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- [00:01]
Radi Malinich
Before we start today's episode, let me tell you about my latest adventure introducing Lux Coffee Co. A speciality grade coffee company inspired by creativity and creatives. The debut range is sourced from some of the best farms in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Africa offering beautiful flavors and notes. Our single origins and house blends are roasted every Monday for next day shipping. Visit luxcoffee.co.uk and use code podcast for 15% off your first order. And yes, there's exceptional merge too. Lux Coffee Company is where art meets exceptional coffee.
- [00:50]
Matt Hart
But I had this line that said look, we can use the process of ideation, we can understand process and we can use the desire to innovate a better idea and use that as a touchstone to have people reconnect with their innate creativity through an experience of doing it. So give them skills but more give them the experience that they can be part of this. And as we do multiple projects and run those processes, we can look to capture that as a way of working.
- [01:22]
Radi Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinich and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests shared their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. How they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. Are you ready? My guest today has spent 20 plus years sparking creativity in world leading organizations. He unlocks business and brand performance for clients and pays forward his experience to nurture the global problem solvers of tomorrow. Leading a band of outer minded thinkers, pursuing an empathetic approach to brand and fan innovations using agile methods that combine human creativity with cutting edge data science. In our conversation we explore his journey from being a forest ranger to global innovator with topics of business, innovation, personal creativity, mindful practices and addressing modern challenges in leadership and change. It's my pleasure to introduce Matt Hart. Nice to have you on the show. How are you doing?
- [03:09]
Matt Hart
Oh, it's fantastic to be here. Thank you Adam. Yeah, I'm doing good. You're the top of the world and I'm down the bottom of the world. This is how we Roll now.
- [03:15]
Radi Malinich
Right you are, absolutely. So for those people who may have never heard of you, can you please introduce yourself who you are and what you do?
- [03:23]
Matt Hart
Sure, yeah. My name is Matt Hart, founder of something called Better Ideas Fast. It's a bit of an oxymoron and that actually the real value is slower, more considered. But yeah, husband, father, uncle, brother, et cetera. And 25 years in the world from London doing global innovation, becoming an innovator then doing global innovation. And in Covid, we made the jump back down here with our couple of kids to give them an experience of New Zealand life. And at some point we'll be back up there.
- [03:49]
Radi Malinich
So I want to know, how does one become an innovator? How do you do that? What's your background?
- [03:54]
Matt Hart
The first thing I always say in these sort of things is innovators aren't born, they're made. You know, it's my belief and a lot of my work is that everyone has some kind of value to add to innovation. My own story, of course, I didn't know anything about that. Never heard that word. Wouldn't have said. If you'd asked me in my late teens whether I was a creative person or a creative human, I would have said, no, no, I'm not. I didn't have that confidence. And that's one of the things that really lights me up. I was pretty unconventional. I didn't think I was bright enough to go to university. Back in my day at school, you were either on your way to professional career standard, lawyer, doctor, et cetera, or you went into trades, apprenticeships, plumbers, carpenters. I knew I fell in the middle and I just. It's one of my driving things. I had no idea. I didn't have purpose. I didn't know what I was going to do. I'd never heard anything about purpose or north stars or anything like that. I was just rummaging around and actually. But I love the environment, I'm from New Zealand, et cetera. And so I became a forest ranger. And so I often say my story is one from going from being a forest ranger to becoming a global innovator and then trying to bring those two worlds together in terms of environmental care, global care with value add ideas and creativity and innovation. Anyway, through my 20s I bounced around. We could talk about that, but long story short is I bounced around lots of different things. And I summarized that by I was looking for something to do and a reason to do it. I had that inner drive that there must be something out there for me where I could really believe in it and connect with it and become great at it. And ended up in London at about 26, 27 and again, a long story short and lots of luck, we can talk about that. Do you create your own luck or does it just fall to you? I ended up in an innovation agency so I had no idea that you could have a job having ideas and supporting people's creativity and growth. We can talk about the story through that agency but that's where I found myself. They said to me that I had to prove myself, I was new for them. Nothing in my what I had done said that I could go and do this job. One of the founders took a bet on me and I had to prove myself in what was called inventing. They called it inventing. So you were working mainly with FMCG clients, fast moving consumer goods brands, you were doing innovation work. Mostly we were a brainstorming company test and develop concepts. Anyway, I found my feet. I did those six months he says stay here. But I got really interested in people so I moved to a slightly different part. I proved myself and that got me going.
- [06:20]
Radi Malinich
How does a forest ranger decides to go to London, end up in an innovation agency?
- [06:25]
Matt Hart
The quick story is I was living all around the country doing this, I guess it was called New Zealand Forest Service. It was an internship, bounced all around. I was either supposed to become an actual forest ranger managing natural or commercial forestry in New Zealand but all of my mates had gone to university and so whilst I was moving around these jobs I went and saw them and had such an amazing time. I went this is where I've got to be. So I said to the forest Service, can I go and study? And they said no. So I said I'm going to go anyway. And I ended up doing at university I found my way into as a surfer. I really enjoyed the ocean so I thought I'll become a marine scientist so I can keep surfing with my job. So I did that as it relates to my story and what I did was that scientific method, hypothesis, exploration, discovery, that's what underpins innovation essentially. So I really, my brain really liked that way of looking at problems, opportunities, et cetera. So I did that scientific. I didn't become a marine scientist. I then just through those twenties of being very, let's say peripatetic of I did design, I did film, I talk about doing a year and a job and then moving on to the next thing. And so I hustled and learned to do, to learn something, traded it forward, said that's not it. I'll go and do something else. That's not it. What I didn't realize was that I was baking in those early skills of insight, observation. Have an idea, try. It doesn't really fit with me, but I'll take all of that experience forward and do it again. And I think that's what they saw in me when I had these early freelance jobs in London. I had a lot of family in London, so I'm probably a big family. A lot of them had traveled and I'd come to the end of what I was doing here in New Zealand, either set my own thing up or get out in the world. I was surfing, mountain biking, really enjoying what New Zealand offers and all my other mates had done their oe, their two years in London and come back. So when it came time for me to go, it was a one way ticket.
- [08:16]
Radi Malinich
What an amazing story. So with your focg, with your innovation agency, you are thrown with your myriad of skills and experiences in this melting pot. I'm sure that in your age of 25, 26, the dreaded imposter syndrome wasn't really exactly a thing, was it? Because if I could speak for myself, which I'll keep to minimum, is that when you really are focused on work, you don't doubt yourself. Like you've got a task. You have to go from A to B or A to Z and find your little bumps in the road and just obstacles and which we need to do it. It doesn't even matter how good you do it because you are focused on actually finishing this. Like good is better than perfection. Let's get this done. So how did you feel in that role where you ran out of money, there was no surfing, you were in London and you were looking after FMCG clients.
- [09:06]
Matt Hart
I don't know if I'd have called it imposter syndrome. I was definitely blagging it and Kiwis back then, both. There was a bit of cultural equity that we were known to be innate problem solvers. Give it a go. We had permission. In a culture like London, you spoke with a flat accent and swallowed your vowels and so you weren't. There was no sort of class thing there. So you were liberated to just give things a go. And I got very lucky in terms of I could tell you so many stories that broke for me and because I was naive. Right. And that's a lot about the innovation you need to not know. Right. When you start a project, it's all about the ignorance of not knowing and that's how I've ended up bouncing around a really broad, diverse set of organizations. But for instance, I'd heard about a marketing consultancy and I love the idea of trying to get into brands. So I sent in a CV and they just denied me, right. I think it was just on early email, whatever it was, maybe it was a mobile. They said, you've got no experience. And I was so affronted that as a naive Kiwi washing up in London, they didn't even want to meet and have a coffee and a chat. Not even that I'd get a job or could get a job. But it was like, hang on, you haven't even met me, how can you. So I rung them up and I got the boss on the phone and I said to her, I'm really surprised that you don't even want to meet. You're so naive, right? You don't even want to meet so that we could talk about what might be possible. And she was so taken aback, she goes, well, you better come in. Can you come in this afternoon? So I went in the afternoon and it was a whole thing. Anyway, I left with a job that afternoon in a place called. I don't know if you remember, there was an early supermarket chain called Safeway. I didn't know anything about Grocery or Safe Chain or marketing. I didn't know anything about marketing, but I had to go there and I did a job and it was freelance and it was two weeks and I earned some money and suddenly you're on their books and you do a job and they sort you out the next one. I ended up in Ray Ban of all places, bouncing around these different companies and this is how the connection made. There was one of the senior sales VPs there, we eventually got bought by Luxottica and she said, listen, you're raw, but I want to connect you with a friend of mine who's Goth, an innovation agency. And I met him and we, we more. It was less about the skills and what I had done. We more had a spiritual connection, a soulful connection about the world, about what ideas meant in the world, about potentials, possibilities. And he's the one who brought me in and backed me and said to his partners, I really want this guy to come in and. But you're gonna have to prove yourself.
- [11:26]
Radi Malinich
I love your point about picking up a phone and so what do you mean? Because when you think about it, we, I think we've moved on in a good way, that you don't necessarily need a degree to do the job you necessarily need a C, I think cv, I think should be just like a calling card, like an expanded ID. Because most of the CVs that you see these days, I'm really sorry, but I don't really give a shit that you worked somewhere for this for two weeks and you did, because everyone's bigging themselves up. Like on a cv. Everyone's a genius. You know what? Show me your work. Are you a person? Are you not? Where do you live? And show me actually what you want to change in the world. Whereas in the old world of cvs, it's just like I'm generalizing about. Everyone's lying, everyone's picking themselves up and you go, pile of paper. That's just okay. As you said, like, being seen can change everything. And I can always vouch and have a perfect testament for people who work in my company. That is the ones who never went away looking for a job that didn't exist. Those ones got a job because they actually proved that they really wanted it. Because it's easy just to carpet bomb in the world with your CV or with your emails and not really worry about that.
- [12:30]
Matt Hart
On that point. I do a lot of work now to translate sort of enterprise, global enterprise, innovation, et cetera, into programs for young people. The one that inspires me around what you just said then was this. We call it BIF101. It's like the 101 principles of problem solving, creativity, change making for sort of 18 to 25 the senior college years through the first, second job. And the reason I do that is those kids don't have a cv, right? There's nothing to put on it. So they're trying to tell a really compelling story about themselves. But I've spoken to lots of their educators, parents, et cetera. In our world, we're moving into, if they can say, I'm a problem solver and I've learned the skills of problem solving, and here's my sort of short example of the sponsored problem I had to go at solving and what that meant and what our team came up with and where we took it to. If they can show that to a potential employer, they will get the job, right? Because that's what employers are looking for.
- [13:24]
Radi Malinich
Let's talk about Biff, because Biff is an incredible beast. And how did it come about? How did you do it? Like, as you say, you're a global innovator, you work with all sorts of companies, education, build your own program. So let's talk about the sort of foundation, what it is what it does or how we can help people.
- [13:40]
Matt Hart
Yeah, let's not get lost in this. Just shut me up when you want to. But what I did, what I was privileged to learn and be introduced to Innovation Agency. So I spent about two years there. I had some health issues through it, et cetera. I had brain surgery. So I think that really did something about. Because my Biff is underpinned by neuroscience of creativity and what that relates to everyone. So the problem you're solving is most people don't believe or have confidence in their innate creativity anymore. They don't understand what it means. And I'm like, if you have a brain, you are a creative human, right? So let's start there. So it's not if you are, it's how you are. But I got to that through what I call the three disciplines of innovation. If we go technical for a bit at that agency, I learned first what they called inventing, but that's new product development, brand services, product solutioning for the marketplace. So doing that. Then I got really curious and interested in why couldn't people do what we were doing and what are those personal barriers to creative performance, et cetera, et cetera. So I started training and writing and developing training programs to have people understand that personal creativity applied together through innovation process. And then, of course, once you start doing that, people work. What you're trying to do is capture that as new capability in the culture. So we started doing cultural transformation. So taking what is essentially innovation methodologies and skills and pointing them in for marketplace value and pointing those back in on the organization and go, how do we innovate a culture here that really unleashes people to unlock and unleash new value through ideas? So I had this Biff became this line when I went out, we should talk about this. Because my first real client was in music with BBC Radio 1. And that sort of put me on the map. But I had this line that said, look, we can use the process of ideation, we can understand process, and we can use the desire to innovate a better idea and use that as a touchstone to have people reconnect with their innate creativity through an experience of doing it. So give them skills, but more, give them the experience that they can be part of this. And as we do multiple projects and run those processes, we can look to capture that as a way of working. Because ultimately it's that way of working that becomes the defining advantage around what we can add in the world. And you're taking people on the journey to becoming a high performing culture with amazing creative people who are innovating brilliant ideas. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [16:07]
Radi Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration all the Way to Career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show Notes Any day should be a new book day. Tell me so what you describe in here from if I've got my timings right or my I didn't things wrap properly so this is about your early 30s, is that right? So to me this is quite mature thinking. Most people in their 30s are like, I still don't know how these things work and I still don't know what I'm doing in a way. And you just said you were working out programs how to create better ideas, how to actually change culture and asking how to sort of break down the barriers or why people couldn't do what you could do. I guess you say if you got a brain, you're creative, but is it that people are waiting for permission or is it people that are looking for opportunity? Do they not step out of their safe zones? But you are in your early 30s, you're working on this program and you're working with BBC. How does that even happen? Like how do you see the opportunity?
- [17:37]
Matt Hart
There's so much to unpack there, Ranham. It's networks, it's connections, it's opportunities. It's a lot of luck or you know, doing the work for luck to happen. Actually I think one part of it though, and I never really saw this in myself until I looked back, is in my early 20s I had a lot of, let's say, mental health issues. I had to do a lot of work to heal myself and to overcome some really deep personal life challenges. And so that suddenly I embrace an unconventional way of living. I stepped out of that cause I often talk with young people about saying the conventional path set you up for one thing. And I looking at the data, it's about 30% of young people are attracted to that linear career. Well, career doesn't really exist anymore, but a linear pathway, doing what their parents did under a bit of pressure to go be and have a very secure life for the rest of 60, 70 kids. And I was certainly one of those. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was motivated to do something. I was driven to find out what it was. So that comes from my own story and then having to overcome those personal challenges. And then so when I went rolling that forward, when I set up my own thing, I wasn't really sure what that thing was going to be. But I was really attracted to what became Biff curiosity, being really curious in the world. I was driven by that stimulus to learn and explore. I was driven. So innovation can break down into 0 to 1. So something doesn't exist and it needs to exist or one to a thousand and beyond. Okay, you've got the thing now that's about incremental growth. As an innovator. I was attracted to the first one to the 0 to 1. I just wired for that and I through the agency. So I got very lucky. I'd made connections. The luck of having someone like BBC Radio 1 ring was that again I was a Kiwi. I'd embrace this unconventional way that I was and going to be and continued to do that. So when I sat down with the board or the call controllers, but let's say the CEO and his team of BBC Radio 1, this is how I did it. I said to him, I don't know anything about radio. I haven't worked a music innovation, but I know a little bit about innovation and unlocking things. So if you were up for working it out together, then I'm really up for it. But if you want me to come with a pre packaged solution and just do that, whatever, I can't give you that because I don't know music, I don't know your domain, but I know and can trust that what I've got around ideation, people, culture, we can go on a journey together. And we did. And so it was a knockout example of embracing something called obliquity. Right, so this is the problem. Here's the vision of where we need to get to. But often going from directly from A to B isn't the right way to do it. So that sort of got me on the path to developing an accelerated approach to innovation. So do the first right thing, understand the impact of that, be observant, surface the next right thing to do and then go and do that. And we put on something like 4 or 5 million listeners. And so everyone at the end of the BBC Radio 1 story said who did that? And that put me on the mat. Suddenly I was in music. I'm known for pioneering an approach to fandom, and so that's what I still do. I still get up and down around the world working with artists, working with big, the music majors, and then taking that fandom approach. So the shorthand is have customers, not fans, and starting to take it into brand land and sustainability. And looking at these places and the challenges around customer acquisition and loyalty and value, Fandom is a much better way of understanding people's behavioral propensity to engage with what you're about than trying to fight for customers.
- [21:13]
Radi Malinich
I think I found lingering. You mentioned mental health problems in your early 20s, and I think overcoming mental health problems gives us, or even understanding mental health problems gives us an immense superpower to understand the world around you. Because when you look in without, you feel like you're looking from the only lens and everybody's looking at you like you're the loneliest person in the world. But when you understand actually what's happening and you give it more maturity about your conditions and how potentially you can overcome them or live with them or manage them, gives you, I think, immense superpower and in a way, makes you mature a bit faster or being bolder. So what you describe are like a way of, actually, I'm going to help others. I want to actually use this sort of human connection. It's a fantastic example because for me, that didn't happen for many, much, much later in my life, and it's almost fairly recently, like in my 40s, I realized that my life was a shit show for first 20 years. But you're picking up these pieces and you feel like, okay, okay, what can I do with all of this? What can I do? Like, how? And you start spotting all these patterns and all these signals. We can enrich people's lives in a way that they didn't even know how to do it. And I love your fact that you came to the meeting, you said, I'm laughing about music, because we seem to live in this sort of specialist society in a way where people say, like, well, you know, if you work on beer branding, you only should work on a beer branding. If you work on this. This is your thing. Whereas I see it from a musical sort of lingo. I see it as being like a producer, like, you can produce anything. It's a music. This is your shape. But whatever you put in a mix, you make it work. Because the principles in the same way are the same. But if it's got a different flavor, it's got A different flavor. You're working with BBC. Fascinating. Must have been one of those listeners at that time.
- [22:55]
Matt Hart
BBC at that time. I'd like to come back to that because actually that's where we're taking Biff. So we can explore this notion of. Because I've been trying to reach for a metaphor because you have to make something that really sticks with people, right. We've come up with this idea of this iceberg. And of course I've been working as an innovator and a commission to grow new value and marketing. And what strikes me as bleedingly obvious is that sort of organizations and leaders forget that value can only come from within people. It's not going to come from within anywhere else. So where Biff started was the difference between the expectation that new value would come and the correct investment to unleash that value from the people it only can come from, which is deep inside individuals and teams. Right. So that became really interesting. I'm really fascinated that at that waterline level of the difference between what you want to do in the world, you in the world, your ideas, your ventures, your business, the business you're working for brand and that value you're trying to add there. It's about creativity is actually one of the best gateways to dive down into that deep value within. Right? And that's the experience I try to give people through Biff because they've never been there. They're closed to that space. And in terms of performance and insights and ideas and questions and curiosity and empathy and deep understanding and all that great stuff from which brilliant new thoughts and ideas come, below that level is deeper ideas about ourselves, who we are, who we really want to become, what we really want to work on and the challenges and anxieties and doubts and fears and wishes and hopes and dreams and all of that beautiful essence of our humanness is there. And so if you can take people down to there and they can confidently reconnect with it, play with it, nurture it, develop, then you can start to surface that and release that. And now we have permission to do that. So it's no longer I work here and I look after my mental health here. These organizations struggling to bring Gen Z in and create whole nurturing places of work, embracing all the multi hyphenate that now has new permission to speak directly to that in that you can use this thing that no one really understands that they know is important, called creativity. And you can apply it productively and performatively, but mostly it starts with yourself and then surface that and apply that in the world. And that's what I ended up been having the privilege to do for lots of brands and organizations around the world. So take the organization and the brand on a journey, but know that we would only get that value that I was being paid to deliver or support by also taking people deep back into who they are, how they are and how they can work with their innate creativity.
- [25:44]
Radi Malinich
How do you instigate the evolution and innovation in the organization? How does it work?
- [25:50]
Matt Hart
So it's mostly you get asked in to explore a problem, they know they have some kind of problem. So you're either being asked to tactically try and solve the problem that they're starting to know they have, or there's more. So you know, what is it? Two sides of burning platform or there's a massive opportunity that we could go and grab if we could be smart enough to grab it. But I always start with that chat when I'm sitting with CEOs or C suite people and you're just riffing around the nature of business and AI and the speed of markets and all of those things. And so you ultimately get to that conversation once you get through the hygiene of how they're going, as you go, are you getting the best or better ideas from your people? Are you getting that creativity coming through? And most leaders will tell you, I'm not. We're not seeing that. We're not getting it even in the cost of living crisis. And they're reducing costs and getting rid of people, even the people they're left with. Are you getting the best from those people? And most of them will be honest with you and say, we're not. I know we could be doing better. And you go, do you know how to do better? And you go, I'm not really. Not really. Because it could be marketing, it could be brand, it could be working in this investment over here. HR is often the loss division in an organization. They're the hirers and fires. They're not really seen as the idea of a resource of people there. How do we really grab it and do more with it? And then you go, look, what if we could. So it's a hypothesis. What if we could unlock and apply some of this, but actually have them deliver that value better and faster, though you're ticking boxes for what they're interested in going, I want my problem solved and I want it turned around as fast as it can be. So we can point towards where we really want to be going. And that could be internal or he might Go. It's external, it's the threats. It's this idea of I speak to a lot of these senior people. It's we know we need to disrupt ourselves before some kids in a basement somewhere working on AI are coming to do it for us. But around most things in creativity and innovation, not enough people know where to start or how to start.
- [27:53]
Radi Malinich
He said a fantastic question. Do you know how to do better? And do you know how to do better? I feel it should be almost like a sort of daily mantra when we wake up. Do you know how to do better? What can I do better? How can I see? How can I on that, on that pain that we all on the same sort of level. No one's on the axis going up because as a humans we just got in our stories in a different, different location but we are all on the same platform. No, how can, how can I do better? How can we grow? Like, how can I look at this? Because it, it does take a little bit of an inner peace and a healthy pinch of curiosity to be thinking there is a possibility to know more. Because the people that you describe in it doesn't always seem like you go into a place that wants you to be motivated. Like basically they're like expecting you to run 100 meter brain raise as best as possible. But you've got no shoes, nothing's been provided. Bring your own stuff. Are you ready? Go. Wait a minute. You pay me to run a hundred meters but you're not helping me to do it. So I think from someone who owns a company of DS has been employing people to do it. To do everything properly is hard work. It can be complicated. It doesn't have to be hard work. You've got more than one thing to worry about. So when you go big organizations and you know that are better like how do you create a nourishing environment whilst you drive in a car? You're building the car whilst you're driving it. In a way it just does how it feels. Do you know how to do better? Do you. Do you often get honest answer? Do people put hands up?
- [29:19]
Matt Hart
Oh, totally. If you're often the leader of a business or a CEO, they're often alone with the challenges because they're supposed to be the leader. There's a lot of pressure on them, et cetera. You often through a program once you get going you can often become their sidekick, their mate, their sounding board. And that's a very privileged trusted. It's almost a sacred space to be because you really get an insight into what they're feeling, their hope, then you're trying to help translate that into performative practices within the organization. But I think in general, what happens is this is where I always come back to. In the absence of knowing the way this actually works and this alignment and this deep access to this well of creativity, you're talking about the daily motivation to do better. All of us have some kind of lived experience of spontaneous moments when it feels like there's potential for more. We all have that. But what we, in the absence of being trained in it or knowing all the skills to do it, we can't make that a daily practice. To know that can become a performative part of ourselves, that we can tap that space where new possibilities have always been created and have that into a discipline and a behavior and a resource that we can use every day. And that's where BIF now sits. That's where we're taking it. So that's less about. Yes, we still do projects in the world and you have a defined thing and it's a brand or it's an artist or whatever, and we're just working through it. But what I'm really interested in is how are those people connecting meaningfully with what that project is about on an intrinsic level and having that lived experience on a daily basis that I can add new value. And I am confident enough that I can, and I can lean into the spontaneous thoughts and ideas that I am having when I have them. And I was thinking about this chat. You go, what is the barrier? What is the main barrier to all of that happening, either for an individual, for a team, for an organization, for a leadership, et cetera. And I always talk about the one small discipline where this all falls down and where, sadly, too many people just cannot overcome. And so we're now, I'm now trying to innovate. Using AI into this space to help is that everyone knows they have had a spontaneous thought or an idea that feels full of potential at some point. It's a working part of who we are. We're wired for it. And when you're in different states of flow or whatever that looks like, those things you do that make you feel creative, it comes. The one small discipline is you gotta catch that when it happens. You gotta notice that I'm actually thinking and feeling and being in a different way. And there's a moment of new value, a solution, an idea, a sense of possibility if you can capture it. However that is sensorially for you. You write it, you see it, you hear it. Whatever, and you share it. So that's that collaborative. Suddenly you've done multiple layers of things. You've recognized a moment that it happened. You've known that if you don't capture it in that moment, which is very ephemeral because it's surfacing is very raw. It's very hard to articulate. You have an embodied experience of something. How do you capture it? And then you've shared it. So you've been confident enough to go, I'm having an idea. There's something in us. I don't know where it could go, so I want to share it with you because together we can make it better. You're on your way. But most people don't do that. They go, I must remember that. Oh, there was something in that. It's a fleeting example of something there. They don't capture it. The moment's gone. They try and get it back later. It's incredibly hard to feel that sense of power again after the fact. And so what happens is that in that capacity, we all have atrophies. They're like your 100 meter runner person there, who's no longer fast enough. The muscles aren't strong enough anymore. Regardless of whether they're wearing running shoes or not, everything starts to atrophy. And so that innate talent. We have sins. Yeah. And so that's one of the core problems that all of this stuff has to get to.
- [33:30]
Radi Malinich
It's interesting what you said about the CEOs, because as you said, they got a time in the sun, but they're very lonely because when things are going well, they get in all the praise. Or when things don't go well, they're the first one to be shut down. It's a cruel world because you get praised for your successes and shut down for someone else's failure in a way. And it can feel very lonely space. So when you say, like, you become the sidekick, I think that's almost perfect platform because you wouldn't trust the confidant. And the plumber with the leaky pipe was like, not only I can fix this leak, but there's a whole plumbing system that needs fixing or maybe redo it. So I think that gives you an interest in sort of superpower again, if I was to use it as a key word of this conversation, superpower of actually making that change with people who are very much in charge. I think it's sometimes it's just quite hard to actually make institutional change when everyone's involved. Because if you ask everyone for an opinion you get a wrong answer. But when you talk about with Biff or do you talk about better ideas faster? But I know when it comes to your processes you're very much an advocate of not rushing ideas that you want to take people out of Russian because obviously the world is geared up that the patient is no longer an adjective or guilt like you don't have any patience anymore. So how do you encourage people to actually dwell on an idea a little bit more?
- [34:50]
Matt Hart
Yeah, that's a really good question. The first thing to say is one of the things you have to solve for is redefining what an idea actually is. Of course, in most organizations who are quite fossilized in their thinking and almost just churning out the same, expecting different results, et cetera, is I always take the heat off the new idea being a new thing because that's hugely risky and it's often not the right solution you're going for. As it turns out, when you understand the right problem to solve, the first thing to understand is that an idea can start with what is the right problem solved? What is the best question we're asking? What is the question we're even asking? What are we setting out to do? So that's the first idea you can have. And that's why I ended up coming up. You know, you mentioned earlier this thing called the Biff six steps. What I found in many, many organizations who don't understand creative or rather innovation process is that this work into two steps. One is let's have the idea. And they do that in old school brainstorming ways, which is next to useless. And then they'll go, some poor soul who's the problem owner of that brainstorm has to package up something and go and work out how to launch it. So they work into two steps. So the first problem to solve from a process point of view and understanding is just go look, that's not serving us. Let's park that and actually start in a different place. And where we're going to start with is what we call the brief. Let's understand and ask a better question of what we're trying and setting out to do. That brief sets up the domain of the world we're trying to innovate into, which is insight, right? And understanding. So then you're into empathetic understanding, market research, call it what you like, co creation. You're trying to look for intelligence into the nature of that problem which could be productive for you. And then those productive insight truths, insights inspire new ideas and a into ideation. And then what you want to do is actually surface up ways against your brief and the criteria of what you're going for to test the best. And then you're into that iterative development cycle of test, learn, develop, test to learn, develop, until you eventually get to a place where you go, let's develop this into a way that we can start to make it happen. So you're in this sort of brief, insight, ideas, test, develop, launch, and then that's sequential, right, in terms of working linear. And then what you want to do is as you start to get confident in where you and a team can lean in. Because not everyone is really good at ideas, but someone's really good at determining the right question to ask, or other people are really empathetic and so are really good at the inside piece. And then you get a few sparkers who can come up with a. But then you get lots of people who are doers. And I'm ready to test this idea and start to work and make it happen. So there's room for everyone and everyone's creativity is needed so you can create this new context. So you go, hey, I do have a role here and I can add value through this process, but I haven't got the ball yet. I'm waiting for it to come to me and I can support. That's how you unlock that collaborative power of doing that. And through that experience, as I said, people can get to realize that as my value. Where there's a place for my value. How do I then surface and reconnect with that thoughts and ideas that I can have there in that place? That's not the brainstorm, because they're designed more for collaboration of thoughts and ideas people have already had. So then that becomes that discipline we spoke about, which is, I'm owning the brief or we're doing insight. That's the place I'm leaning into. You realize when you introduce people to working in this way and they understand a bit of skill and they point it back in on themselves, but you don't need to generate anything. It's about a softer letting go and trusting that the work you're doing and being observant and curious about yourself in the world and understanding that at some point those thoughts and ideas will come to you spontaneously. All you've got to do is catch them and share them through the nature of that process you're working on.
- [38:40]
Radi Malinich
You just said in your answer there, you give people the opportunity to not generate anything. Because it almost seems to me like a safe space nourishing Space because I'm lucky. I've not been in too many brainstorms in my life. Big brainstorms. Because it's bullshit most of the time. It's just you have to say something to prove yourself. Almost approve your work in the room.
- [39:00]
Matt Hart
Most people don't because they're too terrified that they'll say something stupid. And it's a shaming experience because they don't have confidence that what they're doing is. And the bosses in the room. So I'm not saying that. And so you get all this weird heuristics and biases playing out in this forum. That is the worst place for productive creativity, let's say that's not the space. And they're not designed for origination or generation, because that can happen elsewhere. Because that's the way our brains are wired to work. You just need to know it. Then what are those meetings for? They're designed for collaborative sharing and building together and the surfacing around individual thoughts and ideas that can coalesce around something brand new.
- [39:37]
Radi Malinich
One of the most important designers I think of our time is Brian Collins. And he said no creative person has ever asked for brainstorm. Would you describe it? And actually having the ability not to generate anything can almost seem frightening because in the words of John Hegarty, he'll be like, as a creative person, you come to work and you have to have an idea every day. Because what you described earlier, innovation is either 0 to 1 or 1 to 1000. And I think the magic is in both ways. Like, we don't always have to have a fresh idea that would change the world. Because, for example, when you look at the world of politics that they always try to come up with a new policy, like this new policy is going to change everything. Why don't you take what works and make that better? No one's going to blame you for being lazy or whatever. Like just we can actually take it easy.
- [40:21]
Matt Hart
No. And also the most successful ideas tap behaviors that are already there and move us into the sort of the humans that we are that love discovering and new and excitement, but it has to connect with what's already there. So zero to one, innovation is hard and it's super risky and most people don't want to do it. That's why we end up with the incremental shit we've got now. It's what I call now with aloe vera, it's kind of like what it is with a little twist of flavor. That's great. That adds value, that keeps people in employment and business and economies turning over. But it's not going to change the game, I think.
- [40:53]
Radi Malinich
Would you say, since it doesn't change the game, would the world ever be ready for changing the game? Because most people, as you see it from prejudices and from ingrained opinions, like some people don't want to change because we know that with the UA now, and lots of people listening to this would know that we would have benefited from a major overhaul in many ways of our societies, in business. But that's not going to change because some of the CEOs are people who actually could make that sort of real big change.
- [41:23]
Matt Hart
That's what excites me about now, though, Riddha, that is all true up until recently, because we have existential threats to our way of lives, to the environment, to the social divisions, to what we see happening in the world and the impact on not just the way we're living our world and cost of living, crisis and climate and all of that, but actually a more soulful challenge on the meaning we're deriving from how we're living and what that looks like for us and our future generations. And you've got kids, I've got kids and what we want for them and the existential future they're facing. So I think what's really exciting about me is I feel like I've been in boot camp for 30 years preparing and experiencing these things to now go. Now it's really needed. It's no longer just a bit of a brainstorm, bit of a project. Let's create some new value. No, we need some step change here. AI is the accelerant for that fire or that need. I'm sure you're across. It's the Holy Grail. It's where we need to be. It's going to unlock productivity and efficiency and blah, blah, blah. I see it as what it's doing is eating in. So I worked with Cisco 10, 12 years ago in San Francisco, some great mates out of it. We're still working today, but it was the first time I heard that line, what can be digitized will be, and what can be automated will be and is being. And so then we were looking at. It was an education project. We were looking at the future of education and what was required. I was like, what does that mean? And I'm actually really excited by that now because what it does is I think in terms of ideas, of stacks. So what's the hardware piece we're looking at? What's the software piece we're looking at and what I really see now and where we're taking birth is it's that humanware that as AI and anything that can be automated and jost and repetition and digitization of everything, you're going to be left for this ultimate defining space that machines will never touch, which is our transcendental creativity, our soulful spiritual selves, our need for connection and meaning and value in the world and purpose and the talents and skills that we can bring to that using these tools to help us do that more. So markets are going to be massively disrupted, Businesses, C suites are now looking at the threats that are coming and going. How do I innovate and disrupt ourselves and start to reposition and repoint ourselves into this new domain? What does that look like? What are the opportunities coming down the pipe for those big pillars of the way we live our lives? And how do we grab those as and transition them from just being challenges into opportunities? The last thing to say about that is I do in this bif kids work we do with really primary school kids, junior school. We take the SDGs, having done a bit of work with the UN and the Sustainable Development Goals and we point them at these kids and go. They're not so much goals, they're problems to solve. And these will be some of the problems your wild imaginations and creativity will eventually work on one day to help solve. And then we localize those problems to give them a place based learning experience. And that I think frames up the sort of next 10, 20 years of venturing and enterprise and entrepreneurial behavior. Because these existential crises we're starting to face, there is a new that can come through that and we can only grab that and turn them into next gen ventures, et cetera, that marry up this, what we talk about, this urgent need for purpose, solving that problem, gaining new meaning from the solving and the profit that can be derived from that as a going concern, as a business, as an economy, et cetera. I find that hugely exciting. As daunting as it is the need for new skills, new behaviors, new processes, new ways of collaborating, the kind of new ventures that will come from that, whether it's individuals and small teams using AI to accelerate their impact globally. I'm talking to you. This is what we're doing is the nature of this world. And so I find it hugely exciting.
- [45:22]
Radi Malinich
I think most mature conversations I've had about AI was actually from the world of business. Because when you talk about creativity and AI and generative AI, it's almost like an instant panic button because Creative people want to be creative. They don't want to feel like they want to be replaced by something. But when you look at from evolution evidence, people had to change their creative professions many, many times over. We always adapt. And I think in the most fascinating way as a creative, like you've got actually basically superpower tools at your disposal, which often actually are free. And what we used to do in a manual way that would take you three, four hours, let's say creatively, can take two, four, five seconds to do it with a filter now or click of a button, because that task has been automated. And I just feel like it's a massive opportunity to actually free up our cognitive capacity to say, what do I do with this? Because this is now the norm. We're not going back, we're not never going to outplug all the AI or whatever or half of the Internet. Like this is the baseline. What do we do with it? I think it's becoming more evident that's how we connect. Because after all, you will always know what's been created by human. We've been using tools in ways of CGI and creativity and whatever, alter tunes in music, whatever, that we always knew that's a tool, okay, but it was used by human. Now he thinks it's the AI doing stuff. We're still controlled by the human. Like, it's not shapeless. Gollum, say, does things of its own accord. So I like that you talk about soulfulness, because that's one of my paragraphs from one of my books. It's just like says, put your soul into it. If you bullshit people, they'll see it.
- [46:58]
Matt Hart
Do you follow Nick K's Red Hand Files? He talks a lot about this. It's worth following. He's become a sort of pastor meets artist and a lot of grief in his own life. And connecting with his fans around music and grief and speaking to that so elegantly and beautifully. But here, that was the first time I talked about this transcendental creativity and his rubbishing of what AI can produce because it's not sentient, it's not soulful, it's not spiritual. But I do think of AI like a tool. And you think about when someone invented the hammer. It could be used as a blunt violet instrument or something to build a cathedral. What are you going to use it for? And AI sits for me right now. Yes, there's huge threats around it, obviously, but it sits in that space. It's a tool and it's an extraordinary tool. But in my domain and what I'm trying to do. And what you're trying to do around creativity and innovation, it has a huge role to play because the data will show you, for the majority of people, they grow away or are educated out of, or lose confidence with that innate creativity so they no longer identify or believe they are. How do you give that back? Now? You can have analog experiences. You can coach them into it, you can help them into it, but they move so far. We as humans move so far away from that innate, imaginative, soulful space within us. AI has a role as your personal coach or assistant to help you bring that back so that something is every day nudging you along and helping you get that space. And all you have to do is start to experience it one or two times. And you go, wow, there really is something there. Because as we've talked about, it's that difference between that idea or value I'm thinking about in the world, how nurturing and meaning that, the meaning that it can add to make me feel more whole and more complete and more connected with myself. It's wholly nurturing. That's the space we're trying to get to. And if AI can be a tool to help us get there and nurture that and develop all that, I say bring it on.
- [49:00]
Radi Malinich
How do you say, could you talk about capturing ideas? Like recognizing you've got an idea and you capture it in your own creative practice and in your own daily life. What is it that comes to you at the moment, what sort of topics you're milling around, and what are you capturing?
- [49:17]
Matt Hart
How to start. So I start my day every day with pen and paper or iPad and pencil. And so when I wake up, I know I'm waking up having spent a night. And the deep creativity is making new connections and surfacing new stuff. And so I start my day every day scribing, writing, downloading what's been coming. And then I marry that up with what I'm trying to focus on, my intentions for the day, what I'm working on, looking for new connections on where those sort of come through. I meditate twice a day, certainly once a day, every day. I generally do that with my own circadian rhythms, if you like. I know the rhythm I have in the afternoon, there's a dip before the kids get home from school or wherever I am. I'll take anywhere from half an hour to an hour. And I will consciously take my space with intention to connect with the deep well of what's going on. Knowing that's opening me to not just what's inside me, but what might be coming to me. It takes us into a whole other realm. Another podcast, which is the idea of mind and the hard problem of consciousness. And where is that? And this is. We talked about generating ideas. If you never have to generate anything, you only have to be open to receive them. So where are you receiving them from? They're either coming from within or it feels like they're coming to you. And I actually believe the reason that Biff is starting to touch on the science of spirituality is that we can be channels and vessels for those ideas that are supposed to be coming through us. And we're really clear about our purpose and what we want to be doing in the world and where we might be going. And we open to that and we intend for that. You start to see that life responds to that through spontaneous connections, opportunity. Wow, I was just thinking about that and you've emailed me, you've called me and that happened. And these. Life starts to respond to that. I believe that intentionally those things are supposed to be coming to us, then we have a responsibility to capture them. So how do we capture them? I'll often be walking, listening to a podcast. Get halfway through, you're drifting off, you start to have thoughts and ideas about what you're working on. Stop the podcast, open up the iPhone audio app and just riff it and start speak to it. And then drop that into Olio or something like that and record it. Now it's written down. I created a little Biff app. My created different versions of Biff app. Most people are visual and they'll be out there in the world or walking around, they'll see something and it triggers a thought. So take a photo, but capture the two parts of it. What you're seeing, the stimulus that's making you think something and what's the associated thought? Because if I capture those two things, I can share that with you and go, hey, I saw this or I read this or whatever, but this is what it made me think. Can we riff on that? Can we collaborate around that? Where's it taking you and what you find? So for people who are new to that, and I form project teams, I'm leading and I start sending them a fire hose of stimulus. If they're close to that, it just feels like too much. They're overwhelmed. When you have knowing confidence in your creativity, you know you have to do nothing with it except be open to receiving it and then trust that deeper talent is going to make sense of it. That's why you don't have to generate the cognitive load of creativity can be solved and such that you can have all that come in, have new thoughts and ideas. It means you can work on multiple problems and projects at once because they're surfacing across collaborative ideas that are feeding across the whole portfolio. Yeah, that's the magic of it.
- [52:39]
Radi Malinich
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. When you're open to something, the world knows that you live and breathe that open space because you might be trying to pursue career in something different, but you might be doing A, but you want to balance. The world knows you want A, you live and breathe A and it's for you to make B happen if you want to make that happen. But if I could take you back a couple of steps. You said you meditate twice a day. And I think around the circadian rhythm. I feel not too clever hack because that 3:00 dip is real. What do you do for meditation? What's the exercise that you do?
- [53:08]
Matt Hart
Yeah, I'm quite deep in it. So I've been meditating for 30 odd more years. But I know when I introduce it to new people if you stop and be quiet. So I often think that there's lots of different definitions of meditation, but it's just a pause and give thought, focused thought. What happens for most people if they're new to it and they want to start and start to reconnect is all they can hear is the noise and it's way too busy and it's screaming at them and it's every sort of past fear, anxiety, et cetera. That is just the mental churn and the tapes and the old stories that go round and round and round and round. It's really hard to get past that. That's the bit we got to really support. I've done the different meditations, from repeated mantras to breath to holding a focused thought, to using music or frequencies to help put you entrain your brain into a certain state and take you down. Now, I'm attracted to something called heart math. The notion that you put your awareness. If you just say, hey, can you feel your knee? Can you put your mind on your knee? Or somewhere you can do that. And so heart math at a really basic level just says put your awareness on your heart and then relax and breathe into your heart. Right. So your breath is taking you there. I can feel myself slipping into it now you can just take yourself there. And as you're trying to put that conscious awareness on your heart, the mental noise slows and you release from that Conscious, prefrontal cortex space, the rationalizing mind, and you slip deeper and you start to move in that place of singular focus. And then you can go quite deep in there. So you on the border between deep, focused, slow consciousness on the border of the dreaming brain. And that's the space I want to get to with meditation, because I know at that point there's lots of thoughts and ideas that are ready to come through.
- [54:53]
Radi Malinich
I love the analogy of what you said about the heart and the focus, because your meditation is a little bit like creativity, because if you feel you're not doing it right, you'll start judging yourself. People use meditation as a blaster. Okay, shit, I'm in trouble. This is meditation. This should help me. Oh, it's not helping me just yet, I hope. This would be like the magic formula. And when you think about it, it's a bit like creativity. Like when, you know, you say you've got people in the room, they don't want to say an idea because they might say stupid. And I think it's just admitting that anything goes because it's a continuous practice, because we can be back on that athletic arena. I got 100 meters. It doesn't matter if you run it in 1 minute, 10 seconds, 2 days you're doing it. And I think that being in that motion, one day it will get better. One day will get easier because you were still focusing on what is it that it should be.
- [55:41]
Matt Hart
Yeah. And also when you. Obviously, meditation is really hard for most people to start, so it's not 30 minutes, it's five. And it might be your favorite tunes that chill you out. Let's start there. Or it could be just a walking meditation where you listen to music and you're walking. Walking is an amazing alpha space. But the point is that when you can get there, and they might only be fleeting moments, there is no judgment in that space. There's no you judging yourself, and there's no judgment of others. There's something magical about that space you can get to, which is why meditation is so rewarding and fulfilling. In that space and in that mind, you don't have to do anything. You just be. You're just there, and you're there with some sort of presence about yourself. It feels, you know, you start to lose that sort of egoic nature of who I am and the story of me and you move into some deeper space. I'm fascinated by that as it relates to value and innovation in the world, but also what that says about us. Who are we in that space? And what is that nature of us that extends and stretches? And what new potentials and possibilities are there for us that we can surface back into this world in a tangible way? That's the magic of it.
- [56:54]
Radi Malinich
When you're on the road, do you have a strong discipline of keeping it up? Because you get people who get out of trouble. They start meditating, looking after themselves, and then they go back on the road doing things they need to do. And the habits are slowly slipping. The practice is not as strong. So how, for example, if you travel it, how do you keep it up?
- [57:12]
Matt Hart
I'm a long way in this space, and so it's become so ingrained. So I know that if I have my iPad open and my pencil out and I start scribing or writing, I get myself to that space immediately. So I can do at that point, it doesn't matter where I am in the world. I'm actually with me and my creativity at that moment. So that anchors me and holds me. And I know that's my space. So that's the first thing. And I know it's so valuable and part of intrinsically who I am and how I am that I do that every day. And then I know that I still have my own issues. It's not that I have had mental health issues every day, but I know that I move. I believe you're either moving forward or you're going backward. There is no stasis. Everything has always been created. And so my discipline is to meditate every day because I have to. It's part of my practice. I know that I am always. I don't want to say working on, but let's say I'm working on that part of myself to make sure I'm investing in my wellness. Because I know if I don't do that every day. And there's nothing about performance in the world, that's just performance in me. I know if I don't do that, I can slip back. And what does that look like? I'm not as a loving partner or present. I'm more grumpy and shitty with my kids, and I'm not as good a parent as I could be. Or all of that stuff that we know.
- [58:31]
Radi Malinich
One of my therapists says that you can be the best surgeon in the world, but you can't take out your own appendix.
- [58:35]
Matt Hart
All of that. You only need to ask my kids, what sort of dad is he? And you're gonna get the truth.
- [58:39]
Radi Malinich
Yeah. Matt, it was such a pleasure meeting you. I feel like we can literally spend three or four hour episodes of doing this because there's a great value from someone who I feel is ahead on this journey, has worked with wealth of clients and experiences. And you put it in a way that it's inspirational because I obviously did some research on this conversation and I was quite happy to see that you're working with kids and like trying to make that change from bottom up in a way in some society, because you never think that the kids need really ideas and creativity because they are powerhouses. You ask them to draw anything, they'll draw because they haven't decided how to think. They haven't been thinking of how to.
- [59:17]
Matt Hart
Yeah, but I ran asked that same kid in 20 years and will they still be able to do that? And the answer today is no, they won't. That's the bit we got to solve.
- [59:24]
Radi Malinich
Yeah, exactly. So I'm fully involved with what you do and I'm a big fan. And yeah, we need to repeat this in one time soon. I have a coffee in London, so thank you so much for your time. I have taken so much. I've never written more notes in this conversation or any previous conversation like I did today.
- [59:38]
Matt Hart
Oh, brilliant. Thank you, Radem. I'm really, it's been a real privilege. And listen, I'd love to hear some of your tunes, even I'm not a death metal fan, I have to say, but I'd love to see what you're doing. Send me a couple of links, I'll get into it. It'd be fantastic.
- [59:50]
Radi Malinich
Maybe not. We'll find out. Thank you, Matt. Nice one.
- [59:53]
Matt Hart
Hey, thank you, man. Take care. Big love.
- [60:03]
Radi Malinich
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radi Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.