Announcer: 0:00

From little Mountain Sound in Vancouver, British Columbia. This is Lab Notes. And now here's your host, Russ Hamilton.

Russ Hamilton: 0:07

Hello. Again, welcome to Lab Notes. I am your host, Russ Hamilton. Breathing good. At the end of every workshop we do, part of the homework participants are given is to practice when the stakes are low to stay connected with your cohort. And if you need some backup or have any questions about the communications practice, reach out to me. I wanna open this episode by re-extend that invitation. If you're still working out what it means to feel seen and heard in the world. If you have questions about how to apply the practice, or if you just need a little distraction from the chaos, the weirdness, you can email me at russ@connectionlaboratory.com or call me at(646) 780-9946. Let's have a chat. Totally. Our subject on the show today is learning. We have two guests whose specialty is learning, but with rather different takes and different missions. If you've done more than one module of Connection Lab, a common question we ask participants is what do you remember about the last workshop experience? I'm quick to say that this is not a test. It's fine. If the answer is you don't remember anything about our last workshop experience. We like to ask about what people remember, because it's a chance to bring up how we actually learn anything. Think about it for a moment. What do you know and how did you learn it? Immersion repetition, conscious pursuit, unfortunate accident. How do we learn as individuals? How do we learn as a community or as a business, chances are the business. You run the people in it need to get better at a variety of competencies. How do you diagnose a challenge? And then how do you decide what you want to get better at? Because of it? So much of our work revolves around raising our unconscious practice to consciousness without judgment or correction, and then deciding what we want to get better at. We say it like it's easy, but this simple set of questions can be quite a hike. As you listen to these conversations, I invite you to consider how you learn and what you learn. Let's introduce our first guest. He is the CEO of Kaskada, a company on the leading edge of machine learning. Specifically. They build behavioral machine learning models from event-based data. I'll let him tell you more about that. He's also a family, man. He's learning how to sail. He's got a lot going on, please. Welcome to the program- Davor Bonaci. First of all, how are you? Are you okay? Is the family okay?

Davor Bonaci: 2:54

Things are generally okay. Things at the company are, okay,

Russ Hamilton: 2:59

How's everybody doing at the organization? Are people generally healthy and happy?

Davor Bonaci: 3:03

People doing well, we are going to a bunch of events. Right? Like, what we worked on last time was more around creating content and creating stories and talking about how to build a story arc from the beginning to the end. And, I think even, I don't know, five events in the last six weeks.

Russ Hamilton: 3:26

Wow. Like trade shows and

Davor Bonaci: 3:29

Yep. Like, Brian has run a three hour workshop on Monday. Charna spoke for half an hour on Tuesday and today is just Wednesday. So right, so these things are kind of happening and so people are doing good.

Russ Hamilton: 3:46

Can we talk about your Connection Lab experience?

Davor Bonaci: 3:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Russ Hamilton: 3:50

I'm trying to remember. We met, how did we meet? We met through...

Davor Bonaci: 3:53

Eric,

Russ Hamilton: 3:54

Right? Eric Pinzur.

Davor Bonaci: 3:57

Yeah.

Russ Hamilton: 3:57

Amazing. We love Eric. Uh, and he recommended Connection Lab and me to you and you were of course, welcoming and inviting and, a bit skeptical<laugh>

Davor Bonaci: 4:11

I was skeptical?

Russ Hamilton: 4:13

Yes. Is that not your, well, maybe you have a different memory. I just remember you and I having really good conversation about what are we gonna do and what is the value of this? And, you know, cause

Davor Bonaci: 4:25

I'd say that I was not skeptical. O h, o kay. I asked people for how can we invest in us? And Eric could. It was not that I don't believe in these things. I believe in things, I was just doing my due diligence I guess.

Russ Hamilton: 4:49

Or yes. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, I just know the journey you took because among the last conversations we had was a very impassioned, lovely conversation about the value of the work and how the team showed up and just thought it was amazing, but that was quite a journey from our first workshop to our last in-person experience. What do you remember about workshop Module one. We did workshop Module one and two in the same day.

Davor Bonaci: 5:12

Yeah. So, I remember you beating me up<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 5:26

You know, these things happen,

Davor Bonaci: 5:28

These things happen, but that's what people remember first. Right. You know, how you made sure. So that's the first thing that I felt very good.. You were able to get people to open up, you got, a nd fundamentally you helped me. And so maybe think of it this way- like many times when I think about myself, it's a lot about culture, right? Like I was not born here and culturally we do not put emphasis on feelings it's more like, what is t h is c r ap? Right. Like it's mo re, much more, yo u know, tell me what this is about, tell me the facts and culturally, like when you think about any, European cou ntry, e specially central towards Eastern part of Europe, we don't talk about how we feel. We don't do any of these things. And so you know, I think about my journey, right? Like these are the things that, you know, before the last few years I was never doing, and the society would tell me that none of these things are appropriate to do. And so, you know, over the last decade or more, I've been growing in this way and that's why I like to go last or avoid these things, when things are, are happening, because you know, i t's hard. Yeah. And, you a re able to in a couple hours, on multiple locations, able to get people to open up to be creative and to fundamentally learn.

Russ Hamilton: 7:38

Yeah.

Davor Bonaci: 7:39

And, then to connect and that's, I think is super great. And especially now, when everything is remote, we still don't have the office, we don't see each other. Right. The impact of these things is tremendous.

Russ Hamilton: 7:58

Amazing. What do you remember about taking the stage with what you want your leadership legacy to be, and to be standing out on the deck in the hotel and facing your group and connecting with them or not?

Davor Bonaci: 8:12

Yeah. So, that is when you beat me up.<laugh> so that was hard for me. Number one, it was hard for me because of my role and the way I show up in a way... like you can't a s a leader, you can't distinguish that I am just a participant just like you- I don't get the ability ever, legally, or otherwise to take that h at off. And so it, i t wa s, it was hard for me because, you know, if I say something, t h e re ar e co nsequences, right? Lik e pe ople wil l sa y that I said it, tha t th e CEO said it, right. And these are not my values and wha tnot. R ight. And so it comes down to what are my personal values? What are the values of Kaskada and how they relate to each other?

Russ Hamilton: 9:28

<laugh> so, let the record show that it's challenging and nerve-racking, and you've gotta be careful. And were you careful and what happened?

Davor Bonaci: 9:38

I was careful. Yeah. Uh, you wanted me to be less careful, I think, uh,<laugh>,

Russ Hamilton: 9:46

I'm a rebel,

Davor Bonaci: 9:48

Uh, uh, right, but you know, it was great. I truly think it was great. What was the, the reaction of people was very, very good.

Russ Hamilton: 10:04

Yeah. It really was because they were a bit hard on you at times too. The first time you did your read through, you got some, shall we say feedback?

Davor Bonaci: 10:13

Yes. But I mean, I wanna, I wanted to be done or I wanted to go through it rather quickly and they wanted more<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 10:29

But they gave you great feedback. And, then you did it a second time. Yep. I did. And you prioritized connecting with the audience over the content? Yes. And then the feedback went through the roof.

Davor Bonaci: 10:42

Yep.

Russ Hamilton: 10:42

And then you and I had a conversation after that, like what's up with that?

Davor Bonaci: 10:47

Mm indeed.

Russ Hamilton: 10:49

And then we did Module two the same day.

Davor Bonaci: 10:52

Yeah.

Russ Hamilton: 10:53

Module Two- Call to action and Demand. Now that the audience feels seen and heard, can we turn making demands on each other trust building experiences instead of trust, diminishing ones?

Davor Bonaci: 11:01

Hmm.

Russ Hamilton: 11:02

What scene did you do?

Davor Bonaci: 11:04

The Goodwill Hunting one.

Russ Hamilton: 11:07

Oh, right. Do you remember your demands? Do you remember your scene partner?

Davor Bonaci: 11:12

I remember my scene partner. It was more like,"let me be", o r like"go somewhere" or like"realize your potential" versus"let me be"

Russ Hamilton: 11:23

Yes.

Davor Bonaci: 11:24

Something like that.

Russ Hamilton: 11:25

Yes. Yes. Yes. And did any other performances stand out for you as you watched your teams perform these scenes and emphasize calls to action and demands on each other?

Davor Bonaci: 11:37

No, I liked all of them. I mean, o ut o f the four movies, the W olf from Wall Street, I like that movie. So that, one's the one that I remember the most. Yeah. because of the movie itself, but there are plenty, like all of them were quite good.

Russ Hamilton: 11:59

And the most recent Module we did was Storytelling. That was our first in-person workshop at Connection Lab in two and a half years down in Seattle.

Davor Bonaci: 12:07

Mm.

Russ Hamilton: 12:07

And it was absolutely magnificent to be in the same room with your people who were just so passionate and so invested and took such good care of each other.

Davor Bonaci: 12:16

I concur.

Russ Hamilton: 12:18

What was the takeaway from the storytelling experience?

Davor Bonaci: 12:20

I mean everything we do comes down to how well we are able to communicate it. Right. You can do great work, but if you're unable to communicate it, it will not make an impact. And so I think, focusing on communicating it well is critical to success. And I think, you know, unlocking the next level of influence in any industry depends on being able to communicate it effectively.

Russ Hamilton: 13:07

Yes.

Davor Bonaci: 13:08

And in the same way, the story tellers are doing it in the movies. It is probable that the same type of skills or the same type of engagement is needed in technical content or beneficial in technical content too.

Russ Hamilton: 13:27

Yes.

Davor Bonaci: 13:28

And, I think you all can learn from that. And, there are people who do this better. There are people who, you know, can learn from it and when the entire company goes through it, I think we become better communicators.

Russ Hamilton: 13:47

Has that shown up in the new events that you're doing as you continue to market Kaskada are the stories you are telling about the organization changing, shifting, improving?

Davor Bonaci: 13:58

I mean that's a hard question to answer,, directly, we certainly spent a lot of time recently building all kinds of presentations decks and, and the like And, it is very likely that the various thinking about the story arc and how the audience will react and how to keep them engaged has come up, you know? Yeah.

Russ Hamilton: 14:31

Excellent. We're talking to Davor Bonaci the CEO of Kaskada. So what is Kaskada trying to get better at these days? What competencies is the organization trying to get better at?

Davor Bonaci: 14:45

So many things? I just don't know where to start from, from this angle. I t hink organizationally mm-hmm,<a ffirmative>, I, I think the first, when I think about last two years, since the COVID hit, I think the first six months was easy.

Russ Hamilton: 15:08

Yeah.

Davor Bonaci: 15:09

And then the second six months was terrible.<laugh> or hard or difficult right after we spent the credit built before COVID- Right. We spent it through the first six months and then the difficulty began and we had to change a lot to operate in this world. And, in the second year of COVID, we have figured out how to do it. And, so I think we are working well today and that we have figured out how to work well, remotely and effectively. We have found repeatable patterns that work, offsite and doing different things at d ifferent t imes. And, I think i t has worked quite well for us. I d o think that we wi ll h ave the next set of issues with the next scaling fa ctor. I think we will have to un lock s ome new things there, b ut like, you know, for the time being at the current scale, things seems to be working. We are moving ra ther q uickly. We do want to get better, I think, more around th e c ontent and kind of make sure we focus on influence in the industry as much as we focus on building.

Russ Hamilton: 16:44

You're at the forefront- Kaskada is at the forefront of machine learning. Is that correct?

Davor Bonaci: 16:49

Yes.

Russ Hamilton: 16:49

Yeah, that's kind of an extraordinary field to be in, especially from a layman out in the bleachers kind of watching. So it's interesting is, is your learning and the organizational learning similar to the product and how machines learn and is there, is there parallel,

Davor Bonaci: 17:09

There are all kinds of learning algorithms. We tend to focus on building behavioral machine learning models from event based data. And those models tend to be on a more perhaps simpler side.<laugh> the algorithm itself. The difficulty tends to be, you know, the data that you feed it. Right. So those algorithms are easier to intuitively understand, but it's all about the quality of the data that you feed it and how you feed it. And then, you know, humans learn slightly differently. I think we learn ideally through mistakes of others, but more frequently through mistakes of our own. Uh<laugh> um, though there are more machine learning algorithms that are less supervised and more reinforcement learning or others that, that are trying things out and seeing what happens.

Russ Hamilton: 18:24

Right. I love that you're in the learning business and that you're practicing, learning all the time. Yeah. What are you trying to get better at these days?

Davor Bonaci: 18:32

Um,

Russ Hamilton: 18:33

Sailing,

Davor Bonaci: 18:34

Oh, sailing, uh, that

Russ Hamilton: 18:36

Counts

Davor Bonaci: 18:37

That. Absolutely. Um, I'm thinking, um,

Russ Hamilton: 18:43

I believe you

Davor Bonaci: 18:44

<laugh>, I I'd say, you know, generally always kind of scaling myself and building and processes that can happen without me being in the loop.

Russ Hamilton: 18:59

Amazing making yourself obsolete.

Davor Bonaci: 19:02

Yes. Right. And so that's, you know, that's always I guess the goal. And when certain things are figured out, then, you can do that. And it's more difficult before certain things are figured out. And so you kind of, and as soon as you do one thing, the next thing comes. And it feels like whatever struggle to solve the problem and then be able to delegate it. Right. You know, infinite cycle.

Russ Hamilton: 19:31

Is your mission to make yourself obsolete? Is that industry specific? Do other CEOs feel the same way? Could we all learn a little bit from that objective?

Davor Bonaci: 19:43

Oh, I think there are all kinds of leaders in all kinds of CEOs. And I don't think there are people that have leaders that have hands in everything. It's certainly successful for many of them in various ways and who are we to judge? So I do attempt to delegate as much as I can, but I do think there is also a time when you can delegate and a time when you cannot, there's also mistakes that can be made when things are delegated too early. Mm-hmm<affirmative> before things are figured out, because it's really hard to figure out actually to whom to delegate it to. And it was the right profile of a person you need for a particular delegation task. And so t he figuring those things out is is not always obvious, right. Especially when you're not an expert in a particular area. Right. Think when you're an expert and you have seen everything there, then delegation tends to be easy, but when you are leading a wide variety of functions, you are not as good in all the functions as you are in others. And it's much harder to figure out what to delegate and to whom in an area that you are not an expert in. And, I think that kind of in leadership, there is like being an expert in being a leader of others in an area that you know everything about, there you have a kind of the ability to do, you have an unfair advantage because you know everything that's going on or you've grown from that area or something. Then that kind of leading in leading people in other areas that you have not grown through is a different challenge. But it's a, you know, you just have, it's a similar type of problem where you just don't have the inherent, unfair advantage. And I think those are, those have to be mastered and when mastered and then, it becomes easier.

Russ Hamilton: 21:58

Yes. No, my knowledge will always be finite. Yes. So I can't know everything. So I have to...

Davor Bonaci: 22:04

I think knowledge, if I can, you know, steal this quote from somebody, knowledge is knowing how much you don't know.

Russ Hamilton: 22:12

Right. Yeah. And so you're a community builder.

Davor Bonaci: 22:18

I like to think so.

Russ Hamilton: 22:19

Yeah. I've experienced your community and I think you should be pleased. Thank you. If somebody's interested in Kaskada, what do they do? How do they contact you machine learning,

Davor Bonaci: 22:31

Kaskada.com,

Russ Hamilton: 22:33

Kaskada.com.

Davor Bonaci: 22:35

Then, reach out to us is about building behavioral machine learning models from activity data, right from event streams, from transaction streams. When you have activity of some kind describes- this person a t this time, d id that- and you want to build behavioral machine learning models that predict engagement, interest, action, churn anything about th e b ehavior of a person, that is a really good, valuable use case predicting lifetime customer value, prediction, churn, an d r etention. These types of use cases can be extremely valuable in a b usiness.

Russ Hamilton: 23:21

Nice. Two more questions. Are you gonna listen to this interview when I, when I release it? No. Okay.

Davor Bonaci: 23:28

No, I have never watched the video of myself. Like there's plenty on YouTube, or from various conferences. Yes. I don't watch any of them. I'm not gonna watch this one either.

Russ Hamilton: 23:42

Fantastic. Do you have any questions for me?

Davor Bonaci: 23:48

Um, no.<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 23:53

One of my favorite no's ever.

Davor Bonaci: 23:56

<laugh>. I mean, I have a million questions...

Russ Hamilton: 24:07

Except maybe when do we get to work together again?

Davor Bonaci: 24:10

Yes.

Russ Hamilton: 24:10

Right. That works for me.

Davor Bonaci: 24:14

That works for me too.

Russ Hamilton: 24:15

Davor Bonaci, thank you so much for being on the show. I look forward to our next engagement. Good luck on the water with your sailing and best of the family and the community. And I look forward to hearing about great success at Kaskada.

Davor Bonaci: 24:26

All right. Thank you. Rest

Russ Hamilton: 24:28

Davor Bonaci, the CEO of Kaskada- machine learning specialists and sailing student. Hilarious, man. If anyone needs permission to say no more often, Davor is modeling that for you. Very cool.

Speaker 4: 24:42

You're listening to Lab Notes. Part of the Connection Lab network for more information about our workshops and executive development programs, email us at info@connectionlaboratory.com or go to our website connectionlaboratory.com.

Russ Hamilton: 24:56

On this episode of Lab Notes, we're diving deep into the nature of learning the power of it. Our next guest is Jayme Alston. The company she leads is called BloomTech. It's an e-learning school that is helping people break out of poverty with accessible education in the technology field. BloomTech is changing how education is funded and is making technology education way more affordable. I love this business. I'm gonna let her tell you all about it and how her Connection Lab program fits into the picture. Please welcome Jayme Alston. Jayme, welcome to Lab Notes. It's so good to have you on the show. I'm always glad to see you. You are at BloomTech and your title on LinkedIn says you're the Head of People

Jayme Alston: 25:41

That is correct.

Russ Hamilton: 25:42

I love that.

Jayme Alston: 25:44

Happy to be here.

Russ Hamilton: 25:45

Tell me about BloomTech before we go anywhere. What is BloomTech?

Jayme Alston: 25:49

Well, this is the perfect time actually for writing an elevator speech about it. So, good time to test that out. Nice. BloomTech is an eLearning school. We're focusing on really changing the shape of poverty. We want to make education accessible for everyone. And, in order to do that, we are teaching people how to be developers, full stack, data science. We are coming out with blockchain, working on Amazon, all of those things, in order to make that not be a huge college debt. Right now, people are going to school for four years and coming out a hundred of thousand dollars in debt. For us, you pay as you go. It i s a fraction of the cost and i t i s a lot easier for everyone to actually get that type of s kill s et using our formula.

Russ Hamilton: 26:42

Amazing. Is it a specialized education? Is it, is it, is it a broad education? What kind of things? What kind of education is offered at bloom tech?

Jayme Alston: 26:50

Well, we teach full stack development, so it's about nine months of sorts. We are moving to another platform where it's a little bit more flexible for individuals to join, but we'll teach you full stack development. So you could go out and get a career really once you've finished our program. And, same thing with Amazon, we were doing the same thing there with backend. We're re-launching blockchain soon. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so that is our new thing coming up, we believe in, late Q2. So we want to teach people how to get into these tech fields and stay there and make that money. So if you don't wanna be a waitress anymore, go to BloomTech.<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 27:31

Amazing. So if somebody's listening and is like, wait, this is really interesting. Where should I go? Is it BloomTech.com? Where should somebody go?

Jayme Alston: 27:39

There is- www bloomtech.com.

Russ Hamilton: 27:41

Amazing. Okay. So we'll repeat that at the end. It's a really it's, is it mission driven business?

Jayme Alston: 27:48

That's why we are here, honestly. The part of the programming that I was literally just typing out was that our job- we showed a map of poverty, I believe was last year- and we showed exactly where the upward mobility was lacking within the United States. Looking at that, and what we do, our charge was to change that. So the places where individuals who were born in the eighties still are doing the same work, or, some of that, blue collar work that they were doing that their parents were doing and are stuck in that generational gap- We want to be able to effectively change that by giving this education and making it available to anyone. So yeah, we are all behind that mission. Everybody here wakes up, eats, breathes that mission. We love our learners. We try to make sure we have everything ready for our learners. And we are really great at placing our learners as well in these roles. So it's, you know, it's a great job. I love this job because I can see how we change people.

Russ Hamilton: 28:53

Excellent. Okay. So how did we meet? We met through our mutual friend, Mark Frein. Tell me about your conversation with him and how did we meet?

Jayme Alston: 29:01

Well, Mark was my CPO here at BloomTech for a while. And we were talking about development and things that I wanted to work on. And he said, you know, I know somebody who would be amazing. And, next thing you know, I was connected to you and here I am,

Russ Hamilton: 29:16

<laugh> amazing, amazing. And we've done three modules and a bunch of coaching. I've sent you the, the prompt sheet with the Six Box model, which is available on our website www.connectionlaboratory.com, the Six Box m odel- three primary questions, three primary relationships. What's top of mind for you today on your practice with everything we've done and talked about a nd all the experiential learning through Connection Lab,

Jayme Alston: 29:41

I think it's just continually practicing it. So it's now becoming part of my subconscious, which is good, or I guess it's good. Right. Cause it's just there. I just feel like you may have molded my brain a little bit<laugh><laugh>, but it is becoming that part. And so I find myself whether it's at work or at home asking myself these questions when something just feels off, you know? And so I honestly will sit back and be like, wait, wait, that didn't feel like the proper response. Jayme would happen here? Right. And so I'll stop and I'll sit in the feeling and absorb it and let it pass for over me and say, isn't it interesting? And, then ask myself, how did I show up then? How do I want to show up? And we go through that exercise often.

Russ Hamilton: 30:26

How have your conversations at work changed if they have changed?

Jayme Alston: 30:33

It is a bit interesting. I am using a little bit of this in my brain as I talk to people.

Russ Hamilton: 30:36

Yeah. Good, nice

Jayme Alston: 30:38

I use this Model and I'm saying to myself, oh, this is how you're showing up in this stressful conversation, but- I dunno a bit of feedback, and we talk about things. But I think that one of my practices has always been trying to model what I expect of others. I can't ask someone to do something if I'm not willing to do it myself. And so I'm totally mindful that if I'm asking someone what are your development goals? What are your needs, which is a normal conversation for me to have on a regular basis in my role- I start that by saying, you know, I have my own, here's w hat I'm working on, here are the things that I'm doing. I've read this book, I'm working with Russ an d C onnection Lab for X. And so I think starting with that and sharing what you're doing helps individuals, right. Understand, Hey, we all have to grow. Nobody's perfect. Oh, wow. She's doing that then. Yeah. I should have no problem with saying, I need to work on X, Y, or Z. What would I do to, to counterbalance that now? Cause I go backwards sometimes. So, and sometimes the universe is giving me what you need. It just happens. Right. So<laugh> once when I was in this space, for one activity, I ended up just getting inboxed by a DM- just text messaged by a few past coworkers and some past managers and some past leaders that I just didn't expect to hear from. And each of them said something that refuted me feeling like an imposter--- oh wait, yeah, that's right. We did do that.<laugh> And it's just, that, that was my way of fighting that trigger and through that happening again, not because I did it, it was organic. And, now I'm going to use that anytime that pops out, I am going to then take a chance and just reach back out to someone that I've worked with in the past and at least start a dialogue. And, I do find that, it becomes uplifting and it does leave that behind me- where it should be because it's not really who I a m.

Russ Hamilton: 32:37

Two more questions.

Jayme Alston: 32:40

Sure.

Russ Hamilton: 32:40

Are you gonna listen to this? Yes. Are you gonna hear you are good that quick draw answer right from the holster.

Jayme Alston: 32:49

Absolutely. I'm gonna listen to this. I'm encourage other to listen to this.

Russ Hamilton: 32:52

Fantastic. And, do you have any questions for me?

Jayme Alston: 32:57

How do you model your practice for us?

Russ Hamilton: 33:03

Well, it's kind of my J-O-B

Jayme Alston: 33:05

True.

Russ Hamilton: 33:06

If I'm gonna be legitimate at facilitating Connection Lab, I have to be able to answer the question. How do I show up under stress? How do I want to show up under stress? What do I want to get better at in terms of my relationship to myself, my content and my audience. So, Connection Lab is a laboratory that I walk around with and I change my lenses all the time. I change my predispositions. Mm-hmm<affirmative> because some of them are not flexible. And I wanna notice those. I wanna raise the predispositions that are unconscious to consciousness mm-hmm<affirmative> and I wanna notice them and say, isn't that interesting instead of, oh, Russ, I can't believe you said that. I can't believe you did that. Right. But this is my J O B my job is the Six Box model. And in fact, if we go deeper, my job is to break it. Our job is to poke holes in it, sink it. If it's a ship, break it up. Our job is to test it under all conditions. Mm-hmm<affirmative> to see if in fact it holds. So sometimes my mission is to break it- the Six Box model and the Six Modules of Connection Lab and to blow them up and to devalue them or to expose them mm-hmm<affirmative> um, or sync them. And, I have not been able to do that yet. And so my work continues.<laugh>

Jayme Alston: 34:32

<laugh> My next question. So have you blown it up before<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 34:36

Yeah. Well, it's an interesting choice when you're facilitating, because you're kind of recruiting people to help you blow it up. And all of a sudden the framework of a communication leadership workshop goes from, I have something to teach you and you're gonna sit there and listen, and you know, participants rolling their eyes to, I need you to help me blow this up. And people lean in and say, wait, now what?<laugh>

Jayme Alston: 35:01

You wanna do what?!

Russ Hamilton: 35:03

What do I get to blow up? What are we shooting holes in? What are we sinking? Oh, well that's awesome. I'm good at wrecking stuff.

Jayme Alston: 35:10

<laugh>

Russ Hamilton: 35:11

And I go, fantastic. Show me, show me how you can wreck this<laugh> and they take a swing at it and geez, they just can't hear, let me change my footing here. Let me get, let me take a better swing at it. And they try again and again and again.

Jayme Alston: 35:27

Well that approach is perfect though, because people, sometimes some people go into these activities and thinking, yeah that's malarky. I've done eight of these before this. This one's not gonna be different than the other. So if you go on the lens of, you know what, let's see if we blow it up, let's just see, let's just break this thing, you know? And then they find that they can't. Well, guess what I means, it's a good model. This, this is gonna be a good learning for you because it has its weight. Right? You're proving the fact that it works by not being able to blow it up.

Russ Hamilton: 35:59

I love the idea of trying to break it. And in the process, a byproduct, is I actually learned how to connect with my audience. I actually learned to surrender control of things. I can't control my audience's experience of me. I contribute to it, but I don't control it. And in the process of reclaiming that energy that I was putting into trying to control my audience's experience of me, mm-hmm<affirmative> I actually get more energy. I actually get more time. My relationship to presenting and communication is so much healthier cuz I don't decide for you. That was false. That that responsibility was false.

Jayme Alston: 36:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Russ Hamilton: 36:39

Excellent. Nice. Jayme Alston. Yes. It's so great to chat with you. I look forward to our next chat. Thank you so much for being on the program and crush it out there. Let me know if I can be of further service.

Jayme Alston: 36:51

I sure will. It was great. And you know, would love to come back again.

Russ Hamilton: 36:55

So fantastic. Oh, show me your tattoo. You gotta, every time we meet now, I look there it is.

Jayme Alston: 37:01

Oh, it's getting better now you can see it on the camera.

Russ Hamilton: 37:02

Nice. Describe the tattoo for me please. What is this?

Jayme Alston: 37:06

So from this part

Russ Hamilton: 37:08

Of your, your homework, right,

Jayme Alston: 37:09

Exactly. Part of my learnings is part of this tattoo. The top of it is a Lotus flower because again, I'm always developing out of the muck and becoming a beautiful flower. And, at the bottom is the sanscript sign for breathe, which is what we do. We have to breathe. We have to understand what's going on, recognize ourselves and what our body's saying, how we, we responding again, going back to your Six Box and how is my audience perceiving me? Take a moment. Breathe it in. And then go. So this helps me a lot to remember just to calm down, breathe, notice, pay attention, use your senses. See what's going on around you center, learn and go.

Russ Hamilton: 37:58

Breathing. Yes you rock Jayme Alston I look forward to our next chat. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Jayme Alston: 38:04

Absolutely. Thanks Russ.

Russ Hamilton: 38:05

Jayme Alston is the Head of People at BloomTech. If you wanna find out more about this revolution in technology education, you can go to bloomtech.com. I love that. Jayme got a Connection Lab theme tattoo. Talk about artifact creation. Well, yeah, amazing. Listen, that's our show. This is Lab Notes, the Connection Lab podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and for continuing your practice. Remember you can coach this stuff too. Be transparent about your practice and others will become curious, collaborate. Co-create you got this. Remember if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, we have to go together. Go team.

Speaker 1: 38:48

Thank you for listening to Lab Notes, the Connection Lab podcast. For more information about our workshops and executive development programs, you can email us at info@connectionlaboratory.com or go to our website www.connectionlaboratory.com.