3 tips for making meaningful client work with Jarren MacDougall and Parker McLean

[00:00:04] Parker: Hello, party people. 

[00:00:07] Jarren: Good evening everyone. Can you hear us all right? Can you see us all right? Can we see you? More importantly, how are we feeling tonight? Full of pizza, little beer, maybe. Uh, thank the Pizza’s, the 

[00:00:20] Parker: army for that really generous introduction. It’s beautiful to be here in the space that you’ve helped organize.

[00:00:24] Parker: And thank you Val, uh, creative Pulse volunteer team for the work that you put into making all of this magic happen. Can we hear it for the Creative Pulse team?

[00:00:35] Parker: Can we hear it from my handsome husband?

[00:00:41] Parker: Uh, we are partners in work and life and business in all the ways that you can be partnered. We are in all the ways. Uh, and tonight’s talk is called What’s Alignment? Got to do with it. In my head, Tina Turner’s like, what’s Alignment got to do with it? Uh, but that doesn’t get carried through. So I had to sing that for you.

[00:00:58] Parker: And just to clear up, I’m Jaron. [00:01:00] And this is Parker. Yeah, I’m Parker. I use he they pronouns if you’re writing poetry, but me later, it’s, they, uh, or he if you’re nasty. Uh, and tonight we’re talking about alignment and that sounds like lots of different things. It can sound like corporate double speak. Uh, but actually this talk is about how we found a way to work with ourselves, alignment in here and projecting that out into the way that we align with each other and the way that we align with our clients, and then the way that the creative work aligns with the audience or the end customer.

[00:01:28] Parker: Uh, all of that is one continuous chain, and we’re happy to share with you our stories and our experiences tonight. Uh, but one thing we really want you to notice is that we are on a stage, but we’re not. Sage is, uh, we’re humans and we’re learning and we’re making mistakes and we’re trying things out, and we’re getting it wrong, and we’re making just as many, uh, errors and running into just as many walls as each of you.

[00:01:48] Parker: Um, but we have some stuff that we’d like to share that has helped us feel more at home in our work. 

[00:01:52] Jarren: Yeah, so Parker’s point, we didn’t want to get up here and be like, we did this and it’s, life is amazing. Now we’re gonna share stories and we’re gonna show you the progression of those [00:02:00] stories and how we’ve come to this alignment stuff.

[00:02:02] Jarren: It didn’t happen overnight. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not fully aligned all the time with everything. That’s an impossible thing to do. But we’re gonna share a couple things and that might help you along your journeys. So, 

[00:02:13] Parker: sound good? Buckle up a million thumbs up. 

[00:02:15] Jarren: Great. Great. 

[00:02:16] Parker: Okay. Why don’t you get us started off by telling us a 

[00:02:18] Jarren: little bit about who you are and then I’ll do the same.

[00:02:20] Jarren: Yeah. So again, my name is Jaren. My pronouns are he, him and I actually grew up just outside of Vancouver in a place called Cloverdale. 

[00:02:28] Attendee: Okay. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:02:30] Jarren: See some of, you know, Cloverdale, it’s home of the rodeo, uh, or of a rodeo that, and I grew up in the eighties predominantly, um, where it was quite a, um, Bible belt, honestly, there was a lot of Christianity around and I grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian home.

[00:02:50] Jarren: Okay, a little aside about this tie, this is grade three and my mom came back from Nova Scotia with this tie, and it’s the tartan. My last name is MacDougall. It’s our tartan. And [00:03:00] I wanted to wear this to my school photo, and she said. Jaron, nobody’s gonna be wearing a bow tie. And I said, I don’t care. I’m wearing this bow tie.

[00:03:10] Jarren: I don’t remember if I was made fun of or not, but I love this photo. And when Bow ties became back in fashion maybe about 10 years ago, do you remember that? I was like, it’s back. I get to wear my bow ties again. Um, but I digress. So I grew up in a Christian contact, a fundamentalist Christian contact.

[00:03:26] Jarren: Where we weren’t even allowed to listen to regular music. So everything was curated for us. My friends were not allowed to be from secular world. Um, my music movies, everything was, um, censored, honestly. And being a young, queer kid, I noticed right away that I didn’t align with this life of Christianity in, in this, in this form.

[00:03:51] Jarren: And so at the age of 16, I decided to come out to my parents. It didn’t go super great, unfortunately, but I knew at that time in my life, I was [00:04:00] like, I just had to do it. There was something in me that Miss said, you’ve gotta come out even despite what might happen. So I told my parents, they were very upset.

[00:04:08] Jarren: Of course, they didn’t kick me out or anything. They’re loving people. But they were concerned. They were concerned for my faith, my my life. And at that time, when you came out as gay, everybody said, just don’t die of aids. That was the only thing that I heard over and over again. So there was a lot of fear for sure.

[00:04:27] Jarren: And my parents decided to join a group through their church. Um, and thus began a campaign of, um, telling me how I can be healed from this gayness. Um, so that went on for some time and it wore me down. Honestly, after about a year and a half, it wore me down. And then I decided to join this group. We call that conversion therapy today.

[00:04:49] Jarren: It certainly wasn’t called that at the time, but I had to stuff everything that I had sort of tried to liberate for myself and stuff it back down and try to live in this kind of hetero life, [00:05:00] it didn’t go as planned. And about a year and a half in, I had a moment where I was like, something’s off.

[00:05:07] Jarren: Something is really, really off. And so as a young person, I said, it’s time to get the hell out of here. And I was like, how far can I go to get away from this? Got a one-way plane to get to London, not Ontario, but the UK where I lived in the UK and Ireland for just over seven years. And during that time I worked to liberate myself and my voice.

[00:05:31] Jarren: Are there any Irish people in the audience tonight? Yeah. Irish people are incredible storytellers. Incredible. And I remember being at, uh, many a party where it seemed like every Irish person had like a song or a poem in their back pocket that they would present. And I was fascinated by this, coupled with the fact that I knew that I was quite an empathic person and people would tell me very quick things, like deep things about themselves upon meeting me.

[00:05:59] Jarren: So I [00:06:00] knew I had this ability to hold space in a certain way that was sort of innate for myself. And with this appreciation of storytelling, I discovered something about myself that I loved to create space for stories. And so I went through my life. I did many different things including, you know, entrepreneurial pursuits, I studied medicine, I studied like very different things.

[00:06:21] Jarren: And then I decided to come back to Canada and be with my family for a while. And life went on, I was still doing my careers, this, that and the other. And then I met this wonderful human beside me about 14 years ago. And, um, we were living our life and so I decided that I would leave the career that I was in.

[00:06:39] Jarren: ’cause again, something was off. Do you know that feeling when something’s off in yourself and you’re like, something niggling. Maybe it’s in your stomach or the back of your head. I’ve had a few moments of that in my, in my life, and that was one of them. So I was like, I’m outta here. I need to make a move again.

[00:06:54] Jarren: Um, and I decided to become a executive coach. I’m gonna [00:07:00] leave it there ’cause I’m gonna pick up the story in a minute, but I’m gonna let this lovely human beside me tell his part of the story and I’ll catch up with you in a minute. Okay, 

[00:07:09] Parker: thanks Jen. Uh, alright, so I’m Parker. As I mentioned earlier, uh, I was born with a different kind of body than most of you folks.

[00:07:16] Parker: So I was born with a high arched palette, which meant that all the bones at the top of my mouth were so highly ascended when I was a infant and then into childhood that I couldn’t feed in typical ways. Um, I don’t have children, obviously. That’s not how you rock them, but in pantomime it is. So I didn’t have children and when I was speaking age, I couldn’t access the top of my mouth to make most beach sounds that I make today.

[00:07:38] Parker: My mouth looked more like, huh? No. That, uh, then it does this sort of like normative looking thing that I’ve got in my, uh, head today. And the, um, like I said, the bones were so high and I had all of these middle teeth. I had extra teeth in the middle, so the edges of my mouth were like going outward on their own.

[00:07:57] Parker: And, and I couldn’t really access a lot [00:08:00] of that. And so I was mocked, uh, mercilessly. I, I grew up in a sports obsessed family, and so performative masculinity was definitely something that I. Uh, understood as just the world. That was the water I swam in as a young person, and I really understood that if I didn’t sound like everybody else and I didn’t look like everybody else, I would not be visible, trusted, loved, accepted, uh, encouraged, uh, all of the things that I really hold myself, uh, today in love and I’ve had to reparent.

[00:08:28] Parker: Back then, I wasn’t in that same place, and so I really took it upon myself. I deputized myself as a little linguistic, uh, linguist to study the ways other boys on the playground, uh, used their voice boxes and used their mouths, and used their tongues and used their cheeks. This all sounds way sexier than I mean it, but I was a child, you guys.

[00:08:46] Parker: Uh, I, I was studying the ways other people were speaking, so I might be able to replicate them myself one day. The inside of my mouse was mouth, uh, was corrected with surgery. And I say corrected in a sort of air quote way. [00:09:00] In some ways, I wish I could still access my, uh, authentic mouth and, and speak and sound the way that I was meant to.

[00:09:06] Parker: Um, but doctors and the normative world intervened. And so I sound the way I do now. But that passion for voice and understanding the ways that other people communicate never really went away. And so I graduated from university. I, I went to school for geography and linguistics. I threw my arts degree to the wind into the recession.

[00:09:24] Parker: I became a barista and I studied web design and, uh, development so that I could make some money building meaning for people that are trying to communicate something on their own. A sort of like early step in this career that I’ve built for myself. And over the years I worked on my own. It was very, very depressing, frankly.

[00:09:42] Parker: Uh, as, uh, you probably noticed in my early story, there was a lot of self work I had to do in order to love the being that I am and to really celebrate my gifts. And in my twenties, I was very interested in finding people that would bully me in the right way. And so I joined agencies that had douchy bosses ’cause it was like, this feels comfortable and very [00:10:00] familiar.

[00:10:00] Parker: Uh, and I thought that that’s what work was supposed to feel like if I wasn’t, uh, pushed down all the way into the ground. And I wasn’t designing something that didn’t feel like me, was I really working? And I worked it in-house jobs. I took gig at, uh, corporations and got design feedback all the time that was like, this is too gay.

[00:10:16] Parker: Or, uh, I wish this looked like some other style. And time and time again, I had this feeling like. I thought you chose me. I, I thought I was the designer that you like brought into this rule. And so like, when I’m doing my work, isn’t that enough? ’cause it’s me doing it. Uh, but it wasn’t spoiler alert. All of those organizations had to go through their DEI process.

[00:10:35] Parker: Now hopefully they’re in a different place and they have more space for accessible, uh, people or people who need accessibility. Uh, but at the time that was not the case. And so I went to take a gig at YBR airport during the pandemic. Being an entrepreneur was kind of shitty. During early pandemic, if any of you run your own businesses, were you entrepreneurs in early pandemic Raise of hands?

[00:10:54] Parker: Yeah. And was that a great experience for any of you? Yeah. Great. Uh, two thumbs down, two thumbs way down. [00:11:00] Uh, I’m seeing a lot of like, yeah, I had that same experience and so I went and took a job at the airport. I was like, this would be a great opportunity for me to just do graphic design and forget about the entrepreneurial part for a while.

[00:11:11] Parker: And Tamara Ruman became their new leader while I was there, and she moved from Van City to YVR. And so she took the organization through a values exercise because they had thought that being the most luxurious airport in the world was really gonna be the bed they could lie on. But during pandemic and global travel wasn’t a thing.

[00:11:27] Parker: That reputation didn’t mean anything to their branch, so they had to find a place for their brand to grow from that was authentic. And so they did a values exercise and each of us employees had to choose our one signature value from a page of values. And I’d chosen creativity without even thinking about it.

[00:11:40] Parker: I’ve been coming to Creative Pulse events for years and I was like, yeah, I’m definitely oriented around creativity. And Tamira Verman walked past my desk the next day and she said, Parker, I know you see yourself here, but you’re actually over here. And she pointed at this picture of a cloud. It had like sun coming through it, and it was about hope.

[00:11:55] Parker: And she said, the way that you make other people believe that whatever we’re working on could [00:12:00] matter is the thing that makes you special. And I don’t know if she knew she was talking me out of my job, but I went in the next day and resigned and I was like, uh, I’m sorry. All of a sudden, I know what my career is actually about.

[00:12:10] Parker: Uh, and so I left and I came home to Jaron, who had just finished his program at railroads in executive coaching, and together we started noticing that what I had always been challenged by in creative work was clients who were kind of performative in their work or felt like design could be a pandering exercise.

[00:12:27] Parker: If it looks cool enough, then the outside world could believe this. And I was really disenchanted by that. I, I noticed that projects weren’t going very deep. And Jaron doing executive coaching work was by nature of the work. It’s all deep, 

[00:12:40] Jarren: it’s all we don’t, you get very deep, very fast. 

[00:12:43] Parker: And so it occurred to us that we could begin talking about branding projects from a place of inner alignment for people.

[00:12:50] Parker: So instead of brands being this sort of mural, that the brand is painting on the outside and hoping the outside world believes what’s painted, what would it be like if a brand like opened the curtains on who an [00:13:00] organization or who an individual is. And so we offer that executive coaching support and then creative design in what we call hark.

[00:13:07] Parker: And hark is a word we don’t use very often. Like Hark. The Herald Angel Sing means like, shut up, the angel is singing. Uh, but it really means like to listen attentively and in the work that we do, listening is kind of everything. 

[00:13:18] Jarren: Yeah. I think for us, um, coming from a background where we didn’t feel listened to ourselves and then being in careers and jobs where maybe the clients weren’t listening, we were like, there’s an opportunity here to figure out how.

[00:13:33] Jarren: To make that a little bit easier for everybody around the table, not just a one way street, but everybody. And so we sort of like decided we’re gonna do this thing, we’re gonna just try. We didn’t even have a website and we signed like nine months of work just talking about what was important to us and how we can help people.

[00:13:50] Jarren: And people were really eager for this. I don’t remember during the pandemic, but mental health, I don’t know about you. I wasn’t in a good place and people were just wanting some sort of connection, [00:14:00] even in professional circumstances. We were all at home on Zoom and isolated feeling very, very isolated and having nowhere to talk about that.

[00:14:09] Jarren: And so we decided, let’s talk about it. Let’s make this easier on everybody. And we were surprised that people were actually really excited to go there with us. Um, and so we 

[00:14:18] Parker: continued. So that’s our story. That’s how we got to now, uh, we’re gonna get into alignment in a sec, but first we want to hear about who you people are.

[00:14:25] Parker: So an exercise, this is interactive. So before you start sweating internally, uh, form groups of three. And if you’re at a table where four makes more sense, that’s okay as well. Uh, but just do that part now so you can, like, rest assured, you’ve got a group. Okay. Take your time. Yeah. Find a group. Good. Good, good, good.

[00:14:48] Parker: Okay. Great. It looks like everybody is grouped up. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody feel good? Does anybody not have a group that they’re comfortable with? Okay, great. You’re gonna have two minutes. Uh, actually we’ll move that to three ’cause there’s some bigger [00:15:00] groups. So you’ll have three minutes as a group, uh, to tell each other one thing.

[00:15:05] Parker: That you think makes you unique. Okay. Just think about that for a sec. Note it to yourself. Reach inward, what makes you unique, and then when you’re ready, start sharing that with your group. Share with your group. You have three minutes. Go ahead. Okay, so let’s chat about how that went. 

[00:15:28] Jarren: Supposed to write this down.

[00:15:29] Parker: No. 

[00:15:29] Jarren: No, not at all. You’re doing it perfectly. How was that experience? Can we hear from one or two people? How was it to tell someone what makes you unique? 

[00:15:38] Parker: Okay. What makes it hard to know? Alexis? I don’t think about that. It’s 

[00:15:43] Jarren: not already answer. Ah, okay. Okay. What do you feel when that, I, I’m sensing when you’re about using like, kind of like I’m uncomfortable even thinking about what makes me unique.

[00:15:54] Jarren: Yeah. Is that what, what’s going on? Yeah. 

[00:15:56] Parker: Thanks for sharing that, Alexis. Thanks. Any other experiences? [00:16:00] How is that for anybody? Good. Okay. What did you love about it?

[00:16:09] Parker: Beautiful. Wonderful. Okay. Thanks for sharing that. Ah, I love that. So you found some affinity in that. Wonderful. Good. Okay, good. Okay. So an opportunity to learn about one another, to sort of surprisingly discover some affinity, it sounds like. Mm-hmm. Uh, so lots of layers to explore. Any other experiences that wanna be shared.

[00:16:28] Parker: Okay. Wow. So now round two. So you’re gonna keep your same groups and we’re gonna ask you to tell each other something. Having common. So you two are already well ahead, way to go. You’re on it. Uh, but same groups. Take another three minutes and explore what you have in common. 

[00:16:47] Jarren: Thank you. Beautiful. So I’d love to hear from one or two groups of how that went.

[00:16:51] Jarren: How was it like to try to find something that you have in common? 

[00:16:55] Parker: Much 

[00:16:55] Jarren: better. Tell me more. Yeah.[00:17:00] 

[00:17:07] Jarren: I dunno. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So it just felt more cohesive and aligned. Is that what I’m hearing from you? Yeah. 

[00:17:14] Attendee: Much more positive, I 

[00:17:16] Jarren: would say. 

[00:17:16] Attendee: Mm, 

[00:17:17] Jarren: yeah. More positive. Great. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Did anybody else 

[00:17:20] Parker: have that experience? Was this a like, slightly more positive experience for you? Hmm. Okay, so nodding heads.

[00:17:25] Parker: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Okay. How was it? Anybody else wanna express? Hmm. I think, sorry, we’ll come back again. People agree that empathy and understanding, even if clients don’t really, doesn’t really know what they want and we able to, we take information and like create, so create a solution for them. Mm-hmm. Wow.

[00:17:48] Parker: Good. Great. That’s an amazing thing to improve. And this is between us, like creative 

[00:17:53] Attendee: director, cinema designers, we all share the the, the skill to 

[00:17:59] Jarren: [00:18:00] be to. To uncover DDNA. Wow. 

[00:18:04] Attendee: Yeah. 

[00:18:05] Jarren: Good. And how did that feel in your group when that happens? Compared maybe to the first time when you’re just saying something about yourself.

[00:18:13] Jarren: What was the difference for you? What, how did you feel? 

[00:18:19] Attendee: The first it was great. And also I say over the years, uh, like attending the creative course, I think I was at your place and 

[00:18:25] Jarren: I’m like, I’m happy to answer the question because now I know my vault like feels. Yeah. Wonderful. Good job Alexis. Thank you.

[00:18:33] Jarren: Appreciate it. Uh, 

[00:18:36] Parker: you were gonna share something up here. I’d love to hear what you wanted to express. You were searching 

[00:18:40] Attendee: for commonality ’cause you’re going to, you know, slack, everything that way. Mm-hmm. And you’re searching and I. Is that we’re creative? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Great. It was like 

[00:18:54] Parker: charades almost. 

[00:18:57] Attendee: Yeah.

[00:18:59] Attendee: That’s great. [00:19:00] So 

[00:19:00] Parker: it was like charades, which sounds like you were sort of participating in one another’s shows. You were like helping one another know when they were on the right track that there was something in common. And it sounds like there’s a 

[00:19:07] Jarren: bit of negotiation, right? Like you’re like, can I say this?

[00:19:10] Jarren: Can I go in a limb and say that thing? Or do you feel the same way? 

[00:19:15] Parker: Yeah, 

[00:19:16] Attendee: yeah. 

[00:19:16] Parker: Great. So this is what our talk is all about tonight. It’s about noticing that in our work, in our creative lives and the way that we hold ourselves with others at a networking event or in a project or at uh, uh, with your colleagues at work, you have all of these opportunities to either engage one another or align with one another.

[00:19:34] Parker: And sometimes engagement’s really important. You do want to hear like, what’s your favorite food? And it doesn’t need to be the same as mine. Uh, or if you’re talking about a brand project or something that does need to end up at one final deliverable that’s cohesive. You might be a bit more, uh, leaning towards alignment rather than just plain engagement.

[00:19:51] Parker: If what you’re solving for is one thing at the end of the day. So that’s what our talk is all about. It’s about shifting from this notion of like engagement, which [00:20:00] I’ll just keep going with the favorite food example. Uh, if I asked Lindsay, what’s your favorite food? And you said lasagna? Well, like gluten-free lasagna, uh, it would be over here.

[00:20:08] Parker: And, and, uh, Alexis might say sushi, which would be over here, and Ann might say, uh, span capita, uh, also gluten-free. Uh, and those would be three different answers. And so if the thing was what are we gonna eat for dinner? This would leave us exactly nowhere, except it would definitely be gluten free. Uh, same scenario.

[00:20:28] Parker: If we ask those same three people, uh, what I am running outta examples, uh, so I’m gonna go with favorite food as well. Uh, let’s think of a favorite food to eat for dinner that’s gluten free. And then we were all sort of pointing in the same direction. The answers that were provided would end up overlapping because we know that we’re arriving at one thing.

[00:20:46] Parker: It’s no longer about favorite food. It’s about like, how are we gonna agree on this thing? And when we’re doing creative work, and we’re working with clients who oftentimes come with their own understanding of where the power dynamic lies, we feel this internal [00:21:00] pressure to do what the client says no matter what.

[00:21:02] Parker: And so if they’re like, we need to engage this many people in order to do our research, or in order to find casting, or in order to find the right content ideas, you just go out and do it. But if you’re not asking the right sorts of questions, you end up in this scenario. And then your job is kind of like to compromise or to choose which client to listen to.

[00:21:19] Parker: And that can leave you exactly nowhere 

[00:21:21] Jarren: or try to pull things together. Later in the project. Ami was talking about that maybe you’re six months into a big project and things are going off the rails and then you’re scrambling trying to bring alignment back into something and that just leaves everybody frustrated and upset.

[00:21:35] Jarren: And it can affect the work as well. Right. The creative can be affected by that as well. 

[00:21:39] Parker: Yeah. And this all kinda sounds sort of thematic and theoretical. We’re gonna get into some real world stuff and we’ll tell you about how we learn these lessons in a sec. Uh, but before we do, we just want to express some humility.

[00:21:48] Parker: Uh, we’re not perfect at this. And things that we’ve said in our careers are things like. When a client hires us, uh, who do you want us to be as a creative? Uh, so if somebody hired us for a branding [00:22:00] project, we’d be like, oh, like what styles do you like or how do you want us to engage with your team? The second question, like, how do you want us to work for so many years in the ways that we were working before we focused on alignment, would kind of pass the client the pen to be like, oh, what kind of crazy bureaucracy do you want us to navigate through on this?

[00:22:17] Parker: Or, you’ve got some egotistical board member, let’s totally cater the project around that person. Rather than bringing a process and a sort of tried and true understanding of how to cultivate alignment into the room and holding that firmly, we got really blown asunder. Yeah. Uh. Another thing we always ended up saying when we weren’t focused on alignment and we didn’t have space to say, I don’t know, was like, we should already know this part of the project.

[00:22:41] Parker: Uh, but we don’t think it’s too late to ask. So maybe we’re in a board meeting doing some research work and this person has that opinion. This person has a totally different one. And we would leave that meeting like that was totally okay and we would just internalize the tension between those two people.

[00:22:55] Parker: Uh, but we are not really therapists for our clients. We are creative people. We do [00:23:00] branding work. Mm-hmm. And so we had to learn how to let go of that, uh, feeling that it was our problem for not understanding the client context and really lean into the idea that our confusion could be a material to work with.

[00:23:11] Jarren: And how many times have you been at a kickoff meeting where it’s going on and on and on and people are sharing and then you’re like. Did I actually get everything? I know we can now record meetings, but I’ve been in many where I’m like, I didn’t catch that part. And I’m like, I don’t wanna look stupid in front of the client.

[00:23:26] Jarren: So I may not go back to them and ask them to clarify, and then I’d be months into the project and they’re like, well, we said that thing. And I was like, oh, you know, that’s the thing you said. Right? Does this, is this this relatable with anybody else where you’re like, I should already know this and I don’t, or I forgot, or I have.

[00:23:42] Jarren: 10 projects on the go. Like I just forgot that little, little part. 

[00:23:45] Parker: Is that a familiar feeling to people in the room? Do you know that feeling of like, oh, I should already know this. Some head shaking? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, these are some of the things we tried. Yes. We, we thought that making approvable work instead of good work would be a good strategy.

[00:23:57] Parker: So once we got the lay of the, the land, [00:24:00] we really got into their, like, office gossip and we’re like, okay, if we make it like that, so and so would be happy. We really drove into. Making work that would people please the client dynamic and wasn’t necessarily the good creative. And, and good is kind of loose here.

[00:24:13] Parker: It doesn’t mean like award-winning or whatever it was like the creative that we knew that we wanted to make, 

[00:24:17] Jarren: but sometimes it get watered down. Right? And, and I know we do that to a certain extent that we’ve gotta work with the client, but sometimes the integrity of the projects gets lost because we’re people pleasing the client.

[00:24:27] Jarren: And sometimes it’s hard to stand your. Ground. Right. And be like, I, I really believe in this part of this, this project. 

[00:24:34] Parker: Another thing we tried was standardizing procedures, SOPs. Anybody 

[00:24:38] Jarren: know about SOPs? Yeah. Yeah. Great. We went away for a week and worked on our SOPs. That’s how much we put into this. Yeah.

[00:24:44] Jarren: We hated that. And so SOPs did some many wonderful things for it, but it did not help us in our client relationships because people are not standard. We’re not all the same. So you can have frameworks for sure. But the s SOPs didn’t really [00:25:00] help us with our alignment problem. 

[00:25:01] Parker: Yeah. We felt insecure, and so we like moved into a rigidity and like boundaries and like, like hardening those things.

[00:25:07] Parker: But it was about like opening that actually got us outta the mud. So that’s one thing. 

[00:25:10] Jarren: And then last, throwing money and creative at the problem. Yeah. Like, oh, I’ll just work harder. I’ll walk through the night. Oh, I’ll just hire somebody. Oh, we should hire that person. We’ll just end. You’re losing money on the project as going down and down.

[00:25:20] Jarren: Right. Anybody relate with this where you’re just like throwing as much at it just to get it done? And throwing like 

[00:25:27] Parker: good ideas too, like how disheartening it is it to be inside of a, um, kind of disorganized client experience, have a really good idea, you know, that it’s a million dollar idea, but because of some committee situation, it doesn’t get to pass go.

[00:25:41] Parker: That’s so frustrating. And it means that the good creative that you are each capable of is not really releasing the light of day because of misalignment. Uh, so we hold, our central premise for tonight is that aligned work equals fulfilling work. And the word fulfilling is really deliberate here, uh, because, uh, [00:26:00] brief is something that gets fulfilled.

[00:26:01] Parker: Uh, a client need is something that gets fulfilled. A value can be fulfilled, uh, but we’re not saying like award-winning or like most stylish or most trendy, um, uh, ways of describing work that are more anchored in time, like that, uh, can feel a little disingenuous after a certain amount of time. And so we really focus on doing fulfilling work so that we’re not always wondering like, what are we trying to get out of our jobs?

[00:26:25] Parker: It’s like fulfillment, right? 

[00:26:27] Jarren: And you deserve to be happy, right? I mean, we don’t do our jobs just for, uh, misery. We want to actually enjoy the time. If you’re a creative, a freelance creator, you want to be able to live your life as well. And unfortunately we’ve talked to many creatives who get bogged down in this part where they’re just like, I hate this.

[00:26:46] Jarren: Like, I actually hate going to work. Or there’s this client calling, they’re like, Ugh. Like, I just want it to be over already. And that’s what they’re coming into the call with. And it’s totally understandable, but it’s gonna affect the relationship and the project more. More than [00:27:00] likely. 

[00:27:00] Parker: It’s complicated. A creative heart is oftentimes a sensitive heart or an open heart.

[00:27:05] Parker: And as creatives, we do this beautiful work that a lot of us have felt called to, and we’ve been coloring as long as we’ve been alive. Like there, there’s this like creative thing that runs through us, uh, and we get parachuted into very uncreative environments all the time. And so we’ve gotta notice that it’s like the inner fulfillment that we’re talking about.

[00:27:22] Parker: And if you can start solving for that and focusing on that. You can have more bounded conversations. You can say no to the right projects. You can find ways of working that feel more aligned with your specific diversity. 

[00:27:33] Jarren: So it’s a great thing to say, right? This sort of work could be fulfilling for you.

[00:27:38] Jarren: Yeah. But we didn’t get there overnight. No. It was hard to get really, really years and conversations and debriefs to figure out some pieces. And so tonight we wanna share a little bit of that journey with you so you can understand how we moved through that and where we arrive today. And again, we’re not perfect today.

[00:27:57] Jarren: Okay. But like I said, we’ve figured [00:28:00] out a few things, so we wanna share that. Just give you a little, little, little walk down memory road with Park right now, and we’re going to share a few little projects with you. How’s that sound? That’s it. Great. 

[00:28:10] Parker: Uh, so right up the hill from here is this place called the Wavefront Center for Communication Accessibility.

[00:28:15] Parker: Does anybody know that place? Uh, great. Yeah. One person. Thanks Vince. Uh, so before it was up there, it was in kits and it had a crappy old name. It used to be called the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Uh, and then the Deaf Blind became part of their community and they were like, we’re the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Deaf Blind.

[00:28:32] Parker: And nobody knew what that meant. Uh, the word Institute, uh, felt relevant to their community several decades ago. Uh, but is really not aligned with where they’re at in their exploration of diversity accessibility today. Uh, or, uh, seven years ago when I was doing this work. And so they hired me before it was us, uh, to do, this is before I came on the scene.

[00:28:52] Attendee: Yeah. 

[00:28:53] Parker: But he was still at home giving me back rubs. 

[00:28:55] Attendee: Uh, 

[00:28:57] Parker: uh, they hired me to rename them [00:29:00] as an organization, so come up with a different name and to rebrand them. And so I started doing it. I dug into their archives. These are like real things that I looked at, uh, and got into the name. I’m gonna skip past some of the creative parts in order to talk about the way this landed.

[00:29:12] Parker: Uh, so. Uh, because a lot of their community are signers. Um, the way that they’d been spelling out the name before, uh, had been W-I-D-H-H. And so the w was something that we wanted to maintain so that the sign shorthand could be the same thing. And so when we moved into their new brand space, uh, they arrived at the name Wavefront Center for Communication Accessibility, just a little side door on the name Rationale instead of Na uh, naming the organization about who it was for.

[00:29:39] Parker: We talked about what they were about, so like shifted away from describing a long list of people and started talking about their values, communication, accessibility. And we had to come up with a generative metaphor that was Wavefront. So like being at the front of a wave. ’cause they do research and also sound waves seem like a really obvious metaphor to draw from.

[00:29:55] Parker: So I loved this work. I was like really into it. My friend Scott Knowles helped with the design of this piece. [00:30:00] Uh, and it was cool ’cause it was like a w it was a wave. It was also kind of like an a SL person waving, uh, a person who spoke a SL waving. Uh, but they hated it. Well, actually they didn’t hate it.

[00:30:11] Parker: The board loved it and the executive director loved it and all of their communication staff loved it. And so it got approved. We made mockups, we made business cards. We made it, it worked on their email signature. We were like into web design city, and they were like, we’re gonna present this to our community.

[00:30:25] Parker: And essentially implied, they were like, and then we’re gonna let off the confetti cannon. And so I was in Bernaby in some conference, hotel room, or no, uh, conference, hotel, not in the hotel room, in the ballroom, uh, presenting this work to their community. I was like, here it is. And there was an interpreter beside me on stage that day, an a SL interpreter.

[00:30:45] Parker: And I didn’t really expect what was coming next. This person stood up in the middle of the crowd, probably from me to you, and she sobbing, uh, communicated in sign through that interpreter who then spoke to [00:31:00] me and said, this is so violent. I can’t even look at it. And I, if you’re paying attention to my earlier story, uh, have felt, um, marginalized through communication differences at many different stages in my life.

[00:31:16] Parker: And so the feeling in that moment, I’m getting goosebumps even as I say this, uh, that I had done violence to that person in a way that their communication diversity wasn’t being honored, uh, really shattered me. I had no idea how I could have missed it. And she began explaining that when she was a young person and her parents noticed that she was moving through the world a little different.

[00:31:37] Parker: They took her to an audiologist. Who tested her hearing, and this, uh, might just look like a graph with some lines on it to each of you. Um, but Jodi explained to me, uh, through this interpreter that when she had been indexed by an audiologist, this is [00:32:00] exactly the moment in her life that somebody codified her as different, that somebody codified her as having a disability.

[00:32:07] Parker: This diagnostic tool has haunted Jodi her entire life because all of her incredible diversity is reduced down into a very ugly looking graphic that has nothing to do with the way she moves through the world, and it instead describes the way that she doesn’t fit into the rest of the world. And so Jodi to her beautiful credit, uh, stood up bravely in that moment and expressed this to me and I felt destroyed.

[00:32:33] Parker: Really? I I was like, so, um, depressed after that. ’cause I had really understood that the work was me and I was the work. What was it like for you? What can you 

[00:32:43] Jarren: Yeah. Well, I wasn’t working with Parker at this time, so I was doing the husband, husband thing, but I noticed a couple things that you were extremely upset and, uh, knowing you as I do doing violence to people is not, uh, something to do.

[00:32:57] Jarren: So it was just stressing for you, [00:33:00] and I think I watched you sort of grapple like, how could I have done this differently? Like, why, how could I have missed this? Um, this is a huge thing and I just remember you being very upset and unsure, like, where do I go from here? 

[00:33:15] Parker: So I’m a lifelong crier, and so I went to the executive director and I was like, oh, this feels some kind of way.

[00:33:21] Parker: And I had the clarity in that moment to, to be visible in what I was feeling to her. So I shared my experience with Grace, this incredibly passionate and compassionate person, and she suggested that we work with Jodi. That, that we sit around at a table and work with this person to understand the ways that we gotten it wrong and then move towards getting it right.

[00:33:40] Parker: And I, in that moment, I really had to notice the, I had missed something, but that I didn’t know what question to have asked at an earlier stage in the process to not have missed that. I don’t know how I could have found that information earlier. I had to sort of be open to the understanding that I couldn’t have gotten it right on the first try.[00:34:00] 

[00:34:00] Parker: And that the project was about getting there. It wasn’t about getting it right on the first time. So this, uh, meeting with Jody was amazing, and she’s like, everything about it looks great. We could just rotate it a little bit. And I was like, you know, it’s not gonna look like a w and it’s not gonna look like a wave and it’s not gonna look.

[00:34:15] Parker: And she was like, shut up, shut up. Uh, it looks good. And so now it’s legit. There’s like a big old like, installed thing in their lobby and they love it. And this brand is now like out in the wild and, and totally feels like a real thing. Uh, nobody knows that originate, originally it was upright, uh, but this person had to express something really courageously that said, this isn’t aligned with my reality.

[00:34:36] Parker: And Jodi was speaking for a huge constituency within this organization’s audience that I hadn’t directly accessed before. And so aligning with that person meant that I. I had to be open to alignment at different stages in the work. There wasn’t like a one and done phase one. That’s like discovery and that was it.

[00:34:52] Parker: An open ear had to be maintained throughout in order to find alignment. 

[00:34:57] Jarren: So with that said, the takeaway is [00:35:00] mistakes are gonna happen. Who? Who’s made mistakes with their client relationships before? Yeah. Yeah. It’s gonna happen, but, but progress takes vulnerability. Progress. It does. So you’ve gotta sometimes say, Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing, or I’m not sure how to proceed.

[00:35:14] Jarren: And we actually used to do this this week, didn’t we? With a client, a very well known client. And we were just kind of confused. We were very confused about what they were saying in email and we were feeling stalled in the creative. And so we actually called them up and said, we’re a little unsure right now.

[00:35:30] Jarren: And all the things we’ve been talking about, being like, oh my God, they’re gonna think we’re so unprofessional, we don’t know what we’re doing. None of that happened. She met us with tears saying, oh, thank God we’re feeling the same. Mm-hmm. Thanks for calling us. And so it brought us closer together, right in that moment.

[00:35:48] Parker: And being close together is where we’re going next. Obviously, EJA and I worked together and, and finding that way of working together took some work, um, while I’m here, here was easy. 

[00:35:57] Jarren: It was so easy, so simple. [00:36:00] Working with your partner is so simple. It’s not, it’s not, 

[00:36:03] Parker: it’s a lot of counseling and a little bit of cannabis.

[00:36:06] Parker: Uh, while I’m here, I just wanna acknowledge, uh, Lindsay, would you stand up? Stand up? Uh, this is Lindsay Elliot. She’s the photographer that we work with on everything, and she took all of the photos of us that you see in the present. Yeah. 

[00:36:19] Jarren: Thank you Lindsay. Yeah. And so we’re in this process. Parker shared where he came from.

[00:36:27] Jarren: I shared where I came from, but we came together and we’re like, so how are we going to make this easier for everybody? Us the clients as well? And as an executive coach, I worked with a lot of folks and organizations around values, values, alignment, and, you know, five or six years ago, I think we have more awareness about what that is now.

[00:36:46] Jarren: But this was like revolutionary, like what values. And so we came together and we decided let’s figure out what our values are. Like that’s the, the basis, that’s where we should start from. 

[00:36:56] Parker: Mm-hmm. And it was instrumental, honestly, it was so much of that story I just told you about [00:37:00] Wayfront was, uh, to do with me not noticing the difference between me and my work.

[00:37:04] Parker: I, I really felt that the work and me and the product were all one same thing, but as soon as we got into work together and did our values. Um, would you touch my hand? Uh, it became about where our hands met and, and so it was like immediately clear that the work was no longer internal. It was this external thing that we were sharing.

[00:37:22] Parker: And so some of you work on teams and some of you work, uh, independently. And for those who are independent, I really encourage you to draw or write or whatever way you can express it that makes sense to you where you are and where your work is, and really like explore that boundary in whatever way makes sense.

[00:37:40] Parker: And really think about your values as a way to abstract the way that you’re working out of your personhood into the work that you’re doing. Uh, because that’s what we found to be the most, uh, clear way of signaling what we care about. So that we can really make informed yeses and clear nos. 

[00:37:56] Jarren: That’s 

[00:37:56] Parker: right.

[00:37:56] Jarren: And we didn’t just do values, you know, write some words on a page [00:38:00] and then it goes into a word doc and never be seen again. Or maybe we check it out every year. We actually took it through everything. So what does this mean for our sales process? What does this mean for our one-on-one conversations? What does this mean for our creative?

[00:38:12] Jarren: What does this mean? When conflict arises, we really run our values through everything and it was amazing. We got to like think about things before they were happening. Before you’re in that difficult situation with a client. When you’re like frustration, when energy is high, your emotions are high, you’re stressed out.

[00:38:28] Jarren: We used we and we still do. We’re like, okay, what do we lean on in this? And we’d be like, maybe that’s, you know, kindness. Maybe kindness is what we’re gonna lean on here. And it gives us an anchor somewhat to be able to move forward through whatever that is. 

[00:38:41] Parker: Our values are not stretch goals. That’s another important thing.

[00:38:43] Parker: If you’re wondering about how to do your own values work and how to really make these friends in the way that you work, don’t make your values things that you on a bad day would look in the mirror and be like, you piece of shit. You’re not actually kind or whatever. Like find a value that you can actually own and be like, I do recycle or whatever.

[00:38:59] Parker: Like, [00:39:00] uh. I’m a terrible recycler you guys, uh, but like, like own values that you can like say to somebody even on your darkest day because then your values can be the thing that you’re actually relying on. Uh, it’s not like when you’re about to ride a rollercoaster. It’s like you need to be this high to ride the rollercoaster.

[00:39:16] Parker: It’s like you don’t want values that you feel like you’re always kinda like half measuring up to, but I hope they don’t notice that I’m not fully there. Find values and find ways to talk about them that feel like you ’cause they are you. There’s a reason that our values are drawn like these little DNA strands because Jar and I are always recombining them and letting different ones come to the fore.

[00:39:35] Parker: That’s an important part of being a human. 

[00:39:36] Jarren: And every year we revisit it. Yeah. Every single year we say, is this still relevant? Is this making sense or not? Or we scrap it or we change the, the way we, we think about it. 

[00:39:46] Parker: So when we went into work together, we had a website that honestly just had a picture of us.

[00:39:50] Parker: Thanks Lance. Uh, and our values, we didn’t even really know what we were gonna do. We didn’t know what our services were. We just knew what we cared about in the world. And that’s how we got this gig. [00:40:00] So we signed a church 

[00:40:04] Jarren: called St. Andrews Wesley. You remember my story earlier about conversion therapy. Um, when I left, when I was 18, I didn’t go back ever.

[00:40:13] Jarren: And I was quite, um, hurt by it. It did, did trauma. It wasn’t a good experience. So when St. Andrews Wesley came to us, and for those of you that don’t know, it’s downtown right on Barard and Nelson Street. It’s part of the West End. We, we live in the West End. We thought this is an interesting, um, project.

[00:40:31] Jarren: Never thought of the church, but we thought, we’ll, we’ll take the call. We’ll take the call. And right away we were on with them and we decided to take a chance and to tell them exactly what we’re about and how working with a church might be a challenge for us. 

[00:40:44] Parker: It was so scary. It was so scary. 

[00:40:46] Jarren: And it was a big budget.

[00:40:48] Jarren: Like, you know, when, and this is the hard thing when it’s a big budget and you’re like, this would change my life for a few months. And this was one of those moments, but we had a, a chance to say. Well, I’ve been through conversion therapy and I’m not sure [00:41:00] about a Christian institution and I don’t know if I can get behind that.

[00:41:04] Jarren: And they spoke directly to it. Again, one of those equalizer moments where they said, we understand we’re not that kind of church. We’re trying to undo that work. Thank you for telling us and you are the people for us. We were surprised, like shocked. Honestly. 

[00:41:20] Parker: It was a powerful moment for us. ’cause we let our, uh, tricky parts, the shadows be seen and when we’re selling or sales, uh, it can feel kind of performative a lot of the time.

[00:41:30] Parker: Normative, uh, Daniel Pink Sales looks one kind of way. And the rest of us are out here just like us, full people with full experiences and trauma and finding the right place to name that is kind of tricky work. But if you’re wondering why you’re working on client work that is misaligned with who you are or your values, I.

[00:41:48] Parker: Think about exploring the question about compatibility out loud with the client. The, the worst thing that can happen is you decide that it’s not a good fit, but holding everybody capable of leaning into that [00:42:00] conversation jar gave those people a chance to hear his experience and what arose was healing for you.

[00:42:07] Jarren: Yeah. And I didn’t, um, dwell on it. Like I wasn’t, like you are to be paid for all the trauma that Yeah, your religion did. But, um, having a space at the table around it, and I incorporated that into my story. So I was able to tell them as part of my story about what felt inauthentic and I was able to move through it, and they, they really went for it.

[00:42:27] Jarren: Like, they were very excited that, and there wasn’t anybody else. We were, and we were like, you know, in those times you have the end of, you’re like, we didn’t get that. We totally didn’t get that. And then the day later they called and they said, you got it. 

[00:42:37] Parker: So it was a branding project. They were like, we don’t know why anybody’s, uh, coming to church on Sunday.

[00:42:42] Parker: We are not seeing anybody enter the doors. Well, nobody 

[00:42:44] Jarren: was coming to church on Sunday and everybody was white and of a certain age. Yeah. It was like, so they knew they had a problem. And the West End Vancouver, I’d say is very diverse. And they were not experiencing that. No. So they were, they were worried 

[00:42:58] Parker: and they couldn’t figure out why.

[00:42:59] Parker: And we were [00:43:00] like, well, what’s your brand position? And they were like. Uh, a light in the heart of the city. And we’re like, who does that make sense to? Exactly. And they said, all of us we’re like, great. Good for you. Love that. Uh, but nobody’s coming in wonder why. Uh, and so we taught them to think more empathically, uh, using this experiment.

[00:43:18] Parker: Mm-hmm. So we’re gonna run this experiment now. Uh, so this is something that was designed by Elizabeth Newton at Stanford back in 1990. Uh, she was doing her PhD in psychology. Now she’s got it. Go Liz. Uh, so each of you is going to choose a partner. These are little dyads. Okay? So two people, teams, and find somebody that you’re comfortable touching their hand.

[00:43:36] Parker: Okay? So with your eyes, you don’t have to speak right now. Uh, just with your eyes, make eye contact with the partner and like find that person. Go.

[00:43:49] Parker: Okay, great. So once you’ve got your partner, this is good. I love this moment. Uh, as soon as you start holding hands, this feels like a seance and that’s what I’m here for. [00:44:00] Uh, okay, so now that you’ve got your partner, one of you is gonna be the tapper, just arbitrarily choose who’s the tapper, go ahead. And the other one is gonna be the listener.

[00:44:11] Parker: Okay. So when I say go, the tapper’s job is to, with their hand, uh, can I touch your hand? Tap a song that you think the other person guess into their hand just like this. And then Jaron is gonna try to guess it. He’s the listener in this little dynamic. So I would like tap something that wasn’t real and what song was that?

[00:44:33] Parker: He would try to guess it and we would laugh. So you folks are now gonna try that out. So the tapper is gonna think of a song, tap it into the listener’s hand and try to get them to guess it. Silent.[00:45:00] 

[00:45:05] Attendee: Oh my God. Okay, let’s come back. Great.

[00:45:19] Attendee: I love this moment.

[00:45:27] Attendee: Okay, good. Come on back. So when you’re 

[00:45:29] Parker: ready. Don’t stop, don’t you get, okay, so here’s the shocking part. You got it. Great. Good. Uh, you’ll never guess what happens next. All right. That was just click bait to get you to be quiet. Uh, okay. So how did that go? Does anybody wanna express who got it right? Who got it right?

[00:45:54] Parker: Anybody go? Well, no. Yeah, you went well. Okay. What was that [00:46:00] repeat back? Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah. 

[00:46:02] Jarren: Who chose happy birthday? No. No. Usually a lot of people love it. 

[00:46:09] Parker: Okay. So thanks for being a little experiment Guinea pig. Uh, we’ve seen this done hundreds of times. You people in the back are the first people I’ve seen use two hands, which was Yeah.

[00:46:18] Parker: I was like illuminating. I love this. I love it. So here’s how the statistics shake out on this. If you did not get it right, uh, you’re with the majority of people, only about 2.5% of people who try this experiment. I accurately name the song. So it’s a hard thing to do. You two are savants over there. Good for you.

[00:46:42] Parker: Uh, but for most folks, you’re totally lost in the sauce when you’re trying to guess. Why is that? Because you have no idea. There’s all these people around you tapping other things. You don’t know what’s in the other person’s head. However, how do you think the tapper would’ve rated the probability that the person would guess it if you were in a tapping [00:47:00] position in this experiment, did it seem dead obvious to you?

[00:47:03] Parker: Yeah. Okay. Uh, you’re also with the majority. So when asked before the experiment was run, how’s this gonna go? Tappers rated the statistics at 50%. The tappers are like, there’s no way you’re not gonna get this. And the listener’s like, I don’t get it. Like, that’s it. And that is exactly what we call an empathy gap.

[00:47:24] Parker: That means that you as a tapper think that this is so self-evident, but the listener knows nothing about what you’re saying. And so St. Sanders Wesley thought that a light in the heart of the city was exactly what they needed to say. So obvious of course, we’re an L-G-B-T-Q affirming organization. And to the outside world, that meant literally nothing.

[00:47:43] Jarren: Nothing. 

[00:47:44] Parker: Nobody understood it. And so we got into the work. 

[00:47:47] Jarren: Yeah. So we did huge amount of community research and engagement around this, including folks in the congregation, volunteers, the staff, and then we went on to the community as well. ’cause we were like, [00:48:00] there’s something off in the community. What is that?

[00:48:02] Jarren: Like? Why aren’t they wanting to partner? Um, maybe they’re not churchgoers, but they do community events. So we started talking to folks in the community and we heard a few things right away. Um, was that they. Are totally inaccessible. Um, I, there’s no place for me there, um, even though they’re A-L-G-B-T-Q affirming church by the United Church, but that was nowhere seen.

[00:48:25] Jarren: Nobody knew about that. And so we talked to a lot of folks of diverse folks that we could, and we talked to some congregants and we talked specific to some queer con congregants about why they’re there. Remember a conversion therapy? I’m like, what are you doing here? Like, that was my, my inquiry. And they said, one thing happens every Sunday that the ministers use some version of this.

[00:48:48] Jarren: Um, whoever you are, whoever you love, wherever you’re from, you’re loved. And so we were like, okay, there’s something about that term. Um, and we played [00:49:00] around with it. So we were like, we’re gonna, we’re gonna bring this in. We’re gonna workshop it a bit. And so we did. 

[00:49:05] Parker: Yeah. So we got them to agree that something that meant something to people who are taking a vulnerable choice to sit in church and feel at home there.

[00:49:13] Parker: Could be a good starting point for a brand position, and so we built our whole brand around that and Jaron had the brilliant idea, as he mentioned. Churches are built as houses of God. In like the olden days, these cathedrals were like up from the street with like no windows. You could just like look in.

[00:49:26] Parker: It was meant to be like grandiose. And so a steer, right? 

[00:49:28] Jarren: Like how they’re like, I wonder why it doesn’t feel warm. You’re like, you got this big cathedral with these big gray, everything’s gray and big. Huh? 

[00:49:35] Parker: It could be the stone. 

[00:49:36] Jarren: Yeah. 

[00:49:37] Parker: Uh, so we were like, let’s wrap that. So Jaron had the idea to wrap their front staircase in this kind of like technicolor explosion.

[00:49:44] Parker: When you were looking at it from the street, it looked chaotic and just every color. But when you were coming out of the church, the tops of the stairs were a graded rainbow. So you had this experience of sort of like walking down this optical illusion that was inclusive one. And we repositioned their entire brand around this statement.

[00:49:59] Parker: No matter [00:50:00] who you are, no matter who you love, all of you is welcome here. And immediately some of the ministers were like, uh, that’s ungrammatical and we can’t run it. And we’re like, well, you might be thinking about belonging a little bit different because churches since forever. Have said, you’re welcome here, but actually leave that garbage at the door.

[00:50:15] Parker: Or like, you’re welcome here, but leave that trauma at the door. You’re welcome here. Leave that diversity at the door. And we wanted to make sure that they were being really, really clear that when they said, you’re welcome. It’s all of you. It’s every single part of you that’s welcome in this space. Yeah.

[00:50:28] Parker: Because that’s kind of what we had here at earlier stages now. 

[00:50:30] Jarren: And in that conversation with them, this back and forth, like they were ready to kind of scrap it At one point they were like, this does, I don’t know about this, this not, it’s not correct grammar. And we had to be like, there’s something here.

[00:50:41] Jarren: And we went back to the research and we said, folks are lighting up around this. And so they agreed. They said, we’ll go for it. Um, and then we wrapped the stairs and Pau people responded to it, 

[00:50:54] Attendee: pau 

[00:50:54] Jarren: people from all different backgrounds and religions started coming into their church just inquiring about [00:51:00] what it’s like to be part of their community.

[00:51:02] Jarren: And St. Andrews was. Freaked. Like they, they were so surprised. Yeah. They didn’t, they didn’t realize they, they could do this. 

[00:51:08] Parker: So we had to encourage them and ourselves to practice listening. Joan had to listen inward in order to find the right fit with the project. We had to encourage them to listen outward in order to notice what was landing and what wasn’t.

[00:51:20] Parker: And then they had to listen to the feedback from the community about like, is this a good idea? And as soon as people started walking up those stairs every Sunday from different lived experiences, they were like, yes, this is the way to go. Yeah. 

[00:51:30] Jarren: So we knew we were onto something. We’re like, okay, there’s something here.

[00:51:34] Jarren: You’ve heard the first story where we’re like, kind of wild west and here we’re like, there’s a bit more intention. We’re bringing the client back around. Um, and the client, as you know, wants to zing and they wanna go up here and they wanna go up there. And we had to keep coming back to the values that we, that we agreed to at the beginning.

[00:51:52] Jarren: And this is what kept the project on. And today these, this client is a very good friend of ours. They still think we’re amazing. We just did beautiful work with them. [00:52:00] So this was where we realized. There’s something here, there’s something in the way that we can, we can work that can sustain us long term.

[00:52:08] Parker: And the third and final project we wanna talk about with you today is Crisis Center bc. Uh, so these are the folks who answer those yellow phone booths on the bridges. If somebody’s having thoughts of, uh, ending their own life, uh, crisis Center BC is the people who answer those phones. Uh, so there’s a hotline, uh, it’s 9 8 8.

[00:52:24] Parker: Uh, when we’re talking about suicide, it’s important to talk about, uh, supports. And so if you’re feeling triggered after this, please know, 9, 8, 8 is there for you. Uh, when we started working with the Crisis Center, they came to us saying, we need a new website. ’cause our website looks really kind of crappy.

[00:52:39] Parker: Uh, but we’re very divided internally. The team who is on revenue generating parts of our business, so they offer trainings and fundraising bits. Is one silo. And the people who operate the phone banks, the actual volunteers who are like picking up the phones and, and helping people in crisis, uh, are a sort of different camp.

[00:52:57] Parker: And understandably over the last few decades and with [00:53:00] all sorts of different granting and funding bodies, they’ve gotten further and further apart because their needs and their emotional needs were very, very different. Or that’s the way they understood them to be. And so they came to us saying like, make us a website, but we kind of are a mess in here.

[00:53:13] Parker: We’ve got these two silos. And so what did we do? So we 

[00:53:17] Jarren: decided, okay, we can talk to the executive team, we can do our usual stuff, but we thought there’s an opportunity here, um, on this project. So we brought the teams together, both of those teams together in one room. Um, I remember the director of communications being like, good luck.

[00:53:32] Jarren: Uh, this could be fun. Uh, but we said, we, we can do it. We brought them in and we sort of cross pollinated them. So we got them in groups of two to work on a specific project, and we saw very quickly at the beginning it was a little sheepish, you know, it wasn’t so, ’cause you could feel the tension in the room.

[00:53:49] Jarren: And as they started working through this worksheet, um, they started to soften a bit. Yeah. And we saw people actually being like, yeah, I want that too. Oh my God, [00:54:00] we, we want the same thing. Like there was these light bulbs going off in the room for them. 

[00:54:03] Parker: Yeah. It was really surprising to us, to that director and to the participants themselves, they had taken for granted.

[00:54:09] Parker: Do you remember those three separate circles I showed you earlier? They taken for granted that their circles would just never overlap. They were like, we are two distinct circles. And yet they came to us with a creative brief, which was like, figure out how to make us a website that is obviously about finding one circle, but they hadn’t really entertained the idea that they could merge their priorities.

[00:54:27] Parker: And so to Darren’s point, we cross-pollinated. We took one person from each silo and made them into little pairs, and we made them do a like, what are your top three priorities for the website? Exercise like together. And then they presented that back to the group and everybody like heard one another. And so by the end of that meeting, the silos had been dissolved in this one moment towards project clarity.

[00:54:47] Parker: And we’d held alignment as the goal. Like they knew that that was our goal going in. It wasn’t smoke and mirrors. We were telling them, you folks need to be aligned in order for this thing to happen. And they got on board. 

[00:54:58] Jarren: Yeah. And so we, [00:55:00] we. I wonder if this happens for you is like you’re brought onto a project and you see all these internal problems with your clients and you say, I’m not scoped in to deal with this.

[00:55:10] Jarren: Mm-hmm. I don’t have the, the bandwidth to be able to do that. And so in this instance we thought like, how can we do that? And we weren’t scoped in to do this either, but we thought, how can we bring them together? And in this instance, it really worked out. And so much so that everybody left that meeting saying that was the best meeting we’ve had in years.

[00:55:27] Jarren: Oh my God. And to our surprise, we said, you just talked to each other. Like, we didn’t even dance or anything. They were like, that was the best. Yeah. And so we realized that like in order for the, the, um, the project. To be cohesive. We had to do a little bit of an extra step, um, that wasn’t in scope, but it helped the project.

[00:55:47] Jarren: And then the project sang from there. It was one of our simplest projects. There was nobody upset with each other. Um, some of the people that were divided left the company shortly thereafter. Um, and they’re in a very good place today with their website. 

[00:55:59] Parker: [00:56:00] Yeah, so what we had to do was like honor that there was tension in the organization.

[00:56:03] Parker: In order for us to arrive at the final product, we had to be able to hear each of those silos and really like tune into them. Uh, but in the end of the day, we’re moving towards one product, so like honor tension, but move towards cohesion. And so the website now, uh, borrows this UX pattern from like alcohol website.

[00:56:20] Parker: So if you go to Johnny walker.com, it’s like, are you 19? Are you really 19? And if you say yes, then you get to see the content. And so now when you go to crisis center, it’s like, are you in crisis? If you are, click one of these buttons, and if you’re not, we also have this whole other organizational website and you can proceed to it by clicking this button.

[00:56:36] Parker: So it’s sort of UX wall in order to meet both sides where they were aiming for. Uh, but we never would’ve gotten there if we hadn’t been able to listen to both. If we’d forced them to answer one Google survey or, uh, force them to have one clear brief that had no tension in it, we would’ve missed the nuance of this project and left people in the dark.

[00:56:54] Parker: And by leaning in, we found alignment and grew from there. 

[00:56:57] Jarren: So sometimes tension can be a big [00:57:00] helper for something an emerging. That you never thought possible. And in Crisis center that happened. Yeah. We didn’t think that we would be able to get there. But funny enough, they were up for it 

[00:57:08] Parker: and we held that tension with love.

[00:57:11] Parker: We didn’t say like, we need to get rid of this tension. We said, this is a part of the project. This is the material that we’re working with. And so it wasn’t about us. It wasn’t personalized. We weren’t like, oh no, because we’re working in this way. This feels tense. We held everybody on an equal footing and we sat in a circle with them and we said, let’s figure this out together.

[00:57:29] Parker: And so our, and there was a point, 

[00:57:31] Jarren: I just wanna add to this, this point, ’cause suicide has impacted both Parker and my life. Mm-hmm. And there was a point where you had just lost someone to suicide and we were talking about stuff and it felt, it felt like you, it was coming up for you. And I think you paused.

[00:57:47] Jarren: And they sort of looked at us, they’re like, what? What’s going on? And I shared how suicide had had impacted our lives. And it was one of those equalizer moments. We had several in that meeting, but that was the final one. And they were like, we [00:58:00] get it. We understand. Yeah. And they understood. They saw each other in that as well and how they cared for people.

[00:58:06] Jarren: And it was incredible. It was so powerful. 

[00:58:08] Parker: I know that it’s fashionable in 2025 to talk about how us versus them thinking is kind of getting in the way. But I’m gonna say it again. Uh, the way that a lot of our contemporaries talk about clients as though there are certain kind of people I. Uh, paints us as creatives into another corner over here where we have to sort of act like creatives and, and missing the potential to, to connect as humans meant that we wouldn’t have been able to express that we wouldn’t have been able to move through tension.

[00:58:33] Parker: And so by naming that we are whole people, the clients can see us that way, and then we can see them clearly too because our pleasure in work matters, and the satisfaction that we draw from our work is what we see as the value. We’re not, uh, capitalists, we’re not sitting in a, like a hot tub on the weekends with like a Jeep or whatever.

[00:58:51] Parker: We’re like renting and like running a business that feels good. Parker, good thing’s Rich is having a hot tub. 

[00:58:55] Jarren: Yeah. Or 

[00:58:55] Parker: several hot tubs. My only financial goal is a hot tub. [00:59:00] Uh, but I, I say all of that because it, it like the way that we’ve decided to build our business is very specifically around values.

[00:59:06] Parker: And that might not be for everybody, but we had to solve for pleasure in our work. Uh, Adrian Moie Brown talks about pleasure, activism, and she says, I. Uh, or they say there’s no way to progress, pleasure, and expect liberation, satisfaction or joy. The only person in any of your careers that’s gonna make your work pleasurable or enjoyable or something that you can still be doing in two years from now is you.

[00:59:28] Parker: ’cause you know what it feels like to do your job every day and nobody else is gonna speak up for that. That’s right. So, our takeaways from this talk today, if you remember nothing else, please remember these things. The first one is that aligned work is fulfilling work. Remember that word fulfilling. 

[00:59:46] Jarren: Uh, mistakes happen.

[00:59:48] Jarren: Progress takes vulnerability. It’s okay to make mistakes even in front of clients is what you do with those mistakes that make all the difference. 

[00:59:56] Parker: Uh, practice listening. Remember that listening and tapping exercise. Like [01:00:00] think about that and teach your clients about that and teach your colleagues about that.

[01:00:03] Parker: Like everybody thinks that it’s so dead obvious, but you’ve gotta get used to thinking like the listener instead of the tapper. 

[01:00:08] Jarren: If you find yourself in meetings that you’re doing all the talking. Uh, and the client is doing, not doing any pause and start asking questions. Just ask as many questions as possible 

[01:00:19] Parker: and tell them you’re doing it.

[01:00:20] Parker: Like nothing gets a huge talker to shut up more than being like, I’m just gonna focus on listening for a little while because then that person gets the cue. So like, don’t be afraid to really be hamfisted with that too. Exactly. 

[01:00:32] Jarren: And then honor tension, but build for cohesion. Tension is going to happen. It will happen always, but it’s what we do with that intention.

[01:00:41] Jarren: We can get sucked into the tension or we can say, Hey, I see that tension. What’s that about? Mm-hmm. And we do that. We had to do that recently with a, with a client who, there was a board member who was being not so great and the executive director was caught in the middle and we had to get them on a call and say, [01:01:00] what’s going on over there?

[01:01:01] Jarren: It is making our work very confusing. And they tried to lobb it back to us, well, you didn’t do that, you didn’t do that. And we’re like, no. It sounds like you need to have a conversation and figure that out for yourself. And this isn’t like you’re saying like you need to do that first. If you talk about the integrity of the project, most people will understand that and they’ll go away.

[01:01:21] Jarren: They’ll do the work they need to do and then they come back. 

[01:01:23] Parker: Yeah. If clients are triangulating you, so if one client says, I want it to be red, and another client says, I want it to be blue, we all know that the final result probably won’t be purple. It’s probably gonna be some power dynamic between those two people and then one of them decides.

[01:01:36] Parker: But you as the creative are never really gonna be able to do that yourself. Honoring that that tension exists and leaning into it being like, Hey you two, let’s talk about where this is going. And we know that we need to arrive at one answer, so let’s spend as much time as we need to get there. Clients generally lean into that kind of thing.

[01:01:51] Parker: That’s right. And then the last one is, solve for pleasure. 

[01:01:54] Attendee: Yeah. 

[01:01:55] Parker: Like make it feel good. Yeah. Make your jobs feel good. Don’t do work that suffocates you. [01:02:00] Like. Find ways to center. Uh, the goodness of creative and because I love that over here, you were all like, we do work in this way. That is like about discovering where the client is and like finding that synthesis together.

[01:02:10] Parker: Like there’s obviously this passion that each of you lit up around there and like, that’s the thing that each of you should be solving for is like, there’s a passion and like, do that. And like, that’s the thing that lights you up and all of the stuff that doesn’t light you up like offshore or change your jobs or stop taking projects that are so scoped up that you’re doing things you don’t actually believe in.

[01:02:26] Parker: Move your scope back down so that you can actually say yes and mean it. 

[01:02:30] Jarren: You deserve to be happy in everything that you do. Not just parts of your life, but all of your lives, including your, your careers. 

[01:02:37] Parker: So we leave you with a reflection, which is what becomes possible when you feel aligned. Just think about that for a sec.

[01:02:46] Jarren: Yeah, just take a moment. 

[01:02:48] Parker: What would be possible in your life if you felt aligned?

[01:02:55] Jarren: Anybody have anything they wanna share with a group? What is possible when [01:03:00] you feel aligned? And you can guess.

[01:03:06] Parker: I like a contemplative audience. Thank you for, thank you for bringing this inward. Yes. It has been a joy to share our stories with you. Uh, we have, I think some time for questions. Mm-hmm. Um, we are not magical. We’re just humans and, and we’re just at this moment in time. And if we gave this talk three months from now, it would sound very different.

[01:03:24] Parker: ’cause we’re gonna keep changing. Both of us are gonna keep changing and growing and learning, and we hope with humility that this has been some meaningful moment in your pathways. This helps you go wherever you wanna go next. Yeah. Thanks everybody. 

[01:03:37] Jarren: So please get in touch with us if you need any, if you wanna chat about any of this.

[01:03:41] Jarren: Thank you.

[01:03:47] Jarren: I notes, we can just move this one back and forth. Yeah, that’d be great. Yeah. Oh, there’s another one. Oh, magically one of your, there we go. 

[01:03:56] Attendee: That was phenomenal. That was phenomenal guy. Thank you, Chris. Um, thanks Chris. [01:04:00] Yeah, I just love how vulnerable you guys with both personal and your work. Like most people just aren’t really gonna lay that out there, especially with the, um, the story we were talking about with the, the, the hearing.

[01:04:13] Attendee: I mean, that’s, that’s pretty heavy. Yeah. You know, that’ll take you down, especially in a public environment. Yeah. Um, so I mean, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Um, so yeah, we’d love to take some questions if anyone has. Mm. Anything to ask? Did you get the call from h How did you get the call from the church to start with?

[01:04:33] Attendee: Hmm. Good question. Yeah, great 

[01:04:34] Parker: question. Um, I’m gonna get a chair instead here so we’re not towering. Can we get two chairs up please? Yes. Um, so actually with Wavefront Center, uh, that, uh, hearing client, uh, there was a fundraising manager who worked on that project, David Love, and he began working with the church afterwards.

[01:04:52] Parker: And because he’d seen, uh, hark move through that with openness and vulnerability, uh, he knew that [01:05:00] branding a church that is L-G-B-T-Q affirming, uh, in COVID time, uh, 315 bodies had just been dug out of the ground in Camloops. Uh, so being a church was a tough brand to begin building. Uh, but he knew that somebody that could hold space for the tension and the vulnerability of that.

[01:05:19] Parker: Uh, would be the right partner. And so he brought us around the table ’cause he’d seen how our values were deployed previously. 

[01:05:24] Attendee: So they’re same. That needs to be 

[01:05:26] Parker: involved. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I’m a, I’m a big, magical thinker. And I think like if you’re moving from a place of like being aligned with yourself, generally the right kind of people bump into you over time.

[01:05:35] Parker: And so I just keep going and just bumping into people. Just keep bumping into the right kind of people. I 

[01:05:41] Attendee: do wanna say when you’re aligned, what I get is flow. Ah, yeah, 

[01:05:46] Parker: flow. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah. She said when she’s aligned, she experiences flow. Yeah. Can you tell the 

[01:05:51] Attendee: room as a creative?

[01:05:53] Attendee: Yeah. I’m a fine artist and also a graphic designer. And a production designer. Great. [01:06:00] But when things are aligned, things come, the universe gives it to you and it flows. Yeah. That’s how I define. Ah, beautiful. Thank you. The universe has 

[01:06:08] Parker: gave us you as a front row person. Yeah. Thank you. What’s your name?

[01:06:12] Parker: Thanks, Mary. Thanks Maryanne. Uh, yeah, in the back, 

[01:06:19] Attendee: just about the logistics of working with your partner. Like My partner’s also very creative. We have an a, a small apartment that we share space together. When I’m not on a project, she’s works from home. How do you separate the life, uh, from the work?

[01:06:36] Attendee: Especially if you’re both so intertwined. We have a safe 

[01:06:39] Parker: word. 

[01:06:40] Jarren: We do. You can have it. It’s spaghetti. I don’t know how we came to that, but we, it took a while for us to figure that out because I think when we first got, we’re in business together, we said, okay, we’ve got this clear delineation between work and life and so we leave our office, go home, and we were like, no.

[01:06:59] Jarren: Talking about work. [01:07:00] Absolutely. But I don’t know about you, but like I’ve been in jobs where like I just need to kind of go home and talk to my husband about how that felt. Not like I need to do this or the other for that client file. So we loosen that up after a while. ’cause we could talk about how we feel about a project.

[01:07:16] Jarren: Or what we’re going through, you know, like maybe I’m worried about this client call tomorrow. Um, I’m uncertain about this. Uh, without getting into schedules and logistics. Yeah, we 

[01:07:26] Parker: got a studio to work from so we no longer work from home, which is very good. Uh, and safe word and counseling is another way.

[01:07:34] Parker: Uh, ’cause it has really built our communicative capacity with one another and moving as, uh, like business boys. And I say that with big quotes ’cause there’s like persona that I was socialized into, uh, that I’ve had to dissolve as a human. Um, that has made it hard to connect with my life partner around business.

[01:07:52] Parker: Like when we’re talking about finance, I was taught to act with a certain bravado and a steel face. But with my partner, that feels so inauthentic and crappy. [01:08:00] And so a lot of counseling in order to unmask with one another in business has been needed. Uh, but feeling good. 

[01:08:07] Jarren: Yeah. ’cause we know each other so well.

[01:08:09] Jarren: Like we can’t put anything past each other. Like we know each other’s crap, you know? So it makes it hard. ’cause sometimes you’re like, I just wanna go to work. I don’t want to think about what I, the fight with my partner. But when we have disagreements, um, it makes it challenging. Actually, here’s a funny little story.

[01:08:26] Jarren: We were getting on a call recently actually with Alexis. Oh my god. Yeah. And we were having a little. Tiff, I’d say it was a big tiff and our dog 

[01:08:34] Parker: had pooped under the bed that night, uh, under our bed. She’s blind. Uh, so like I woke up in the morning and like, was like, what smells And like put my hand right in it.

[01:08:43] Parker: And so I was like in a stressful, crappy situation from the very beginning and I didn’t feel like Jaron understood. And so we’re waiting for, so we jump on the call, we’re waiting and we’re 

[01:08:53] Jarren: having that fight. And so we’re doing it. And then the other two people join, join us and we get through the meeting and then they’re like, then the AI goes, your [01:09:00] meeting notes are are here.

[01:09:01] Jarren: And we’re like, oh crap. The entire thing was caught on AI notes, like 

[01:09:06] Parker: line by line verbatim of our argument. This AI companion was like, here’s your notes. 

[01:09:13] Jarren: So we had to our part to, to our partners like, well, you just got, you witnessed a little bit of what we don’t share with generally most people. 

[01:09:21] Parker: But that raises an interesting point, which is actually like us being a couple is a huge advantage in our work.

[01:09:26] Parker: Uh, because what we’re trying to do all the time is to get candidates, uh, to get clients to be as candid as possible. Uh, we don’t want the performative answer about what does this organization caribou want? We want the real answer. Mm-hmm. And because we’re husbands, clients kind of know that we already know everything about each other so they can let their hair down too.

[01:09:43] Parker: And so for any couples who do business together, like really own that you’re a couple and explore what becomes possible from that place. Mm-hmm. 

[01:09:51] Jarren: Yeah. And then we actually share our stories every time we’re meeting with a client and then we ask them to do the same. And this is a really beautiful thing to witness each [01:10:00] other as humans before you jump into the business part.

[01:10:02] Jarren: And we see that it just changes the conversation. Yeah. Because they know a little bit about us and our relationship and we know a little bit about them and their kids and their dogs or their life or their career. And so it really helps it like the, um, the walls just get brought down a little bit quicker, we find with, with that.

[01:10:19] Parker: And a lot of misalignment comes from people trying to make things visible that are un invisible. So whether it’s power that that person wants to protect or some legacy reason why the logo looks like shit or like whatever. Uh, there’s all of this like underground stuff and when we give people the chance to tell the how you got to now story, a lot of the things that they’ve been looking for the right point in the meeting to say, just come out right up front.

[01:10:43] Parker: So Darren and I do tell those very open stories that we’ve shared with you in each of our new client contexts because it gives them permission to bring whatever they’ve got to the table too. 

[01:10:52] Jarren: And you know, that story took a while. I, you know, didn’t include the conversion therapy for a long time. ’cause I thought, well that’s not very interesting.

[01:10:59] Jarren: [01:11:00] Um, it happened so long ago. Um, but yet when I tell people that story, they’re like, oh my God, it must have been awful. And so I eliminated that part and I would just jump to Ireland. And for me, at one point I was like, I’m not doing myself and my story any service here, and I’m not bringing my full self.

[01:11:17] Jarren: So it took a little bit to tell that story a few times. And honestly, sometimes when we’re on cold calls from. Places that are not central hubs or we’re not sure how it’s gonna be, be reached. Um, I still to this day be like, whew, I’m gonna go for it. I’m just gonna say it. And surprise, surprise, people tend to have similar stories or know someone have similar stories.

[01:11:40] Jarren: So it, it’s hard to get there, but it pays off. 

[01:11:43] Parker: Thanks for the question. 

[01:11:43] Jarren: What was your name? 

[01:11:44] Attendee: Apollo. Thank you very much. 

[01:11:46] Jarren: Thank you so much. Paul, 

[01:11:47] Parker: who else, who else has a question or something you wanna say? Yeah, you, what’s your name? Sam. 

[01:11:53] Attendee: Hi. Could you say name is Samya. Okay. Hi, Samya. I’m a nice to meet you. You, I’m a brand designer as well.

[01:11:59] Attendee: Uh, my [01:12:00] question is, uh, I, my takeaway was, uh, getting aligned with yourself and then with the people you work with mm-hmm. And their teams. And, uh, especially, I really connected with the part where you spoke about how we end up working for Approvability sometimes. Uh, coming to my question, what do you have to say to someone who does not have a sounding board?

[01:12:22] Attendee: So, I’m, I’m. N by myself, working for my own, trying to set up my own practice. Nobody in my family or friend is a creative really. So, but you guys have each other and it was really inspiring to see how you used each other as a sounding board to navigate getting aligned. Yeah. What would you have to say to a solo entrepreneur to kind of navigate those?

[01:12:48] Attendee: Um, some basically when I’m lost, when I don’t have, uh, anywhere to brainstorm for ideas or how to get out of even emotional situations at work. Yeah. Um, [01:13:00] yeah. Thank 

[01:13:01] Parker: you for the vulnerability. Yeah. And it’s a lot 

[01:13:03] Jarren: to carry and we understand the privilege and there’s many times where I say to Parker, I don’t know how you did this on your own for so long.

[01:13:10] Jarren: Um, ’cause I really don’t, and so I, I, I understand we have some privilege to be able to help each other in that. Um, but when you’re on your own, you sort of have to set up your own supports, like internally and externally as well. And, um, that can look like a few different things. Maybe you have folks, you know, what I found helpful is that I have folks that I reach out to once a week.

[01:13:33] Jarren: We have standing dates or phone calls where I know that I can talk to ’em about what is happening in the business. Um, and even though I have him, I still need others. Uh, to be able to do that. And I find that really helpful. Another helpful, this is gonna be funny, is to talk to Chachi bt. Um, 

[01:13:52] Attendee: yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing.

[01:13:53] Attendee: Yeah. For the last three months. I don’t know about you, but 

[01:13:55] Jarren: I’m an outward processor and I have to go through layers and layers to get to the thing that I’m trying to go [01:14:00] to. And sometimes Parker is like, are you at the thing yet? Because you’ve been talking for a while. And so chat, GBT says you just keep talking and talking and talking.

[01:14:09] Jarren: Yeah. But it misses the, the relational element a little bit, I think with chat, GBT. So finding community, um, where you have touchpoints is, is essential. 

[01:14:19] Parker: And also just like, like that story I shared with you earlier, I ended up in the executive director’s office crying where I like made myself open and I identify that there’s several layers of privilege that it made that accessible for me.

[01:14:32] Parker: Um, but I wonder in all of our work, when we’re working with clients, they’re right there as human to relate, humans to relate to about the project. But because of the language of business, we oftentimes sort of paint this line between us and them, and it’s like, I’m over here suffering and they’re having whatever water cooler talk.

[01:14:50] Parker: Um, but you can tap into that too if you, if you make some space for it or if that’s part of the project from the beginning. So what would it be like when you’re scoping your projects that maybe there’s like three or [01:15:00] four heart to hearts sort of scheduled into the meeting or into the flow so that you know that you can come back to the ground and relate about how this work is going at points throughout the project.

[01:15:08] Parker: And if you ask for that and sort of state that upfront, it can be a value that you’re leading with that maybe openness or communication is important to you. And that can be part of how you’re vetting your clients in the future. 

[01:15:18] Attendee: Thank you. That’s a very valuable perspective. Thanks. I 

[01:15:20] Parker: appreciate the question.

[01:15:21] Parker: Thanks. Thank 

[01:15:22] Attendee: you. I, I love how you both make every question, it’s more of a conversation. So it’s, yeah, we’re very interactive here. Not, you’re not just gonna get an answer, you’re gonna get a full conversation. So that’s right to that. Who has another conversation in the, I think 

[01:15:38] Parker: it’s, uh, Tia’s hand. Am I saying that right?

[01:15:41] Parker: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

[01:15:43] Attendee: Um, thanks for sharing. Um, I just love the generosity of your approach and I just wondered, have you ever come across a situation where, um, well the setting, the client setting is very officious or maybe [01:16:00] not, doesn’t feel conducive to getting them to open up? Like how do you approach that 

[01:16:07] Jarren: for that question?

[01:16:08] Jarren: Great question. I 

[01:16:08] Parker: appreciate that. Yeah. It happens a lot. A a lot of clients, uh, believe their own bullshit, so to speak. Like when we’re doing brand, ’cause we work in brand, uh, primarily. Uh, when we’re doing project work, we also do workshops and one-on-one sort of coaching things. But generally our meat and potatoes is brand.

[01:16:24] Parker: Uh, the name of the game is Connection. So we name that very early on. We’re like, we believe in connective brands. That’s what you read on a website like H one. If you go there, it’s like connection. And so that means that we’ve already vetted, uh, the clients by the time they click the contact us button, and then by the time we’re talking to them on Zoom, we’re already pretty sure that they’re into the way that we are touchy feely.

[01:16:46] Parker: Um, but at earlier stages it felt like a li little bit. I had to be like an underground, touchy feely guy. I was like doing a phish business and underground. I really wanted to feel. And so I had to get clear that that was something I wasn’t gonna compromise [01:17:00] anymore. And so the clients who are too officious for us no longer knock on our door, and that’s so good.

[01:17:05] Parker: Um, we did take on a few of those projects. We do because we get seduced by price tags or ego. Uh, our egos, we do work with them, but they’re still here. Uh, so if a client seems impressive and we’re doing it for the exposure, uh. Usually there’s something wrong. So as soon as we’re telling ourselves we’re doing it for a reason that isn’t value, we know that we’re going down a red flag path.

[01:17:27] Parker: But we have done that and we’ve, uh, said yes to the dress and then we’ve had to tear it up later. Uh, we do have to fire clients when values and alignment happens because if a client organization has got sort of backroom politics or, um, the conversation that we’re having with them is only the performative conversation, and then afterwards they’re like, actually we hate it.

[01:17:48] Parker: Uh, we know that we’re not gonna go anywhere because like we said, we’re solving for pleasure. And if people aren’t a joy to work with, they’re not worth our time. ’cause we’re husbands and the work that we do has to feel good. We don’t want to go home and just stare at [01:18:00] each other’s lines under our eyes and be like, well, that was terrible.

[01:18:02] Parker: Uh, this should bring life into our life. And so that’s been the thing that we’ve been focused on. And the longer we do it, the easier it gets. It’s like a magnet. 

[01:18:09] Jarren: And also boundaries are huge. And we had to learn this the, the hard way where clients would sort of push us around or, um. Can kind of be unkind, actually straight out unkind, surprisingly, in some sectors where they’re caring about people and you’re like, well, I thought you were taking care of people.

[01:18:26] Jarren: Um, but we’ve had to have boundaries where we’re like, um, and we bring it out again and we’re like, we’re noticing this tension in our meetings. Are you noticing that too? And then let them answer. And they, they normally are, or they’re bringing that tension in, and that’s the, the hard part. And then we hold it with some compassion.

[01:18:47] Jarren: That sounds really tough. Well, can we come back together? What does that mean for us here? So now that we see each other, where do we go? And the minute we get to see each other as humans, even in a professional sense, it’s like something just [01:19:00] changes. And then the conversation is like, I see you, you see me.

[01:19:03] Jarren: Great. Let’s get back to the work. Yeah, it doesn’t need to go down like a road of like, what’s happening in your organization? And oh my God, this is terrible. This person is awful because. I’m sure many of you have been pulled into those conversations where you’re hearing coworkers bash each other or departments bash each other.

[01:19:20] Jarren: And so we see our job as being like, Hey, this is our North Star, star. We all agree on that North Star and our job is to keep on that North Star. And so alignment doesn’t just happen at the beginning, it happens all the way through. And it can happen in big ways and it can happen in small ways, but as long as, and this helps with me being like our job is to keep going with them and to get them to the end, which is whatever the deliverable is.

[01:19:46] Jarren: But um, it’s hard sometimes you want to get involved in their drama, right? Because you’re like, well, I like so and so and so and so, seems like a big jerk. ’cause he is rude in meetings and it’s hard for us to not get sucked into that. Especially when [01:20:00] you’re an empathic person and you wanna listen to people.

[01:20:03] Jarren: Um. And that’s where the boundary comes in. It’s like, well listen, but then I need to go away and not make that my own. Yeah. And so that’s the inner work, you know? And, and for me, uh, I use meditation as a practice or grounding just to be able to like find myself again because I can go out into the world and I kind of feel a lot of other people and I have conversations and I can get lost in that really quick.

[01:20:27] Jarren: And so I use meditation as a way of just bringing my myself back to myself. And maybe that’s five minutes before a phone call, just like checking my breathing. Take a few deep breaths. Um, pro tip, if it’s tension in the room, get your clients to take three deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth.

[01:20:42] Jarren: It changes it every time. And we’ve been in those meetings where it is like tense, the energy’s building. And one of us will say, let’s just take three deep breaths. And I can always see a couple people going like, deep breath. Really? Are we talking about breath? And we do it. And the whole room calms down and then we have a [01:21:00] conversation.

[01:21:00] Jarren: So anything to, to bring alignment into the room. And usually that’s like a calm nervous system. Generally 

[01:21:07] Parker: that deep breath thing really reminds everybody that we’re all humans. Uh, like it takes roles out or like we’re breathing together. What could be more primary, but it brings it all the way back to the ground.

[01:21:16] Parker: And to your point, like working with Jaren is a huge asset ’cause I’m a bleeding heart. If some client has a hurt feeling in a board meeting, I’m definitely protecting that person with my life for the rest of time. Uh, but Jaren is really good at practicing boundaries and he’s like, this is our scope.

[01:21:30] Parker: We’re gonna have this conversation this way so that we can move through it generatively instead of what I would generally do, which would be like sandbagging and then like making that person a villain in. And then it just gets worse and worse. Uh, so like leaning on each other, uh, is an important part of how we align as well.

[01:21:44] Parker: It’s not that we have to be everything to everyone. It’s like we get to really know what our lane is and work from there. Great question. Thank 

[01:21:50] Attendee: you. Great question. Okay. How about, uh, one last question before we get up and stretch our legs. [01:22:00] 

[01:22:00] Parker: What’s your name? 

[01:22:01] Attendee: Sebastian. 

[01:22:01] Parker: Hi Sebastian. Hi Sebastian. 

[01:22:03] Attendee: Hey, thanks for the talk.

[01:22:04] Attendee: Um, I had a question about, and this is something ’cause I’m a web developer and I’m trying to be more online and figure out how I want to present myself because I have a website, but just LinkedIn and getting myself out there more. So I’m curious when you started Heart Creative from where you were, where you started versus now, how you chose, like how did you connect the gap between how you wanted to present yourself in person versus online, whether it’s your website or social media?

[01:22:34] Attendee: Yeah, 

[01:22:35] Parker: good question. Yeah, great question. Oh, I can like, feel that question in my bones. I, I can like, relate to the feeling of trying to build a brand. At the same time as trying to sort out my own stuff, figuring out who I was in the world. I don’t know, uh, exactly your age, but I have a feeling that, um, generationally maybe you’re figuring out where you fit in in your career and in your sector.

[01:22:57] Parker: Uh, and I think that that’s [01:23:00] a difficult and vulnerable place to be branding from. Because oftentimes you’re thinking about like, well, what does the audience want? Or like, um, where’s attention at in LinkedIn and how can I enter into that space? Um, but what we’ve had to do in our own branding is get rid of all the bullshit and honestly, like, just talk about what we can actually say we talk about at a party last Friday.

[01:23:20] Parker: So like, notice what you’re talking about at a barbecue. When people ask you about your work and they’re like, what projects are you working on? Pay attention to what you say and then maybe write it down ’cause you’re at a party and might forget, uh, and then talk about that online the next week so that when you’re sitting at your social media, it doesn’t feel this, like, this performance, like, I have these values.

[01:23:38] Parker: How am I gonna talk about them? And more like, I have these values. How am I talking about them? Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Cool. 

[01:23:45] Jarren: Yeah, A handy little tip that I use is, um, every day, well, not every day, um, I, I say every day, but it’s every other day, um, is I think through the last day and I write one sentences about something that went well in my business that I could story tell about.

[01:23:59] Jarren: And it’s only one [01:24:00] sentence. It’s not like a full treatment. It’s not the whole thing. And I ponder that over and think of like, how can I just tell this story simply? So it took us a while online to be able to reflect, um, who we are in person. That took a long time for us actually, because I don’t know about you, but someone puts a camera in my face and suddenly I’m like, 

[01:24:22] Attendee: it’s so cute when you, you know, I’m just like 

[01:24:23] Jarren: a little bit more stiff.

[01:24:25] Jarren: Lindsay, our photographer knows this. Um, this, this is my impression of you when I take a photo. Like, talk to you Beast boy. Yeah, like a Beastie Boy. So I know what it’s like when a camera goes in your face and then you have to record to. A camera. So a couple tips that we use that helps me is I make a little smiley face on a poster and I put it under the camera.

[01:24:51] Jarren: It sounds so silly. It works every time. ’cause I can’t talk to like a circle. I get lost. And then in the, in the, and then I, and inevitably I look at the [01:25:00] screen, which you can see me doing in the video. And when I put a little smiley face on a post-it, I, my eyes stay on that. So it’s just a handy little, little tip, uh, if you’re thinking about that.

[01:25:09] Jarren: And then I can think of that as a person. Sometimes I give that, that smiley face a name, uh, just so that it has some life and it’s a real person because it’s easier. Like, we have so many clients that say an entrepreneurs who come in, they’re like, it’s so easy when I go and get my hair done, I’m able to just like talk my services.

[01:25:26] Jarren: And they always say, I’ve got the person for you. Like, I get business without even trying. Yet when I’m on a sales call or I have to do a video, I’m not getting anything. And so how do you make yourself accessible in those spaces? It’s practice. Smiley post-it face is like a really good way, place to start, for sure.

[01:25:44] Parker: And it means that you’re oriented towards like the audience liking what you’re saying. If you’re writing for the ether and you’re like, oh my God, how’s the whole internet gonna respond to this? Uh, that’s a big ask and that you’re putting yourself on a really high hook. Um, but if I was on stage at the Commodore right now, playing a rock [01:26:00] concert, let’s pretend, uh, the people who are at the stage front would be a, the most into me, and b, the people I could see the most.

[01:26:07] Parker: And so think about who’s in your front row, like when you’re talking about your work, who are the people who are like, that’s amazing, Sebastian. And like, write for them. So like, if you’re gonna name that smiley face, give it the name of the people who are into what you’re saying because you’re not writing for the people who aren’t into your business or are never gonna be your customer or have this opinion that doesn’t align with yours.

[01:26:25] Parker: You’re online because you’re looking for the people who are buying what you’re selling, like literally. Mm-hmm. And so like focus on your front row and don’t worry about the people who are less into what you’re saying. And if you feel a bit of virtue signaling or, um, feeling like it’s hard to talk about what you care about without feeling a bit performative about it, notice that if you talk about that hesitation, a story can emerge.

[01:26:48] Parker: So if you care about environmentalism, let’s say, uh, you might write something like, I’m the most environmental business ever, hire me. And that would feel one kinda way. Or if you’re like, I’m trying to make my business more [01:27:00] environmental and I’m always frustrated that I can’t find the host that I’m looking for, or whatever, et cetera, et cetera.

[01:27:04] Parker: So you can explore the value without saying, I own this thing a hundred percent. Look at me. And, and then it gives you something to talk about that is in the messy middle. And that’s what your audience wants to relate to. 

[01:27:14] Jarren: Yeah. And to that point, we talked about values and when we work with folks, especially entrepreneurs, we actually take their values and make them actionable.

[01:27:22] Jarren: So like things you can talk about, say, if trust is a value, you can talk about five or six different things. And that comes from a real place. So it makes it easier to talk about something as opposed to, I should be talking about this thing. ’cause people are talking about that. You kind of gotta forget, um, what is out there.

[01:27:39] Jarren: And this is really hard in a social media, uh, age. And we talk about inspiration, um, over comparison and those, there’s a very slippery slope, isn’t there? I don’t know about you, but I could be scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I’m like, I’m feeling good. And then someone posts something, I’m like, I’m, I’m not, I’m not that.

[01:27:57] Jarren: I’m not, that, I’m not that person. Yeah. And I [01:28:00] know suddenly there’s like a tipping point that I’ve gone over. And so I gotta kind of stop and come, come back. But always ask yourself, am I inspired or am I creative or, or am I, um, inspired. Thank you. Comparative compare. 

[01:28:14] Parker: Uh, you have all been very generous with your attention.

[01:28:17] Parker: Yeah. Thank 

[01:28:17] Jarren: you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. 

[01:28:18] Parker: Uh, please add us on LinkedIn and email us. Uh, we want to be connected with each of you. Uh, this is what we hope is the beginning of a conversation between each of us. So please, like, reach out. We really want you to do that. Yeah. Uh, we’ll stick around and we’ll keep chatting.

[01:28:34] Parker: Yeah. Um, but when you’re chatting with one another, maybe you could talk to each other about like, where are you looking to align more in your work, or what’s one value that you carry that you’re looking for somebody else to share with you? Yeah. Thanks so much. Thank you 

[01:28:44] Jarren: everyone. 

[01:28:47] Attendee: Thank.

[01:28:51] Attendee: That’s awesome. I’m gonna abuse, before you walk off the stage, I’m gonna abuse my mc power for a second and ask another question. Yeah. Is that okay? Let do it. Um, I know there’s a lot of [01:29:00] freelancers in the room, a lot of people running small studios and they’re resonating with what you say just by the engagement.

[01:29:05] Attendee: You can see that. But I also know that a lot of us struggle with identifying our values in the first place. So we talk about the messy middle. Can we talk a bit about the messy beginning? Like how do we actually figure out where the line in the sand is? 

[01:29:21] Parker: I love this question. Great question. Uh, let’s hang out.

[01:29:24] Parker: Let’s go for a hike and talk about your values. Uh, honestly, we think the easiest place to start thinking about your values are like, do a quick exercise, blank piece of paper, pen, lots of space, maybe some nice music, and just write down three stories that come to mind that you felt the most alive. Just think about that.

[01:29:45] Parker: When did you feel the most alive in your life? And write down those things. And then once you’ve got them look back at them and notice what the commonalities are between those three stories. Usually there’s some common threads. If you’re somebody who likes to be outside and you care about [01:30:00] the world around you, maybe you like your camping and all of your stories, or maybe you’re always at a conference in these stories, you’re like really alive when you’re on stage.

[01:30:07] Parker: You can like sort of deduce like a detective what your values are by noticing when you feel the most like yourself. Because we live in this world that expects us to be performing an identity all the time. We get put through the university meat mill and then we’re uh, these like at automaton designer types or whatever, but like really it’s like, how are you a designer versus how are you a designer is all about what’s in here and that’s what values mean.

[01:30:31] Parker: It’s like the north star that you’ve always been navigating by. That’s why we say they’re not stretch goals. These aren’t things that John and I wish we were. These are things we’ve always had since he was wearing a bow tie and my mouth looked like that. And so like honor that your values have always been bringing people together or family or standing in your own light.

[01:30:51] Parker: I love that. 

[01:30:51] Jarren: Yeah. Another little tip I can get is if you have an idea of what your values, so maybe you’re like respect or kindness, and either get [01:31:00] someone to ask you this over and over again, or ask yourself, this is, why is this important to me? Why is this important to me? Why is this important to me?

[01:31:07] Jarren: Why is this important to you? Why is this important to me? Right. And you just keep writing like, and just being like, why is it important to me? And it flushes out why? This is because we go through layers, right? We’re like, well, you know, respect is good ’cause it’s good. And then we keep asking. We go the layer, layer, layer.

[01:31:20] Jarren: This is why it’s helpful if someone else, like you can just get your colleague or your. Boyfriend or girlfriend just to be like, just ask me why, why this is important to me a ton of times. And just record what’s happening and you start to distill right away. We run people through a quite a process of, uh, process of elimination where we have columns of, um, of cards.

[01:31:40] Jarren: We put these onto cards so it’s interactive and then we break it down and then we get them to rank at one of 10. So if you want that resource, get in touch with me and I can definitely share that with you so you can get your, your own values. Um, yeah, identified Darren’s so good at that. 

[01:31:54] Attendee: And one last thing.

[01:31:55] Jarren: Yeah, one last thing. 

[01:31:57] Attendee: The fear of oversharing. 

[01:31:59] Parker: Oh, the fear of [01:32:00] oversharing. 

[01:32:00] Attendee: Can we talk about that a little bit? 

[01:32:02] Parker: Yeah. 

[01:32:03] Attendee: Do you need me to Yeah. It up? What’s the question? Yeah. Um, the question is, okay, you’ve gone through the process, you’ve followed those instructions, you’ve created your values, now you’re trying to live by them.

[01:32:14] Attendee: Um, you guys are really, really good at sharing authentic stories, but I bet you that if you’re not living that way. Starting to do that, that’s gonna be a challenge, that’s gonna be a thing that you’re not sure about. Where should I say this thing? Should, and you talked about it, the, the, the challenges. But do you have, um, rubrics or things in your life that help you define, okay, this is the moment where I should like lean in, or this is a moment where I can, you know, 

[01:32:44] Parker: that’s a great question and it’s a muscle that you’ve gotta practice using.

[01:32:48] Parker: Uh, so saying something really authentic and personal and deep, uh, don’t just go out there tomorrow and start doing this ’cause you’ll have a vulnerability hangover for days. Uh, and start small, like give yourself permission to say [01:33:00] something a little bit true. Next time somebody asks you, how was your day today?

[01:33:03] Parker: Tell them about putting your hand in dogs or like, whatever. Uh, and, and notice that you didn’t die afterwards. Uh, and then do it again. And really, like relationally, you can ask for safety in a conversation as well. So like. If I was like, Hey, Maryanne, so good to meet you. Can I tell you about what happened to me today?

[01:33:18] Parker: And then you might say yes or no, and both answers would be good. But if you said yes, I could maybe tell you. And then afterwards, as a human, you’re allowed to ask how that was for Maryanne. You can be like, was that too much? Did that scare? Or like, you can sort of surface the insecurity or vulnerability that you’re feeling and hold that in equal view.

[01:33:37] Parker: ’cause performing, uh, confidence or or projecting a certain kind of like having it together gets you nowhere. It doesn’t connect you with anybody ’cause you’re all the way back here behind that mask. But if you use your voice and you use curiosity to use compassion, like, Hey Maryanne, this feels scary for me to share with you, but I need to tell you about my dog.

[01:33:59] Parker: Uh, then [01:34:00] you’d know what the stakes were and you’d make an informed decision. 

[01:34:02] Attendee: What if they say no? 

[01:34:03] Parker: Then you can say, and I give you this as a gift. When somebody says no, you say thank you for taking care of yourself. And then it sounds really nice. And everybody’s happy. A slap in the face though, right?

[01:34:13] Parker: That’s right. What, what was that? 

[01:34:15] Attendee: Has a slap in the face, you know, when they say 

[01:34:19] Parker: Yeah, but it’s, it’s always about them. Yeah. Whenever people say no, it’s like, ’cause they are in a different place than you. And being in the same one isn’t the name of the game. Diversity means honoring that. I’m a different kind of guy than Jaron.

[01:34:32] Parker: And I can’t always just like, take for granted that he’s ready for my stuff. Mm-hmm. And vice versa. 

[01:34:37] Jarren: Yeah. And I, you know, I was, someone shared with me the years ago, um, and it was an executive coaching sort of realm and to the point you’d say something and there someone’s like, no, like, I’m not telling you that.

[01:34:50] Jarren: Like, I’m, I’m not, I’m not there. And someone said to me, and I’ve used this in many sectors, not just in, in the coaching sector, is like, your job is to knock on the [01:35:00] door. That’s your only job is to knock on the door. It’s up to them whether they want to open it a crack or they wanna open it wide for you, but your job is to knock on the door.

[01:35:09] Jarren: Yeah. And so be being vulnerable with them and they may not reciprocate, but you’ve done a service to yourself by being true to who you are. Yeah. Does that make sense? 

[01:35:20] Parker: Life is a potluck like that. You’ve gotta like bring your own magic and bring your own vulnerability and like bring your own stories and telling a personal story, almost inevitably you have to be the one that goes first.

[01:35:30] Parker: Mm-hmm. But as soon as you say a real thing, uh, I’d say 95% of the time. The other person leans in and says something real in return. Yeah. And, but if we’re just performing masks, it doesn’t really go 

[01:35:41] Jarren: anywhere. And I would say like, start off small, right? Um, it’s a big thing to suddenly go on to LinkedIn and do a big post or in a sales call where the, where, you know, the stakes are kind of higher.

[01:35:52] Jarren: I always say like, identify that value, then tell your partner why that’s important to you, and then maybe tell a friend and each time you just build the [01:36:00] confidence to be able to like say those words a little bit more. Um, ’cause we’re not in. Courage to talk about ourselves and our culture. Um, talk about our needs or our wants or what we would desire is very taboo, unfortunately in, in North America.

[01:36:14] Jarren: So we have to like, give ourselves little, little things where we can be like, okay, I’m gonna tell two people this week that are close to me and ask them how that resonates with them. But start off small. You don’t have to like dive in with both feet right away. 

[01:36:28] Parker: And another vulnerability hack, I know we’re late on time, uh, is to ask better questions.

[01:36:33] Parker: That can be a beautiful way of starting to practice sharing more vulnerably is instead of asking, how are you today? Uh, ask how was your sleep last night? Or like, um, what new thing did you see on the weekend? Or what was the last meal that you ate? It was too spicy. Or like, whatever. Just like ask interesting questions that drive into story because then that person can tell you something and you can sit over here, chalking yourself up the whole time they’re answering like, okay, I’m gonna say something vulnerable in return.

[01:36:57] Parker: And then by the time they finished, you’re ready to do it. Yeah. [01:37:00] Thanks for the question. I love it. One 

[01:37:02] Attendee: more round of applause. 

[01:37:04] Parker: Thank you.