regulate that and trying to, you know, shift your thinking and shift your feelings.
Frederik Pferdt
I think you have a very powerful way of not just thinking, but being right. And that's for me, the the future, right where we are. We are really using these pretty simple, but at the same time very difficult to do techniques. Right. Like who, who, who spends like the, the one hour right in the morning and the one hour in the evening meditating.
Frederik Pferdt
Right. It's not a lot, a lot of people. Right? I managed to practice 30 minutes a day in the morning. Right. And, but I already see the shifts in my thinking and the way I am. I am. And so it's it's very powerful. And I think, for me, that has been, you know, very inspirational around the work you've been doing, you know, with your institute, with a lot of colleagues, at, at Google, but also, you know, people around the world who also share these practices and, for me here, living in the Santa Cruz Mountains, you know, I have the, the, the ability to go to, like at Chico Coaches Center, right
Frederik Pferdt
in the mountains where, you know, Steve Jobs used to to sit on a cushion as well. And, it's it's very interesting because it doesn't matter where you go. Right. but it's it matters that you're actually practicing it to become better at it. And so I highly encourage everyone to, you know, like we're going to do now, spend a minute, at least a day to really arrive in your, in your body and trying to really be in that present moment.
Frederik Pferdt
Because I think it's a powerful way of of being. And at the same time, you know, maybe using imagination practices to really trying to envision yourself, as we discussed in the, in, a couple of minutes ago.
Rich Fernandez
Absolutely. I teacher of one of my teachers, Joseph Goldstein, and he was talking about one of his teachers who were not sure who it was, might have been a giant child or one of the other, very traditional meditation teachers. said that, you know, if you want to understand your mind, spend some time sitting down and observing it.
Rich Fernandez
And so when understand our states and, you know, our future readiness and all of these qualities that you described, it seems like there is a really important place for reflective, contemplative mindfulness practices, whatever you choose to call them. So, yeah, I also want to offer that encouragement that it's something that we, we actively teach. Frederick, I, I can't thank you enough.
Rich Fernandez
I've, we've been talking for almost an hour, and I feel like we could continue to talk. I know we'll stay connected. it's really great to be able to bring this conversation forward. And really thank you so much for, for all the dedicated, hard work to get your book out there in the world. and I imagine people can find you easily online that you're the have a website, so forth, and the usual channels.
Frederik Pferdt
Absolutely. Yes. And yeah. Thanks for again showing showing the cover, which I feel like is, is a great metaphor for seeing like who is responsible for the future, right. It's yourself. Right. You see you see a mirror here that changes its colors based on the perspective. If we, we take. Right. And it's something for the future. Right.
Frederik Pferdt
It's that kaleidoscope that really, you know, unfolds when we shift our, our perspective. And so I hopeful I, I, I'm hopeful that this is a good reminder that we are all, you know, in control of our futures and, you know, shifting our perspective is something we can learn and practice to really have, a way to, build a better future for ourselves.
Rich Fernandez
Beautiful. Thank you so much, Frederik. So great talking to you. Thanks for being with us today.
Frederik Pferdt
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
