Cheryl Durst, CEO of IIDA, joins Doug Shapiro for a wide-ranging, soulful conversation about kinship, optimism, and the power of imperfection. From “word of the year” reflections to mosaics, quilts, and mixtapes, Cheryl explores how unlikely combinations shape meaningful leadership and design. Cheryl shares how energy, memory, and human connection influence the spaces we create and the teams we build. It’s a thoughtful, funny, and deeply human dialogue about why design and life are at their best when they’re a little imperfect.
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(Music)
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Speaker 3
Welcome to the Love What You Do podcast. I'm your host, Doug Shapiro. These are the conversations that open doors to what's possible when you love what you do.
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(Music)
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Speaker 1
blowing it for the past few years. So kinship is my word of the year for 2026, but how it kind of underscores joy, trust, and optimism. And
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Speaker 1
I was super coherent the first three takes. And my team is so accustomed, like I can usually do these things in one take. It was, and maybe it was the fire alarm or something. It was such an, like, you know how sometimes you just don't have it?
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Speaker 2
Yeah.
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Speaker 1
I didn't have it.
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Speaker 1
And so then it turned into like, then you hit the wall. And so I end up wishing everybody
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Speaker 1
a beautiful and bountiful 2026. I could not get bountiful
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Speaker 1
out of my mouth. It was beautiful and boom-a-ma.
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Speaker 1
And, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And it was just, so they kept some of the outtakes just because I laugh. And so there is joy there. And so anyway, but it was, yeah, it just was not happening for me.
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Speaker 3
It was not happening.
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Speaker 1
It was not happening.
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Speaker 3
I love
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Speaker 3
kinship as the word of the year. You are definitely my word nerd, pal. Like, I love words. I love language and expression.
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Speaker 1
I'm a fan of kinship because,
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Speaker 1
right, and we love community, but this is like 18 layers deeper than community. Like, it's a deep bond and an attachment. And, you know, you can create kinship with people or with place. And that's what I find, right? Like, place supports community, but kinship can be both.
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Speaker 1
And that's what I kind of love about it.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, there's subtleties in the word kinship that kind of like evoke the feeling like we share a code.
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Speaker 1
That's right. It's a shared reality. Like there's a secret code that we
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Speaker 1
have together. Yep, it's an instant recognition.
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Speaker 1
Like, sometimes it takes a while for kinship to build, but sometimes you meet people and you have immediate kinship with them. And there's a little bit of it that can be an inside joke or a shared moment, or you have kinship with someone you never met, but you bonded with them, sitting next to them on a flight.
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Speaker 1
Or, right, you can bond through, kinship can happen through trauma, it can happen through joy, it can happen through work or play.
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Speaker 1
So I'm super fascinated, but it's the bond and the attachment that
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Speaker 1
is created, right? It's not as temporary as community.
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Speaker 1
And I referred to it in my message as radical belonging.
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Speaker 3
Ooh, I like that.
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Speaker 3
So that makes a great
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Speaker 3
word of the year.
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Speaker 3
I guess that you're now committed, now that you've done a word of the year, it can't
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Speaker 3
be the only one. Every year there's a word of the year. So
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Speaker 3
that will become, for Cheryl, it will be your. Sort of like centerpiece of your speech, your dialogue, the message you share. And then it's almost kind of like design days, we always try to bring together a theme and a energy and a
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Speaker 3
message.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1
And it's kind of, I was thinking about it
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Speaker 1
as, am I limiting or is Merriam-Webster, are we all limiting ourselves by choosing a word? And I wonder if anybody would ever attempt, is there a vibe of the year or a mood of the year?
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Speaker 1
Or maybe it's just a mood of the quarter, because I can't imagine holding a mood for an entire
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Speaker 1
year.
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Speaker 3
It's a long time to hold a mood.
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Speaker 1
It's a long time to hold a mood, so.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, the mood of the year could be grudge. I mean, I
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Speaker 3
guess I don't know.
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Speaker 1
Gruntled or disgruntled.
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Speaker 3
Wait, which one is,
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Speaker 3
so if you're disgruntled, that's bad, does that mean if you're gruntled, that's good?
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Speaker 1
If you're gruntled, it's
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Speaker 1
good, I don't know that. Because it sounds awful. It does sound like I'm feeling it. It sounds like I'm gruntled.
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(Laughing)
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Speaker 1
It's very ground-hogging. I
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Speaker 1
can do this word thing
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Speaker 3
over and over. It's a spiral. I'm feeling gruntled.
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(Laughing)
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Speaker 3
Okay, warm up question, Cheryl. Not that you need a warm up.
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Speaker 1
I thought that was the warm up.
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Speaker 3
If you could take a fictional character to dinner,
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Speaker 3
who would you take?
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Speaker 1
If I could take a fictional character to dinner.
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Speaker 1
Ooh, I can think of lots of non-fictional characters.
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Speaker 1
Who in fiction?
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Speaker 1
Wow.
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Speaker 1
Well, am I going superhero?
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Speaker 1
Like Catwoman could be super fascinating.
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Speaker 1
Sherlock Holmes.
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Speaker 1
Oh, that's good. Sherlock Holmes.
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Speaker 1
And a thousand questions around curiosity and sleuthing.
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Speaker 1
And he wore
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Speaker 1
a good cape.
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Speaker 2
Yeah.
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Speaker 1
And that leap from living in people's brains as one thing, like maybe Sherlock Holmes was this perfectly normal human being, that he's been blown up to be larger than life.
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Speaker 3
I like that.
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Speaker 1
Sherlock Holmes or Mary Poppins.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean.
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Speaker 3
Having them both at the same dinner would be very interesting.
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Speaker 1
That would be fascinating.
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Speaker 3
Okay, let's do this next one here.
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Speaker 3
If you could take a childhood game,
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Speaker 3
whether it's a board game or whatever, turn it into an Olympic sport,
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Speaker 3
which game would you have the best likelihood of meddling in?
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Speaker 1
Jax.
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Speaker 3
Jax, that's a good one.
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Speaker 1
Because I was the Jax champion of my neighborhood and then my school and then Lucas County, Ohio. So there was a bonafide Jax competition. Wow.
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Speaker 1
And there's the whole manual dexterity and it's just a good old school analog game. It
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Speaker 1
is. And whether you play it
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Speaker 1
on, so I would play on a sidewalk, right? All of a sudden that's kind of rough and tumble or you played on the gym floor and the Jax, for sure. Hands down.
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Speaker 3
So was the ball height was the key or what was the key?
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Speaker 1
The ability to swipe them all up or when they ended up really close together, you'd have to pick them apart without moving another one. I haven't played Jax in so long and now I wanna play again.
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Speaker 1
I don't know if I could
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Speaker 1
find them anywhere.
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Speaker 3
I feel like I
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Speaker 3
remember playing Jax and now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I got in trouble maybe more than once for leaving him on the floor.
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Speaker 1
Oh,
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Speaker 1
well, that would be painful to step on. Yes.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 3
There's been no Jax injuries in your past, I hope.
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Speaker 3
Here's a fun one. If you could borrow a famous person's swagger for a day.
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Speaker 3
Okay.
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Speaker 3
Whose swagger would you take?
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Speaker 1
Josephine Baker.
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Speaker 1
Okay. She also
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Speaker 1
is my ever present answer to if you could take anyone from history to dinner, it would be her. I mean, she just, she had this way of announcing herself without saying a word.
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Speaker 1
Obviously she was a dancer and she was a singer, she was an entertainer in 1920s Paris, but also a spy. And so people thought because she looked one way that she wasn't capable of doing a lot of other things and she was a large part of the French resistance.
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Speaker 1
And so that idea of moving like a dancer
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Speaker 1
and moving like a spy, I find really intriguing. Wow. Like just the movement associated with her.
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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1
So, and that's swagger, right?
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Speaker 3
That is swagger,
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Speaker 3
I love it.
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Speaker 1
Both seen and
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Speaker 1
unseen, right? Because you're not looking at her as a spy.
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Speaker 3
Right,
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Speaker 3
right. The swagger's happening inside almost. When she knows, she's up to something that no one else knows. That's pretty wild.
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Speaker 3
Okay, so we talked word of the year,
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Speaker 3
kinship.
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Speaker 3
I wanna make a nomination for like a 2027 word of the year. Okay, okay. Or maybe, is your word of the year retrospective?
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Speaker 1
It
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Speaker 1
could be. I mean, I usually am looking forward.
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Speaker 3
So maybe
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Speaker 3
for 2027.
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Speaker 1
Okay.
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Speaker 3
I wanna explore the word mosaic. Mosaic,
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Speaker 3
love it. Because I think it
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Speaker 3
evokes,
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Speaker 3
it evokes a lot of opportunities for discussion in terms of how a life comes together, how a space comes together.
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Speaker 1
A compilation
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Speaker 1
of many parts.
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Speaker 3
Yes, unlikely things
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Speaker 3
coming together.
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Speaker 3
There's so many places to take this. And I kinda gave you a little bit of a preface. Like, hey, I wanna go there. Did your mind instantly go to a certain spot?
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Speaker 1
So the obvious answer is mosaic tile and I didn't go there. I went to a quilt.
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Speaker 1
Both of my grandmothers were quilters and a quilt is a wholesome piece that is decorative or it keeps you warm or it's a bedspread, but it's made up of scraps.
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Speaker 1
Pieces of a lot of different things. And each of those pieces is lovely in and of itself, but it gets matched up with pieces that you maybe would never put it with to become this quilt. And so mosaic is where that takes me.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, and I feel like it becomes sort of metaphoric in terms of the quilts we build can be the teams we're on, can be the spaces we design or whatever it is we're putting together.
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Speaker 3
We're exploring this word and we're kinda looking at it at a very personal point of view in terms of people have different, besides different perspectives and being physically diverse. Bringing whole histories with them. There's also different energies people give off.
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Speaker 3
And those become important
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Speaker 3
too. I don't know if you've experienced, if you've thought about your energy and what it means to your team and do you ever have to change it?
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Speaker 1
I think that sometimes it's necessary to adjust our energy, calibrate is maybe a little bit more or calibrate is maybe a better word.
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Speaker 1
So you dial it up because sometimes your team needs you to be up, they look to you to be up. Sometimes I think that energy can be very just neutral, a nice low hum to let other people's energy. I sometimes wonder about if my energy gets in the way of other people's energy. And so then that becomes, can you be a barometer of your own energy? Am I inviting good energy? Am I, or am I quelling or dulling other people's energy? And so I think being mindful of the energy that we put out there, which so ties into this mosaic conversation. So the other thing that I think of other than a quilt, weirdly is a mix tape. And so I said, compilation and some people just throw a bunch of songs together. But I love the idea of whether it's a playlist or a mix tape, that there's some story that's told from beginning to end,
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Speaker 1
once upon a time how albums were created, right? That there's a thread that moves through there that connects what may sound like a bunch of disparate songs and it creates a mood or creates a message or tells a story.
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Speaker 1
But I
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Speaker 1
think that the energy has to be right for you to accept that or hear it or see it.
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Speaker 1
And so that being
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Speaker 1
mindful, which I had not really thought of that before until you brought it up, being mindful of the energy because you have to nurture and incubate a mosaic sometimes.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, you're right. There's a word that I thought of that I know as close to you, which is museum,
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Speaker 3
is another great expression of sort of a mosaic
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Speaker 3
where there's intentionality behind the path you take and the stories that are told.
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Speaker 3
And then obviously in commercial design, I feel like there is more and more pressure now to create settings that carry different energies, that allow for different things.
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Speaker 1
I wonder about that sometimes
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Speaker 1
when we walk into a place and you're conscious of the design, but not overly conscious of the design. Like vignettes can be bothersome because sometimes a vignette feels artificial. And I've heard people who've come into IIDA headquarters kind of looking in our, we have a series of vignettes throughout the office and some of them feel very welcoming and others feel like maybe this should be in a museum. And I sometimes wonder in commercial office now, are we adequately conscious of the mood or the vibe that we're creating?
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Speaker 1
And so without that ritual or that protocol to tell me what I'm supposed to do in that space, will I intuitively know, right? This isn't new. Will I intuitively know
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Speaker 1
what's supposed to happen here?
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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 3
Or yeah, does it say I'm too precious, don't touch me, don't use me.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Or if I sit here, am I supposed to do something? Or can I just chill here? Or do I look like I'm waiting for a bus or a meeting or for something to happen?
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Speaker 3
Yeah,
[16:21:23:07 - 16:21:30:03]
Speaker 3
yeah. It does seem a little like theoretical, but I think it is important to ask the question, like what is the space saying?
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Speaker 3
Like there's all the, how do you feel in it and all this, what is it saying for you to do?
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:21:37:07 - 16:21:47:01]
Speaker 1
And so we talk about, I think, how we like to show up in certain circumstances. How do we like to show up at work or on stage or
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Speaker 1
in front of clients? And I think that applies to space too. How do you want that space to show up that day?
[16:21:54:05 - 16:21:56:02]
Speaker 1
And so then it becomes,
[16:21:56:02 - 16:22:04:17]
Speaker 1
right, because it could be very temporal too, because do you wanna show up differently on Wednesday than you did on Monday?
[16:22:06:02 - 16:22:12:19]
Speaker 1
Now because of hybrid work, offices feel different on different days. They
[16:22:12:19 - 16:22:22:03]
Speaker 1
do. Based on the energy in the space. And so if Monday is your heads down day and your accounting department shows up on Monday,
[16:22:22:03 - 16:22:26:08]
Speaker 1
I didn't mean to smirk at accounting at all, but I just felt my mouth do something funny there.
[16:22:28:01 - 16:22:28:07]
Speaker 1
But
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Speaker 1
if Monday is your quiet heads down day, which could be very different than the feeling of your Tuesday or your Thursday, which is your creative team day, or it's more of an all in day, then all of a sudden what supports that space, does it feel different based on the mode or the mood that day?
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, as you're saying this,
[16:22:53:17 - 16:22:59:10]
Speaker 3
there's definitely flows in a week and I feel like there's seasonal moves in
[16:22:59:10 - 16:23:01:04]
Speaker 3
an office. Oh, absolutely. You think about the role
[16:23:01:04 - 16:23:04:01]
Speaker 3
of sunlight. Look, when we're sitting here, it's still working hours
[16:23:04:01 - 16:23:06:08]
Speaker 3
and it's dark outside. So
[16:23:06:08 - 16:23:14:15]
Speaker 3
like even seasonally, the space has a different energy. Yeah, yeah. The clothes and the colors and...
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Speaker 1
Yeah, a
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Speaker 1
four o'clock in December is radically different than a four o'clock in July.
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Speaker 2
Yeah.
[16:23:24:11 - 16:23:28:19]
Speaker 1
It just is, no matter where you are, Miami or Chicago.
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Speaker 1
But certainly
[16:23:30:14 - 16:23:42:20]
Speaker 1
the mood that is evoked, right? Which, you know, it's lighting as well, but also the people in the space contribute to that mood. Now there are some people who bring four o'clock,
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Speaker 1
four o'clock on a Friday in July, like that's them consistently. They
[16:23:49:11 - 16:23:51:03]
Speaker 1
can bring that to you in December.
[16:23:52:18 - 16:23:56:22]
Speaker 1
Yes. And we love those people. Yeah, exactly. Give me my four o'clock on a Friday.
[16:23:56:22 - 16:23:59:09]
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, at 8 a.m. on a Monday.
[16:23:59:09 - 16:23:59:19]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
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Speaker 3
That's awesome.
[16:24:05:03 - 16:24:23:12]
Speaker 3
You know, this idea of the mosaic being this kind of power of collective differences is interesting. One of the things that's popped up just in any conversation, these are dinner table conversations, breakfast conversations, when we get into AI is sort of people valuing imperfection.
[16:24:24:17 - 16:24:25:01]
Speaker 3
And,
[16:24:25:01 - 16:24:27:13]
Speaker 3
you know, when you--
[16:24:27:13 - 16:24:28:15]
Speaker 1
Do we value it
[16:24:28:15 - 16:24:40:09]
Speaker 1
because it's more human? After so much seamless perfection maybe, that we want the cracks and the quirks and the imperfections?
[16:24:40:09 - 16:24:48:18]
Speaker 3
I mean, maybe. I mean, what would like a mosaic that had like perfect pieces and a perfect, you know, it
[16:24:48:18 - 16:24:50:02]
Speaker 1
just-- Then it's not a mosaic,
[16:24:50:02 - 16:24:52:18]
Speaker 1
right? Right. I mean, it wouldn't feel like one.
[16:24:52:18 - 16:24:53:14]
Speaker 3
Right,
[16:24:53:14 - 16:24:57:02]
Speaker 3
right. And so I just wonder if there's like,
[16:24:58:14 - 16:25:04:08]
Speaker 3
you know, like if you looked at your life and your experiences, okay?
[16:25:05:10 - 16:25:10:21]
Speaker 3
Like what would be that one tile that's like, maybe that one's a little, you
[16:25:10:21 - 16:25:14:22]
Speaker 3
know what I mean? That's a little, like you look at the mosaic but your eyes are drawn to that one
[16:25:14:22 - 16:25:16:22]
Speaker 3
tile that looks a little out of place.
[16:25:16:22 - 16:25:18:02]
Speaker 1
I can
[16:25:18:02 - 16:25:26:11]
Speaker 1
like right away, there was a 18 month period in my life when I worked for,
[16:25:28:02 - 16:25:30:14]
Speaker 1
I worked in the public relations department of a hospital.
[16:25:31:14 - 16:25:31:20]
Speaker 1
Wow.
[16:25:32:22 - 16:25:37:13]
Speaker 1
And the hospital part, super cool. The public relations part, pretty cool.
[16:25:39:07 - 16:25:44:02]
Speaker 1
But for part of the season of that, I had to wear a bear costume
[16:25:44:02 - 16:25:46:09]
Speaker 1
and it, there are
[16:25:46:09 - 16:25:46:16]
Speaker 1
photos.
[16:25:47:17 - 16:25:48:09]
Speaker 1
I was like,
[16:25:49:11 - 16:25:51:10]
Speaker 1
is there something I can-- Because I was healthy bear.
[16:25:52:15 - 16:25:58:04]
Speaker 1
And healthy bear was the mascot of Toledo hospital. And I
[16:25:58:04 - 16:26:14:22]
Speaker 1
did the county fair circuit across, I do believe there are 88 counties in the state of Ohio, if I remember my Ohio history correctly. I went to 30 to 40 state fairs, which typically run the gamut of
[16:26:14:22 - 16:26:16:17]
Speaker 1
summer to early fall.
[16:26:16:17 - 16:26:19:16]
Speaker 1
I'm in this like smoky the bear like costume.
[16:26:19:16 - 16:26:20:22]
Speaker 2
That's a lot of funnel cake.
[16:26:20:22 - 16:26:21:13]
Speaker 1
That's a lot
[16:26:21:13 - 16:26:22:21]
Speaker 1
of funnel cake and
[16:26:22:21 - 16:26:24:09]
Speaker 1
churros. And churros.
[16:26:25:10 - 16:26:26:21]
Speaker 1
And cotton candy.
[16:26:26:21 - 16:26:30:00]
Speaker 1
And I was in
[16:26:30:00 - 16:26:42:14]
Speaker 1
this bear costume because healthy bear was encouraging parents and children and it was vaccine education, go figure. And this was eighties. I'm trying to remember the time period.
[16:26:42:14 - 16:26:51:14]
Speaker 1
But I was looking at the world through this, so the head on this bear costume was massive and I couldn't get out of character.
[16:26:54:01 - 16:26:54:01]
Speaker 1
And
[16:26:54:01 - 16:27:02:18]
Speaker 1
it was fascinating. But like if you looked at that in the trajectory of all the other work that I was doing,
[16:27:04:20 - 16:27:05:23]
Speaker 1
spending my life in a bear
[16:27:05:23 - 16:27:07:21]
Speaker 1
costume at 80 plus
[16:27:07:21 - 16:27:09:20]
Speaker 1
degrees, probably as the
[16:27:09:20 - 16:27:38:15]
Speaker 1
outlier, but people saw me without seeing me. I'm hidden in this costume. So, and I'm having conversations about vaccinating your children and why vaccine, which is very ironic now, because vaccines could be pretty polarizing to have that conversation now, at a state fair. And so, a couple of times, I had a handler because I couldn't always see well out of the bear costume. And so,
[16:27:38:15 - 16:27:41:14]
Speaker 1
I'd wander into the world's biggest butter pat.
[16:27:42:18 - 16:27:45:04]
Speaker 1
And it was, but
[16:27:45:04 - 16:27:52:15]
Speaker 1
what people thought that they could say to me, and small children literally thought I was this,
[16:27:53:18 - 16:28:04:06]
Speaker 1
walking on two feet, this bear, but parents would seriously stand there and hold a conversation with me about vaccines. I'm like, dude, it is 90 degrees.
[16:28:05:06 - 16:28:06:11]
Speaker 1
We are at the
[16:28:06:11 - 16:28:12:04]
Speaker 1
Lucas County State Fair. You were talking to a person in a bear costume having a
[16:28:12:04 - 16:28:14:11]
Speaker 1
completely serious conversation about vaccines.
[16:28:14:11 - 16:28:24:18]
Speaker 1
But I was wearing, I had a vest that said Toledo Hospital and it said Healthy Bear. And what was fascinating for me is what people saw or thought that they saw.
[16:28:24:18 - 16:28:28:04]
Speaker 3
Yeah. Gosh, I wonder if there's some pictures of you.
[16:28:28:04 - 16:28:29:06]
Speaker 1
I have a photo.
[16:28:29:06 - 16:28:29:16]
Speaker 3
Somewhere out there.
[16:28:29:16 - 16:28:30:19]
Speaker 1
There are photos.
[16:28:30:19 - 16:28:32:13]
Speaker 3
Like if we Googled Healthy Bear.
[16:28:32:13 - 16:28:34:13]
Speaker 3
Maybe. We might find you.
[16:28:34:13 - 16:28:38:13]
Speaker 1
And I may have some photos on my iPhone for you. My
[16:28:38:13 - 16:28:40:10]
Speaker 1
kids think it is the funniest thing in
[16:28:40:10 - 16:28:50:03]
Speaker 1
the world. There's one with me just kind of holding the bear head and then it's me. But it was what it's like to be seen and not seen.
[16:28:50:03 - 16:28:50:18]
Speaker 2
Yeah.
[16:28:50:18 - 16:28:52:03]
Speaker 1
Because I wasn't
[16:28:52:03 - 16:28:53:16]
Speaker 1
Cheryl, I was Healthy Bear.
[16:28:53:16 - 16:28:55:14]
Speaker 3
Yeah, wild.
[16:28:55:14 - 16:28:57:15]
Speaker 1
Yeah, so that in the,
[16:28:57:15 - 16:29:04:17]
Speaker 1
kind of in my resume may have been an outlier moment. That's definitely one
[16:29:04:17 - 16:29:05:07]
Speaker 1
of those stones.
[16:29:05:07 - 16:29:08:07]
Speaker 3
It's like, well, that one's maybe a little too blue. That's insane. Like, okay.
[16:29:08:07 - 16:29:08:23]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:29:10:01 - 16:29:11:03]
Speaker 1
But it
[16:29:11:03 - 16:29:24:14]
Speaker 1
worked. I mean, I was at a point in my life and early in career where talking to people, I had a lot of trepidation around that, but I could hold my own in the safety of that bear costume.
[16:29:24:14 - 16:29:29:23]
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's kind of funny. Like, it's like, I was just talking with Jordan early about the mask singer.
[16:29:29:23 - 16:29:30:20]
Speaker 1
Oh,
[16:29:30:20 - 16:29:31:13]
Speaker 1
yeah, yeah, yeah.
[16:29:31:13 - 16:29:33:19]
Speaker 3
It's like, it's a little bit like, you know, you kind of let it fly.
[16:29:33:19 - 16:29:35:08]
Speaker 3
Yeah. Nobody knows who you are.
[16:29:35:08 - 16:29:37:14]
Speaker 1
Nobody knows who, yeah. Nobody knows, because I
[16:29:37:14 - 16:29:47:15]
Speaker 1
couldn't ever take that damn head off, so nobody knew who I was. You could have said anything you wanted to say. I really, and hopefully I did not give out vaccine misinformation, so.
[16:29:48:23 - 16:29:49:23]
Speaker 1
I had my talking points.
[16:29:49:23 - 16:29:50:20]
Speaker 3
Nobody would
[16:29:50:20 - 16:29:51:21]
Speaker 3
blame the bear.
[16:29:55:20 - 16:30:11:08]
Speaker 3
One of the things that you mentioned in our conversation, kind of leading up to this, I mentioned Mosaic. You started talking about things, and you said patterns. It takes me to patterns. And I want you to draw the line that kind of connects those two.
[16:30:12:19 - 16:30:29:16]
Speaker 1
I think that, and again, when I went to quilt, and thinking about the quilt, and when my grandmothers would craft these quilts, they never were random pieces of fabric, right? There were quilting patterns that have names,
[16:30:30:16 - 16:30:36:09]
Speaker 1
so evening star was a pattern that my grandmother would use, I mean, they all had these very beautiful names.
[16:30:38:02 - 16:31:08:12]
Speaker 1
All the pieces always looked like a kaleidoscope to me. I could never see the name of what it was supposed to be. There was morning daisy, and I'd be like, where are the daisies? And I would see yellow, and that would call out to me. But my grandmother would take the quilt, and then she would hang it outside on the wash line. I'd have to be at a distance to actually see the pattern. And so it was very much like a kaleidoscope, that it kind of fell into place, or
[16:31:08:12 - 16:31:11:01]
Speaker 1
fell into places that made sense.
[16:31:11:01 - 16:31:17:07]
Speaker 1
But all of a sudden, if you turned the quilt on another side, you would see another pattern develop.
[16:31:18:17 - 16:31:27:19]
Speaker 1
You can tie that to work or relationships with people. Turn it on its side, and you'll see something different.
[16:31:27:19 - 16:31:29:14]
Speaker 1
Or allow yourself to
[16:31:29:14 - 16:31:41:06]
Speaker 1
move back, or move closer, and it will look different, or feel different, or have a different message, or rearranging the pieces to become something else.
[16:31:43:02 - 16:31:46:01]
Speaker 3
I think that was interesting how you got there.
[16:31:47:03 - 16:31:50:01]
Speaker 3
And I was kind of curious to see what you'd say about pattern.
[16:31:52:18 - 16:31:58:17]
Speaker 3
I don't know if pattern, or if this subject evokes any other stories,
[16:31:59:20 - 16:32:21:14]
Speaker 3
where differences came together. I guess where I'm getting to, one of the other subjects we talked was unlikely combinations. Kind of like what comes together to make something beautiful or interesting might be two things that you would not have expected, like jalapeno jelly, or whatever.
[16:32:21:14 - 16:32:24:03]
Speaker 3
That's a good one. Maybe
[16:32:24:03 - 16:32:29:12]
Speaker 3
that's got a small group of fans. But you get where I'm getting at. It's kind of like
[16:32:29:12 - 16:32:31:03]
Speaker 3
there's-- Yes, yes.
[16:32:32:09 - 16:32:47:05]
Speaker 3
I think the idea of unlikely combinations is something that might evoke story in your world, or even a connection to mosaic that people can relate to in their life or work.
[16:32:48:08 - 16:33:04:07]
Speaker 1
I think because I grew up with parents who were very organized and regimented and exacting, that everything had a place.
[16:33:05:21 - 16:33:29:20]
Speaker 1
And I as a person, and maybe this was a reaction to it, I always love when things are slightly askew or rumpled. And I can't remember if I've ever told you the story about Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, and my dad was so excited about that, and he went out and bought a television.
[16:33:31:04 - 16:33:45:02]
Speaker 1
And it turned out that we were the first family on our block to have a color television. And my dad went out and he went to Sears like all dads do, and he came home with his television, and he didn't measure, and it wouldn't go in the front door.
[16:33:45:02 - 16:33:46:02]
Speaker 2
Oh boy.
[16:33:46:02 - 16:33:52:09]
Speaker 1
And so this, right, and so this was the 60s, and it was this massive oak
[16:33:52:09 - 16:34:02:06]
Speaker 1
cabinet, super ugly thing. And he was like, I can't do anything with this. And he sat it on the front porch.
[16:34:03:07 - 16:34:04:18]
Speaker 1
And everybody
[16:34:04:18 - 16:34:10:05]
Speaker 1
came over, and I just, I remember all of the neighbors bringing their lawn chairs.
[16:34:11:10 - 16:34:14:08]
Speaker 1
My mother was just aghast because
[16:34:16:15 - 16:34:19:00]
Speaker 1
television on the front porch, like we don't do that.
[16:34:19:00 - 16:34:23:05]
Speaker 1
Like, you know, that's just next thing to hell in a hand basket is when you have a television on your front porch.
[16:34:23:05 - 16:34:25:22]
Speaker 1
That's like those people who have their washer and dryer on the front porch.
[16:34:27:11 - 16:34:35:09]
Speaker 1
A television on a front porch was so beyond for my parents and the way they lived their lives, but so was a man on the moon.
[16:34:36:19 - 16:34:37:15]
Speaker 1
And so those two
[16:34:37:15 - 16:34:52:15]
Speaker 1
things live in my head. And the other part of the story is that everybody in the neighborhood came to, they sat with these lawn chairs to watch this man walk on the moon.
[16:34:53:18 - 16:35:06:03]
Speaker 1
Later that night, the Wizard of Oz came on. And again, we were the only family on our block with a color television at that point. When the horse of a different color came on, it actually was a horse of a different
[16:35:06:03 - 16:35:08:21]
Speaker 1
color, and it blew people away. Like, it was
[16:35:08:21 - 16:35:12:10]
Speaker 1
bigger than the man on the moon. That's wild.
[16:35:12:10 - 16:35:23:03]
Speaker 1
And so the askewness of a television on a porch and a man walking on the moon and
[16:35:23:03 - 16:35:37:12]
Speaker 1
the horse of a different color being a different color, like those three things, which have nothing to do with one another other than the fact that they happened on the same day and because my father couldn't get a television in the house, like those three things are so connected in my head
[16:35:37:12 - 16:35:40:20]
Speaker 1
of for community and people
[16:35:40:20 - 16:35:59:07]
Speaker 1
coming together. And I remember my mom made the most amazing lemonade and she's pulling out cups and glasses and she's giving everybody lemonade and the taste of that lemonade on the summer night. It's like all of those things that have nothing to do with one another have such meaning for me.
[16:35:59:07 - 16:36:07:14]
Speaker 3
I just, I wonder if that television made it through the front door, like that whole night would be so much less memorable.
[16:36:07:14 - 16:36:07:15]
Speaker 1
It
[16:36:07:15 - 16:36:12:13]
Speaker 1
sat out there for days, actually, too. It sat on the porch for days. I was so embarrassed.
[16:36:14:01 - 16:36:14:23]
Speaker 1
No, my dad
[16:36:14:23 - 16:36:31:06]
Speaker 1
took it back to Sears and I don't know what happened after that. And it was a big thing and I had become accustomed to whatever size televisions were in the 60s, sitting on a television stand, right? And this was so not that because it had its own stand.
[16:36:32:15 - 16:36:37:07]
Speaker 1
But had that not happened, there would have been people in the neighborhood I may have never met.
[16:36:38:07 - 16:36:51:03]
Speaker 1
I had never, having been an only child, I had only ever watched Wizard of Oz by myself or with my parents. And so to watch that with other kids was huge for me.
[16:36:51:03 - 16:36:57:03]
Speaker 1
And so it was shared awe and shared laughter
[16:36:59:01 - 16:37:10:04]
Speaker 1
and kind of the shared neighborhood experience. Like I think that was one of the first times that I felt like, oh, this is what it feels like to be part of something larger that was other than my family.
[16:37:10:04 - 16:37:11:03]
Speaker 3
Wow,
[16:37:11:03 - 16:37:25:17]
Speaker 3
I mean, I kind of feel like this anchors the idea that bringing the unexpected together, bringing unexpected shares together can create really special moments.
[16:37:25:17 - 16:37:26:22]
Speaker 1
And it was such a
[16:37:26:22 - 16:37:44:05]
Speaker 1
random encounter because I remember seeing just people coming down. They saw other people sitting there with lawn chairs. And you remember those old school, like aluminum bent aluminum lawn chairs. Like people just were coming down the street with their lawn chairs and putting them in our yard to sit and watch.
[16:37:44:05 - 16:37:44:19]
Speaker 2
That's really cool.
[16:37:44:19 - 16:37:48:16]
Speaker 1
And it was almost like this yard theater kind of situation.
[16:37:49:21 - 16:37:50:01]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:37:50:01 - 16:37:54:02]
Speaker 3
It feels like that could happen today, but it would be like planned that way.
[16:37:54:02 - 16:37:54:16]
Speaker 1
It
[16:37:54:16 - 16:38:02:06]
Speaker 1
would be planned. And this was because my father didn't measure, the thing was too damn big. And,
[16:38:04:00 - 16:38:08:14]
Speaker 1
but the commonality was we all wanted to see the same thing.
[16:38:08:14 - 16:38:08:22]
Speaker 2
Yeah.
[16:38:08:22 - 16:38:13:15]
Speaker 1
Right? Yeah. And the irony was that when you saw
[16:38:13:15 - 16:38:15:17]
Speaker 1
it, it was in black and white, right?
[16:38:15:17 - 16:38:16:08]
(Laughing)
[16:38:16:08 - 16:38:20:23]
Speaker 1
I was like, there was nothing other than the American flag, I guess, when it got planted, but I don't even really remember that part.
[16:38:20:23 - 16:38:30:02]
Speaker 1
But there were like people in the neighborhood, there was this guy in our neighborhood, such a random offshoot of this. His name was casual Dave.
[16:38:30:02 - 16:38:35:14]
Speaker 1
That's what we called him. I grew up calling him that, had no idea why anybody called him that.
[16:38:35:14 - 16:38:40:23]
Speaker 1
I ended up sitting next to him, casual Dave looks at me and he's like, I like your sneaks.
[16:38:40:23 - 16:38:42:21]
Speaker 1
And I'm like, dude, I
[16:38:42:21 - 16:38:47:09]
Speaker 1
like your pants. And he said, hey, I'm Dave. And I'm like, you're casual
[16:38:47:09 - 16:38:47:21]
Speaker 1
Dave.
[16:38:48:23 - 16:38:48:23]
(Laughing)
[16:38:48:23 - 16:38:49:10]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:38:49:10 - 16:38:51:06]
Speaker 3
That is super random. How do you
[16:38:51:06 - 16:38:53:00]
Speaker 3
remember all this stuff?
[16:38:53:20 - 16:39:34:02]
Speaker 1
This stuff lives in these small corners of my head. Oh no. But it's just so vivid to me. Like I was talking about the bent aluminum, I remember the unfolding, what it felt like to unfold a lawn chair and to sit in it. And then you have the grid marks, because somebody had shorts on, the grid marks on the back of your legs from sitting on a lawn chair and somebody had a barbecue and it was just, it was sensory, right? It was the visual element and it was the sound and it was the taste of the lemonade and the sound of the ice in the glasses.
[16:39:34:02 - 16:39:34:23]
Speaker 3
Yeah.
[16:39:34:23 - 16:39:36:19]
Speaker 3
I mean, do you ever think about,
[16:39:38:17 - 16:39:47:11]
Speaker 3
that that is your memory, sort of like senses and experiences, is not normal.
[16:39:47:11 - 16:39:48:18]
Speaker 3
Like it is heightened.
[16:39:48:18 - 16:39:49:18]
Speaker 1
Is it?
[16:39:49:18 - 16:39:54:14]
Speaker 3
I swear. I mean, your ability to recall moments and tell stories and recall.
[16:39:54:14 - 16:39:55:18]
Speaker 1
It's always
[16:39:55:18 - 16:40:00:07]
Speaker 1
sensorial for me. It's super sensorial for me.
[16:40:00:07 - 16:40:07:03]
Speaker 3
I mean, like, I wonder if that's kind of connected you to design in sort of a deeper way.
[16:40:07:03 - 16:40:07:14]
Speaker 1
I wonder.
[16:40:07:14 - 16:40:08:17]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:40:08:17 - 16:40:10:03]
Speaker 3
Where like
[16:40:10:03 - 16:40:14:14]
Speaker 3
you're attuned to things maybe that other people miss.
[16:40:16:19 - 16:40:19:07]
Speaker 1
It's a good theory, but it's the,
[16:40:20:13 - 16:40:26:23]
Speaker 1
I think I've always been, I've always noticed and been attracted to the smaller elements. So
[16:40:26:23 - 16:40:29:02]
Speaker 1
not the big grand gestures,
[16:40:29:02 - 16:40:49:03]
Speaker 1
but it's the smaller movements or the, the way that a piece of fabric folds and what that looks like. Is it an elegant fold? Is it a harsh fold? What does it feel like in my hand when it's folded? Like, I love those, I love the details.
[16:40:49:03 - 16:40:50:04]
Speaker 3
Do you
[16:40:50:04 - 16:40:53:14]
Speaker 3
know when something happens that you're gonna remember for
[16:40:53:14 - 16:40:54:06]
Speaker 3
a long time?
[16:40:54:06 - 16:40:55:04]
Speaker 1
That's such a good question.
[16:40:56:12 - 16:40:58:07]
Speaker 1
I don't, I don't know.
[16:40:59:12 - 16:41:01:07]
Speaker 3
I've wondered that about myself sometimes.
[16:41:01:07 - 16:41:06:00]
Speaker 1
Like will this stick? Like what, will this stick and where does it stick?
[16:41:06:00 - 16:41:10:17]
Speaker 3
Like I'll be in a moment. I'll be like, I hope I can remember this.
[16:41:10:17 - 16:41:15:01]
Speaker 1
That's almost like being nostalgic
[16:41:16:04 - 16:41:30:05]
Speaker 1
for something that barely happened. Right? At the tip top of it, when you're saying, I hope this stays with me, I hope I can remember this, I hope this lives somewhere. So it's like early nostalgia.
[16:41:30:05 - 16:41:39:16]
Speaker 3
It is, it's like instant nostalgia. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's happened several times and it's funny, it's hard to remember.
[16:41:39:16 - 16:41:41:01]
(Both Laughing)
[16:41:41:01 - 16:41:42:14]
Speaker 3
But I remember saying
[16:41:42:14 - 16:41:48:08]
Speaker 3
that to myself, especially about something funny, like a kid would say, and I'm like, oh, I need to hang on to that.
[16:41:48:08 - 16:41:48:15]
Speaker 1
Yeah,
[16:41:48:15 - 16:42:05:07]
Speaker 1
that is, that's such a great question though. I don't know why some things stay and some things don't and why some things are more vivid than others. And the things for me that stay are not the big things.
[16:42:05:07 - 16:42:05:23]
Speaker 3
It's just
[16:42:05:23 - 16:42:08:10]
Speaker 3
sitting at the kitchen table. Yeah. Yeah.
[16:42:08:10 - 16:42:33:16]
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's like the smell of pancakes on that random morning where a lamp tipped over while my mother was, she was flipping pancakes and flipped a little too hard and then hit a lamp and that, like, so that was not in the, that's a daily household thing, but I remember when that happened and possibly because my mother in my head was this icon of perfection and she was having a Lucille Ball moment.
[16:42:33:16 - 16:42:36:00]
Speaker 1
Like it was so, you
[16:42:36:00 - 16:42:46:03]
Speaker 1
know, kind of whackadoodle and so not her, but the quality of that moment and how at first she seemed embarrassed, but then she laughed.
[16:42:46:03 - 16:42:49:00]
Speaker 1
And I remember the quality of her
[16:42:49:00 - 16:43:00:23]
Speaker 1
laughter in that moment and it showed me in that moment that she could laugh at herself because I had never seen her do that before. My mother had an amazing sense of humor, but I had never seen it directed to herself.
[16:43:00:23 - 16:43:04:07]
Speaker 3
I love hearing your stories. I love hearing your reflections.
[16:43:05:08 - 16:43:07:10]
Speaker 3
So I'm glad we went there.
[16:43:07:10 - 16:43:08:13]
Speaker 3
There's something
[16:43:08:13 - 16:43:20:18]
Speaker 3
I want to revisit, which was, you know, we talked about kinship at the beginning, just sort of everything, right? There were two other words up for word of the year that you did not select. Joy and optimism.
[16:43:22:07 - 16:43:23:04]
Speaker 3
So this, you know--
[16:43:23:04 - 16:43:23:22]
Speaker 1
Joy's been my word
[16:43:23:22 - 16:43:43:19]
Speaker 1
this year. Both of them, joy and optimism definitely have been my words this year. And you've heard me talk about it. I am a firm believer that design is one of, if not the most optimistic professions because it is so grounded in the belief of creating something better.
[16:43:45:02 - 16:43:59:17]
Speaker 1
And not just for the sake of creating something better, but creating something better for human beings. And so there's this intrinsic belief in humanity and then creating for humanity. And then joy is just a necessity, right?
[16:43:59:17 - 16:44:02:06]
Speaker 1
Cook with joy, you design with joy, you
[16:44:02:06 - 16:44:11:17]
Speaker 1
build with joy. Like we need that silver thread of joy in everything that we do. It's not always possible, but you
[16:44:11:17 - 16:44:12:04]
Speaker 1
seek it.
[16:44:12:04 - 16:44:17:09]
Speaker 3
Could you forecast? Like what would be, like, do you have any idea what comes after?
[16:44:18:14 - 16:44:19:08]
Speaker 1
What comes after?
[16:44:19:08 - 16:44:20:09]
Speaker 3
You know, we
[16:44:20:09 - 16:44:23:22]
Speaker 3
have joy, kinship, optimism. We've kind of,
[16:44:25:02 - 16:44:25:13]
Speaker 3
you know.
[16:44:25:13 - 16:44:27:04]
Speaker 1
There is-- Or
[16:44:27:04 - 16:44:27:23]
Speaker 3
do you need to feel?
[16:44:27:23 - 16:44:30:08]
Speaker 1
Do you need to feel there? Yeah, there's a little bit of
[16:44:30:08 - 16:44:50:13]
Speaker 1
feeling, but all of those things lead me somewhere, this is not the word, but it's in the direction of the word. There is an intention or intentionality or thoughtfulness, and so it's, you know, and my words of the year aren't necessarily always connected, but for me, joy, optimism,
[16:44:51:14 - 16:45:16:01]
Speaker 1
and kinship are, there's a connection, there's a bond in all of those words, and so rather than just have them randomly hanging out there, once you have those, once you, I won't say mastering them, but once you have those within you, what's next? And so is there some thoughtfulness, is there some intention about applying those?
[16:45:16:01 - 16:45:18:14]
Speaker 1
Or, ooh, this is an awful word,
[16:45:18:14 - 16:45:22:16]
Speaker 1
leveraging those, using those for yourself and for other people.
[16:45:22:16 - 16:45:25:19]
Speaker 1
I think, I think that might be where I'm going. Yeah, yeah.
[16:45:25:19 - 16:45:36:14]
Speaker 3
And it could be something totally off the wall. I could see that. You know, I could, you know, if you chose to run it back, I mean, that would be okay too. Like, you know, when I got to JSI,
[16:45:38:03 - 16:45:39:15]
Speaker 3
the love what you do motto,
[16:45:41:00 - 16:46:01:19]
Speaker 3
it was fairly new to me, even though I had been around a while there. And I was like, this is it, you know? Like, this captures so much. And I'm at the point where I'm like, I fall harder down that path the longer I hang around. And I'm like, I hope we never change this.
[16:46:01:19 - 16:46:06:18]
Speaker 3
You know, like, I hope it's always that. Because like, I don't know,
[16:46:06:18 - 16:46:14:05]
Speaker 3
you know, and some of it just has to come from within as long as it's true to who you are. But I've kind of,
[16:46:15:14 - 16:46:24:14]
Speaker 3
you know, it's just represented, I think, something we're trying to accomplish for other people. And something that we love about ourselves.
[16:46:24:14 - 16:46:25:15]
Speaker 1
Where did that come from?
[16:46:25:15 - 16:46:27:05]
Speaker 3
So it was actually,
[16:46:27:05 - 16:46:32:14]
Speaker 3
it's funny because Ashley's right over there. And she was in the moment. Oh, she
[16:46:32:14 - 16:46:33:04]
Speaker 1
saw it happen?
[16:46:33:04 - 16:46:35:12]
Speaker 3
Oh, she was part of it. Yeah, way predates me.
[16:46:36:16 - 16:46:41:08]
Speaker 3
But we were designing our DC showroom.
[16:46:42:15 - 16:46:48:16]
Speaker 3
And we had, Gensler DC was involved. And I don't remember who it was at the time. Do you remember?
[16:46:50:05 - 16:46:52:01]
Speaker 3
It was their brand team. So.
[16:46:54:01 - 16:46:54:04]
Speaker 3
Okay,
[16:46:54:04 - 16:47:09:18]
Speaker 3
so it was the Gensler DC brand team was interacting with our headquarters team. And it was Mike Elliott was the CEO at the time. And one of the gentlemen at Gensler said, you know, you guys just love what you do.
[16:47:10:18 - 16:47:11:02]
Speaker 3
And
[16:47:11:02 - 16:47:14:12]
Speaker 3
Mike Elliott, the former CEO just grabbed
[16:47:14:12 - 16:47:21:08]
Speaker 3
it. Grabbed it. And Ashley took it and ran with it. Wow. All of a sudden there's billboards in the office.
[16:47:21:08 - 16:47:24:02]
Speaker 3
Wow. And because if you
[16:47:24:02 - 16:47:34:13]
Speaker 3
knew Mike, I mean, he was that. He brought that spirit, that energy. And it was like, if you love what you do, you can do great things.
[16:47:35:20 - 16:47:35:21]
Speaker 3
And
[16:47:35:21 - 16:47:39:21]
Speaker 3
then it became, so it was very inside facing.
[16:47:41:05 - 16:47:48:16]
Speaker 3
And it's been sort of a mission to say like, let's take this and let's help others, you know, get to that same place.
[16:47:48:16 - 16:47:57:21]
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love that. I mean, that story that he just, he heard those four words and they resonated for him. And you did the motion when you, and I think
[16:47:57:21 - 16:47:59:07]
Speaker 1
I did it the same, to just grabbed
[16:47:59:07 - 16:47:59:16]
Speaker 1
it.
[16:48:00:16 - 16:48:34:07]
Speaker 1
It's that, you know, seeing kind of words in the air and you just grab them and make them your own. It's almost like you can visualize what that felt like. There was probably the temperature changed in the room a little bit for somebody or it clicked for him. It's, you know, the light bulb moment going off. But I love that when people hear something that resonates with them and it either becomes a mantra for them or a motto or words to live by, but what is it about certain words or phrases that just stick?
[16:48:34:07 - 16:49:00:02]
Speaker 3
I can tell you, I feel like you as a leader in this community, that has been one of your gifts that you've given all of us that, you know, whether we've attended your events or we've listened to your calls or we've read your, you know, your, what would we call it, manifestos?
[16:49:00:02 - 16:49:01:03]
Speaker 1
Manifestos, yeah.
[16:49:01:03 - 16:49:09:08]
Speaker 3
You've given us those phrases and those things that people kind of like hang on to and they're like, yeah, that's me.
[16:49:10:13 - 16:49:11:02]
Speaker 3
So I
[16:49:11:02 - 16:49:13:14]
Speaker 3
feel like that is an absolute gift that you have.
[16:49:13:14 - 16:49:16:09]
Speaker 1
Oh, thank you, thank you. I mean, I love words.
[16:49:17:15 - 16:49:18:07]
Speaker 1
Words are power.
[16:49:19:20 - 16:49:29:18]
Speaker 3
Any other words or questions that I should ask you that would evoke the next story or idea that you have?
[16:49:29:18 - 16:49:31:18]
Speaker 1
Ooh, I don't, I can't, I,
[16:49:32:20 - 16:49:34:17]
Speaker 1
I got nothing, Doug.
[16:49:35:18 - 16:49:36:16]
Speaker 1
You got everything.
[16:49:37:18 - 16:49:38:15]
Speaker 3
Hey, you've
[16:49:38:15 - 16:49:39:11]
Speaker 3
been fantastic.
[16:49:40:19 - 16:49:57:18]
Speaker 3
You know, I normally don't do this, but Ashley's been listening like intently and I trust her, I trust her. She's actually given me some of these, some of the questions around listening that I've positioned your way and I kind of want to ask her like what, you know, what, is there anything you would ask Cheryl right now
[16:49:57:18 - 16:49:59:19]
Speaker 3
sitting in my chair?
[16:49:59:19 - 16:50:01:19]
Speaker 1
Have you ever heard of Wabi Sabi?
[16:50:01:19 - 16:50:03:10]
Speaker 1
Wabi Sabi, absolutely.
[16:50:03:10 - 16:50:20:07]
Speaker 4
When you guys were talking about mosaic, as you've been dipping into mosaic and how the collective is so much more powerful than the individual and you know, like Eric was talking about, this Lego art that had kind of white Lego, one red Lego.
[16:50:20:07 - 16:50:21:06]
Speaker 1
And you were
[16:50:21:06 - 16:50:23:11]
Speaker 1
freaking out, come on, God, the red Lego messed
[16:50:23:11 - 16:50:26:06]
Speaker 4
everything up, but no, that imperfection
[16:50:26:06 - 16:50:26:07]
Speaker 4
just came in.
[16:50:26:07 - 16:50:26:21]
Speaker 1
Yeah.
[16:50:26:21 - 16:50:27:17]
Speaker 4
And I don't know
[16:50:27:17 - 16:50:35:20]
Speaker 4
if you have any comments about Wabi Sabi and just imperfection making things perfect, so I think that's what we're trying to convey with mosaic.
[16:50:37:02 - 16:50:38:20]
Speaker 1
It makes me, yeah, that's-- So let
[16:50:38:20 - 16:50:40:00]
Speaker 3
me actually just
[16:50:40:00 - 16:50:47:00]
Speaker 3
repeat a little bit that, or you should just come in here. You should just come in here and just get on this microphone. It'd be a really cool impromptu moment.
[16:50:48:04 - 16:50:50:23]
Speaker 3
Jordan's like, no, don't do that. That's mine, if you wanna do it.
[16:50:52:01 - 16:51:09:19]
Speaker 3
So yeah, I guess the question was, you know, sometimes there's that, you know, the red Lego among a bunch of white Legos and people's attention go to that, draws a certain energy and attracts a mindset,
[16:51:09:19 - 16:51:10:20]
Speaker 3
so--
[16:51:10:20 - 16:51:18:13]
Speaker 4
It's not the imperfection, the imperfection makes something helpful, like the collective makes it just beautiful.
[16:51:18:13 - 16:51:20:08]
Speaker 1
Well, it makes you
[16:51:20:08 - 16:51:21:19]
Speaker 1
think, are we drawn,
[16:51:23:05 - 16:51:38:00]
Speaker 1
and maybe this is like extrovert, introvert, or Sagittarius, Capricorn, I don't know, maybe they're typologies of people, are we drawn more toward imperfection, or are we drawn more toward perfection? I think perfection scares people because,
[16:51:39:04 - 16:51:58:17]
Speaker 1
some people, right, I can't get that, or that's too perfect, and so are we more comfortable, or are some people more comfortable with imperfection? And I sometimes wonder, like, so that one red Lego, it's probably discordant and jarring for some people, like they wanna fix it
[16:51:58:17 - 16:52:13:02]
Speaker 1
right away, whereas there are others who'd be like, that's beautiful right there, I love that, I'm drawn to that, that makes me feel more human, that is evoking, you know, a flaw that is actually really beautiful, and so, you
[16:52:13:02 - 16:52:17:22]
Speaker 1
know, now does it become one of the, are there two camps of, you know, are you wabi or are you sabi, right, are
[16:52:17:22 - 16:52:19:18]
Speaker 1
there, you know, are there two camps of
[16:52:19:18 - 16:52:29:22]
Speaker 1
people out there, those of us who crave imperfection, or want it, or seek it, or love it, and those of us who go in the perfection camp.
[16:52:29:22 - 16:52:33:11]
Speaker 1
I feel like-- Perfection, you mean the imperfection. Yeah, oh, perfection,
[16:52:33:11 - 16:52:34:20]
Speaker 1
yeah, that too, yes.
[16:52:34:20 - 16:52:35:19]
Speaker 3
I
[16:52:35:19 - 16:52:37:02]
Speaker 3
feel like there's gonna be,
[16:52:38:11 - 16:52:47:15]
Speaker 3
like that will eventually find its way into your word of the year. Probably. Like because, because of the impact of AI, I mean, let's be honest, there's, you know,
[16:52:49:11 - 16:52:51:02]
Speaker 3
there's a sea of perfection,
[16:52:51:02 - 16:52:55:12]
Speaker 3
there's a sea of accessibility to perfection, and,
[16:52:55:12 - 16:53:14:16]
Speaker 3
you know, we will start to crave more of the imperfections that can make something not even better, but just more soulfully connected to who we are, that can evoke an emotion that perfection otherwise couldn't.
[16:53:14:16 - 16:53:42:01]
Speaker 1
I have got another parent story, so my, both my parents, neither of whom were musical, loved music, absolutely loved music, and my dad had a vast collection of albums, and they liked jazz, they liked classical, they, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, you name it, they loved it, and I remember the very first album
[16:53:43:07 - 16:54:00:00]
Speaker 1
by Aretha Franklin that I heard, I was sitting with my dad, we're sitting on the floor, this is super 60s, we were listening to the Hi-Fi, right, and it was making, and I loved her voice, and I loved the graveliness of her voice,
[16:54:00:00 - 16:54:14:08]
Speaker 1
and my dad, I noticed he was getting very agitated, I'm like, what's wrong? He's like, the quality of this record, he's like, it is making me crazy, it's scratchy and it's scratchy, well, the album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,
[16:54:14:08 - 16:54:56:10]
Speaker 1
and there is a Muscle Shoals sound, but old albums, you would sometimes get these little clicks and cricks, and it was part, it was the imperfection of the music and of the production and of the sound. I loved it, my dad, who probably tended to be more of a fluid jazz band, jazz record, jazz in and of itself is imperfect, but the recording of jazz, I think, for him, it had to be crystal clear, Hi-Fi, high fidelity, but I loved the, right, like that Americana, gutsy, bluesy, imperfect sound.
[16:54:56:10 - 16:54:57:00]
Speaker 3
Yeah,
[16:54:57:00 - 16:54:57:13]
Speaker 3
yeah,
[16:54:58:13 - 16:55:02:20]
Speaker 3
I think if that sound had
[16:55:04:16 - 16:55:10:22]
Speaker 3
a physical representation, you know, like what kind of art would that look like,
[16:55:10:22 - 16:55:14:18]
Speaker 3
what kind of space would that, or clothes would you make of that? It'd be,
[16:55:14:18 - 16:55:18:07]
Speaker 3
you know, like it's kind of interesting to translate that.
[16:55:18:07 - 16:55:18:18]
Speaker 1
Yeah,
[16:55:18:18 - 16:55:32:12]
Speaker 1
and it, would it be like broad strokes of chalk or charcoal on torn paper? It's just like with books, I love a deckled edge, so an imperfect edge,
[16:55:32:12 - 16:55:35:03]
Speaker 1
yeah, and so, and as we're
[16:55:35:03 - 16:55:42:00]
Speaker 1
sitting here, is that a real fire? I hear crackles. It's not a real fire. So it sounds like real crackling.
[16:55:42:00 - 16:55:45:23]
Speaker 3
Yeah, that connects me to the same, the charcoal.
[16:55:45:23 - 16:55:47:17]
Speaker 1
Yes, yeah, and
[16:55:47:17 - 16:55:48:23]
Speaker 1
there's no pattern
[16:55:48:23 - 16:55:58:18]
Speaker 1
to the crackle, right? It's very, you know, it's not sequential, it's just this intermittent crackling, right? It's like, I think it's why people are attracted to rain,
[16:56:00:06 - 16:56:14:03]
Speaker 1
patterning on a tin roof or the roof of your car or something, but yeah, there's something about the imperfection of touch and sound. I guess there are imperfect foods,
[16:56:14:03 - 16:56:16:14]
Speaker 1
gooey, runny foods.
[16:56:18:01 - 16:56:24:23]
Speaker 1
You know, so instead of perfect French cooking, you get something imperfect. I make those every
[16:56:24:23 - 16:56:28:04]
Speaker 1
night. Yes, I am an imperfect cook myself.
[16:56:30:00 - 16:56:30:01]
(Laughing)
[16:56:30:01 - 16:56:30:07]
Speaker 1
But
[16:56:30:07 - 16:56:43:07]
Speaker 1
it's, I don't know, I feel like imperfect allows you to discover more. Perfect does its thinking for you, but imperfect allows your curiosity to soar a little bit.
[16:56:43:07 - 16:56:44:07]
Speaker 2
Yeah,
[16:56:44:07 - 16:56:45:06]
Speaker 2
yeah, I agree.
[16:56:48:04 - 16:56:50:06]
Speaker 3
Cheryl, you're great, you're always great.
[16:56:51:13 - 16:56:53:17]
Speaker 3
Thank you for coming to see me.
[16:56:53:17 - 16:56:55:09]
Speaker 1
Yeah, love it.
[16:56:55:09 - 16:56:55:23]
Speaker 2
Yeah.
[16:56:55:23 - 16:57:07:10]
Speaker 1
All right, now this is gonna take me on a whole journey around imperfections within perfection and not pursuit of either, but
[16:57:16:16 - 16:57:19:08]
Speaker 5
Thanks for joining me here on Love What You Do.
[16:57:19:08 - 16:57:19:08]