ABOUT APRIL RINNE:

BIO:

My North Star: Helping people and organizations understand what's on the horizon – and how they fit into it.

I decipher signals of change, help leaders and teams improve their tolerance for uncertainty, and scout new insights and opportunities in a world in flux.

Over 25+ years and 100+ countries, I’ve been exposed to a wide range of companies, cultures, business models, leadership styles, and norms. And I’ve seen time and time again: Every organization, every team, and every individual struggles with change and uncertainty in some way. Even before the pandemic, and especially today. We’ve all had different experiences of change, and we could all use some help with the unknown. Leveling up our relationships to change and uncertainty is the opportunity of our lifetimes.

My career portfolio includes futurist, speaker, author, advisor, global development executive, microfinance lawyer, investor, mental health advocate, certified yoga teacher, globetrotter, insatiable handstander, and ambassador of joy. Along the way I've been named one of the 50 Leading Female Futurists in the world, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of Thinkers50 Radar and the Silicon Guild, and one of the earliest Estonian e-Residents. I'm also the author of the international bestseller Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.

My journey to Flux has been deeply personal. It began with the death of both of my parents in a car crash when I was 20. My entire life flipped upside-down. And today, there is nothing I enjoy more than sharing with others how I learned to see differently, find meaning, and strengthen my Flux Superpowers -- and how you can do so, too.

April’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilrinne/

Websites: https://aprilrinne.com

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Flux-Superpowers-Thriving-Constant-Change/dp/1523093595

email: april@aprilrinne.com

SHOW INTRO:

Welcome to Season 7 of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast – Episode 80!

What started at a pivotal moment during the COVID pandemic in early 2020 has continued for seven seasons and now 80 episodes.

This season we continue to follow our catch phrase of having “Dynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts. In the coming weeks we have some terrific conversations that are both fun and inspiring.

They are going to include thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.

We’ll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.

We’ll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.

And I don't know, maybe there will be a couple of mystery guests that will just shake things up and give us a perspective on things that we've never thought about before.

As in the past couple of seasons, we are grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.

VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.

You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.

Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.

SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org

So, fasten your seat belt we’re in for some good times…

Today, EPISODE 80… I talk with April Rinne whose North Star is helping people and organizations understand what's on the horizon – and how they fit into it.

April deciphers signals of change, helps leaders and teams improve their tolerance for uncertainty, and scouts new insights and opportunities in a world in flux.

As well as being an excellent hand stander, (check out pics of her doing handstands in places all over the world on her website), she is also the author of the international bestseller “Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.”

We will get to her book, some of the key ideas and so much more in a minute but first a few thoughts…

It seems to me that over the past few seasons I've tended to talk about the idea of ‘the pace of change’ a lot.

I'm beginning to think it's a little like my unnatural fear of sharks (thank you Steven Spielberg) and that I keep on talking about them and seeking out images of them on Instagram as some sort of cognitive behavioral therapy to get me better with the idea that I can actually go swimming in the ocean and not feel afraid of Spielberg’s Bruce sneaking up on me.

I seem to talk about change a lot for a few reasons…maybe because, I will confess, that I don't think that I was actually good with change for years. I was pretty set in my ways about having a plan and making sure the plan was followed.

I got significantly bent out of shape if the plan didn't go as, well… planned.

If we were off on our timing, if something was late or if some spontaneous moment interrupted the calendar and I was going to have to re-adjust, it took me sometimes quite a while to recalibrate and get with the ‘new’ program.

And then there was the spring of 2020 where, well…everything changed.

No doubt for someone who wasn't so good with the idea that things could change on a dime and a path you had so expertly crafted into the near future would just disappear in front of you,

I came to understand that there were three types of change:

the change that's innate - you know built into the system of everything the seasons the sun rising in the east and setting in the West and that kind of change that if it didn't happen you would think something was significantly wrong with the universe
there was the change that we choose that gives us a sense of agency the kind of change we actually like more than others because we get to determine where it's going and what it actually means for us
and then there's a kind of change like the COVID pandemic that is thrust upon you and in those moments shifting circumstances open a door to uncertainty that sense of clarity and purpose dissipates into a swell of unknowns and deep discomfort settles in making everything seem tenuous.

That kind of change, I would hazard a guess, not many of us are fond of.

That sort of change demands an openness to confront the necessity of things we have often held so dear or the veracity of things we've believed in about ourselves and others.

This type of change asks us to embrace the unknown and find an opportunity for transformation in the ambiguity.

This kind of change is the kind of change that requires you to stare long into the face of hard questions, discover inconvenient answers and make challenging decisions.

That kind of change, turns out, is where all the growth is.

That kind of change is embracing the Robert frost poem of the ‘path not travelled…’

The thing is… as I think I’ve said before… it's easy for us to fall for nostalgia.

It's cozy. It's welcoming and reassuring because it's familiar and it's easy to continue to keep doing the same thing that we have always done because, for some, there's security in choosing the familiar in preference for going on an adventure.

I love that one scene from The Hobbit where Bilbo Baggins, after refusing to go on the trip with the dwarves, finally gets it that maybe there's something in it for him, a growth opportunity, and he runs after the company exclaiming to neighbors, when asked where he was going, that he was ‘going on an adventure.’

But there's a strange paradox in all of this and that is; we both avoid the perceived danger of the unknown because the unfamiliar signals potential dangers and our neurobiology is geared to sounding the alarms when the unfamiliar lurks near…

while at the same time being driven towards novel and the unexpected because that's where our brain ultimately finds learning opportunities (should we care to pay attention).

There's no point in continuing to pull a covers over your head and hope that the uncertainty will pass because it's quite likely that when you reemerge whatever the challenge was it will still be there

and you'll open up your eyes and feel a like Dorothy and you not being in Kansas anymore,

because while you were conveniently not paying attention, the world was swept up tossed upside down and blown into a new reality in the context of the ever-increasing pace of change that we are all now exposed to.

Of course, all of the speed that we're exposed to these days is forcing cultural shifts to happen, some of which we are not neurobiologically or evolutionarily adequately adapted to. Remember, it's taken a few billion years to get where we are. We can't expect that we'll be able to keep up with the mental machinery we now have. (Another challenge to talk about another time.)

As we...